Why We Fight

Teabaggers mock and jeer at a protester with Parkinson's disease:




I particularly liked the guy throwing money at him with such obvious rage and contempt.

The card at the end says it all: "If They Win, We Lose."

But don't ever forget, it's the liberals who are filled with hate.

Your Liberal Media At Work

New York Magazine discusses the abominable Liz Cheney and provides some insight into why we keep seeing her all over the so-called "liberal media":

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC pundit who engaged in a particularly testy shouting match on Good Morning America with Liz Cheney over waterboarding, says the networks have allowed her a high degree of control over her appearances. “She had up to that point been completely accustomed to having interviews go her way and ceded on her terms,” he observes. “She has been careful to make sure that the interviews worked that way.”

I'm really trying to resist the temptation these days to just spit on the ground every time some idiot starts bleating abut how badly conservatives are treated in the "liberal media". Liz N' Dick and their ilk have been handled with kid gloves as they spread their revisionist bullshit, and now we can see one of the reason why. It's time these so-called journalists started being a lot less chummy with the people they're supposed to be reporting on, or at least clearly disclosing obvious conflicts of interest.

I'll Show You Some American Values....

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In the months after the Republicans' electoral loss in 2008 (you do remember they lost, right?), former Vice President Dick "Shooter" Cheney tossed aside years of decorum and tradition to emerge as one of the most vocal and harshly partisan critics of President Obama and the way he's been conducting the country's defense.

It is clear once again," Cheney said, "that President Obama is trying to pretend that we are not at war."

Since Shooter was on Fox News when he said this, no one there bothered to point out that President Obama had stepped up troop levels in Afghanistan, that he'd increased cooperation with Pakistan (resulting in the capture of the Taliban's operational commander) and that strikes by high-tech Predator drones were knocking off senior terrorist leaders at a fearsome rate.
Because who needs a bunch of pesky facts and follow-up questions, anyway? Certainly not Faux News.

Then Dick's daughter Liz started chiming in, singing the same song, and encountering the same lack of challenge from the so-called "liberal" media. But when Liz, her buddy Bill Kristol and their organization "Keep America Safe" started running ads about a group of Justice Department lawyers they dubbed the "Al-Qaeda Seven," even some voices on the far right cried foul

The ad, in fine McCarthyite style, criticizes Eric Holder's Justice Department (which they refer to as the "Department of Jihad") for employing "nine lawyers who represented or advocated for terrorist detainees." Holder, the ad says ominously, has only provided the names of two of the lawyers, leaving the so-called "Al-Qaeda Seven."

"Whose values do they share?" the ad asks, then urges people to call AG Holder and demand that he reveal their names. Or fire them. Or something. The ad also provides directions to KAS's Web site, where, with a simple mouse click, one can make donations of anywhere from $10 to $5,000, depending, one supposes, on the level of panic the ad manages to to create

Even some former Bushistas said "whoa" to this one. Michael Mukasey, who took over as attorney general after Alberto Gonzales resigned in disgrace, called the ad campaign "both shoddy and dangerous," going on to say that lawyers aren't "automatically to be identified with their former clients and regarded as a fifth column within the Justice Department."

In March 8, a letter signed by 19 former Bush administration lawyers, including former Solicitor General Ted Olson, stated that the attacks were "both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications," and stated that the Cheney witch hunt "undermined the justice system."

Moving farther right, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said, "This system of justice that we're so proud of in America requires the unpopular to have an advocate, and every time a defense lawyer fights to make the government do their job, that defense lawyer has made us all safer." Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a wingnut's wingnut if ever there was one, agreed that calling the DOJ the Department of Jihad is "over the top and unjustified."

I've got to tell you, folks, if you're too far out there for Jeff Sessions, you're so far beyond the horizon you may never make it back to sanity.

Both Graham and Sessions, it should be noted, supported the Military Commissions Act. You know, the one that provides for those "tribunals" of which the Right is so enamored. The one that provides for - guess what? A right to counsel for detainees

I will answer one of the ad's questions, which is "whose values they share." They share the values of an American who jeopardized his reputation and his livelihood to take on the case of several men accused of an infamous crime in which American patriots died. Not because he didn't love freedom, but because he did.

His name was John Adams, and he agreed to defend the British soldiers accused of cold-blooded murder in the Boston Massacre because, he said, "no man in a free country should be denied the right to counsel and a fair trial." He was threatened, both politically and physically, and he reportedly lost up to half of his law practice for a time, but he later called taking (and winning) the case "the greatest service I ever did for my country."

Part of me is sorry that Adams is not here today to remind us of where real American values lie. Part of me is glad he's not here to see what some people are advocating, supposedly in the name of freedom. I think he'd be ashamed.

