News of the Restless

David Neiwert and Max Blumenthal have done a terrific job with their latest article for The Nation and Salon.com. They also have much tougher stomachs than I do--these guys routinely face down right-wing nutters, live and in person. And look who they've gone and met in Alaska:

An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.

Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as "Black Helicopter Steve," to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. "Every time I showed up her door was open," said Chryson. "And that policy continued when she became governor."

Wow, they sound like real winners already. But wait, there's more:

Chryson pursued a dual policy of cozying up to secessionist and right-wing groups in Alaska and elsewhere while also attempting to replicate the AIP's success with Hickel in infiltrating the mainstream.

Unlike some radical right-wingers, Chryson doesn't put forward his ideas freighted with anger or paranoia. And in a state where defense of gun and property rights often takes on a real religious fervor, Chryson was able to present himself as a typical Alaskan.

He rose through party ranks by reducing the AIP's platform to a single page that "90 percent of Alaskans could agree with." This meant scrubbing the old platform of what Chryson called "racist language" while accommodating the state's growing Christian right movement by emphasizing the AIP's commitment to the "traditional family."

"The AIP is very family-oriented," Chryson explained. "We're for the traditional family -- daddy, mommy, kids -- because we all know that it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And we don't care if Heather has two mommies. That's not a traditional family."

Charming--they scrubbed the racist slurs, but left the heterosexist clichés firmly in place. Such cuddly secessionists!

These guys, folks, are the REAL hate-America crowd. They even have financing from Iran.

And no, Sarah Palin has NOT been at arm's length from this nutty fringe party; on the contrary, she's danced to their piping both as mayor of Wasilla and as governor of Alaska. Being a "card-carrying Republican since 1988" doesn't mean much when you consider her dual loyalties--or conflict of interest, might be a better way of putting it.

She's also a fine one to slam Barack Obama for an imaginary terrorist connection when her own one...is real.

Don't take my word for it, though; read all about it.

And then, ask some hard questions, starting with this one: Why does this woman hate America?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Poor people, year after year, vote to make the rich richer and that's crazy.
The way America votes, you'd think 2/3 of us are Fortune 500 CEOs.

--Bart of Bartcop.com, really putting the finger on what's wrong with Kansas (and anyplace else where people think voting for a rich wingnut will magically turn you into one.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

He's got massive support--not only from the majority of Bolivia, but also from Venezuela (which lent Bolivia oil-drilling equipment), from Bolivians living/working in Spain, and from the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, who are watching Bolivian events with great hope for similar developments at home:

On the other hand, the opposition are getting desperate, and violent--so much so that they broke into and robbed a MAS party office:

Some of them don't even know what they're marching for, only that they're marching against "that shitty Indian". Yet they call all this "peaceful and democratic". Pathetic!

These fascists are clearly people who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight. If they ever manage to extricate their heads from there, will someone please let me know?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ho, ditty, hum, ditty...why am I not surprised at this?

A man who opened fire inside a church, killing two people with a shotgun hidden in a guitar case, was frustrated at being unable to find a job and blamed liberals and gays, police said on Monday.

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen told reporters of Sunday's incident at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Continue reading "No surprises here..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Only one paragraph from the head of a news item in Venezuelanalysis, but oh my...

A notoriously violent Venezuelan student organization aligned with the Venezuelan opposition known as the March 13th Movement (M13) fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails at police officers, blockaded streets using seized university buses, and ransacked sections of the Andean town of Mérida on Thursday and Friday, to protest crime and insecurity in the city.

Did you get that? The M-13 "students" are "protesting crime and insecurity"...by resorting to crime and creating insecurity.

And just to compound the irony, there's this: the murder rate is down, and drug interceptions are up. Uh, what's that the M-13 thuggies were saying about crime and insecurity, again?

Meanwhile, in other utterly unironic news, we get this snippet from the BoRev guest blogger, El Catire:

Opposition Just Can't Decide: One day they call Chavez's government corrupt, next day they march to criticize a measure that would stop corrupt people from running for public office. What gives?

Hey Blond Guy, I'll tell you what gives: This is just more made-for-the-media whackjobbery from a faction that is entertaining to watch sometimes, if only for its utter lack of a sense of irony. The fact that nearly half of the "blacklist" consists of crooked, opportunistic and coattail-riding "Chavistas" (in name only, not in spirit) goes forever unmentioned in the lamestream media.

