BARACK OBAMA IS NUTS!! THREAT TO COUNTRY!! UNFIT TO LEAD!!! MUSLIM APOSTATE!!! CHRISTIAN HERETIC!!!

I mean...that's your average run of the mill post over at Larry Johnson's No Quarter Cents blog and one simply has to read the comments on just about any random post on that blog to see what is also common place - the dismissive comments on 'Obamabots,' 'Obamacons,' 'Obamessiah believers,' 'true believers,' etc, and how they're all nuts and stupid and morons, etc.

And yet, if that were true...if they're all the crazies that his regular commenters harangue on a daily basis...

...why did Larry have to warn his readers that:

This does NOT apply to 99% of you, however, a couple of lost souls have posted threats against Barack Obama on this blog. Be forewarned, I will turn all threats over to the Secret Service (they are investigating two at this moment). While I don’t believe Barack is qualified to be President, nothing justifies or warrants a death threat. Please play nice.

Ironically, today he also boasts of his greatly increased traffic. One might muse about the correlation about where the increased traffic came from and exactly who it's really attracting if he has to start issuing warnings to his readers because he's got some real nut jobs making threats against Obama on his blog.

Then again,

I strongly suspect some of those threats may be coming from Obama supporters in an attempt to make this site look bad. But the point is well taken. Threats of violence have no place on this site, or anywhere else on the Internet.

~



The threats surely weren’t serious since the Nation of Islam - especially Farrakhan is in love with BO!

Please demand that BO release his birth certificate, when he was confirmed at TUCC, his and Michelle’s passport records and medical records - not some stupid summary.

~



pro-Hillary AND anti-obama. is there even a difference at this point?

hope the secret service are on it re: any death threats.

i’m thinking they have come over from the obamacamp to bring discredit to this site, the Hillary supporters, and the refusal here to accept obambi as prez.

ever.

~

Gee, one hopes that pro Obama trolls wouldn’t show up here and make Obama death threats attempting to discredit this blog as being populated by a bunch of violent lunatic Hillary supporters. One hopes

I can't quite put my finger on it but for some reason, that whole dust-up over the Bittergate issue just entered my mind. The whole - drawing inward towards the things that people find comfort and solace in...

Deep faith in religion...
Distrust of government/conspiracy theorizing...
Guns...
Taking matters into their own hands...

They're all at Larry's blog now.

More from Bob Johnson

(This post was going to go up yesterday but I never got around the publishing it.)

Did John McCain Seek To Defect To Dems In 2004?

Very interesting question being asked over at MyDD

Last April, Kerry had nothing to gain by lying about his interactions with McCain. He wasn't running for President at the time and did not seek out a forum in which to spread the news (it was prompted by a question he presumably had not been asked in some time). On the other hand, McCain, who denied Kerry's contention, had everything to gain by lying about the interaction between his people and Kerry's people -- and still does. Notice that today McCain did nothing to deny the conversations, or even to deny that it was he who reached out to Kerry in 2004.

But it's time for the media to push him on the subject. McCain was able to dispatch the story in a couple days last April, largely because a lot fewer people were paying attention back then and his campaign was already beginning to tank. Today it's a different story. With McCain desperately trying to court the Republican base, don't you think the Republican base would want to know if their presumptive presidential nominee tried to join the Democratic ticket in 2004? I'd certainly want to know if either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama tried to run with George W. Bush four years ago.

So to the media and the conservative blogosphere I say this: The ball's in your court now. We have, on the record, John Kerry explaining his version of events. Let's hear it directly from John McCain himself now, not through his campaign or his surrogates. Did John McCain reach out to defect from his party in 2004? Or is he ready and willing to call his friend John Kerry a liar to the American people and substantiate that accusation?

I think John McCain owes the American people the truth on this important matter. For if he did seek to jump to our side...

...what was it about the Republican side that was so bad, so reprehensible, so important - that he considered leaving the party altogether?

And of course I also want to have McCain put in the situation where he has to choose between throwing his good friend John Kerry under the bus to save his political ass or come clean with the American people and give them some more of that "Straight Talk©" he prides himself on.

Urge Your Candidate To Attend The ScienceDebate2008

The proposed date is April 18th and the venue will be Philadelphia's own Franklin Institute.

