WWJBAWASAW?

Who Would Jesus Blow Away With A Semi-Automatic Weapon?

Things just aren't getting better, are they?

Boilermakers Settle

Earlier in March, I wrote about the sad situation in Meredosia, IL. Boilermakers local 484 faced a year-long lockout from a company with 1000% profit increase over health care and wages. Below are comments from a co-worker of mine who was instrumental in arranging some donations from my own staff union on behalf of the Meredosia workers:

The 150 workers at the Celanese Corp. in Meredosia, IL have settled their contract after being locked out for almost one year.

The results were mixed. Although they were able to maintain choice of their insurance carrier and push back somewhat against the 35% pay cuts of the Company’s last and final offer, they are still going back to work with deep pay cuts at an extremely profitable company (profits up 1000% last year) These workers’ standard of living has been sharply reduced.

This was a choice of survival, of living to fight another day. With the one year anniversary approaching, the threat of a company inspired “decertification” of the union by the scabs working in the plant was very real. Assessing what “power” they had at this moment in time, they cut the best deal they felt they could. (Those of us fighting subcontracting in our schools have faced similar dilemmas). On $125 week strike benefits and the donations of supporters like us, these workers were able to sustain their struggle for 51 weeks. Their struggle, and ours, continues.

[Our staff Union] contributed over $2000. to Local 484 in the course of their struggle. Small as we are, this was the most per member contributed by any union to this struggle! We can indeed be proud of the role we played and the solidarity we displayed in this fight. Keep the faith!

So there you have it.

Happy Memorial Day.

I tried thinking of something uplifting today, but you know what? It's just not coming to me. I'm sorry to hell that people have to fight in this shitty war, and to my mind one way of honoring veterans would be to manufacture less of them.

But what do I know? I've never authored these kinds of successes.

On the flip side, it looks like we have our own My Lai out of "Not-Vietnam". Complete with coverup and everything.

Mr. Tomorrow celebrates the day with the following quote from Bob Herbert of the NYTimes:

Before you gather up the hot dogs and head out to the barbecue this afternoon, look in a mirror and ask yourself honestly if Iraq is something you would be willing to die for.

It's not for me, or for any of my family that's serving right now. But George Bush has two service-aged daughters. Why aren't they in OCS after graduating from college? If this is such a grand plan full of hope and promise and all? Where are they? Drinking, probably.

And that is not a knock on them.

How are people this stupid allowed be journalists? How, Lord, how is this possible under your merciful care?

It's passages like this that make one realize that actual journalism is no more a valid form of communicating important ideas about the public good than using Mad Libs to pen up fart jokes.

I swear to God. Observe the journalist ask the freaking Senate Leader if he's pandering by scheduling votes on flag burning and gay marraige during an election year.

No, genius, that's not pandering. It's something else. Even though it looks exactly like pandering. Smells like pandering (bullshit, in other words). Tastes like pandering (ewww...). It's clearly not pandering.

Hey, I have an idea: instead of maybe asking Bill Frist whether the Senate doesn't have other business than gay marraige and flag-burining, perhaps point out to him (gently, if it helps you feel better about yourself) that the Senate clearly has more important goddamn things to worry about.

Shitheads.

Jamison Foser has a great long rant up on this subject over at Media Matters for America, but the nitty-gritty of it is that while Democrats are often imputed to have shallow motives dictated by triangulating over the latest poll numbers, Republicans are somehow above all this. Witness the way John McCain makes people weak in the knees, for no goddamn reason whatsoever.

If we had a media that was somehow more useful than a refrigerated igloo, these things might be commonly known. As it is, we get extensive coverage of the between-the-sheets-action of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Prime information real estate like the New York Times wasted on this kind of drivel.

It's pathetic, really.

Attention Newsweek: That was a dumb thing to say

Atrios and Feministing nail Newsweek on their recent mea culpa over a 1986 story they ran that famously contended that middle-aged women were more likely to be victims of a terroris attack than to get married. Apologizing is fine, but this statement is just weak:

Much of the ire focused on a single, now infamous line: that a single 40-year-old woman is “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than to ever marry, the odds of which the researchers put at 2.6 percent. The terrorist comparison wasn’t in the study, and it wasn’t actually true (though it apparently didn’t sound as inappropriate then as it does today, post 9/11).

Oh good. So making shit up is apparently just fine, it's the 9/11 connotations that were a bit tasteless. Got it.

What is it with this guy?

I guess Rahm Emmanuel gets his rocks off by handpicking his own candidates over those preferred by local democratic activists. It's not just Christine, either.

Halfway around the country in sunny California, Jerry McNerney has put up a fight against the loathsome Richard Pombo. According to his Wikipedia entry, he ran last time against Pombo and did better than any democrat has. So naturally, the DCCC has its own favorite son for the race, Steve Filson.

Nothing against Mr. Filson, as I never met the guy. But McNerney's 2004 story rings damn familiar compared to Christine's, and it doesn't look good when the DCCC chair is going against the wishes of the locally (in McNerney's case--enrdorsed) supported candidates. Instead of proving they can't win because you've arrayed your institutional support against them, why not support them because they were willing to go it alone when no one was paying attention? Talk about rewarding your sacrificial lambs with a nice stab in the back.

Mr. Emanuel, not only do I not like your politics, you also seem to have a tin ear when it comes to encouraging people to get involved in politics. And for that, I award you a golden turd:















Okay, so it's not golden, but then neither is Mr. Emanuel. But it is turdly, and so is he.

Bad week

We just got a Mac Book, Airport, and Firewire, and if you know what any of this means, you're one step ahead of me. Work continues to place my family jewels in an unrelenting vice.

I just thought I'd pass along this pearl of wisdom:

"It is not entirely true that Bush has betrayed everyone. The 1% of his voter support that came from big business corporate America - he's been truthful to them. They have gotten the legislation, the appointments; I can't think of any issue that they have strongly supported where Bush has opposed them."

Who's that quote from? Ralph Nader? Dennis Kucinich? Howard Dean? Probably, it's from that Maverick (TM), John McCain.

Nope.

It's from Richard Viguerie.

Who's he? Sometimes referred to as one of the 'four horsemen' of conservative mega-strategists, Viguerie pioneered direct mail solicitations for fundraising in Republican campaigns. He's not complaining that Bush has only stayed faithful to his corporate masters, following their every fevered wish with legislation. Trust me, if there's one thing that Richard Viguerie believes in, it's corporate interests.

For what it's worth.

***BREAKING NEWS***

Tommy Hilfiger tries to 'Reinvent Axl Rose' at celebrity birthday party in NYC.

Not good news.

Holy crap.

*UPDATE: Apparently this is some kind of a hoax. But Jesus, who would make up something like this?

Two pieces of totally unrelated news. Seriously.

On the one hand, the President is just blatantly lying about the effect his new tax cuts will have on the budget. Lying, I might add, which is flatly contradicted by his own Secretary of the Treasury. Now that's shameless!

On the other hand, Americans apparently don't think Bush has much personal appeal anymore.

Like I said, totally unrelated. Seriously.

You may recall...

That I laid down a feat of landscaping engineering unheard of Inallmyyears (ha!). I sodded a large part of my backyard. It looked like this:
















Note the striations of the various strips of grass and the exposed dirt and rock. Now it looks like this:















I challenge you to find a piece of more-expertly laid sod anywhere in this great land. And while you're looking, Petunia will keep a watchful eye over the homestead:















Evildoers, consider yourselves warned. She will lick you into submission, which is worse than it sounds, given her penchant for eating her own poop.