But hey, at least Chavecito's drama-queeny ex is predictably down with all the latest ruckus. So I guess that means they must have a point!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once more, a fascist makes all kinds of bogus claims, including that his human rights were violated. Aporrea has the details of the lie--and the video to refute the liar:

On Thursday, Mario Silva, host of the VTV show "La Hojilla", showed some video footage taken at Maiquetia Airport that refutes the accusations made by the mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo Lopez, who recently claimed he had been held illegally and been physically attacked by five or six members of the DISIP (Venezuelan federal police) in the airport.

The events occurred last Wednesday, when Lopez returned from a trip to the United States where he went, among other reasons, to denounce his political disqualification for receiving illicit donations when he worked at the state oil company PDVSA and received money from the company on behalf of the party Primero Justicia, which was then a "civil society" organization. Lopez also claimed he met with presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Continue reading "Prettyboy Leopoldo Lopez is at it again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ha ha, Boris Johnson cracks me up. First that undead haystack cancels the London public transit system's cheap-fuel deal with Venezuela, out of some idiotic desire to punish the poor with fare hikes. Now, get a load of what he keeps on his desk--or used to:

Police have forced London Mayor Boris Johnson to hand over a cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

The ex-MP, who obtained the red leather case from Mr Aziz's bombed-out home while visiting Iraq as a journalist in 2003, said the situation was "stupid".

He said: "The police have no choice but to investigate this ludicrous affair."

Under the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police.

Granted, it's not much of a "cultural property", seeing as it's not exactly a first edition cuneiform scroll of the Code of Hammurabi or anything like that. But it's not rightfully his, either, and keeping such a grotesque trophy on his desk speaks of extremely poor judgment on his part.

Not, I hasten to add, that his sentiments regarding the president of Venezuela say anything better.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...one of these:

Oh, you think I'm being too harsh? Here:

Continue reading "John McCain is..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Found a little item on Aporrea and thought I'd translate it and follow up with a few thoughts of mine own:

Could it be that my black friends in the Venezuelan opposition don't feel that they are being alluded to when other oppositionists use words like "niches" (common, vulgar people), "monos" (monkeys), "macacos" (ditto), etc.? Could it be that they just don't say such things in front of my friends? It saddens me to say that in front of me, yes, they say those things.

The Venezuelan right-wing has trouble with its racism for two reasons, one bigger than the other. The smaller is that, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said, the main difference between Colombia and Venezuela is that in Colombia, the conservatives win all the wars, and in Venezuela, the liberals win. The conservatives lose the wars but win the peace and go on ruling, because the only visible gain left to the liberals is that racism had become shameful and official ideology camouflaged it. There was racism, stupid like all a priori segregation between people, but up until 1998 it was shifty and artful. The racists would surely blush to show themselves as much as they do in Bolivia. Because in Venezuela--this is the bigger reason--even the most "aryan" has an African grandmother, as Romulo Betancourt once said.

Continue reading "The myth of happy racism" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's Jeff Sharlet! The guy who wrote for Harper's and Rolling Stone. The author of The Family, and who blogs at The Revealer. It's him, I tell ya.

How do I know? Well, get a load of the infamous words of John Hagee. HE claims to have a direct line to God, and the Lord told him this:

Did you hear that? The Antichrist is PART JEWISH.

Now, here's Jeff Sharlet:

Sometimes the brothers would ask me why I was there. They knew that I was "half Jewish," that I was a writer, and that I was from New York City, which most of them considered to be only slightly less wicked than Baghdad or Paris. I didn't lie to them. I told my brothers that I was there to meet Jesus, and I was: the Jesus of the Family, whose ways are secret. The brothers were certain that He had sent me to them for a reason, and perhaps they were right.

Yes! There you have it, folks! The Antichrist has exposed himself. And he has betrayed God's good and faithful secret servants by exposing THEM, too! Brace yourselves for hellfire, brimstone, human-headed locusts, and cars without drivers, people, because now the Rapture is inevitable. It IS supposed to happen when the Beast reveals himself, is it not?

(And yes, all of the above is to be read with dripping sarcasm. Thank you for not soiling yourselves.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This one's just for Ed in Miami--as a gentle reminder of what populism isn't.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, you read correctly. He says so himself:

There are two flaws in his logic:

1) If "they kill you", why ain't he DEAD?

and

2) If pregnancies are all invited, why don't they show their papers at the door--to confirm that their presence was in fact requested, as real invitees must do?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sam Seder gets a drunken dialer from a former Florida secretary of State:

Continue reading "Katherine Harris phones in" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Y'see, there's this fella named Thor

Who is more than a bit of a whore.