For months, everyone has been asking us--on and off the blogosphere--when will there be an invitation for ScienceDebate 2008? Well, that day has come. See here for the press release (featuring Intel chairman Craig Barrett, who just joined the initiative), and here for the actual invite.

The latter is quite long, so here are the essentials you need to know. ScienceDebate2008 is now co-sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies, and the Council on Competitiveness. We were looking at venues, and finally settled on an offer from the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute--named, of course, after one of this country's first and greatest scientists. We can't think of a more appropriate venue.

Our proposed date is April 18, 2008, which is just before the Pennyslvania primary. So any candidate who agrees to come to the event will stand the chance of improving his or her showing in this critical state.

The candidates we've invited are (in alphabetical order): Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

So now what? Well, we've got to make this happen. We owe it to the thousands who have signed up in support of this initiative. We've got to make the candidates agree to debate.

I think it'd be great to see Huckabee and McCain debate each other in a Science Debate, let alone either of them debate against Clinton or Obama.

Truly worth the price of a container of popcorn and a few beers.

WWF Presents: Tag-team Presidential Debates

In the red corner, representing Mike Huckabee and John McCain:

Chuck Norris:


Sylvestor Stallone:


And in the blue corner, representing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

Oprah Winfrey:


Bill Clinton:


Four will enter, one will lead.
Four will enter, one will lead.
Four will enter, one will lead.
Four will enter, one will lead.

I Thought The Dems Were The Ones Moving Towards The Center

At least, that's what the Karl Rove's of the world might want you to believe.

Politico

Radio talk show host and conservative columnist Jennifer Horn announced Wednesday that she will run against freshman Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), emerging as an early front-runner for the Republican nomination.

“I spent my whole life saying what I believe and why I believe it. Sometimes people agree with me, sometimes they don’t, but I hope that in the end they respect the fact that I’m willing to tell you exactly how I feel,” Horn said in an interview with Politico.

Horn described herself as a conservative Republican but said she is more moderate in supporting civil unions for same-sex couples and favoring “common-sense restrictions to protect kids from guns.”

What happened to preserving the sanctity of marriage?

What about the Second Amendment? Isn't it all about "guns don't kill people, people kill people?"

Seems like Mrs. Horn needs to re-check her own common sense before jumping into this race lest she be labeled a liberal conservative from within her own party.

Democrats For Romney

Why We SHOULDN'T Torture

Kevin Drum, over at the Washington Monthly, has published a letter from a colleague explaining his justification for torture, essentially, as a policy of the United States.

I want our side to win. Or maybe more accurately, I don't want our side to lose....As with any other form of violence, motivation is everything. A cop shooting a murderer is not the same as a murderer shooting an innocent victim, although both use guns, and at the end, someone is bleeding and dying.

You'd be amazed at how many people find these things nearly equivalent. A leftist I know sees no difference between a Palestinian child dying from a stray Israeli bullet during a firefight, and an Israeli child dying when a Palestinian terrorist puts the barrel of a gun to the kid's forehead and blows his brains across the back wall of the child's bedroom. In his two-dimensional perception, the only important factor is that both resulted in a dead child. Avoiding true moral analysis and motivations allows him to skirt the concept of "evil," a term which makes many liberals intensely uncomfortable.

John Kiriakou said that waterboarding a terrorist stopped dozens of attacks. Dozens. Not attacks on military targets, but attacks on innocent non-combatants.

That was the motivation.

The terrorists who torture and kill our prisoners (never something as benign as waterboarding) don't do it because they need information to save innocent people. They do it because they like it, because they want to hurt or kill someone.

At some point you have to decide if a known terrorist having a very bad day (after which he goes back to a hot meal and a cot) is more of a moral problem than allowing a terrorist to blow up a building full of people.

Yes, it's good if we do it, when it's for the right reasons. So far, it's been for the right reasons. And no, it isn't good when it's done to us, for the reasons it has been done to us. Get back to me when some enemy tortures one of our soldiers in order to save innocent lives.

Got it?

This is then followed by 200+ comments, many of which make very good points as to why this type of logic is harmful to our country. Let me give but one example (2 actually, since the one was dependent on the other) that I think sums up the logic of the left as opposed to the logic presented above.

