I Hope You Had A Happy War On Xmas or The Holiday Of Your Choice

NOT THIS YEAR

I'm back at work after Xmas. (I just can't help myself, I need to keep fighting that war even if it is all over for the year. Incidentally, I live in the heart of Ohio in the middle of the bible belt and all over the place there are "Happy Holiday" signs. What is the matter with hill billies don't they take the war on Xmas seriously.)

At any rate I am over whelmed with work as I always am after Xmas. I think that perhaps I expect to be hit by a meteor during the Xmas break and therefore I don't have to be prepared for the week after. Unfortunately that has not yet happened. If it does, I expect that it will only happen when I am all caught up on everything. So, there is another reason not to get caught up.

A felony jury trial on the Eleventh and a Brief due the same day. Major custody matter the day before and here I sit writing in this blog. It might be a country and western song.

Bleth

Coming back after comparing Obama to Martin Vanger and the liberal interest groups to unnamed victims of the guy, and seeing that the republicans "convinced" the democrats to cut the health benefits for first responders to 9/11. It reminds me of Bush cutting veterans benefits shortly after or just before the start of the Gulf War. Perhaps I shouldn't have limited my analogy to merely the democrats and the liberals, perhaps I should have expanded it to include all the ruling class as Martin and the rest of us as the nameless victims. Kind of like Charlie Brown and Lucy but with more sexual innuendo.

I've been thinking for some time about writing a bit about "facts" and how they are not very powerful, strong or important, but are in reality pretty delicate, then Digby and Krugman both beat me to writing about it, however I do insist that I thought about it before I read either of their essays. The most interesting thing about it all is that the "facts" about HCR are already being distorted less than eighteen months after everything went down badly. Now it is in the interest of the ruling class to insist that the liberals or leftists held up reform and therefore made it worse and what it is today and caused the massive democratic losses in the last election. Not that Obama screwed around trying to placate the republicans and big business and caused the massive democratic losses, which is what happened.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, given that we are coming up on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, and the defenders of the lost cause are again insisting that the war wasn't about slavery, but rather the South's desire for freedom and economic issues not involved with slavery, when all one has to do is go to the actual session documents from the state legislators, to see that is a lie. Or for that matter I can remember when that was a real issue in history departments around the United States. It had been accepted popular and mostly professional history that slavery was not the primary cause of the civil war. It took the Civil Rights Movement to change that (temporarily apparently).

DADT

A couple of more thoughts about the repeal of DADT. First, the blind pig analogy. It really isn't possible for Obama and the congressional democrats to always fuck up all the time. And when there is a happy confluence of the wishes of the military industrial complex, the neo-liberals and their desires for more colonial wars, no money lost for billionaires and a major constituency actually withholding their votes; then perhaps something good can come out of this administration.

Then there is my other thought, (if I can be forgiven from fixating on the Millennium books) is the torture scene of Blomkvist from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (can't find it on Y0uTube) where the sociopthic serial killer offers Blomkvist a glass of water while taking a break from torturing him to death and Blomkvist thanks him. The guy then says: "See it is so simple, I offer you something that doesn'tt matter and you think that maybe I won't kill you now." Of course, he has every intention of killing Blomkvist and is openly contemptuous of Blomkvist's weakness in thinking that now maybe he will be ok. Just saying, not to imply that Obama is a sociopathic serial killer or that liberals are willing to take any offering from him as evidence of his humanity, or anything.

A Blind Pig

So I was wrong and the repeal of DADT passed the senate. So now when the generals tell the president it is OK to actually remove it, well it will be removed I guess. Let's see how long it takes before Obama reports to the senate. It is a good thing, but it is hardly the most important thing out there. The most important thing is the economy and that pouch has been screwed for some time.

