Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Well, actually, the last few days' worth o' opining on the public discourse, but I was busy with the Peacemakers.  Most of this may be old news to ye.  Hopefully there'll be enough bits that are news to you to make up for it.

I'm sure everybody knows A.G. Holder decided to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed's in New York City for his role in 9/11.  And I'm sure you know what came right after that decision was made.  That's right - a parade of jackasses, all using this as an opportunity to fearmonger.  We had Boehner, Bond, Palin, Kristol, Giuliani, assorted Illinois pols, Limbaugh, O'Reilly - and every other fucking Con, wanna-be Con, Con hanger-on, and right-wing fucktard in the country - pissing their pants in terror, calling for suspension of the Constitutional right to trial, shitting upon the values our country was founded on in favor of eye-for-an-eye, dictatorship-quality sham justice. 

Glenn Greenwald said it best when he said:

This is literally true:  the Right's reaction to yesterday's announcement -- we're too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country -- is the textbook definition of "surrendering to terrorists."  It's the same fear they've been spewing for years.  As always, the Right's tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers.  Indeed, it's hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system.  They didn't allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice.  Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country's 2004 train bombings.  The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London.  Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali.  India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents.  In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

It's only America's Right that is too scared of the Terrorists -- or which exploits the fears of their followers -- to insist that no regular trials can be held and that "the safety and security of the American people" mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials.  As usual, it's the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of "strength" and "courage" to hide what they really are.   Then again, this is the same political movement whose "leaders" -- people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts -- cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive:  the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded.  Given that, it's hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world.  It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate -- it's too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists -- is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.

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A surrender which they seem to enjoy a bit too much.  One might get the impression they're suffering from a fetish of some sort.  It's apparently a recent development, because as Steve Benen points out, we've prosecuted dangerous terrorists on American soil many, many times before without this hysterical bullshit:

Or, put another way, why are we even having this conversation? When we got Zacarias Moussaoui, we charged him, tried him, convicted him, and locked him up for the remainder of his miserable life. Republicans and Fox News personalities didn't whine like children; it was simply a process that followed the rule of law.

The same is true of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, Richard Reid, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, Jose Padilla, Ali Saleh al-Marri, John Walker Lindh, and Masoud Khan. The U.S. justice system has tried, convicted, and imprisoned hundreds of terrorists. Not one has ever escaped; not one has ever tried to escape.

And more to the point, when each was subjected to the criminal justice system, Republicans and their allies never complained. When they were sent to supermax facilities on American soil, no one whined about it or tried to scare the public.

It's hard not to get the impression that conservatives are throwing a tantrum based on nothing more than the hopes that Americans won't notice how foolish and cowardly they appear.

And, as Rep. Jim Moran said, "It's un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial. It's against our principles as a nation."

I don't like accusations of people being un-American tossed around lightly, but in this case, it's richly deserved.

Moving on to the other rampant stupidity that piled up whilst I was away enjoying fantastic live music and some rare time out with friends, let's check in with some zombie lies.  It looks like blaming the Community Reinvestment Act for all our economic woes is back in vogue among the hard-of-thinking crowd, despite the fact that chestnut's been roasted, toasted, and pulverized.  

In news of other nuts, Rep. Steve King is harping on ACORN once more, saying that Bob Bauer's appointment as White House Counsel is all a nefarious plot by ACORN to cover up their involvement with the White House or some such bullshit.  Here is the awesome fail of Steve King:

This also comes a few days after another King press release in which he alleged that the resignation of White House communications director Anita Dunn -- Bauer's wife -- was connected to the aforementioned investigation against ACORN in Louisiana.

So King previously seemed to be implying that Dunn was leaving in a hurry because of an ACORN scandal -- and now says that Bauer is coming in because of the same ACORN matter.

Conspiracy theorists are sad, stupid people, aren't they?

Speaking of sad, stupid people, you knew Cons and their rabid followers would be frothing over Obama bowing to the Japanese Emperor and Empress.  But it's just fine with them when Bush plays kissy-face with Arab leaders.  Go figure that - you may invent a whole new branch of mathematics.

I hope you'll be able to afford the necessary calculator.  If not, you can thank Cons, whose delaying tactics on extending unemployment benefits effectively means said benefits got cut.  I have a feeling they've created a whole new set of life-long Democrats.

Here's how clueless Cons are: they're surprised that people got upset with them for voting against Al Franken's justice-for-rape-victims amendment. If they didn't see that coming, it's no wonder two major terrorist attacks, the fact that Iraq would become a quagmire, the fact that the Iraq quagmire would prevent them from capturing the actual asshole responsible for 9/11, Katrina, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression slipped by them, too.

Digby has good news, though - the Cons have learned something from all this:

The good news is that the Republican senators have learned their lesson:

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment. And several aides said that Republicans are engaged in an internal blame game about why they agreed to a roll-call vote on the measure, rather than a simple voice vote that would have allowed the opposing senators to duck criticism.

Right, they forgot to hide their misogyny. (Man, you let your guard down for one minute and those bitchuz are all over you.)

Alas, they always do seem to learn the "don't get caught" lesson rather than the "be better people and don't do it at all" lesson.

While we're on the subject of people who never learn anything, it looks like the Teabaggers have learned from their mistake.  Instead of simply hanging Congressmen in effigy, they now plan to burn them in effigy.  Somehow, they think this puts them on par with our Founding Fathers.  It's like thinking you're Van Gogh because you both drew stars.

Sarah Palin's new book is proving to be the motherlode of stupid that we knew it would be.  In it, she claims that she granted Katie Couric that disastrous interview because, she says, a McCain aide told her Couric suffered from low self-esteem.

McCain aides had the same reaction I did, namely, screaming "Bullshit!" through hysterical laughter.

Palin also proudly proclaims she doesn't believe in evolution, thus laying to rest any doubts anyone may have had regarding her status as world-class fucking idiot.

And, finally, Glenn Beck's back fresh from having his appendix removed.  Alas, it appears his doctors did not take this opportunity to give him a desperately-needed brain transplant.



I'd cry, but I've run out of Vicks.