He shouts and he screams

And he pouts and he preens--

The rest of us wonder what for.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Pat Buchanan is always good for shits 'n' giggles, if your idea of shits 'n' giggles is blatant racism, ethocentrism, xenophobia and general kookoobananarama. It's a mystery to me why this guy gets any media play at all, but I've come to the conclusion that the US mainstream media is just basically a Barnum & Bailey bigtop without the sawdust, greasepaint, and tutu-clad girls doing handstands on prancing Percherons. How else to explain the fact that a sucker there is born every minute, and a clown who says things like this gets no laughs?

In a March 21 syndicated column headlined "A Brief for Whitey," conservative commentator and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan asserted, "America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known." Buchanan was discussing Sen. Barack Obama's March 18 speech addressing race and controversial comments by his former pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright. He continued, "Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." Buchanan then asserted that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans." Later in the column, Buchanan added: "We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"

No gratitude? Well, how do you like that--Pat thinks those uppity niggruhs are ingrates. Hey Pat, since none of them will thank you, maybe a white Soviet Canuckistani can do it in their stead. So, I got your gratitude right here:

Continue reading "I got your gratitude right here, Pat..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Does this sound like the behavior of anyone you know?

Continue reading "Oh look, the world's #1 terrorism sponsor is projecting again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once more, the FARC release some hostages in the Colombian jungle.

And guess who got them sprung? And, evil mean tyrannical bastard that he is, even sent Venezuelan search-and-rescue helicopters to collect them, with the Red Cross logo on board?

You'd think the Venezuelan lamestream media would for once be bursting with pride in the influential skills of their president, who really seems to have a knack for getting the FARC to play nice, but oh noooo. Instead, they're reporting a completely irrelevant whimper from the Spanish prime minister (not president, Spain is not a republic, it is a monarchy--get a clue, El Luniversal!) saying you have to play nice with the opposition.

What a strange thing to say, considering they are fascists who refuse to play nice themselves. There they are, once again, trying so hard to draw attention to their own nonexistent oppression. What a pity it's not very convincing. It's awfully hard for them to argue that they are oppressed when this same president they so love to hate is now working to assure that Venezuelan players in big-league baseball are NOT oppressed, and is even hauling ass to make sure there's milk in Mercal for the traditionally oppressed (who voted for him repeatedly because he's the one guy who made good on his promises to un-oppress them).

Of course, the thing setting these fine young fascists apart from their predecessors is that the current crop have no sense of style whatsofuckingever. But hey! You can trust even their "educated experts" to get things oh, so wrong. With such a Simple Simon act to follow, is it any wonder the ol' goose-step has turned into a bit of a limp?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, you wingnuts--you screamed about Muslims protesting against inflammatory 'toons in Denmark. Where's your outrage over this? Last Sunday, the YouTube videos all over the Internets went dark, and nobody said boo...and now we know why:

Pakistan has blocked access to the popular YouTube website because of content deemed offensive to Islam.

Its telecommunications authority ordered internet service providers to block the site until further notice.

Reports said the content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.

But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.

"They asked us to ban it immediately... and the order says the ban will continue until further notice," said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.

Hmmm. I guess the reason for this strangely selective lack of outrage is over the fact that Pervez Musharraf, who is STILL, er, "president" of Pakistan, is the one behind all this. And since he's Dubya's good buddy, of course anything he does is all right. After all, Pakistan is Teh Bestest Democracy Evah!

And besides, the Muslims in Denmark only protested. They didn't actually censor anything. Everybody knows that dissent, not censorship, is the real evil! When in Denmark, your duty is to conform to the American global standard, Citizen!

Now, for another round of "look how brave we are, fighting Islamofascism with IslamoBASHism!" Coming soon to a wingnut site near you...

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A big-ass bucket of cold water on Barack Obama? Yes, it is.

But then again, it's also a pretty accurate picture of what conservatism really stands for.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Either that, or they really, REALLY hate democracy.

Bush spoke to a boisterous crowd shortly after 7 a.m. EST. The ballroom erupted in cheers when someone shouted "Are there conservatives in the house?" When the president walked on stage, they clapped and chanted "Four more years! Four more years!"

Way to go, CPAC dumbshits. You are aware that term limits still apply in the US, right?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looks like Alvaro Uribe has some unsavory company.

Although it's undeniable that most of those who marched this past Monday in Bogota and other Colombian cities were ordinary people demonstrating their indignation or rejection of the FARC, groups of skinheads or neo-Nazis also took advantage of the day to march against the irregular army, as you can see in this video of the march, taken by the daily El Tiempo de Colombia newspaper and available on their YouTube channel.