I predict that this will be pushed by the veal pen as the greatest thing since sliced bread and continued reason to support Obama no matter what because McCain or whatever other republican will be nominated would never have done this. Of course no money is taken from the rich; this provides no real aid to the middle class or poor. People who happen to be homosexual will (eventually) be able to serve openly in our military in an ever widening series of colonial wars all over the world.

In the mean time budget failed, massive tax cut for rich passed (which will in all probability prevent any real economic recovery), DREAM Act failed all this week.

Pardon me if I do not completely cream my jeans.

I'm Just Pissed

Not in the best of moods, after yelling at a client; and looking over what I wrote yesterday I'm not thrilled with that either.

I no longer enjoy reading the blogs I go to for political humor: World-O-Crap, Sadly No, or even Tbogg. They make fun of the right wing, but the right wing is winning and there seems to be no one on the left who is capable of dealing with the current malaise we find our selves in and anyway I do not like slave humor all that much.

The arguments on Balloon Juice are examples of what is going on in the liberal/progressive/leftist side of the political spectrum. I can kind of understand the demand that one not blame all the troubles we are currently having on Obama (although he would certainly want all the accolades if things were going well). Certainly, once the 2008 election was over it should not have been difficult to realize what could happen in the senate given the make up, with or without Franken. A change of procedural rules might have been in order, although no one in power was willing to push the issue.

Some other backers of Obama seem to feel that there is something else that might theoretically have been done, but that he could not do it because of institutional limitations. Then the next logically step, which for the most part they do not make is that therefore, no one could have done anything, therefore we as a nation are in a place where there is no hope. Literally, no hope. There are a lot of things wrong, but no way around the internal limitations so they can't be fixed. Ever. By anyone. That may also be true, but well as I've said before I'm not a nihilist for nothing.

Others make fun of leftists who have been known to ask "Where is the leadership we were led to expect?" They point out that no one seems to be listening to Obama now so although he can demand say the end of DADT no one cares. Leaving out the real question of whether or not what he says to people outside his very private meetings with the powerful is what he really asks for or believes. Let's say he really does want to repeal DADT (unlike what he said he wanted to do about private insurers, or pharmaceutical companies, or FISA, say), why would anyone be interested in doing what he asks or what he wants. He just led his party to the biggest defeat in decades, what makes him a leader who should be followed now. These people do not seem to understand that there is a thing called "time." Things that one may do or be able to get done at one point they may not be able to accomplish at another. Months or years of dithering and showing little or no leadership may cause one to "spend their seed on the ground," as it were and leave them nothing for on down the line.

The background of these arguments assumes that he wanted to accomplish some sort of liberal/progressive/leftist agenda. Or that he at least looked at the world from that prospective. Nothing that he has done in the last two years should cause people to believe that and when one points that out one tends to get shouted down. From the very beginning, with his appointment of Rahm, the fat homophobe to give the invocation, and the economic team who are as conventional as conventional can be and really do believe in the very things that brought this country to the edge. Well that should have been a wake up call to those of us who thought he knew what he was doing and that he at least had an outlook that was not totally controlled by the oligarchs.

There is the argument that he could not have known just the kind of intransigence nor the type and viciousness of the attacks that would be leveled on him. Really? From the git go the right attacked him for not being a real American and a Muslim Further, the last democratic president from whom Obama took many of his policies and personnel was attacked, I think, as viciously. The Clinton Death List anyone? How about we have pictures of Bill loading cocaine off a drug cartel plane, or how about what about two years of impeachment proceedings? I'm being told that it is worse because Obama is black. I'm not sure that it is worse, I just think it is different.

Then there is a new argument that apparently he is afraid of being mistaken for an angry black man and so therefore he does nothing to lead or really push because he might be seen as a new version of H. Rap Brown, I guess. Instead he must look and act like Jackie Robinson. Or what? Or he will be attacked even more than he is right now? Oh really? That is one of those things that one cannot really respond to because the implication in the argument is that the person making the argument is from some other planet where they cannot understand the languages spoken on this one.