Here's the first:

Behind the argument for torture is pretty straight up utilitarianism.
If somehow magically, you could know for ABSOLUTELY certain that torture of one person would save millions of lives, then you would do it. I know I would do it. I assume anyone that doesn't follow an infantile version of Kant would do it.
The problem is that we will never know for certain that torture saves lives, and we can never trust the information we get from torture, and torture has so many morally corrupting side effects that go along with it, that in the end, the utilitarian calculus for routinized torture just isn't worth it.

And here's the response:

Second on jamie's point

I've yet to hear a conservative engage with the fallibility of institutions.

To accept the use of torture is to accept the torture of the innocent. The wrongfully accused are legitimate subjects for torture because the captors meant well?

Aside from the fact that torture isn't a guaranteed act that will result in 100% solid intelligence to stop an attack, what happens when we mistakenly torture someone who is innocent? Is that collateral damage? How do you repay that? What kind of taste do you leave in that person's mind?

You think that if some innocent Arab, Muslim, Iraqi, or even American got caught up in a dragnet as the result of either intelligence gathered from torture of someone else or from some data mining through the use of domestic wiretapping and turned out to be completely uninvolved with any terrorist groups, organizations or mindsets that they're going to walk away saying, "Hey...it happens. No biggie, I understand you were just trying to protect innocent lives. We're cool."

No, not a chance in hell. What's more likely to happen is that you're going to radicalize someone against this nation as a result of an accepted state policy of torture. Will they act out? Who knows. But once that happens, now you've got one more person you DO need to keep an eye on.

Or maybe when we realize we've tortured an innocent person, we'll just start locking them up forever just to prevent them from ever taking action against the US as a direct result of being victimized by such an abominable act.

I think John Aravosis said it best with regards to this letter from Mr. Drum's colleague:

The flag doesn't make the values, the values make the flag.

When did conservatives forget that?

Lyndhurst, NJ Changes From Red To Blue.

All of it, practically. And it's all happening tomorrow.

In a rare shift in party affiliation, the entire membership of the all-Republican governing body in Lyndhurst will switch from Republican to Democrat tomorrow. Nearly 60% of Lyndhurst’s Republican County Committee will become Democrats too.

The party realignment, first reported in PoliticsNJ.com last summer, is far greater in scope than speculated. It represents, perhaps, the most massive shift in Party affiliation of elected and Party officials in a single community in one day. “It’s safe to say something like this certainly doesn’t happen in politics everyday,” said Lyndhurst Mayor Richard DiLascio.

Lyndhurst has long been considered a swing town in general elections over the last twenty years.

Has this happened before?

Obstruct The Obstructionists

What Digby said.

Mr. 29

MSNBC

As President Bush attempts to revive the controversial immigration reform bill he supports, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Republicans are abandoning the president, which has dropped his job-approval rating below 30 percent -- his lowest mark ever in the survey.

However, in the light of fairness, he's not the only one getting a hard stick.

But he isn’t the only one whose support is on the decline in the poll. Congress’ approval rating has plummeted eight points, bringing it below even Bush’s. And just one in five believe the country is on the right track, which is the lowest number on this question in nearly 15 years.

Couldn't He Have Just Said "Go Cheney Yourself?"

Temper, temper

Simmering tensions in the Alabama Senate boiled over Thursday when a Republican lawmaker punched a Democratic colleague in the head before they were pulled apart.

Republican Sen. Charles Bishop said Democratic Sen. Lowell Barron called him a "son of a [expletive]."

"I responded to his comment with my right hand," Bishop said. Alabama Public Television tape captured the punch.

Barron denied saying that to Bishop. He said the Jasper senator used an expletive to him and he was trying to get away when he was hit by Bishop on the side of the head near an ear. He said he had not decided if he would file charges.

Serving Bullshit With A Side Of Shame

I was at Drinking Liberally last night and although the reviews are a little mixed, everybody's pissed off, basically. And rightly so. This is not what we elected the Dems in to do. And as Brendan pointed out a few days ago, what does it say on Pelosi's home page?

"A New Direction"

Sadly, though, this isn't a new direction but is instead, more of the same. More of the same unaccountability. More of the blank checks. More of the spineless inactivity and ignoring of the opinion of those who put these weak politicians into office.

