LudwigVan

This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I say he's done. He's just had his own Imus moment. Actually he's had a couple hundred, but this HAS to have gone beyond the pale even for hardcore conservatives. Even the FReepers are turning on him.

99% of 1 out of 150 American children is a lot of parents to offend. Let's see if this coward will say what he said to one of them face-to-face instead of behind the safety of his mic. posted 07/22/2008 at 01:52:54

Ten years ago, in the East Texas town of Jasper (not far from where I was born and raised), three white men killed a man named James Byrd, Jr. by tying him to the back of their pickup truck and dragging him - just for being black. Two of the men, who both were in a white supremacist gang in prison, got death sentences; the other got life in prison.

This lead to "hate crimes" laws being passed in Texas. Though George W. Bush, who was Governor then, opposed such legislations, it was signed into law by current Gov. Rick Perry not long after he took office.

I agree, hateful speech, as loathsome as it, should be legal under the First Amendment. Even the Klan should be allowed to meet. But when hate is a reason for a crime, it absolutely should be an aggravating factor considered in sentencing. And terroristic threat has been a crime long before 9/11. The man who was convicted of these crimes was lucky he only got a year in prison and three years' probation.

The other point of this article is that though the DOJ and other Federal agencies have poor leadership, there are people working in them that *are* doing their jobs. Same goes for FEMA, and I've talked to Katrina evacuees that were thankful for the help they got from the people who helped them, even when Michael Brown, along with so much of the Bush Cabinet, showed major dereliction of duty. posted 07/18/2008 at 20:42:52

So it's still the day as the attacks and they're already blaming al-Qa'ida. Not Turkish ultranationalists, Kurdish separatists, radical Islamists other than al-Qa'ida or just some everyday angry people with a beef with the US - which means about 90-something percent of Turks are potential suspects. I call B.S. here.

It doesn't even seem like al-Qa'ida;s M.O. here. They're all about spectacle, and they seem to prefer massive bombings over gun battles.

Also, I'm getting sick of the media labeling AKP (the majority party in Turkish Parliament) as "Islamists" because they want to make it legal for women to wear headscarves in schools and government buildings. They're conservative and religious, but they're no Taliban.

(Incidentally, they're trying to ban the AKP again.) posted 07/09/2008 at 14:22:14

Well call me Texan, but occasionally I do agree with conservatives, such as in this case, with reservations of course. I do believe in the Second Amendment and the legality of RESPONSIBLE private ownership of firearms. I've always said that if you're liberal, gay, Muslim, atheist or Natalie Maines, you should be prepared to defend yourself any way you can within common sense.

But as with free market economics, unrestricted and unregulated gun ownership is a very bad idea, and the NRA is still a group I wouldn't let my son or daughter be a member of any more than I'd approve of him or her joining Hamas. Bear in mind that too many of these right-wingers don't have the same respect for the twenty-six other Amendments to the Constitution. (Except the Fifth when one of them is on trial.)

I am surprised they struck down the DC firearms ban however; you'd think they'd only care if "gun grabbers" grab guns from White people... posted 06/27/2008 at 20:56:18

We need to make some bumper stickers out of these. (As much as I hate bumper-sticker rhetoric.)

Also, I know I'm late (I've been mad busy lately), and I probably "Xeroxed" some of these, but...

"Change: as sexy as Arianna" ;)
"No more Bushes or Clintons"
"Obama: Much More Than Change"
"Peace, Love and Common Sense"
"Truth Has a Liberal Agenda"
"Barackin' In The Free World"
and I had a few others I forgot, but they probably sucked. posted 06/11/2008 at 16:07:43

I remember supporting Jimmy Carter at age five. I liked his name better than Gerald Ford's.

Seriously, young children, like animals, can still have a good sense of a person's character. Not that Hillary's evil or anything, but it's hard to not like Barack. posted 03/30/2008 at 19:46:13

If you love and live with someone, you bet it's depressing to watch him suffer from the depression (mania isn't as fun as it looks either).

I have bipolar I disorder with a history of psychotic symptoms (they thought I had schizophrenia once) and mixed state. That's when you have mania AND depression, and risk of suicide, self-harm and other kinds of destructive behavior is highest in a mixed episode. I take medication, and it helps somewhat, but it never goes completely away.

I know the disease affected my parents, siblings, closest friends and ex-wife. You really have to have had depression or bipolar yourself to really know how to deal with someone in our predicament. It's hard to explain that my mood swings, lack of or excessive drive, occasionally bad temper or general eccentricity is something we can't always control, and it has no apparent cause. You're walking on egg shells, worried that you might hurt the other person and trigger worse symptoms.

I know because I've been on both sides of the issue: not only do I have bipolar, but so do some of those family members and close friends. posted 03/30/2008 at 20:29:37

As much as I hate the neoconservative cult that Condoleezza belongs to (and the Washington Rev. Moon Times), she's right. It's a birth defect, and another one is religious intolerance, which came here with the Puritans.