All of these arguments assume thatObama wants something other than what is happening. I suspect that he does not want any other policies, but that he does want someone else to take the blame for them. Although why he thinks that he might look better if he does anything else is beyoned me. I also do not quite understand why he would bring the last big democratic loser out to shill for him either.

I also do not touch here on the absolute crazy of the real crazies who talk death pannels and socialism and Kenyan births. Maybe some other time, although truth be told I could not figure the absolute hate for Clinton either.

I Guess I Need A Headline

Argghhh. I'm reading Balloon Juice today and finally decided to move them over into my Fake Progressives folder. That'll show them all right, all right.

John Cole has done yet another blog post telling leftists just that well we are asking too much of Obama, or unfair, or that we are racist in our criticisms of his. Then right on cue he links to a New York Times Op Ed Ismael Reed saying essentially the same thing. That blacks and hispanics know when to be quite and, I guess take what they are given, something that apparently white folks never learned. Or forgot I guess.

The comment section is a free for all, something that one wouldn't have seen six months ago at Balloon Juice. Now Cole is complaining about the folks coming in to argue about whether or not Obama has done what he could or should do.

I'm actually not sure what people are arguing concerning criticism by white folks of Obama being as he is African American. Generally, at least out loud, they are not arguing that any criticism of him is racist, but I see them coming close to that. One of the suggestions was that Obama is like the political Jackie Robinson and has to hold is temper at all times else he be called an Angry Black Man (apparently the 60s never happened). Another, is that the African American (called AA in the comments which confused me quite a bit for a while) community will react, as a group, negatively to too much criticism and to primary him. Another person ran a time line of how he tried to save the middle class tax cuts while ending them on income over $250,000.00, of course the time line started this summer.

The interesting thing about these discussions is that they completely ignore all that has happened in the last two and a half years. That is what Obama has actually or chosen not to do or who he has put the muscle to. He has not arraigned himself with a cabinet of dashiki clad black radicals like Putney Swope. He appointed the most conventional of main stream thinkers[?] around, when he wasn't reappointing Bush republicans.

Yet his defenders seem to be completely unaware of this it is as if they have been living in a parallel universe where there is an effective Obama who cares about the poor and middle class. It is if one is talking past these people. One tries to point out just what he has done or failed to do and the argument is well if he had tried it wouldn't have worked so he had to do something else that didn't work either.

More WikiLeaks

Some times wonder if I do not run off down the off ramps in all the directions the "Man" wants me to go. Do you suppose the survivors of the '48 uprisings felt about the world they ended up living in the same way liberals do about this one, but without I-phones I guess.

So I find my self writing about the sex charges against Assange and the positions taken by the liberal blogs, serious liberal blogs are taking on this. I kind of find myself going to the same place I was with the Roman Polanski thing. I was correct to seriously wonder about what kind of guy Polanski was, but not I was not correct to wonder about the "victim's" motives, or for that matter what was going on with the whole thing and the motives of all those involved because well it just wasn't right and proper.

The same with Assange and his accusers. It does seem that we are not permitted to seriously question the motives or the timing of the two women who brought these charges. One has allegedly worked extensively with the C.I.A. and anti-Castro groups. One gave a party for the guy after the alleged incident and texed friends about how neat he was also after the alleged incident. The complaints appear to be based on the allegations the Assange wasn't a particularly nice guy and didn't stop in mid-thrust as it were. (I'm not sure I've ever had that request.) Both women found out about each other and met and discussed things before they filed their formal charges with the police. The case was dismissed by one prosecutor and then refiled by another and placed on the "Most Wanted" Interpol List. Then Assange is denied bail even though he turned himself into the law when the arrest warrant was shown to be valid.

All of this is of a piece. You cannot take one part of it out and say let's just look at this by itself. If it was a simple assault case that had gone this route one would look at the complainants with a very jaundiced eye. As Rumpole would (and did in fact say): "I am treating this woman as a perfect equal and demanding the same level of proof that I would demand from a man."