And as I sit here wondering what we can possibly do next to make up for this mistake, I see a President with approval levels close to the level of a frozen thermometer passing off bullshit calls on Osama Bin Forgotten in an attempt to garner more support for his failed wars.

Seeking to rally support for the war, President Bush is pointing to U.S. intelligence asserting that Osama bin Laden ordered a top lieutenant in early 2005 to form a terrorist unit to hit targets outside Iraq, and that the United States should be first in his sights.

The information, which Bush was to cite Wednesday in a commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, was declassified by the White House on Tuesday. It expands on a classified bulletin the Homeland Security Department issued in March 2005.

The bulletin, which warned that bin Laden had enlisted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his senior operative in Iraq, to plan potential strikes in the United States, was described at the time as credible but not specific. It did not prompt the administration to raise its national terror alert level.

Bush has no room to talk about Osama Bin Laden after first telling Americans he was going to get him "Dead or Alive" and then later, asserting that capturing Osama "is not a priority."

It's like Dead-Eye Dick saying the insurgents were in their "Last Throes", i.e. - there's simply no credibility and thus, no reason to trust him.

But who's going to challenge him on it? The Dems??

I think not. Not now.

Not ever.

Drinking Liberally

Tonight @ Tangiers. I'll actually be there.

Thank god for babysitters.

Putting The Brakes On Recess Appointments

Screeeeeeech!

We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires [i.e. recess appointments] are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie "pro forma" session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall. Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he's the new sheriff in town.

Gearin' Up

AP via Yahoo

By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

...

Moments earlier in the committee chamber next door, the
House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for her testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved — but did not issue — a subpoena to compel her to appear.

Simultaneously across Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved — but did not issue — a subpoena on the prosecutors' matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The House oversight committee also issued subpoenas for the
Republican National Committee for testimony and documents about White House e-mails on RNC accounts that have apparently gone missing.

As thrilled as I am by these developments, this takes the cake.

In case Gonzales thought the worst had passed with his punishing testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman and top Republican issued a new demand: Refresh the memory that Gonzales claimed had failed him 71 times during the seven-hour session.

Barney Frank

Heh indeed, Atrios

By Jove, I Think They've Got It

How to manage the Iraq funding by putting a short leash on Bush.

Did Dick Cheney Call George Bush Out On Funding Measure?

Speaking in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition at the oceanside Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, Fla. about the winning vote on the Iraq appropriations measure that just passed in the House by a 218-212 vote and provides $124 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as including a resolution to begin withdrawing troops by September 2008, or possibly earlier, Dick Cheney referred to the measure in this manner:

Cheney called it a myth that "one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements they need to carry out their mission."

The bill provides the funding. Pending approval in the Senate which some see as the battleground for a possible filibuster but which others, including myself, also see as an opportunity for many Republicans facing decisive and tough re-election bids coming up to possibly decide it's in their interest not to filibuster and to simply vote because they don't want this vote on war appropriations sitting in their lap when it's campaign time, this measure may very well end up in Bush's lap and as everyone knows, Bush has threatened to veto the bill.

If Bush vetoes the bill, Cheney will have just lumped Bush in with the same crowd he was criticizing when speaking about this vote when he continued and said:

"They're not supporting the troops. They're undermining them,"

There's always the possibility of Bush issuing a signing statement to invalidate the vote in the event he ends up signing the bill to avoid the conflict that would arise from vetoing it.

But if he doesn't, and he signs off on the bill, are we now in a position to say to the President "check?"

Video: Murtha - "Failed Policy Wrapped In Illusion"

No, No He's NOT A Democrat

Carl Levin

Lieberman won re-election as an independent but pledged to continue to caucus with the Democrats. Levin was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday whether it is worth risking losing control of the Senate by pushing Iraq legislation not supported by Lieberman.

"Joe Lieberman is a person of conscience," Levin said. "Providing we vote our conscience, I think Joe Lieberman will respect that. He is a Democrat, and I expect him to remain a Democrat."

A person of conscience? Are we talking about the same Joe Lieberman who after losing the nomination, switched parties and ran again as an Independent instead of respecting the will of the voters and during the process spoke out of both sides of his mouth up to, during, and beyond the entire 2006 election cycle??

Would someone please pour Mr. Levin another cup of strong coffee and tell him to wake up?