Ms. Rice, as much a fanatical Bush devotee she is, is redeemable, I believe. I can say this because she's educated, and I saw moments of free thought in her time as Secretary of State. While Israel was avenging attacks by Hizbullah by razing Lebanon, she called for a cease fire by Israel, while John Bolton refused. This latest statement is a no-brainer, but it's truth. You don't get that much from people in the circle she runs with. (I guess we'll need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for neocon warmongers, like South Africa had for supporters of Apartheid.)

She also avoided controversy by not mentioning God in her statement. posted 03/28/2008 at 12:12:51

I wish I could've gotten to see Sen. Obama on The View this morning. And I HATE The View, with or without Liz Hasselbeck.

But I'd be careful about which YouTube videos you link to. I went to the URL in the video, and in its description it said:

"We just learned that Senator Obama will be on the View. Once again the story of the Pastor will continue to be spinned [sic] by the Jewish Media. Obama defended his religion it is about time the Jewish community stop agitating Obama supporters. You may control the Clintons, Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania the Clintons, the NBC, FOX and CNN etc..You even denied our former President Carter from addressing a University. If this continues we will march for the first time to stop your intimidation tactics. Enough is enough!"

This is not the kind of words we need to be hearing from anyone involved with the Democratic Party. Leave this business with the far-right anti-Semitic crowd. I'm not trying to be a concern troll here; I just want us to be safe here. posted 03/29/2008 at 00:03:55

I'd say he has the paranoia of Dale Gribble and the incoherence of Boomhauer. posted 03/28/2008 at 23:59:40

I'm glad you compared this to a boxing/wrestling match. If one fighter is losing and is unlikely to win, the referee steps in and calls a TKO in order to prevent someone from getting seriously hurt or killed. I've analogized this professional-level chess, where if a player sees checkmate in a number of moves, it is proper for him to resign and not waste the time of the winning player, the judges and the spectators.

Howard Dean and the DNC may need to step in and declare a TKO somehow. I wanted Clinton to stay in the fight until it was clear that someone had won, but now that Obama is all but assured the nomination (barring any dirty tricks from the Clinton camp; you know the story), she is only hurting the Democrats now. posted 03/26/2008 at 14:01:59

This and the Kmiec article are wise reads. The Republicans ceased to be the party of Reagan and Goldwater in 1994, when they became the party of Gingrich, Rove, DeLay and the whole lot of Machiavellians that wanted to gain the world and lose their soul. They became the party of Nixon all over again. It turned me, a Reagan Republican in the 1980s (though I wasn't eligible to vote until '89) into a Clinton Democrat in the '90s, and now an Obama Democrat. My 70 year-old mother, an ex-Republican herself, supports him now.

I'm not pretending Barack will win over hardcore Republicans, but he's already done for the Democrats what Reagan did for the Republicans. He's broadened appeal and helped make the Democrats no longer the party of out-of-touch liberal elites, with the help of Dean and others of course.

When he was here in Austin at a town hall meeting a few weeks ago, he was talking about fiscal and personal responsibility, another way the Dems are more "conservative" than the GOP now. I wish I remembered the exact quote - it might be in a YouTube video on Obama's own channel; I need to look it up. He's also talked a lot about fathers needing to stop abandoning their children, and the need for kids to work harder on their education, things like that. A strong values message. posted 03/26/2008 at 14:55:58

This is not good news for the Democrats. The media may forget about the Obama-Wright thing and start putting Clinton under a critical eye, but McCain can stay safe having already secured the GOP nomination and being able to stay out of the spotlight. We'll all be slagged as be liars and hypocrites again, and we can't count on McCain uttering enough gaffes (the war in Iraq "succeeding", etc.) to get the heat off of us constantly.

That's why dragging this whole contest out any longer is hurting our chances. After losing in 2004, we were hoping for an electable candidate in '08 and we ended up with two, great, but we have got to get ready for the general elections. We can't handle all these distractions. posted 03/25/2008 at 16:33:05

Sadly, Texas has open primaries. That needs to change by 2012 for that very reason. posted 03/25/2008 at 16:26:05

Gary, it's people like you, and Howard Dean and Barack Obama, that make me proud to be a Democrat. I wish you could've won the nomination in 1988. posted 03/25/2008 at 11:31:10

Great, so now we're going back to being overly sensitive about race. posted 03/25/2008 at 11:40:36

So Obama has baggage now. But look at what Hillary has, and has had. She's got Rezko, but not only that, Norman Hsu. And we'll all be reminded of everything that got pinned on her when her husband was President. posted 03/25/2008 at 11:16:35

This is not good at all. It's quackery if you ask me. posted 03/25/2008 at 09:47:01