Now, I am not a saint.

But I probably have an edge out over this guy (via feministing)...

"An attempt to stamp out feminism will have less of a chance of success than an attempt to stamp out cold; neither of them exists."

Oh, really? That's weird. I had always heard it did.

"Feminism is an effect such as malnutrition, diabetes, and cirrhosis of the liver; they are all symptoms, not entities unto themselves."

But I thought it didn't exist. Diabetes certainly exists. Cirrhosis of the liver certainly exists. Oh head, why are you spinning 'round? Oh Earth, why do you shake beneath my feet? Please sir, don't let me interrupt such serious philosophizing.

"We have reduced our ability to create good. The greatest societal good comes from the family and there can be no family without patriarchy."

That's weird, I'm in a family. I do not have the patriarchy happenin'. Wait till Dr. Mrsinallmyyears hears about this! We totally misfiled our tax returns, dude.

Poor Western man, his life has been torn asunder by those bad feminists.

Oh yes, to be a man in the highly developed, rich, western world. With its high standard of living, education, and health care. What a piteous creature. Much worse off than a man from the Sudan, or Iraq, or shit, Mexico. You've certainly got a point there, friend. Rap on, brotherman.

"...our society has lost its virility, nurturing has decreased, women have lost all sense of propriety, and our society is collapsing."

Women have lost all sense of propriety? Sign me up!

"Only virile men who will rise up and assume their familial responsibilities can create the conditions where nurturing can take place and good will develop."

Virile men, rising up? Together? With no women anywhere (except for in their rightful place, wherever that is). Someone sounds a little light in the loafers, if you know what I'm sayin'.

And I know you do.

Used CD's rock.

I found this for $7. It's amazing.











I was nervous. With trepidation, I loaded it into iTunes. The result? Sweet ska goodness. God Bless you, Skatalites, and all thanks are due to the Lord of Used CD Stores.

And another another thing...

Would the spokespeople for the party of Tom Delay, Duke Cunningham, Alphonso Jackson, Elliot Abrams, Ollie North, Scooter Libby, Dan Safavian, James Tobin, and Jack Abramoff please, please, please stop complaining about how people who support immigrants' rights are supporting criminals and amnesty for their crimes (and that was just a list of the current gang).

Please? Please.

And what he said:

Of course, the greatest irony is that the only halfway decent excuse for keeping immigrant laborers segregated from the rest of the working class is the faux-righteous outrage that the immigrants in question are “breaking the law”. One wonders where these defenders of civic virtue have been over the past few years as the Bush Justice Department has made a deliberate effort to cut down on the enforcement of laws that make it a crime to hire undocumented workers. Apparently the only crimes worth shedding crocodile tears over are the ones committed by poor Mexicans. Perhaps we should take a cue from the Republican response to the President’s own lawbreaking by working to bring immigrants’ residency status back “within the scope of the law”.

And what he said:

NEW RULE. To follow up on Matt's spat with David Frum, I think a rule needs to be adopted: If you don't care about income inequality normally, you're not allowed to make it your central argument against immigration. Frum is a guy who, throughout his career, has argued that income inequality has simply been a surge of salaries at the top. And he's been similarly unconcerned about mobility (which has decreased across the board, not just for Mexicans). The rich get richer, but the poor don't get poorer, so why worry? And to show how attentive he's been to the issue, searches on his blog for "inequality" or "mobility" turn up, literally, nothing. But when the subject turns to immigration, both become issues of paramount importance.

Last night, over drinks at the Rooster, we were talking about what separated intellectual dishonesty from simple dishonesty. And this is an excellent example. Frum's arguments on intergenerational wage convergence among Latinos aren't lies. So far as I can tell, and my read was admittedly quick, they're perfectly true. But Frum isn't a guy who cares about intergenerational wage convergence, or equality of incomes -- he's dishonest in his concern. He may worry about what low incomes or poor educational attainment are correlated with, but he's curiously unwilling to make that connection explicit. To be fair, though, Frum isn't the only, or even the worst, offender. That comes in the right's widespread adoption of George Borjas's work, which I say more on here.

Yep. I'm done with this.

And another thing...

Something occurred to me while I read this article about how the LAX Hilton suspended some union supporters during an organizing drive. It's kind of an article of faith among HR people these days that this generation of workers don't plan their careers with the intention of working for one company their whole lives. I think that's largely true.

But another group of people carry a very different set of priorities--hispanic immigrants, who carry a community-oriented set of values that tend toward loyalty to an employer as well as a community-oriented sense about unions. I just think that this is a part of the story that's largely been untold in the immigraton debate.

Good grief.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but this does not inspire confidence in our prospects for transparent and clean elections.

I cannot believe that someone in the business of making voting machines doesn't perceive that some people may want to steal elections. That's like a cop not believing some people want to make meth labs or the FBI not believing in the Mafia. Well, strike that last one.

It's not good.

The Fifty State Strategy

I don't know how you feel about it (Super-Smart guy Chris Bowers lays out the case for it here), but Atrios nails a good point. Democrats, liberals, progressives, even socialists, are constantly being told that they need to reach out to 'red state America.' Okay, maybe not the socialists. But we are constantly reminded 0f how we live in coastal enclaves of moral degeneracy and high standards of living. Or something.

And so the current chair of the Democratic Party decides to reach out to Jesusland, (see below) and the National Democrats like Rahm Emmanuel and Chuck Shumer flip out. Resources are scarce, don't you know.













Well, at some point, if the Democrats are going to ever become a force in areas other than the above-mentioned United States of Canada, then they're going to need to pursue ground-level organizing in enemy territory. And I say that as a native of Jesusland, North Carolina Province.

There appears to be some dispute whether it would be a wiser to take advantage of widespread dissatisfaction with Republican rule by using cash exclusively in certain races, or whether it makes more sense to use the resources for long-term organizing, with less of a focus on the '06 races.

There's never a good time to use resources for long-term work that may have little immediate impact. It will never happen. There will always be a reason not to. The problem with that thinking is that it places a terminal cap on your electoral prospects. You are by definition limited to success in a narrower slice of the nation.

It has often been said that the difference between Republican and Democratic Presidential efforts is this: Republican presidential campaigns are only the top of a very solid pyramid. All of the local activists, state and county parties, think tanks, money men and the rest of it support that person at the top, but largely that person is interchangeable from election cycle to election cycle. There may be differences, but they're not earth-shattering.

Democratic Presidential campaigns are heavily reliant on personality-driven concerns. They are like the pyramid inversed. Take out the invidual candidate, and it can all fall appart quite easily. See Clinton, Bill and Dukakis, Michael.

I think it's easy to see which electoral dynamic works out for better long-term prospects. There is never a time when organizing is not the answer. It might be the harder response. It might be the long-term answer. It is never not the answer.

Wrong on so many levels

I found this one via Labourstart.

Warning: this story contains elements that may not be suitable for younger viewers.

Or those with a freaking conscience. Stamping 'vote no' on the rumps of the hogs you're about to slaughter adds a nice level of what's called 'symbolism' in the literary world.

And justice for the workers came not a moment too soon. By which I mean nine years later.