I recall a Guild convention I was at in Atlanta decades ago. There was a very heated discussion about the feminist arguments that some pornography needed to be banned, because it was by its very nature harmful to women. I didn't have enough nerve to participate. But the positions of the participants were very interesting. Mostly it was younger women who were arguing that some things needed to be banned because they were just beyond the pale. Older individuals and they were mostly men who I suspect now been through the censorship wars involving Lady Chatterley, Junkie, and others; and remembered that censorship had once been used to keep birth control information from women took the other position.

But the position of the younger people was that women needed to be protected from these things. Not it seemed to me at the time a very empowering position.

So I guess it is possible that Assange is guilty of something, but not likely, and it looks like his accusers are willing pawns and being used by the very reactionary powers who always use those kind of people.

Oh Hell

Brisk and cold outside, the sun just starting to come up over a scattering of mostly old snow on the ground. The chow is outside and the St. is inside. The chow likes us well enough, but she wants to enjoy the cold weather. She'll stay out for twenty or thirty minutes and come inside to check us all out, then turn around and go back out for another twenty or thirty minutes. The St. is more than willing to put up with the heat if he can be near us.

Assange is all over the news which is more than a little depressing, when I look and see the government was able to get just about every power that matter arrayed against him, from corporations like VISA and Mastercard to nations one would normally expect (Sweden and Switzerland) to have gone their own independent way, to international organizations like Interpol, which up to this point seemed to have a certain (at least in my mind, but perhaps I just wasn't paying attention) independence and honesty. But as I say what do I know? Also, even thoug Obama himself is keeping quite he is the one who is pushing this, don't forget.

Assange and WikiLeaks managed to take my mind away (for part of the time only) the ongoing disaster that is the Obama presidency and the lame duck congressional session. It is nice to see Obama call out his real enemies: the liberals and progressives who got him elected. Obama's and the democrats complete and total inability to learn from their mistakes in the last two years (if they are actually mistakes) is breath taking. He apparently blames the losses in the last election on the "professional left" rather than on his unnecessary compromises and inability or unwillingness to effectively negotiate for his stated positions. He also doesn't seem to have understood the effect of his various lies on those who worked and voted for him, or perhaps he is just shocked that people are recognizing the lies for what they are, but maybe I shouldn't hold him to too high a standard.

It is also interesting to read stuff from the various Fake Progressive Blogs to see how they are more than willing to keep defending Obama and attacking people who are calling him out. No More Mister Nice Blog has managed to get itself moved into my Fake Progressive folder because of an essay claiming that there are people who prefer to see the top marginal tax cuts maintained rather than extend the unemployment benefits if that was the trade off. Of course I'm not at all sure that is the trade off, but we will see. I'm sure it will pass in the same bill that repeals DADT, perhaps a little sooner than card check though. Congratulations No More Mister Nice Blog.

The professional villagers who were convinced by Bush that there were possibly WMDs in Iraq are the same people who are leading the charge to defend Obama and the democrats. Reliably liberal when there is no chance of their policies passing and more than willing to defend the status quo other wise.

Perhaps the most interesting commentary is that by those who more or less correctly identify Obama's short comings and then go on to say that they will not only vote for him, but will also give money to him and work for him. I can't understand that position at all. It resembles the dead enders who supported Bush right up until the end. The old (comparatively speaking) joke is that if Bush had eaten live kittens on tv they would find a way to not only justify it but praise it. Or perhaps abused wives or girlfriends who just know that the abuser will change if she just gives him one more chance and this time what he says will be what he does, not like the other times.

There is also the: "But Obama couldn't have done any more than he did, he was trapped" line of comments. Completely ignoring the real world out there with so much to contradict it that I do not feel like listing all the explanations as to what that is a miss reading of the real world. There is the little thing about being a leader and acting like a leader and pushing for enactment of certain important changes that one says one believes in. Something that appears to be sorely lacking in the current leadership.