Guns & Lattes

The Open Carry Debate: Should People Have Guns at Starbucks? - TIME

The patrons of at least five Starbucks locations in California's Bay Area have faced this dilemma in recent weeks. Gun owners have walked into various Starbucks--including in liberal enclaves like San Francisco, San Jose and Cupertino (the home of Apple)--openly wearing weapons while they drink their coffee.

You might not think you would need to be armed to order a latte, but the Bay Area gun owners--who are loosely affiliated with a website called OpenCarry.org--are hoping to draw attention to what they see as a Second Amendment guarantee: the right to carry a gun without fear that it will be confiscated.

It surprises some people to find out that I'm not in line with a lot of supposedly liberal positions on gun control. I think the assault weapons ban, while well-intentioned, was unenforceable, and I don't think handguns should be banned outright. I believe in the right to keep and bear arms, subject to reasonable (the key word) regulation.

But I don't believe you have to be a dick about it. I don't feel the need to go "Look! My gun! I'm wearing it! Look! Look! Suck it, libs!"

I'm moderately pro-gun. I'm adamantly anti-asshole.

Please, Brer Rush, Don't Throw Us In That Briar Patch

Limbaugh: I'll Leave US If Health Care Reform Passes (VIDEO)

Responding to a caller who asked him where he would go for health care if Congress enacts reform, Limbaugh replied,

I don't know. I'll just tell you this, if this passes and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented -- I am leaving the country. I'll go to Costa Rica.

First: Costa Rica has a socialized, single payer health care system.

Second: It's ranked higher than ours.

Third: Remember when Alec Baldwin was called a traitor for saying he'd leave the country if Bush was re-elected?

hat tip: Balloon Juice

Who's the Mad Man Here?

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: A lot of modern television commercials leave me me scratching my head and wondering what the heck the people who made this thing were thinking. Maybe it's just me, but it looks like the problem is getting worse.

Take, for instance, an ad for Bridgestone Tires which premiered during the Super Bowl. In the ad, a villainous-looking group stops a car at a roadblock on a darkened, rainy mountain road. The head bad guy calls out to the driver “Your Bridgestone tires...or your life!" There's a brief pause. Then a good-looking woman gets kicked out of the passenger seat onto the road. The exasperated head baddie calls out to the retreating vehicle, "not your WIFE, your LIFE!"

Bridgestone: you'd rather leave your beautiful wife to be raped and murdered than give up these tires. Uhhh...what?

Then there's the Levi's ad where young people, filmed in black and white, cavort in what looks like a destroyed amusement park, while a scratchy, old-man voice recites what sounds like total gibberish. The voice, as it turns out, is that of 19th century poet Walt Whitman, captured in an early wax-cylinder recording, and reading from his poem "America" : "Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love," etc. Because, as we all know, nothing makes 21st century kids want your blue jeans quite as much as a recitation by one of America's most eccentric and tedious dead poets. I am informed by my consultant on youth culture (my 15 year old daughter) that Levi's are now regarded as dorky, and her opinion of Walt Whitman could best be described as lukewarm. I'm not seeing how this ad is going to help either one.

There have been a number of ads recently in which a company's message seems to be "Okay, we know we've really sucked lately, but we're better now." Considering Toyota's recent spate of product recalls, it's easy to understand their recent mea culpa ads, which tell us that the company "hasn't been living up to the standards that you expect from us, or that we expect from ourselves," but promise that they're "trying to make things right." After all, these are products that can and may have killed people, so some high-profile groveling would seem to be in order when things go wrong.

It's harder, however, to figure out the latest campaign from Domino's Pizza. Domino's, as far as I know, hasn't killed anyone, but their latest ads seem intent on completely demolishing the reputation of every pizza they've ever sold. They quote customers complaining that Domino's pizza was "bland" and the crust was "like cardboard." It's a decidedly odd feeling to look at an ad and respond, "Oh, come on guys, your product's not THAT bad."

The ad did have one desired effect, however. It did motivate us to try the "new and improved" Domino's, just to see. And the verdict? Eh. Not terrible, but not great, either. But then, that was the verdict on their previous recipe, too. I'm thinking Domino's could have saved the millions it spent on a new product roll-out and and just kept selling to its core demographic: drunk college students and harried parents trying to feed packs of rowdy kids rendered nearly feral by hunger. These are people who really only want something cheap, brought to them quickly. Flavor's nice, but edible will do.

Perhaps the most incomprehensible ad to me is the Viagra spot where the gray-haired guy's walking down the street, apparently on the way to his doctor's office. He's passing a set of windows when his reflection begins talking to him: "Are you going to ask the doctor about our erectile dysfunction?"

Yeah, pal. Sure. As soon as I get done asking him why I'm being nagged by a hallucination.

Oh, and will someone please make those talking baby ads go away? They do nothing to make me want to use E-Trade for my investments. Not only is the effect really creepy, but that kid's really turning into kind of a douchebag.

It’s the question that eternally bedevils me: which one is getting crazier, the TV or me? I’m sort of afraid to know the answer.