One That Flew Under the Radar

A big win for the good guys, and one that happened against all probable odds.

Take that, denizens of the Android's Dungeon*

Did you ever wonder what it would be like if male comic book characters were objectified and sexualized like females are? Well, me either, but this woman did, and the results are...interesting.

Truly, the internet enriches our deeply impoverished culture.

*I think I went to high school with the guy who owns that store.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Harry Reid pulled another fast one on Bill Frist on the immigration issue, which goes back to the argument which was made in April that the Democratic leadership isn't so hapless. You can be damn sure that he won't get any credit for the manuever and the hardball bargaining in the media.

This is an area where the Democrats have managed to sow a lot of confusion and chaos among core Republican constituencies. And the fireworks sure have been fun to watch.

I did not know that.

Mink, Louisiana was the last town in the nation to get phone service.

Ok, you're saying so what. Big Deal. A lot of people didn't have phones in the 50's.

That's true. But Mink got its phone service in 2004. The punchline--they started petitioning to get phone service in the 70's.

No shiite. via dailykos.

Wow man, protest music is like cool again.

The problem I have with pieces like this is that they're just shitty.

I mean, that's great that Neil Young finally got the idea that Things Are Bad Enough To Write Songs About. But you know, he's kind of a Johnny-Come-Lately. People have been protesting this situation since the moment it started. Back in 2000. And they did so long before the media ever got the notion that Bush might be something other than a Resolute Leader (TM). In fact, some bands faced harsh criticism for stating the obvious, like the Dixie Chicks. They got called some of the worst names imaginable and their careers were widely predicted to be over. Now that this is obviously not the case, the media is ready to tell us that protesting is kewl.

Well, fuck you. It's part of the problem I have with the music industry in general, which is that it thinks that if it didn't market it first, it's not music, and it's not important. It's a repugnant attitude.

Not The House Appropriation Chair!

Yes, the House Appropriations Chair.

This is the guy who determines what bills will be passed when it comes to your tax dollars. He's on the take.

Vile Vortex

It's like a confluence of corruptions.

Retractions, corrections, and things better left unsaid

The Rachael Maddow Show reported this morning that Mr. Chavez did not ask for one 25-year term as president, but that he could run for the constitutionally-mandated 6-year terms for up to 25 years. Big difference. They're reporting that the AP got it wrong. It is, as Ms. Maddow said, the difference between Castro and FDR.

Which, according to some people, isn't much. But, in my book, it does.

Boy, I'm articulate today.

Demockracy

Hugo Chavez, here is where my support for you comes to an abrupt halt. Putting more money into the half of your overwhelmingly poor population--I'm with you. Building a pan-American alliance against corporate concentrations of power, yeah, I dig it.

But asking for a 25-year gig as "President"?

No sir.

On the other hand, he is asking. That's more than I can say about the President of Kazakhstan, whom Vice-President Dick Cheney this weekend. Cheney had some high praise for Kazakhstan's president.

To wit:

Asked at the news conference how he would evaluate Kazakhstan's record on democracy, Cheney noted his admiration for "all that's been accomplished in the last 15 years, both in the economic and the political realm."

Yes, why the state department classifies their human rights record as 'poor'.

But back to that meeting with the President of Kazakhstan:

The vice president and Nazarbayev held unexpectedly long talks, first spending more than an hour and a quarter together with only interpreters present, then sitting down with aides.

Well, I wonder, I wonder whatever they did talk about. Oh yeah:

Among them, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told Congress recently, the United States is "working on securing the flow of oil" from North Caspian oil fields by tanker to a pipeline terminus in Azerbaijan. That route would bypass Russia and Iran . There has also been periodic talk of building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea.

Of course. So we condemn Hugo Chavez for trying to implement a coup-by-popular vote, as well we should. So a pox on his house. But in Central Asia, nary a peep. When I was in college I sported a hand-scrawled patch on my bookbag that read "My kids and my dollars go to Central Asia." I thought I was being cute. I guess I was just being prescient.

'Another one of those Mysteries'

Yeah, like what happened to that 8 billion dollars in Iraq. Whoops, it just went missing, shit happens, ya know.

On the flipside, if you won't even say why you're leaving, it can't be good. 24/7 Porter Goss speculation is rampant here, here, and here.

Knock yourself out.

Maybe the guy to the left knows something about all of this. If not, I bet he has an 1-800 number for those may have information about this unsolved crime.

Another Installment: Music that Moves Me

Slackers Edition.







Peculiar is simply the best ska album I've ever listened to. It's at turns serious (which is an accomplishment for such upbeat music), mellow, charming, and fun. If you've never given ska a serious shot, know that the genre includes more than the Suicide Machines and No Doubt.

I have a picture of the album cover, but for some reason Blogger isn't cooperating. Trust me that you should go over and get yourself a copy.

Update: Now that you can see the album, you can clearly see why it's worth your $12 or whatever.

So there.

I'm not smart enough to know what this means.

Apparently Israel is planning to divide up Jerusalem in half with the Palestinians. They're engaging this unilaterally, apparently without negotiating it with the Hamas-led government.

Could be bad, could be good. How's that for political analysis?

So I guess it's not the Illuminati after all.

Yesterday, President George W. Bush gushed about the fact that the War on Terror is actually World War III. While you might believe that he's saying this because he's an idiot, part of a murky conspiracy involving the Freemasons, or believes that he's cast in the mold of FDR, Bob Harris over at This Modern World has a different explanation.

Ambien.

Yup.

I think it's just as plausible as anything else. In fact, it would go toward explaining a lot of things.

You're kidding me, right? Right?

Words fail me.

To answer Mr. Cohen, you know what I consider rude? Nearly every damn maneuver to drag our country into the swirling toilet water of certain doom that this President has thunk up or managed to let others convince him to put his imprimatur on. You know, every day of his existence as the head of our nation.

Good grief. Pity the poor President that has too suffer the forthright comedian. It's not like there's anything worse out there than that.

I'm tired...

But not as tired as I will be by week's end.

Read this. Then read this.

You cannot tell me the two are not connected. Well, you could, but you'd obviously be wrong. I mean, obviously.

Chalk one up for the good guys

I guess something moved the people at Unicco. Maybe it was the hunger strike, maybe it was the other striking people at their other Florida campuses. I don't know, but the union got their card check.

Via Workinglife, which is a great website worth a frequent visit.

And while I'm at it, that same post makes a great point--people are really standing up against the corporate rules that shape the world. Their voices must be heard, and they're not whining about lack of media coverage, or the two-party duopoly, they're just doing it because they have no choice.

I've said it before...

...and I'll say it again. Billmon ist smart.

I wish I could it put things like this:

Colbert used satire the way it's used in more openly authoritarian societies: as a political weapon, a device for raising issues that can't be addressed directly. He dragged out all the unmentionables -- the Iraq lies, the secret prisons, the illegal spying, the neutered stupidity of the lapdog press -- and made it pretty clear that he wasn't really laughing at them, much less with them. It may have been comedy, but it also sounded like a bill of indictment, and everybody understood the charges.