I said on Facebook that I am more hopeless than I was during Bush's terms. I could work to try to defeat Bush, but those of us who want to fight against what Obama and the democratic party are have to do what? We are not considered "serious" people. We must work completely outside the normal systems and it is clear that we are marginalized beyond belief. Apparently, most of the voters think Obama is doing a fine job. Or if he isn't Palin or one of the reserve republican fascists could do a better one. What to do? So I guess we have to leave that sort of thing for our betters, you know:

Things Can (And Apparently Will) Always Get Worse

Geeze. I was going to lay off WikiLeaks for awhile, but I guess they insist on being attacked by "my" government. Just a little something from Greenwald again, and from yesterday.

More and more depressing news. I suspect that the kind of stuff I post or even the kind of stuff Greenwald does will be left alone. We just kind of nibble along on the edges, obviously WikiLeaks hits them where they hurt. I also suspect that they are going all out at this point to make a point for anyone else who might want to shed a little light on the vile internal working of our government and its minions (minions including other countries and large corporations).

In passing I find it depressingly interesting that the law most frequently cited is the 1917 Espionage Act. It is a law from one of the most reactionary periods of Twentieth Century American History. It was intended to aid in crushing dissent against one of the more unpopular wars in American history. It did a fairly good job of it, Debs served almost five years for a speech he gave against that war.

The least just and more unreasonable the government's position on any issue the more intense will be their attempt to destroy any dissent. So the United States has now officially and openly, joined the governments of Burma and China. Congratulation on us.

And I would argue, I expect to see them succeed more times then they fail.

Block That Analogy

Let's leave fiction and go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear for our extended analogy. No I mean really yesteryear. Like about 63 B.C.E and the Catiline rebellion. Class war fare, no real war and feckless and incompetent leaders of the peoples party. Ending eventually with the entrenchment of the wealthy as the complete powers, for a short time. Then it just turned weird, see my friend Caligula. Although the satisfaction of the various noble and wealthy family being cut down by the crazy emperors does give one a nice cozy feeling of schadenfreude.

Or if you prefer:

We are kind of like the Titanic and Bush II would be our captain Smith of the Titanic he's already steered us into that iceberg and now Obama is the lesser officers; he has many different roles: the guy that allows the the life boats to leave half full, the guy who holds the gun on the the steerage passengers forbidding them to come up to the deck to try to get off the sinking ship, or perhaps one of the guys in command of a life boat who refuses to go back and rescue the passengers in the water take your pick.

Finally, I feel like the individual in one of the old movie series, who has gotten their foot stuck in that railroad track and sees that training barrelling down on him, but is unable to get lose and do anything about it.

There enough metaphors or analogies for you?

The Air Castle That Was Blown Up

So my last post on WikiLeaks most recent leaks until Assange gets taken before some Swedish tribunal for something hopefully resembling the last scene from The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. But in Googling the title I see that the Swedish title is more accurately translated as: The Air Castle That Was Blown Up, perhaps even more apropos. OK, OK, but the damn thing is playing out so closely to that movie that I just cannot get over it.

I watched Greenwald and Aftergood (what a great name) debate the WikiLeaks thing on Democracy Now (yesterday streaming on the computer thingy). First, Aftergood who has a (kind of) organization that pushes for (apparently) more openness in American government seemed to be really jealous. Here he has worked for years within the system and he is barely noticed. I had heard about his organization, but not a lot. He had apparently going through FOIA requests and the proper court channels gotten some information, but none that appeared to really get a lot of interest outside the belt way types. He was angry about what WikiLeaks had done and how they had done it.