The far-right youths shouted slogans against communism, the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and the FARC.

"No to communism! No more Chavez, no more FARC" can be heard in the YouTube video. So can shouts of "Uribe, friend, we're with you till the end", this in spite of the fact that the demonstration was supposedly convened by independent youth, without political banners, via the Internet.

Translation mine. Here's the video:

The Nazis appear at about the 2:20 mark.

Hey Alvaro, is the enemy of your "enemy" your friend? Better find some other friends, then.

And hey! So much for the common complaint from the Venezuelan right that Chavez's supporters are Nazis. Turns out, the Nazis hate him, in both Colombia AND Venezuela--they all think he's a commie. Go figure!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A. Because Stormfront hates everything and everyone except their fellow neo-Nazi whackjobs, duh.

What's really funny is that they're now holding up two people they would otherwise look upon as sworn enemies as champions of their, uh, "right to free speech".

A Liberal MP is being hailed as a poster boy for free speech on a white supremacist website.

Victoria MP Keith Martin was praised Friday on stormfront.org, a website that proudly displays the logo "White pride world wide" and links to radio addresses by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Martin earned the dubious distinction after giving notice that he plans to introduce a private member's motion calling on the government to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

[...]

The extreme right adherents at Stormfront were clearly thrilled to find a member of the Liberal party, which introduced the act and prides itself as the party of the Charter of Rights, joining their crusade.

"The sordid Soviet-style reign of terror by the Canadian Human Rights Commission is now out in the open," declares Paul Fromm in a posting on the website.

"The CHRC reign of thought control looks like a drying pool of vomit on the dirty floor of some dingy dive. Yes, it stinks and good men are beginning to speak up."

Fromm, a controversial anti-immigration and free speech activist who has been linked to neo-Nazi groups in the past, predicts it "may be easier" for Conservative MPs to back the motion because it's being introduced by a Liberal of "white and Indian (India) parentage."

The website urges readers to join a campaign to pressure their MPs to support Martin's motion.

For Martin, receiving praise from a white-supremacist group was both unwelcome and ironic.

"I'm a brown guy," he quipped in an interview.

Wait a second, you say--that's just one of them. Who's the other?

Continue reading "Q. Why does Stormfront hate human rights?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Warning: Extreme victim-blaming by someone who probably does EVERYTHING he accuses Those People (i.e. the poor and blacks of New Orleans, whom he calls "GARBAGE") of doing...

Malmö Blue writes:

YOU, the consumer can do something to protest this smut and get this guy off the air!

Do like Nancy, a regular caller to KPHX, who has already announced that she will cancel her cable service provided by COX Communications Inc., owner of WSB 750 AM! Good for you, Nancy!

Be sure to let them know in writing that you disapprove of such hate mongering and will not have any business dealings with any company who supports it...

Address:

Cox Communications Inc.

1400 Lake Hearn Drive

Atlanta, Georgia 30319 U.S.A.

Telephone:

(404) 843-5000

Cox subscribers, please exercise your wallet power. Get this racist scumbag off the air. He is a useless, worthless parasite of the public airwaves, and it is time to kick this pile of trash to the curb.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Two hilarious snippets from the Friday night broadcast on Nova M Radio. Harrison is filling in for Mike Malloy in the 9-12 pm (Eastern) slot.

Harrison takes on Dubya's economic strategy to fight a recession he claims isn't happening (and which we all know IS happening, and has been for quite some time), using a robotic reader to play back Dubya's verbal gumbo so we see just what he ISN'T saying. Harrison also takes on a homophobic wingnut caller. (Harrison is gay, gay, gaiety-gay GAY.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right ', a Fascist century."

--Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism

(So much for the idea that fascism is of the left, eh Jonah?)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...and neither does he, nor any of his lackeys, have the slightest concept of a little thing known as reading comprehension.

Think Progress has ferreted out the real source of Dubya's antipathy to embryonic stem cell research--a total misinterpretation of an improbable scenario from Aldous Huxley (read aloud to him, of course, by one of his loyal flunkies, since Dubya can't be bothered to bestir himself):

Continue reading "More proof that Dubya doesn't read" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Department of People You Can't Take Seriously, a real doozer:

Check the headline circled in yellow. That's an interview with Yon Goicoechea, a Venezuelan "student opposition leader". Yon's apparently not a bit modest about his media whoredom--the headline quotes him saying "I always knew I'd be a leader".

