Internal Monologue

OK this (from Political Vine) is too damn funny. Crooks and Liars has the video of Westmoreland (R-Georgia 8th) on the Colbert Report. He co-sponsored a bill requiring the display of the Ten Commandments public buildings, but he can’t even name more than three . Ouch. Let’s see if I can do better (from memory, honestly): Thou shalt have no other Gods before me Thou shalt honor thy mother and father Thou shalt not commit murder Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s stuff Thou shalt not worship idols/graven images Thou shalt not commit adultery Hmm…lets…see…I can’t remember… Google to the rescue! Of course I also don’t know the order…here we are! (from prayerlist.com ). Oh, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” Forgot that one. It’s number three. Still, not bad for a humanist. And I did be...

Seems nobody likes Joe Lieberman’s new TV ad. Real clear politics has it . “It's enough to make one think maybe Lieberman deserves to lose.” is their response. Andrew Sullivan : “Worst ad ever?” Kos : “I have a feeling Lieberman's bear cub ad is going to be a PR disaster for him.” Atrios : “ This ad is hilariously awful . What a nasty man, mocking a guy for having knee replacement surgery. Jeebus, what an attitude to have about senior citizens.” Joshua Micah Marshall (who claims not to have taken sides in this race) “This has to be the most ridiculous ad I've ever seen. It's not even that it's mean. It's just too silly and stupid to believe. Does anyone really believe that Lieberman is in this fix because of Lowell Weicker?” Apparently, this ad is a sequel to one Lieberman successfully used to defeat Lowell Weicker for the Senate seat he currently holds. The cast on the old bear seems to be rather cruel mockery of the fact that Weicker just had hip replacement ...

Glad to hear someone is preparing for Bloomsday .

The latest ugly move in the whole Republican effort to rig the electorate is the enactment of laws that make conducting voter registration drives extremely difficult. Ohio and Florida are two recent examples. You can read a bit about it here and elsewhere in the progblog. People for the American way just sent out a petition on the subject. I singed it, and wrote a little custom letter, and I urge you to do so as well. This stuff really ticks me off. It is so blatantly anti-democratic. And its similarity to efforts to suppress the black vote during segregationist days is really creepy. Or maybe I should just realize that it is the exact same shit that was going on then. It never stopped. Those who practice it (and it’s Republicans) should be excoriated by the popular media and decent Americans everywhere. This is one enormous contrast between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats are always trying to expand the number of voters, and Republicans are trying to shrink it. Why? Because the...

This Kos diary by Richard Cranium says what I was trying to say in my Democratic vs. Republican rhetoric post better. Rather than using Lakoff’s framing to look at the issue, it uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs . His basic thesis is that Democrats need to learn to speak to the needs lower on the Pyramid. I totally agree. If someone is feeling a need lower on the pyramid, appealing to a need higher on the pyramid won’t work. Because the “lower” needs (sustenance, safety) must be satisfied before the “higher” ones (love, status, self-actualization) come into focus. If the Republicans are successfully scaring people and then promising to make them safe, you can’t counter that by appealing to their sense of fairness (“giveaways to the rich are wrong”) or patriotism (“Americans are above torture”), because belonging needs and moral needs are “higher” on the pyramid, and don’t make themselves felt until the lower needs are satisfied. If Republicans are successfully using fear, Democrats mu...

According to hartboy on Kos, marriage is already pretty gay .

Digby comments snarkily on a document purportedly connected the recently killed Zarqawi. I’m a bit skeptical of this document too. CBS has excerpts . When Al-Qaida documents so cleanly support this administration’s “stay the course” talking points, naturally I’m suspicious: While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said. On the other hand, this document also says that Al-Qaida’s best strategy would be to push the US into another war: "Generally speaking and despite the gloomy present situation, we find that the best solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in waging a war against another country or any hostile groups," the document said, as quoted by al-Maliki's office. I wonder if this might put the breaks on the administration’s warmongering. Maybe if they won’t listen to anti-war Americans who say anot...