If things were going well, if Bush's approval ratings were north of 60%, gas was 80 cents a gallon and the war was being won, I suspect Colbert would have gotten a different reception. His audience could have pretended to be amused -- in that smug, patronizing way we all remember from the neocon glory days. But we're long past the point where the Cheneyites and their journalistic flunkies are willing to suffer such barbs with good humor. The regime's legal and political troubles are too serious, the wounds too open and too deep for the gang to smile while somebody like Colbert gleefully jabs a finger into them.

Ouch.

Today

Today a few hundred thousand folks are expected to descend on my beloved Chicago to express their frustration with an immigration system that rewards employers for living fat off the sweat of hardworking people who labor conditions most of us wouldn't tolerate for pay that most of us would consider insulting.

On the other hand, you have people who argue that illegal immigration should be criminalized to level where it's on a par with spousal abuse or drug trafficking.

The LA Times has written a piece on how busting companies for wage violations has led to sharp decrease in illegal immigration. Companies don't hire illegals because they know that there's no chance a sweatshop environment will be tolerated. Wow. Who knew.

Consider this when you hear talk of a 2,000 mile fence and breaking up families for deportation.

More on 'Signing Statements'

Hello Conservo-Jurists? Rule of law people? Anyone? anyone? 750 times our President has passed a law while issuing a document saying he doesn't have to follow those laws. How many times would be too many? 400? 449? No, wait, 450 definitely would be too many. Oh, wait that's 750 times that the President has decided that he's above the law. We're slouching toward Gomorah, we're galloping toward monarchy. Didn't we once fight a war over this? Say, over 200 years ago?

Dailykos has useful analysis here.

Don't look now...

But here's another reason that drinking yourself to sleep looks like an increasingly viable option.

Speaking Truthiness To Power

Colbert really has a brass pair.

In other news, Eleanor Clift has a piece on Al Gore and why he's running a great campaign to be president. Now that would have been a fine idea, say eight years ago. I worked for Nader's crowd as a college student in 2000, largely because of Al Gore's stance on AIDS in Africa and foreign policy.

Don't get your underwear in a knot, it happened in North Carolina, where a vote for Nader got thrown in the garbage because we didn't get enough votes for a line on the ballot and missed the deadline for write-ins. So in North Carolina in 2000, a vote for Ralph Nader really got tossed in the circular file.

So it's good to see Gore campaign like our lives depend on it when it comes to Global Warming.

3,501

I have no idea if I'm one of the 3,501 people secretly spied on. I doubt it. But I'll never know, and neither will you.

That's fun, eh?

And Lord, while you're at it...

I don't know if you're still in the smiting business, and I don't believe in the death penalty anyway, so maybe you could throw a nasty case of the crabs her way. Something curable and not deadly, unlike her petulantly disgusting ideology.

Thanks.

An Open Letter To God

Dear Lord,

I understand that this is a year where you've proven your inherent justness when it comes to wrongdoers. You know, the people who abuse their station to the detriment of us all.

For that, and for lots of other reasons, Lord, I am grateful.

But you're on roll, see. And here's another chance to demonstrate to all of the world that you don't let a single deed go by unpunished.

Hey, you're God, and it is certainly not my business to tell you what to do, but I will say that meting out justice against the most flagrant of those who throw their invincibility in our faces on a daily basis might result in an uptick in terms of church attendance.

Not that this would be a quid pro quo. That would be wrong. So wrong. All I'm saying is that a little public demonstration of some righteous divine intervention in the case of one Mr. Karl Rove would bring many a well-intentioned liberal back to the flock.

Lord, they're good people, they've just given up all hope.

Sincerely,

Whiskey

p.s., and Lord, after my vacation in the Carribbean (and while I'm at it, Ireland two years ago) I have to say, nice work!

File Under "No Shit, Sherlock."

I like White House Briefing. Dan Froomin generally provides really good insight into inside-the-beltway-games, and his insight is usually that they're full of crap (as opposed to he-said/he said journalism, which is really just stenography).

But this paragraph about Fox News Head-turned-White House News Head Tony Snow had me in stitches. After going on and on about what a breath of fresh air Snow will be, he reacquaints himself with reality. To wit:

"There has been a natural and growing antipathy in the press corps toward this White House -- not because of its politics, but because of its unprecedented nontransparency. After McClellan, who endlessly repeated talking points, gave no ground, offered no insight, provided no access, Snow is in for an inevitable honeymoon.

But it's still entirely possibly that, in the long run, Snow will simply represent a more charming, energetic, engaged and plugged-in way of continuing to tell the press nothing."

Gee, Dan you think? I'm sure George Bush woke up last week and said, "Despite my unrivaled penchant for secrecy and legislative autonomy, by gum, today's the day where the American people really find out what's going on in this White House."

The Great American Going Out of Business Sale*

This report from the Center for American Progress (via Tapped) draws some damning conclusions about the state of class mobility and more importantly, American perspectives on class mobility. Their findings:

• Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.
  
  
• African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.
  
  
• The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.
  
  
• Households whose adult members all worked more than 40 hours per week for two years in a row were more upwardly mobile in 1990-91 and 1997-98 than households who worked fewer hours. Yet this was not true in 2003-04, suggesting that people who work long hours on a consistent basis no longer appear to be able to generate much upward mobility for their families.
  
  
• By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.
  

So what does this mean? The economy's methods of wealth generation are failing for the mass of Americans. The middle class is (by and large) disapearing. It's been noted over and over and over and over that jobs that used to sustain families are gone (and the unions that generated those sustainable incomes are blamed for generating middle-class wealth) and the new jobs that are created don't touch the ones they replaced in terms of wages, benefits, retirement security, and so forth. So what to do?

These folks have an idea.

*D4 fucking rock.

And now presenting...

Ladies and gentlemen, straight from the nation's capital Washtington DC, I bring you--

The Whorehouse of Reprehensibles!

That's right. Actual congressmen getting bribed with actual hookers.

Work has really been a kick in the nuts recently so the lack of posts here can be attributed to this. Not my slack work ethic. Honestly.

We're running past satire

And final-stretch dashing, madly, lungs exploding, straight into surreality.

This is kind of weird, don't you think?

I saw this billboard on Saturday when we went to the Sox destroy the Minnesota Twins. That was my first time at Alltell/US Cellular Field/Comiskey Park/Whatever corporation is shelling out the big $$$ to put their name on the door. Dr. Mrsinallmyyears noticed it, for credit's sake.

I suppose I'm not surprised that Ann Coulter is using the date to shill her crap, either.

The Evolution of a backyard space

This lowly space had been: An above ground pool, then an empty spot of sand and dirt with a ton of gravel, the an empty spot of sand and dirt with no gravel, and finally:
0
This. 1000 lbs of dirt, and 1200 pounds of sod later, this is my backyard. It looks a lot better, don't ya think?

Crikey.

Last week was a rough one, work-wise. It was pretty non-stop, which is why this blog has gone a little dark. 'But Whiskey', you're clearly thinking, 'you had the weekend to deliver us some of your pithy, cynical, and yet hopeful brand of insight.

Alas and alack, I would that it were so. You see faithful reader, this weekend I had sod to contend with. That's right. Sod.

Mrs. Drinallmyyears and I got rid of an above-ground pool late last summer that came with our current dwelling when we bought it. This left a 20' diameter sand hole in my back yard that I finally got the gumption to get my 1000 lbs. of dirt and my 34 rolls fo 2' x 5' preplanted grass to deal with it.

I will put picture up to prove it to you when I get the chance.

Until then...