Here's what Aporrea has to say about Yon and his glorious destiny:

Continue reading "Yon Goicoechea, Playboy of Human Rights" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, those Christians. Specifically, those right-wing Republican Christians. Rather than joining hands around their hard-fought-for public manger scene in a show of seasonal brotherly love, it seems they are now about to eat each other alive, according to FireDogLake. The cause? Mitt Romney and his apparent need to pander to those all-importand "evangelical" voters. Suddenly, his doing so is cause for alarm in the punditocracy.

Four short years ago, the party was openly courting those people, and even crediting them with its success in stealing winning the election. And we were up to our eyeballs in "news" stories, and plaudits from the pundits, proclaiming them to be the grand influence in US politics.

My, how things change. All of a sudden, those evangelicals are poison to the party they so faithfully carried water for. And the pundits can't trip over their tongues fast enough, trying to disclaim them even as the candidates are still doing the old song-and-dance for them.

Continue reading "See how they love one another?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, something funny happened on the way to the polls in Venezuela yesterday. Not funny ha-ha; funny peculiar. The crapaganda whores seem to have been right in their loopy predictions for a change--it WAS "too close to call" (which it wasn't the last two times Chavecito or something he'd legislated was put to a popular vote, though the media kept insisting it would be, and that he would lose, when he won by a landslide.) And when the dust settled, the anti-Chavez side apparently had won. Which they haven't done since 1998.

But in spite of their loud obnoxious celebrations, this is a pyrrhic victory for them. And on a number of points, which I'll address one by one here.

Firstly: The NO faction didn't win by much, and according to Tariq Ali, they were better served by confusion and abstention on the part of Chavistas than by any merits of their own:

Continue reading "A pyrrhic victory for Operation Pliers, and a strategic retreat "por ahora"" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, the Venezuelan opposition...they seriously think no one will catch them in a lie. That their carefully contrived media campaigns against Chavecito will go off without a hitch. But as it happens, the ever alert Mario Silva (who hosts La Hojilla, VTV's media-whore-watch show) has caught them out in at least three big, fat whoppers:

In case you haven't guessed, the three lies are:

Continue reading "Ha ha. Oppos funny!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The arrogance of these people just knows no bounds. I wonder if the reporter for the Canadian Press agency wasn't chuckling when s/he wrote this:

Fedecamaras, which counts thousands of large and small businesses among its members, rejected Chavez's constitutional overhaul as an "illegal act" in mid-November, and has since called on Venezuelans to oppose its passage in a Dec. 2 referendum "by every possible legal means."

First of all, what gives THEM the authority to pronounce on the legality of a constitutional reform? Do they still think they write the law in Venezuela, and the government's duty is to rubber-stamp it? Apparently they do. Which is why they oppose those reforms--the reforms were written by not only Chavez, but the National Assembly, and some of them directly undermine the unelected power of the business sector, which is led by Fedecamaras.

And secondly, what is "every possible legal means"? The only way the reforms can be defeated is by VOTING. Anything else is NOT legal. Empty rhetoric? Hey, no one farts it like business leaders. Empty barrel, loudest noise, blah blah.

But what really makes me giggle over all this is how the CP reported this as if Fedecamaras had any moral standing left. I wonder how hard it was to keep a straight face while noting the following:

Continue reading "Who died and made Fedecamaras king?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Crackpot realists never learn anything, even when the lessons are cuffing them roughly about the head and shoulders. They continue to pile on more of the same actions that got them into trouble in the first place, expecting to be seen as Churchillian heroes for staying the idiotic course they have set.

--Robert Higgs, "The Triumph of Crackpot Realism"

Posted by Sabina Becker at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You people. You're always claiming that Hugo Chavez--YOUR president, like it or not--is trying to drag your barely-existent middle class into poverty, because it's the poor that vote for him and so he wants to make/keep people poor in his efforts to be president for life.

The fact that all this is a shameless lie doesn't stop you from repeating it. Or believing it. You people are not so much human beings as loop tapes on endless replay. Do you seriously believe Karl Rove's unwritten adage--that endless repetition magically turns a lie into truth?

Continue reading "Venezuelan opposition, take note..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Made ya look...at the moral values of the most conservative station on TV:

Is it just my dirty mind, or does that girl who says "Pssst...Do Something!" sound...aroused?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, ho hum...where have I heard this dreary refrain before?

Gunmen have opened fire on students returning from a protest in Caracas against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's planned reforms.

Several people have been reported injured during the clashes, including at least two by gunfire.

The students were protesting against plans to remove presidential term limits, the subject of a referendum.

Thousands had marched peacefully to the Supreme Court and filed a demand for the vote to be suspended.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on the students as they returned from the march, prompting scenes of chaos as students fled.