In fact Aftergood (insert own sarcastic comment here) simply lied and said that WikiLeaks had published a blue print for a nuclear bomb, the only one ever publicly published. That was simply, apparently not true. Then he went on to argue that some of the leaks shouldn't have been leaked although others were apparently alright. One of the leaks that he chose to mention that was bad and shouldn't have been leaked, was the one which revealed the German politician who gave the U.S. Ambassador detailed notes about what went on in the formation of the current German government. Since the German was essentially a spy for the U.S. it reveals a terribly America centric point of view and another way Aftergood would be more than willing to censor what the average citizen knows.

Essentially, it is an argument that someone must always stand between the people and their government's secrets. The Wise Men (mostly men) know what the hoi poli need and should know. We're just arguing about who those Wise Men should be. Clearly Aftergood believes that he is one of those Wise Men.

A second point, though. I've been wondering whatever is causing the completely unrestrained rage which has been expressed by the ruling class of at least this country, if not the world. The ruling class as I mentioned before being the media types (perhaps; they at least are given to think they are part of that class and encouraged to believe it), elected types, appointed types, wealthy types, and it now appears the educational types (those who hope to move on to jobs in the government or think tanks). They are the Wise Men (even if some of them are women). Assange is not (nor are you, by the way).

This unrestrained rage does seem to be kind of strange coming as it does at the release of diplomatic cables rather than at the release of the military stuff of a few months ago. I do not mean to imply that there was no anger at WikiLeaks and real rage from those in power, but it didn't seem to take hold as it seems to be this time. It is certainly being pushed more aggressively by the media than it was before, and I think that might be because the media are starting to realize that WikiLeaks is making them look like the ineffectual bumbling handmaidens of the rulers that they are and that they always knew they were, but were able to deny it to themselves up to this point maybe.

Another reason for this completely uncontrolled rage is the sheer number of cables that make the writers look like middle school children back biting each other: "She's so fat," etc. It is one thing to be shown to have killed people for no good reason, but that you have the power to do it, it is quite another to be shown to be merely petty.

WikiLeaks: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The Pentagon Papers and the revelations concerning the "secret" Cambodian bombings were, to me and my generation at least, the origins of major document dumps. I do believe that there are people who are still pissed about them.

When the "secret" bombings of Cambodia were finally revealed, my how the powerful squealed. Who were the bombings secret from? Us. Not the Cambodians certainly, nor the USSR, and most of Europe knew it. I was only us rubes here who didn't have a clue. Oh well more of the same, I guess. The anger was extreme and it was all because the American people were given some information about who else their government was killing in that interminable war. The anger was really, once again, directed against the people who leaked the information, not against the people ordering the "secret" bombings.

The anger against Ellsberg for the Pentagon Papers was even more extreme and even less reasonable. An internal "Defense [Orwell quotes]" Department study that came to the conclusion the the war was not winnable. No new information concerning tactics or war plans, but now everybody could know that we were there in a losing cause, killing untold numbers of Vietnamese and killing very told numbers of American and allied troops killed for apparently no reason at all.

At least as far as our military leaders thought at the time. But at any rate no anger against those who were insisting on killing for no particular reason, just against those who told us there was no particular reason. Since Ellsberg was in therapy the government went after his psychiatrist and lucky for him were caught breaking in. However, that didn't stop them from implying the Ellsberg was crazy and so shouldn't be believed because of it. Still most of the anger was directed at Ellsberg not those who were insisting on waging an unwinnable war.

Yes I do understand that the New York Times did publish these things, but they were attacked for giving aid and comfort to the enemy by most of the middle American press.

Now Assange is under attack by Sweeden not because he is letting the people in a democracy know what their government won't let them know, but rather because he allegedly is guilty of sexual misconduct with a couple of women who it turns out if and this is a big if his lawyer is correct decided after the fact that they were assualted. I guess they just didn't think of this for Ellsberg.

Well, well, well lookie at this there is nothing that the governments of the world and their lackies won't do to keep the people of a democracy from having information about their governments.