Here's proof that the Republicans actually spent serious time and resources in the 1990's 'looking for an enemy' because they realized they didn't do as well in the polls when people aren't scared shitless.

I kid you not.

No heroes, no bosses.

One thing that the media traditionally gets wrong about the labor movement is that there's two types of personalities they focus on--one is the hero. Cesar Chavez falls into this category. The second is the union 'boss'. Think Jimmy Hoffa.

But the thing is that for staff representatives who take this very seriously, you know that you're not the one making it happen--your members are. This is crucially important to understand. I help prepare, help organize, help facilitate, help strategize, explain options and other things like that.

But I cannot cause people to care about anything, nor motivate them to fight for something that they're not already willing to fight for. The 'iron rule' of organizing is that you should never, never, never do for others what they should be doing for themselves. I try that out on Mrs. Drinallmyyears, but she doesn't seem to believe it's such an iron rule. More like an iron guideline.

At any rate, in that spirit I bring you this story of Hiram Ruiz, a staff rep with SEIU 11 who has been leading the fight with Unnico, a custodial contractor with the University of Miami. You remember that story, right? Well the Herald piece nails it quite nicely.

Carry on.

It's Easter (or as TBogg would have you believe Zombie Jesus Day) and I'm celebrating with Mrs. Drinallmyyears and Momma Inallmyyears. The DVD versions of both Sky High and Betwitched await us. I will be sneaking booze into my afternoon diet.

I'd also like you to notice the 'local yokels' section of my blogroll. I do this not because I think the bloggers in question are yokels (although being from North Carolina, carrying such a distinction is NOT an insult) but because it's good to throw up some blog goodness from deep within enemy territory, in this case DuPage Co.

Two good stories from their necks of the woods. The first has to do with Christine's endorsement of Duckworth and what the local activists like us have to say about it Ms. Tammy. The second has to do with an experience Tech Teacher had with the Roskam folks. One spare Roskam bumper sticker + one car obviously owned by liberals = sitcom hilarity.

Or at least one very angry liberal. Hey, I'd be pissed too.

And on my own, I'd like to point out that the Naperville bus drivers face outsourcing. One of my colleagues represents them, and is doing his damndest to see that their wages, pensions, benefits and livelihoods aren't stolen from them. He's a good guy, trying to do a tough job.

This editorial to the contrary, outsourcing this kind of public resource is a really bad idea. Private contractors in this sector can absolutely be fly-by-night operations, and once a school district has made a decision to sell off its bus fleet, they'll likely never have the resources to re-purchase one again. Then there's the fact that these kinds of employees are the most likely to live in the community, which further debases the argument that the school district values its connection to the community.

Viva Viagra--a tagline that's sure to pick up my internet traffic.

Kevin Drum has the goods on lawmakers who wish to ban RU-486 for its supposed (and unproven) risks to women yet defend the wang-improving Viagra despite its incidences of inducing death. One thing I'm not very clear on is whether RU-486 is the same thing as emergency contraception or whether it's something different, but the hullaballoo about the 'morning after pill' should be thrown in the mix as well.

Don't look over here.

The class war continues comrades.

And they are kicking our asses.

Catch them thar greasy ol' job-stealin' whatchamacallits

The Republican Penn State University engages in some racist hijinks.

"The College Republicans at Penn State University wanted to enter the debate about the nation's borders by playing a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game."

People would be invited to "catch" group members wearing orange shirts symbolizing illegal aliens."

Sounds good to me. Next we'll be taunting them with water bottles while they pretend to die of thirst in the desert. Just some family fun, if you ask me.

"You have to be creative to get students to listen to you," sophomore Chuck Knight wrote in a letter to the editor published recently in the student newspaper, The Daily Collegian. "For that matter, you have to be creative anytime you are trying to raise concern about something."

I couldn't agree more. Next up--a real cake walk to heal the racial divide!

Apprently the same thing went down in Bloomingdale Township

I can't say I'm surprised, but the similarities are eerie (which is a word that never looks like it's spelled correctly).

Please also notice the new link to the right--6th Dems. Yeehaw.

Wow, now I'm depressed.

Billmon has a sobering look at what might happen if we decide to get all medieval on Iran.

I think he's probably right. Prescient even. I predict the following percentages for American reaction to just such a first-nuclear strike on a minor regional power:

15%--Giddy beyond belief. Hey man, the end times are near! Pull up a lawn chair and Foreman Griller! Throw on an extra burger fo' da Lord!

30% --Mildly relieved to see something happen over there. I mean, Those Iranians Sure Are Pricks, Aren't They?

35%-- Mildly concerned about nuclear conflagration in the Middle East. Angry at the 15% below for being too shrill and anti-American in their outrage at the war that's unfolding.

15%--Can we please please impeach these people already? Is it rude at this point to say I told ya so?

5%--Undecided. What is Iran anyway? Is that that, uh, Flock of Seagull's hit from the 80's? I love that song, man.

My Sushi and My $$$ go the Unification Church (and therefor, to the Bush Family)

The Chicago Tribune has a good investigative report up about how one of the premier suppliers of raw fish for Sushi is:

a.) either a front group for the Unification Church itself

or

b.) Not another front group for the Church, but merely part of its empire.

Hey! And click here to learn more about the politicians living large off its coffers, including the Bush family and Chicago's own Danny Davis: Democrat!

Dig this choice quote about True World Food:

But not all of True World's employees are church members. Tuna buyer Eddie Lin recently left True World for Fortune Fish Co., a local rival. Lin said his former workplace was not overtly religious, but he added that as a non-church member he felt his ability to advance was limited. "You can feel the difference between the way they see members and non-members," Lin said.

Sounds like another faith-based iniative to me!

Now this is how you organize!

The Washington Post today has two great stories:

One is how the President (yet again) misrepresented the facts to stretch his case. Whatta guy!

The second, and the one I draw your attention to tells the story of how labor, religious and hispanic groups organized the recent demonstrations against the Sensenbrenner bill. It's a good tale of a lot of thankless work gone right.

The other story I point your way is on the same subject and is also about strategic organizing. It follows up on the piece I posted about earlier--namely that Democrats are for once, out-organizing their Republican counter-parts on this issue. It's also a well-done analysis.

This Guy Would Have Been Shouted Down Last Night.

Which is kind of funny, given his background as a retired Marine Lt. General. He says that Eye-Raq was a mistake he saw coming, and blames the military for not speaking up about what a ginormous clusterf*ck it was so clearly going to be.

Read it and weep.

I should change the name of my blog to read it and weep.

How about some democracy here in DuPage?

Irony is a funny thing. As we're now up to 2,361 dead in a war supposedly fought to bring democracy to the poor benighted people of Iraq, I thought I'd share the evening's events with you.

I just returned from the yearly meeting of York Township. Some of us Cegelis peeps had the notion to put a non-binding resolution on the November ballot calling for the withdrawal of troops from Eye-raq.

Except that the Township elders (and by elders I mean greasy Republican politicos) caught wind of our little plan and called in their chits (by which I mean city and township workers--including the janitor for the building who was present). Their chits showed up in force and hilarity ensued.

Allow me to paint the picture. A motley collection of a few youngsters, lots of little old ladies, and some grey-haired Democratic activists surrounded by a sea of retired white people and large men with slick-backed hair.