One witness told the Reuters news agency that after the initial violence supporters of Mr Chavez drove through the area on motorbikes and shooting into the air.

National Guardsmen had been posted along the march route to stop clashes between protesters and Chavez supporters.

Okay, now who says history never repeats? Once again, this does not pass the most basic of sniff tests. Let's tally up the similarities to the last time this happened, shall we?

Continue reading "Carmonazo II: The Oppos Strike Back (Again)" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Probably for the same reason the left has all the pretty girls. (No shit, this guy actually says that in here...)

Continue reading "Why does the right have all the dumb guys?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, it is!

Do you know what your wealthy right-wing media robber barons are doing this week? Well, one of them is getting divorced from Trophy Wife #2. It is delectably messy, and there's too much juicy stuff to excerpt here, so I'll just give you the linky to clicky. And remember, character counts!

Meanwhile, speaking of character, you may also want to check out what Jonathan Schwartz of Tom Tomorrow has found on the company King George the Dubya keeps. Not for nothing is Hosni Mubarak's crypto-dictatorship in Egypt credited (or blamed) for the rise of the terrorist wing of Islamism. When a country's leadership has no problem ordering the drugging, sodomy and execution of 13-year-olds, a backlash is just bound to arise. Character counts!

You might also enjoy Joan Walsh's laundry list, on Salon.com, of GOP flip-floppers. Once again, character counts!

Also on Salon: Gary Kamiya's devastating dissection of the real character of Dubya, by way of examining what he's done in the name of "moral clarity"--surely THAT has something to do with character, does it not? Remember, by their fruits shall ye know them--and character counts!

Finally, you know all you need to about the character of these people when they gang up to attack 12-year-olds. Character really counts there.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Way to support the troops, Boil Butt!"

Anthony from Sweden, aka Malmo Blue, calls in at about 5:30 in this YouTube (which he made and posted.)

Way to give ol' Boil-Butt the red-ass, Anthony and Mike!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Awww, aren't boy crushes just so darn cute?

Just a pity that Steve Huntley's hagiography of the CIA's latest little plaster saint is all holus-bolus, unquestioning bullshit. Here's the real poop on Leopoldo Lopez, the not gutsy, but gusty (as in full of wind) mayor of Chacao. First, from George Ciccariello-Maher at Counterpunch:

In response to the Venezuelan governments non-renewal of RCTV's broadcasting license, a concession which expired on May 27th at midnight, a new student movement emerged that has since grabbed headlines domestically and internationally. Thousands took to the streets, some marching peacefully and some squaring off against the police with rocks and bullets, all in the name of "freedom of expression." But it's worth asking: who are "the students," and what do they represent? In recent days, it has become clear that these student mobilizations have been, in fact, largely directed and supported by sectors of the opposition, all in an effort to provoke, in Chávez's own words, a "soft coup" against the revolutionary government. The opposition's strategy vis-à-vis this student movement has consisted of two fundamental elements, both of which could only be executed mediatically. But now, after being revealed and discredited, that strategy is rapidly disintegrating.

Firstly, opposition parties made a clear decision to stay out of the spotlight, emphasizing the "independent" and "spontaneous" nature of the student protests. Beyond anything else, this gesture proves the degree to which the opposition has been discredited, garnering a reverse Midas touch through years of poor decisionmaking and supporting coups. From the beginning, the government was arguing that opposition politicians were behind the student mobilizations, and so when government-run channel 8 covered one of the early student demonstrations in Plaza Brion in Chacaito, the headline read "opposition demonstration disguised as a student demonstration."

This claim was perhaps justified by the appearance at the demonstration of Leopoldo López, mayor of opposition stronghold Chacao, formerly of far-right party Primero Justicia, which he more recently abandoned in favor of Manuel Rosales' nominally social democratic Un Nuevo Tiempo. Opposition news channel Globovisión countered with the thoroughly unconvincing claim that López, 36 years old and an established politician, was a "youth leader." López himself wouldn't help the situation when at a press conference he "accidentally" called for the students to employ "non-peaceful" tactics (he later claimed that he had meant to call for "non-violent" forms of protest).

Continue reading "A pretty boy with an ugly history" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Could you please put me through to Dr. George Lakoff? I have a really bad case of brainwashing I'm trying to overcome.

New research confirms that repetition of "myths" and slogans helps lodge them in the minds of the public and that refuting them often leads only to the public remembering falsehoods better. Instead, they tell us that "education campaigns with an 'affirmative' message," even if it is a negative message, are far more effective in defeating an adversary's frame.