Hey, I Though It Was Just A Novel

Wow. So the powers that be are after Assange. One of the ten most wanted for what is apparently an allegation of date rape, maybe. Not that date rate is anything that should be blown off. On the other hand, I find it interesting that this is a guy who is on Interpol's Ten Most Wanted List. I am sure it has nothing to do with WikiLeaks, no suree bob.

In the meantime our great and powerful "leaders" (yes I'm being snarky, thank you) like president Lieberman assist Amazon in finding its patriotism and blocking information concerning what our country is doing all over the world.

The interesting thing is in the way that the government has reacted to this most recent leak. In a way that is out of all proportion to what the leaks contain, at least to those who have read them. And by government I mean the ruling junta which includes the media and the corporate power boys (and yes some girls), not just our (more or less) elected and appointed rulers. I suspect that our rulers believe that this stuff is going to keep coming and that eventually people are going to start paying attention.

Greenwald has been all over this for the last couple of days.

There is no question that there is now a full court press against Assange and that the various governments of the world will not rest until the guy is in custody and the hope is, of course, that he is really not just the face of WikiLeaks, but the real moral authority there and that getting rid of him will get rid of this pesky irritant. It will also have the added benefit of scaring others who might consider doing something similar in the future. (Paging Scott Ritter and Eliot Spitzer anyone?)

Just watched The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest last weekend and have now seen all the Millennium Trilogy and read two and a third of the books. It certainly does give one pause. I did not think that the various government agencies would take the books as a How To, rather than as a warning against harming innocent citizens, silly me. Another interesting thing is that it was difficult, but not impossible, to find a link other than Amazon, that handles the books. Well I guess sex crimes are better at smearing people than the good old fashion drugs and violence, do not want to hew too closely to the printed page in the adaptions, now do we.

I'm Really Getting Tired of the News

Hey, welcome back.

I've been listening to NPR some while I drive to and from home to work and when I say some I mean until I become so enraged that in order to drive I have to turn the radio off. One reason we have no TV is that my wife got tired of me yelling at the thing during the various news casts.

I used to watch CNN Headline News because the first fifteen minutes or so was decent hard news, even if the last fifteen or ten was fluff. Then one day I realized that I had watched two cycles of Headline News and seen no news at all just fluff from beginning to end. Well I guess that was better than my reaching for my trusty six shooter to blast the carn sarn piece of devil's equipment to hell. I would not have been able to endure Dancing With Stars with or without Bristol. I have had the unfortunate experience of seeing part of a Duggers episode when I was at another persons house, and that was just weird.

At any rate to get back to the original thought today I listened to someone from The Wall Street Journal explain that Obama has taken the last election as a sign from the voters that they want more bipartisanship in government. The discussion was that this was a not unreasonable position for him to take. That was when I turned the radio off.

Well we are certainly living in interesting times, I guess. I have no doubt that Obama has taken the election as proof that he was doing just what the voters wanted, just not enough. What I have a difficult time understanding is how anyone outside a completely bunkered facility, somewhat like the place Hitler was in the final days of WWII, could believe this.

Well perhaps not really believe this, but say it at least. And sound like they believe it. How is that possible? I guess they could be brilliant actors, but other than that I really do not understand this. You lie and don't deliver on much of anything that you promised, but you make sure that the people who opposed you in the last election get everything they want.

The other strange thing is that many of the original Obama supports continue to support him no matter what he does, but some how believe what he says even though he never (or almost never) delivers on his promises. Drifting over and around the various blogs it appears as though Tbogg has decided that Obama is simply incompetent rather than malicious or evil where I think that he is incompetently evil. Trumka and the AFL-CIO is just disturbing, what are they thinking they support the guy and get nothing of substance from him? Once again discussing this with people who will not give up on him is..............what? Certainly not illuminating and it is getting less and less interesting as one can give them literally dozens of major examples of issues that he has lied about and/or failed to deliver on and it doesn't seem to matter.