A bendediction was held. The lord's name was invoked. Whether his grace moved anyone to act, I'll let you decide.

The pledge of allegiance was invoked, referencing the glory of what the old man mc'ing the ceremony referred to as 'the greatest flag on the whole earth.'

Because if it had been a competition between us and the half-earth flags, that might have been a contest. Luckily for us, we're looking only at whole-earth flags here.

The first vote was on who'd moderate the debate. Our candidate (a worthy man) went up, and so did theirs. By voice vote, we lost. We asked for an actual count, because their voice vote was mostly yelling by large township employees. We took another voice vote (I am shitting you negatively) to determine whether we should use voice vote to select the moderator. You won't be surprised to learn that we lost.

At that point, the smarmy fuck of a moderator took over. Motions were made to skip through the entirety of the agenda, including old business, the reports of the treasury of the township and updates on township business.

Another old lady (and a worthy one) stood up to ask why we couldn't talk about y'know, the stuff the township had been doing and all. She was told printed versions were availble after the gig was over.

A motion was held to close questions to the people who were running the show. Someone stood up, and pointed out that if we're going to voice vote that this would hardly be appropriate.

I stood up, and pointed out that if I'd known it was going to be a voice vote I'd have grabbed my megaphone. I seconded the other dude's idea that we do some other way of counting. At which point the moderator just started talking over me.

Did I mention he was a smarmy fuck?

So we finally got to the portion where our non-binding resolution was to be considered. I was ready. Here was going to be some fireworks! I was totally ready to be called a traitorous scummy hippy commie bad person.

Nope. We introduced an item to amend the agenda to include the non-binding resolution on withdrawal of troops. It went down in defeat. No debate. Nothing. It was over. Please reread that first paragraph again with this in mind.

A benediction was held, which we walked out on. I hope the Lord didn't take it personally.

Mrs. Drinallmyyears and I were talking about it afterwards, and you know, I have to ask: what the fuck were these Republicans scared of exactly? This is DuPage County for Christ's sake. They should have been itching to show just how beloved Dear Leader's war really is. This would be the one place where he'd be assured victory--he sure as hell can't seem to get it in the actual war we avoided having a debate over.

Oh well.

Oh, and the troops that we're protecting from this kind of debate? Five more died today.

Irony is a motherfucker.

Now here's a headline I can live with!

Wal-Mart Hearing Joins Banks, Unions.

It's good to see a little cross-class solidarity against the Beast From Bentonville.

Wow, look at that.

A comprehensive timeline of NOFX history. I'll be damned. And I learned something new:

We needed a police escort from the stage to our bus, and then a police escort out of town. The last thing the bikers said to our crew guy was ‘I’m not going to stab you. I’m going to put a screwdriver through your heart and kill you.’ We are never going back to Scotland.”

And with that attitude, who can blame them?

The hills are alive...

...with the sound of music.

What can I say? I've been inspired by the von trapp experience!

Yesterday was a long day

But it was a good one. I bargained (well, I think) last night, and then Mrs. Drinallmyyears and I went to see The Inside Man.

What a movie. This is a new crime classic. Every moment it was truly a Spike Lee movie, and I was hooked. Great story, amazing script. Amazing shots, and beautifully made.

Plus, Captain von Trapp was in it! Yeah, he's still kickin' around.

And God love him, he actually plays a, well, I wouldn't want to give it away.

Holy crap.

500,000 marched yesterday in DC. It's like a Benneton ad on steroids, and hyped to the umpteenth power.

I wonder if James Sensenbrenner noticed?

Two news hits:

On the one the hand we have a "A staggering collection of misfortunes and failures," according to a longtime Washington hand.

On the other...

Is it too much to suggest impeachment?

Gracious, I'm tired.

Last summer , we got rid of an above-ground pool that came with the house when we bought. There was a nice brown sandy pit about 20' in diameter where once the proud pool stood. No grass, but some sand and lots of gravel. Lots. Lots. Of. Gravel.

7,000 pounds of gravel later (an approximate estimation), plus dinner (macaroni and cheese casarole), plus a trip to the winery for the monthly wine tasting = one tired Mr. Inallmyyears.

The Washington Post confirms it!

Onward Christian soldiers, onward to Tehran. Well, no one can say they didn't know it was coming. You know how they say the sequel is rarely as good as the original? Think about that more a minute. Then weep.

And for extra shits and grins, check out this link to see if the blowhards in question are talking about invading Iraq, or Iran.

Anything's possible, I guess.

A woman who's smarter than I am makes the case that Congressional Democrats are actually pretty well organized and effective, given their current constraints.

Democrats are famously impossible to pin down on certain issues. Just recently, my junior Senator quipped that "People say that Democrats don't stand for anything, but that's not true. We do stand for anything."

I was mighty glad to see the Democratic opposition to Social Security grind the President dead in his privatization tracks. I was happy to see them call out the current leadership on the NSA business (to the small extent that they did). And it's true that when Democrats do put forth their ideas, that the mainstream press ignores them for the most part (when they collide with the convenient media narrative).

I was also glad to see Sullivan point out the following:

When in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Bush quietly suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in order to allow federal contractors to avoid paying the prevailing wage to workers involved in clean-up efforts, Miller led Democrats in handing the president a rare defeat. Appalled that “the President has exploited a national tragedy to cut workers' wages,” Miller unearthed a little-used provision of a 1976 law that allows Congress to countermand the president's authority to suspend laws after a national emergency. While it is usually nearly impossible for Democrats to get bills through the all-powerful House Rules Committee, Miller's maneuver would have bypassed that step and guaranteed an automatic vote by the full House. Bush, faced with a vote he was sure to lose, reversed his earlier action and reinstated Davis-Bacon.

This was a particularly shameful episode in the wake of the Hurricane That Ate Bush's Presidency, and it was quite nice to see Bush eat a nice shit sandwich (served up hot)from a California Democrat over his erstwhile attempt to rob government workers out of a prevailing wage.

The following passage certainly gave me food for thought:

So it is that Democrats can be “hopelessly divided” while voting together 88 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly; just one percentage point lower than the vaunted lock-step Republican caucus. They can be “pathetically ineffective” while dealing a humiliating defeat to the president's biggest domestic policy effort. They can be deemed “weak” and “timid” while setting the terms of the debate for pulling troops out of Iraq.

Huh.

I think I've seen this movie before.

Don't you?

And as I recall, it sucked.

You're kidding me.

My wife has this song as her default ring on her cell phone. I hope she never gets a cab ride from this guy.

Denver Transit Workers on Strike

Here's a good on the ground look at another 'illegal' strike.

More here. Apparently top managers got raises of $40K and $50K. Must be nice.

I'm off to go bargain myself. Then tonight, bargaining preparations until 7 p.m. or so.

Exciting!

Of course!

He's Piggy from Lord of the flies. Why didn't I see it before?

My favorite piece:

The media's defense has been that it can function only within the prescribed information structure. How can we know when the White House is prevaricating, dissembling, not being straight with us, even outright lying to us?

McClellan destroys this line of defense. His inability to finesse the administration line, to tickle its logic, to prettify it, to seem smart about it in the least—and with virtually every one of his prevaricating and dissembling and truth-avoiding utterances becoming the morsels of the daily blog diet—means the media has to struggle even more to justify how it ever believed these num--skulls.