University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz has done experiments showing that people remember things they hear repeated often enough, regardless of its source, and even if it's from a single source.

"Hearing the same opinion from several sources is more influential than hearing it only once from one source. This is as it should be," he wrote in an email exchange with HarperIndex.ca. "But, as we showed in a recent paper, hearing it multiple times from the same source is nearly as influential. 'A repetitive voice sounds like a chorus.' So a single person or small group can create the impression of broad consensus through sheer repetition."

Continue reading "Hello, operator? I think I've been framed." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mary Mapes's article in the Huffington Post is a riveting read--not only because it exposes the cowardice inherent in the corporate news world, and not only because it exposes the scum-suckers that populate Rightard Blogistan, but also because of a single sentence that made me want to beat my head against a wall.

Here it is:

In retrospect, I think the real problem with this story is that it ran three years too early.

Continue reading "Headline Howler: Too little, too late, too bad!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've gotten so much crapaganda from the lamestream media in my inbox lately. All of it about how the Venezuelan opposition is feeling persecuted lately.

Um, you might want to start learning how to spell PROSECUTED, lamestreamers, because anyone who supported the April 11 coup by showing up at Miraflores the next day to support the illegal "provisional government" of Pedro Carmona--and maybe make money or get jobs off it--is definitely complicit in high treason and should therefore NOT be eligible for US citizenship. Let alone of a preferential fast-track variety while real refugees are turned away. No, the only asylum these people deserve is the mental kind, because their thinking is clearly delusional. It's pretty obvious to anyone not mentally impaired that the coup was not democratic but antidemocratic--every democratic institution was declared null and void for two days, and every freely elected official's legal status was blatantly disregarded. Many elected Chavistas feared for their lives and had to go underground or be "arrested" in what amounts to REAL persecution. (And they didn't flee on luxury yachts to Curacao, either.)

And as a glance at the timeline of that coup will clearly show, the entire thing was all about money, money and more money. (It will also show that the army, still under Chavez's orders, took pains not to use violent measures against the opposition even when it was most justified in doing so.)

But then again, being lamestream, mainstream US media people just don't grasp little nuance-y things like that. Nor will they give you an honest look at the "democratic" Venezuelan opposition. They much prefer to reprint whatever PR bullshit comes into their office over the wires. It saves them having to report and do any digging of their own, you see. (And it also saves them from all risk of having to go off the message the State Dept. wants Americans to get.)

So of course, I figured Chavecito must be doing something right again, and indeed he is. But you have to be able to read Spanish, and keep your eye on oil and money, to know just how right. So, with no further ado, here's a little something from Aporrea:

Continue reading "Why they're howling for Chavecito's blood" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Max Blumenthal infiltrates the College Republicans...

...none of whom will go fight "Them" over there so you won't have to fight "Them" here.

Aside from a surprising number of individuals with health problems (of an invisible nature, no doubt, since they all look fine to me--except for the several chubbies who would slim down fast in the event of a real war), there's the fact that there's a culture war going on here, and SOMEBODY's gotta fight it.

The fact that all this is at odds with BushCo's "fight Them over there so we won't have to fight Them over here" doctrine of pre-emptive war, somehow magically never occurs to these brain-trusters.

But hey, they're, like, very, like, patriotic, and, like, you know.

Oh, and they're definitely NOT gay. Isn't that just so, like, comforting?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I think so. This screed by Bill Kristol is not only indescribably stupid, it generated 261 pages (and counting!) of critical comments.

How much longer before the PNAC gallery all commit seppuku? Or are they all so far beyond shame that such an option never occurs to them?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:17 PM | Permalink

Looks like Fucker Carlson. Talks like an inbred. Believes all the shit Bush shovels at him. Won't serve even though he can.

Ewwwwwww.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Shame on them.

Don't they know that Hinterlaces is NOT a reliable pollster? This is not the first time they got an awful lot wrong. I wonder if their tabulation formula is a simple matter of inverting the real numbers; it seems that if you want to know the real picture, you have to turn theirs upside down.

Someone please send Angus Reid this story, in which a certain professional fibber is forced to tell the truth, way down at the bottom:

A survey of 1,500 people in seven Venezuelan cities, by the polling firm Hinterlaces, found that 53% of respondents supported Chavez and 38% were opposed to him.

Meanwhile, only 10% of those surveyed said they backed the opposition movement ... which was rejected by 83%.

"There is a new political panorama in the country," Hinterlaces director Oscar Schemel remarked to IPS. "The people see the opposition as a class of politicians stuck in the past, who want to maintain their privileges and who are neither working for the interests of the people nor coming up with a viable alternative to Chavez' programme."

