TPM does the day in 100 seconds

1 comment April 23rd, 2009

Ex-FBI agent exposes lies about torture

9 comments April 23rd, 2009

THIS COLUMN is creating quite a stir.

Ooh! This is cool! Magical torture tactics thwart terrorist plot retroactively!

7 comments April 23rd, 2009

 

 Karl Rove and his ideological kinfolk at Fox News are claiming that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed six years ago produced information used to foil a terrorist plot in Los Angeles.

 How exciting! How magical!

 History shows that the plot in L.A. was foiled in February 2002 and that the waterboarding of Khalid occurred 13 months later, in March 2003.

 You have to wonder how all that came down. Maybe it was like that part in the first “Superman” movie where the Supe Dude flew around the globe so fast (above) that he went back in time and was able to save Lois Lane from death.

 On the other hand, HERE’s a more likely slant on the supposedly magical torture.

Wingnuts on RNC want Dems to rename party

8 comments April 23rd, 2009

 

 As if the ditch of irrelevancy in which the Republican Party finds itself weren’t already deep enough, certain members of the GOP’s national committee are PUSHING A RESOLUTION suggesting that the Democratic Party change its name.

The resolution reads in part:

RESOLVED, that we the members of the Republican National Committee call on the Democratic Party to be truthful and honest with the American people by acknowledging that they have evolved from a party of tax and spend to a party of tax and nationalize and, therefore, should agree to rename themselves the Democrat Socialist Party.

 This is what passes for cleverness in certain GOP circles these days. These people have such a lame sense of humor that they probably expect their little resolution to send tens of millions of Americans into gales of laughter in mockery of the Democrats.

 They probably also see it as the perfect follow-up to their tea parties of last week, no matter that such parties made no dent whatever in President Obama’s popularity; in fact, Gallup SHOWS his approval rating to have increased a few points in the past seven days.

 Mark my words, friends: If this resolution ever gets beyond the proposal stage, the Republican dimwits will discover that they have only unwittingly prompted  the liberal blogosphere to come up with an avalanche of funny new names for the GOP. Wait! Check that! It’s probably too late already to avoid that cruel fate.

 Yes, it’ll be a childish exercise. But history will record that the zealots in the RNC started it.

 I say let the renaming begin.

UPDATE: Game’s over! I’ve come up with the perfect new name for the GOP — The Mythical Party.

Republicans dearly love their myths:

–The creationism myth.

–The myth that man-made global warming is a myth.

–The mostly-abandoned myth that Iraq was somehow involved in the attacks of Sept. 11.

–The myth that rugged individualists settled the American West with little or no dependence upon government.

–The myth that the Supreme Court outlawed any mention of God or religion in public schools.

–The myth that slavery wasn’t the cause of the Civil War.

–The myth that the economy historically does better under Republican presidents than under Democrats. (Just the opposite it true.)

–The myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation.

–The myth that gay marriage poses a threat to the traditional family.

–The myth that Ronald Reagan reduced the size of the federal government. (Actually, it was Bill Clinton who did that. Reagan increased the size of the government.)

–The myth that John Wayne was a heroic American.

–The myth of the free-enterprise system. (There’s really no such thing. Capitalism doesn’t work without the government regulating finance, commerce and manufacturing and protecting consumers and the environment.)

–The myth that the War on Drugs is anything but a disastrous experiment that has corrupted law enforcement, unduly burdened the criminal-justice system, nourished a culture of crime and ruined countless lives.

–The myth that capital punishment is an effective deterrent and can be administered fairly with the proper safeguards.

–The myth that Republicans are more patriotic than Democrats.

–The myth that embryonic stem-cell research destroys fetuses.

–The myth that intelligent design is science.

–The myth that the “good old days” were good and that America has lost its moral bearings.

I could go on, but you get my drift.

The Republican Party should change its name to the Mythical Party.

Here’s one good reason why Bill O’Reilly should regularly read Applesauce

16 comments April 23rd, 2009

 

 Actually, there are many reasons why Fox News blabber Bill O’Reilly — nay, all misled right-wingers — should read this award-winning blog. But the principal reason is that historical truths are the stock-in-trade here.

 Consider, for example, O’Reilly’s embarrassing INSISTENCE on his show last night that Richard Nixon never met with Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong.

 O’Reilly could have avoided such foolishness if he had been an  Applesauce regular. Surely, he would have noticed the photo (above) published here on Monday of Nixon chumming with Mao and giving him a warm, two-handed shake.

 Let this episode be a lesson to all wingnuts. If you miss a day of Applesauce, you run the risk of making some historical claim that doesn’t jibe with the actual record. 

We professional bloggers outnumber firefighters or computer programmers

Add comment April 23rd, 2009

 

 Much to my surprise, I find that I’m a member of one of America’s fastest-growing professions — bloggers who profit from their labors.

 There are umpteen gazillion bloggers on the Internet, but only 1.7 million of them get paid for their efforts — and 452,000 depend on blogging as their primary source of income. But that makes professional bloggers almost as numerous as lawyers.

 Mark Penn OFFERS some interesting slants on this phenomenon, including the observation that bloggers “on the extreme right or left, or those that are the most titillating, seem to drive the most traffic through their sites. The center doesn’t seem to have either the edge or the passion to grab the same kind of traffic.”

 That argument is in keeping with points made yesterday in the first few comments on THIS POST.

For first time in five years, more Americans than not say country’s moving in right direction

15 comments April 23rd, 2009

 

 A new Associated Press poll SHOWS that a plurality of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction, evidence that President Obama has succeeded in lifting the national mood during his first 100 days in office.

 This is the first time since January 2004 that an AP poll has found more “right direction” respondents than “wrong direction.”

 The survey also shows that 64 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance.

 POSTSCRIPT: The AP poll was conducted over a five-day period after last week’s Fox News tea parties. The results belie the notion that the angry (and largely anti-Obama) mood among the tea partiers represented anything close to the majority view.