Indeed. How in the world these people ever got taken seriously in the first place should be chapters of 'how not to...' in journalism texts across this great land. Of course, that won't happen.

The case for a just God

Unbeknownst to all of you, I've recently started the process of being confirmed in the Episcopal church. It's the church Dr. Mrsinallmyyears grew up in, and I like their social message. Recently, I've been feeling the need to go in this direction. I've been searching for the proof a just and loving God that actually cares about the affairs of a species (s)he by all rights should long ago have given up on. And myself, I had believed that this is exactly what had happened.

Proof positive for the love of the Lord.

Gimme five Jesus!

And as for little Tom, remember that not too long ago, it was a conspiracy among Nancy Pelosi and Ronnie Earle, the prosecutor who'd been on his ass.

Tom, tonight I drink to your (dis)honor.

I'm becoming a Human Resources Director!

Late April Fool's Day. In other news, I found this link to a PETA website focused on worker rights in the slaughter industry. Now, I normally abhor PETA. Their publicity strategy seems to go something like this: "Is it offensive? If yes, how offensive?"

I honestly cannot understand their strategy at all. So I give the props where the props is due.

Does anyone in this administration ever get fired? Ever? What do you have to do? Seriously.

I give you the following:

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration.
...
The White House was largely successful in defusing the Niger controversy because there was no evidence that Bush was aware that his claims about the uranium were based on faulty intelligence. Then-CIA Director George Tenet swiftly and publicly took the blame for the entire episode, saying that he and the CIA were at fault for not warning Bush and his aides that the information might be untrue.
...
"Presidential knowledge was the ball game," says a former senior government official outside the White House who was personally familiar with the damage-control effort. "The mission was to insulate the president. It was about making it appear that he wasn't in the know. You could do that on Niger. You couldn't do that with the tubes." A Republican political appointee involved in the process, who thought the Bush administration had a constitutional obligation to be more open with Congress, said: "This was about getting past the election."
...
Only two months before Wilson went public with his allegations, the Iraq war was being viewed as one of the greatest achievements of Bush's presidency. Rove, whom Bush would later call the "architect" of his re-election campaign, was determined to exploit the war for the president's electoral success. On May 1, 2003, Bush made a dramatic landing on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce to the nation the cessation of major combat operations in Iraq. Dressed in a military flight suit, the president emerged from a four-seat Navy S-3B Viking with the words "George W. Bush Commander-in-Chief" painted just below the cockpit window.
...

Because the Bush administration was able to control what information would remain classified, however, reporters did not know that Bush had received the President's Summary that informed him that both State's INR and the Energy Department doubted that the aluminum tubes were to be used for a nuclear-related purpose.

(Ironically, at one point, before he had reviewed the one-page summary, Hadley considered declassifying it because it said nothing about the Niger intelligence information being untrue. However, after reviewing the summary and realizing that it would have disclosed presidential knowledge that INR and DOE had doubts about the tubes, senior Bush administration officials became preoccupied with ensuring that the text of the document remained classified, according to an account provided by an administration official.)

I'm going to fix a strong drink. That's what modern life is doing to me.

The lights are on again.

I know it seems like I only deliver bad news, and hey, that's pretty much true. But I still feel obligated to pass on to you this most recent documentation of the fact that not only are we all headed to hell, but that the skids are apparently getting greased with the blood of innocents. As usual.

Read more here.

Also, Christine lost. Tammy Duckworth won. Congratulations, Rahm.

Fucker.

I'll still vote for Tammy, but my ability to get and bust my hump for her will depend quite largely on how she comes across in person to her own volunteers. I hope she inspires more confidence than she has thus far.

Archpundit has his rundown.

The light of reason and hope that is In All My Years will go dim this week.

See below for more details.



(I'm going on a cruise.)

See ya Sunday.

Donna's kids

Donna's kids.

You know, the ones who clean up dorm rooms, classes, facilities. Can you imagine cleaning up after the students at UM? Would you want to? I wouldn't.

Here's the latest on their walkout.

From one of their own.

It's hard to believe people this incompetent keep their jobs. Or: That Darn Librul Media Vol. XXXVIII

It must be their union, galldarn unions keep dead weight from gettin' fired, that's all they do.

Some choicest quotes from the wayback machine:

Now that the combat phase of the war in Iraq is officially over, what begins is a debate throughout the entire U.S. government over America's unrivaled power and how best to use it."
(CBS reporter Joie Chen, 5/4/03)

"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."
(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)

We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)

"The war winds down, politics heats up.... Picture perfect. Part Spider-Man, part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan. The president seizes the moment on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific."
(PBS's Gwen Ifill, 5/2/03, on George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech)

We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 5/1/03)


"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star, and one of the guys."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)

"Well, the hot story of the week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."
(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)

The final word is what again?

More here. Someone can surely easily explain to me why we keep these boobs on the air.

Jesus Christ. Please take me home, Lord.

I bring you the following. Read it and weep. Weep aloud if you voted for this clod because you were put off by John Kerry's effete frenchness, your dislike of his wife, or some other such piece of trivia that has nothing to do with anyone's ability to actually run a government. Read this, for it's your legacy as much as his.

President Bush has decided to stay out of the lion's share of decisions made by his administration.

Sources close to the administration said that over the last year, Mr. Bush has chosen to focus on two issues, leaving the rest to be decided by Cabinet members and senior aides. They said the issues are Iraq and the Republican congressional campaign in the 2006 elections.

"Lots of important issues that deal with national security are never brought to the president because he doesn't want to deal with them," a source familiar with the White House said. "In some cases, this has resulted in chaos."

Read the rest here.

Eric Boehlert is smarter than me

And he proves it here. I thought the port deal was a such a shitstorm because the karmic rubber band that is the collective sin and wrongdoing of these fucking people finally snapped.

Oopsie.

I'm pro-censureship

Finally, someone in the Senate is doing something, anything about the President's warrantless spy program. You know, the one he admitted to, and said he'd keep up doing? Well, I called my Senators today, and urged both of them to sign on the articles of censure, and neither one of them has an official position.

Typical.

Meanwhile, the White House is tired. I'm tired too.

For more on the issue, let's go to Michael In Chicago

Michael has the real scoop on the fundraising numbers for Tammy vs. Christine, and what it all means. The short of it is that Tammy did outraise our candidate, but that her 'burn rate' was exceedingly high. 61% to 96% higher.

What's a burn rate? It kinda means the amount of dough a candidate blows through to keep their operations up and running. A candidate with a low burn rate raises good money and spends very little of it. A candidate with a high burn rate is spending like a drunken sailor.

Much had been made of Christine's 'high' burn rate earlier (as a sign of a weak campaign) by some prominent Illinois political blogs, so this is why I'm pointing it out.

The most telling figure is this one:

Itemized Contributions from District:
1.5% Duckworth
64% Cegelis

Duckworth: $4,350 from 8 residents
Cegelis: $25,704 from 85 residents

That pretty much says it all.

Nice coverage for Christine

Here in the Suburban Daily Herald. Yesterday while canvassing with Christine, a photographer from the paper tagged along and the paper version has a nice photo of Christine chatting it up with a local voter.

All in all, the best piece I've seen in a little while. It's also notable that Christine got the endorsement of Dick Simpson, a noted local journalist who's death on the Chicago Machine.