Regardless of what any polling firm with known opposition ties may say, the truth is this: The opposition lacks fresh ideas. It is in a self-made death spiral, and Chavez is still NOT regarded as a dictator, no matter how badly some soap opera junkies crave their eMpTV. Angus Reid needs a hard reality check about lies and damned lies.

And speaking of damned, you may want to inform them of the lies of Penn, Schoen and Berland, too.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forget Kansas. Since Dubya has worn out his welcome with all but the hardest of the Hardcore Stupid at home, he now has to seek out his sheeple wherever he can find them:

President George W Bush has become the first US leader to visit Albania, where he enjoyed a hero's welcome.

The Balkan country is a staunch ally in America's "war on terror" and Mr Bush met Albanian soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Bush reiterated his support for the UN's plan for Kosovo's independence, adding it was time to "get moving" despite opposition from Russia.

Continue reading "What's the matter with Albania?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Peaceful" anti-Chavez students in Venezuela, vandalizing the city of Maracaibo. They burned flags and the giant soccer ball announcing the Copa America tourney. This in "protest" of the RCTV non-renewal. (Don't ask me what a burned giant soccer ball is supposed to help them accomplish there, I have NO idea.)

And the private media--the same that supports RCTV and opposes Chavez--CENSORED all reporting on this rioting and vandalism, which happened on June 5, according to Aporrea.

Gosh, isn't freedom of the press wonderful? And aren't those students just such model democrats, such an inspirational vision of the future of the country?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ding dong.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NOT.

Celebrity heiress Paris Hilton is backing an online petition seeking a pardon of her 45-day prison sentence because she enlivens "mundane" lives.

The petition to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also claims she was being used as a scapegoat to highlight the dangers of drink-driving.

Continue reading "Oh yeah, that's inspiring all right..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

And of course, lack of mental healthcare and lax gun laws had nothing to do with it.

Guns don't kill people, gays do!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh lordy, here we go again. One Delores Williams, writing for Associated Content, horks up a hairball composed of some of the most poorly reasoned propaganda I've seen yet:

At Midnight, President Hugo Chavez took control of privately run oil fields in order to gain control over the four Orinoco Belt crude projects. These oil fields were held by American companies such as Chevron, Exxon mobile, BP PLc and ConocoPhillips. This means that Chavez's government can decide tomorrow not to send any more oil to America, and there would be little these companies could do.

Well, well. Only one paragraph in, and already the urge to shout BULLSHIT! overcomes me. That's gotta be a new world record.

Continue reading "Hello, what part of sovereignty do you not understand?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not that he's not all wet, all the time, already. Still, the Virginia Tech massacre sure brought out the stoopid from the stupid in a major way. From the safety of his basement masturbatorium, Steyn, a closeted white supremacist who never misses an opportunity to whip out his weenie and kvetch that Evil Brown Muslims Are Out To Rule The World, worked up the incredible courage to apprise us of the following:

Every December 6th, my own unmanned Dominion lowers its flags to half-mast and tries to saddle Canadian manhood in general with the blame for the "Montreal massacre," the 14 female students of the Ecole Polytechnique murdered by Marc Lepine (born Gamil Gharbi, the son of an Algerian Muslim wife-beater, though you'd never know that from the press coverage). As I wrote up north a few years ago:

Yet the defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lepine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate — an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The "men" stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of testosterone.

Continue reading "Mark Steyn wets himself" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As the Boomtown Rats once sang, the lesson today is how to die.

Call it Death by Second Amendment. Or Death by Insanity. Either way, it works out to about the same thing. Isn't the practical definition of insanity a dogged habit of making the same mistakes repeatedly, yet still expecting a different result each time? When you follow a pattern, the outcome tends to be true to pattern. So if you follow a pattern of insanity, guess what your outcome is.

I hauled out my DVD of Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine today, dusted it off and gave it a spin. This was not just some morbid fascination. I wanted to see what, if anything, can be gleaned from it now, five years after its original release and eight years almost to the day after Columbine, to apply to this latest bloodbath. I'm also poring over my old copy of Elliott Leyton's Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer, originally published in the 1980s, to see what there is in there that might shed a light.

As luck would have it, there's plenty. Because not much has changed in those years, except for the worse. The Virginia Tech shooter fits right into the same dreary pattern that has characterized school shooters for decades. In fact, he IS the pattern. On steroids.

Bearing that in mind, let's now recall Bowling for Columbine.

Continue reading "And now, a few words about school shootings" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:56 PM |