It was a good weekend. Yesterday canvassing, today working a coffee in Streamwood. I had no idea the district was this large. Tonight, dog behavior classes. Tomorrow, the world.

The last one today, I swear to God.

I was at this thing Thursday and Friday, and I met some interesting people.

Members of the Boilermakers Local 484 from Meredosia, IL have been locked out of their place of employment by Celanese Corp., after the employer asked for 33% in wage cuts and the union asked for more time and information.

Members from Local 484 were at the IEA RA (hosted by us at a table with Jobs with Justice) to tell their story to individual members of my union, who are mostly teachers but also school support staff and college facutly.

The guys I met reminded me of nearly every one of the blue-collar workers I grew up with in North Carolina. They were polite, kind of rednecks, but (unlike the folks from my childhood) fiercely determined to win this thing with their employer. So far, only five of the union members have crossed the picket line to go back to work. One of them was a cousin of one of the guys at the RA.

I said that probably was going to make for an uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner. He agreed.

A dear friend of mine from Urbana was trying to hook them up with Lisa Madigan, who is the Attorney General of Illinois. It seems the local Sheriff is harassing the strikers with his squad cars.

This is one in a long line of tragedies that represent the destruction of working class life. But it was a pleasure to meet those guys.

So, how did that Sikorsky rally go?

Pretty well, I'd say.

what I'm up to.

This weekend I'll be canvassing again for Christine. Thursday night I attended a coffee for Christine in Elmhurst and met the guy who was the head of Jimmy Carter's Presidential campaign in Illinois in 1976 and 1980.

No shit. He apparently ran for congress in this district in 1972 as well. He was a pretty nice guy.

Because I'm too lazy to do any original writing...

I bring you the hard work of others. It's a blog round-up!

Via the Huffpost, I bring you...

A Bush aide arrested for shoplifting. Okay, that's not entirely fair. He apparently resigned and then got arrested.

Via the Dailykos, I bring you...

Wrinkled Forehead Penis Man (Joe Scarborough) admitting his disgust at being a Republican! I'm with you Joe! I'd be disgusted too!

Via Jonathan Tasini, I bring you...

A well-written and thoughtful post about why card check has not a snowballs chance in hell of ever passing in the next two decades. But also about how unions are using it anyway.

Via The American Prospect Online, I bring you...

Yet another example of our President being resolute and determined until he isn't and pretends his change of mind was how he felt all along.

Via feministing I bring you...

The Mexican government's attempts to battle sexism in the workplace by creating ads that use blow-up dolls. Why would I make that up?

So there. I hope this satisfies your unnatural cravings for what I think are interesting and important stories and issues.

Oh crap.

Things are bad for workers right now. People are hurting all over. Some of them seek professional counseling to deal with the issues that can seem honestly overwhelming. Professional counseling is a good thing. We should encourage people to seek it out when they feel it is necessary.

One group who has dealt with more than its share of woe are pilots--and the FAA puts them on some kind of list if they do seek counseling.

So here they are, reeling from givebacks, raids on their pensions, their industry is in crisis--and they aren't seeking counseling for fear of reprisal.

I'm flying somewhere soon for vacation. I'm worried.

More on the Sikorsky strike

Apparently the largest labor rally in New England history is being planned to aid the folks on strike against Sikorsky, the company that makes Black Hawk helicopters.

A development to keep your eye on.

It looks like things are moving toward a national strike in the hotel industry. Possibly as soon as this summer.

Update: This Bloomberg piece lays out much more detail on this looming story.

My favorite quote comes from the Hilton spokesman who says that the union's real goal is membership growth, and how that's unfair to the employees. I agree. It's totally unfair to the employees to have a voice at the table. Why, without one, they can take it or they can leave it. Now that's fair!

The Problem with 'Rebellion'

The NYT has an article up today about how the vote yesterday in the House to nix the Dubai Port deal (over a threatened Bush veto) constitutes out and out rebellion.

They also cite Senatorial squeamishness with the warrantless wiretapping program as further proof of a Republican revolt over Bush's signature issue--security.

Here's the problem with this analysis: it's full of shite.

There is no proof that any congressional Republican anguish over any Bush-led anything has resulted in any actual oversight or control.

Remember the Medicare Drug Coverage debacle? Did you hear about any penalties for the open bribery held on the floor, or the three-hour vote that it took to pass the damn thing? Surely you jest.

The absolutely horrid response to Katrina. Get real.

What about the several billion dollars missing in Iraq. Yeah right.

Even the 'outrage' over the wiretapping issue has completely and utterly melted away.

I mean, you could go on and on and on and on and on and, well you get the point. Nothing ever comes out of Republican outrage. Except for more cover for the white house. And there are some Democrats who absolutely aid and abet this, but if there were solid majorities in one or the other house, we'd be looking at impeachment articles by now.

She sounds like quite a lady.

Anne Braden led an exemplary life. Read about her and honor her work.

Blogging officially sucks.

This just in. Wal-mart caught blogging about itself while conspicuously trying to make it look like some random dude was saying nice things about the company.

Jeesus Cheesus.

Christine happenings

I went to church (don't laugh, I know I can't come across as the religious type) on Sunday and had an interesting experience. The Boy Scouts were holding a table in the back of the church for a pancake dinner or some such, and one of their troop leaders asked me if I had any more Christine Cegelis buttons. I gave him mine, and told him if he were interested I had some yard signs in my car. He was excited to get one, and went on to tell me how hard he was pulling for Christine to win.

It's nice when things like this happen to you. I don't imagine they happen that often to Tammy Duckworth's folks. I could be wrong.

One of my fellow precinct activists went to the Duckworth rally which was held at the same time on Saturday as Christine's. I'd post a link to her website's coverage of the event if there were any mention of it there. She reported that even with two sitting senators as a draw that at the most there were ninety or so people there.

She was also told to quit distributing Christine's literature there. I love my fellow activists.

We had around 150 at our rally at the Machinists' hall in Des Plaines on Saturday. Not to compare or anything. And not that we had any prominent rock star politicians shouting or praises. We still managed to pull almost twice as many people in.

Ahem.

Take a gander

At this.

Let's hope she's right. Although Jesus would have bolted long ago.

From the "You Can't Make This Shit Up." Dept...

From the "You Can't Make This Shit Up." Department here at "I Get Tired of Reposting These Goddamn Farces and Tragedies Intl., LLC".

When you come to think about it, LLC is a perfect acronym for the Bush administration. Limited. Liability. Corporation.

Kinda fits, no?

All apologies to Jonathan Schwartz for maiming his joke.

Remember Donna Shalala?

She's dealing with a growing strike over the custodial pay issue. Hey lady, dont' say I didn't tell ya so.

Nathan Newman has Donna's office number up. I called it, and politely told a nice young lady that Donna should do the right thing.

You should too.

(305) 284-5155

Cook Co. Nurses Set to Strike

I think this is the first time they're bargaining since they switched from the Illinois Nurses Association to the National Nurses Organizing Committee.

I know it sounds weird to hear that nurses would strike over something like staffing levels (as opposed to just pay and benefits), but these kinds of issue that affect the public that the strikers serve as well as the strikers themselves are quite common. Nurses are affected as workers by not having enough coverage on their floors, having to run around to increasing numbers of patients, and a general feeling that they're being overwhelmed. I don't probably need to tell you how this affects the people using the hospital's services.