Shilling for Schilling

Curt Schilling says he doesn't know his ass from a post hole but he's ready to be a United States Senator. One term only.

Think "secondary virginity"

Vitter: I Am a Many-Colored Thing

Josh Marshall | September 7, 2009, 11:15AM

David Vitter (R-LA), the Christian conservative senator disgraced for frequenting prostitutes, tells Louisiana voters: "Character is displayed in a variety of different ways."

So this is how we indoctrinate children-

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

-what you WON'T read at Sunlit Uplands

h/t the delightfully droll Joe.My.God:

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Minnesota: Pastor John Kameron Erbele busted in prostitution sting.
Nevada: Pastor Ladislao Morales charged with molesting a 10 year-old girl.
Florida: Pastor Robert Riddle charged with defrauding his church of $200K. Riddle was previously convicted of stealing $70K from a 91 year-old congregant.
Wisconsin: Father James Blume charged with sexually assaulting a 12 year-old boy in 1978. Blume has been sued numerous times in various jurisdictions for similar crimes.
Texas: Pastor Rodney Terrell charged with grand theft for using the "Nigerian check scam" to defraud parishioner.
Manitoba: Father Raju Madanu charged with breaking and entering his own church to steal a "considerable amount of cash."
Illinois: Father Wayne E. Wigglesworth arrested for picking up a 15 year-old boy in an internet chat room.
Georgia: A Hindu temple has declared bankruptcy after its leader, Dr. Commander Selvam, was arrested for credit card fraud and practicing medicine without a license.
North Carolina: Pastor Johnnie Ray Lewis charged with embezzling $22K from his church.
Florida: Pastor Clevon Ghent charged with child molestation for having multiple three-ways with his adult nephew and a 12 year-old girl.
South Africa: An unnamed archbishop has been arrested for raping two girls aged 10 and 13. Bonus: The archbishop has been divorced nine times.
Ohio: Father Patrick O'Connor charged with molestation of teenage boy. O'Connor was suspended from 2003-2007 while similar charges were investigated.
Washington: Victims of Pastor Robbin Harper win $574K settlement for child molestation. Last year Harper was sentenced to 26 years in prison for child rape and assault.
Delaware: Pastor Timothy J. McDorman sentenced to two years in prison for possession of child pornography and having sex with underage girl.
Montana: The Jesuit Society of Jesus has filed for bankruptcy after paying out more than $25M in child molestation settlements. An organization for children molested by priests claims the bankruptcy is a ploy to discourage more victims from coming forward.

This week's winners-
Colorado: Pastor John Smoker charged with abuse of the mentally disabled. Smoker is accused of blindfolding and dumping garbage on a mentally-challenged man after becoming angry that the victim had not cleaned a church bus to his satisfaction. And at the church's school, Silver State Christian Principal Daniel Brock is under arrest for allegedly fondling several male students. It was a busy week for Red Rocks Baptist Church.

Somewhere, I.M. Pei is laughing.

One-time NBC chief Robert Sarnoff once remarked, "Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until envetually it disappears."

Slate has an interesting tale of how Boston's John Hancock Tower- initially famous for windows that popped out, showing shards of glass on passersby hundreds of feet below- may well be the poster building for the current financial mess.

Facts are so annoying, especially after the fact-

While Patrick J. Buchanan makes out Hitler to have been misunderstood and a reluctant warrior, and the Dining Room Table Crowd make out Obama to be Hitler, it's worth thinking about- perhaps- just what the consequences of a Hitler were, only 68 years ago today from the diaries of Anne Frank:

It was on this day in 1941 that all Jews over the age of six were required to wear the Star of David to identify themselves, in all German-occupied areas.

Anne Frank (books by this author) wrote, "Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.; Jews were forbidden to go to theaters, movies, or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields, or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn't do this and you couldn't do that. But life went on. Jacque always said to me, 'I don't dare do anything anymore, 'cause I'm afraid it's not allowed.'"

When the copy editors take the holiday, so should the writers

Americablog:

UK allowed Lybia to ignore IRA bombing responsibility

Wash Post: Growing angst about Obama among Demcorats

Cui bono?

Let's recap.

Andre Bauer- whose office initially called the story he is gay "malicious," now says it's trivial:

Andre Bauer says he doesn’t think the issue of his sexuality is a proper question but also says he doesn’t mind denying the rumor.

Bauer has been at odds with Governor Sanford and called on him to step down last week.

Bauer hasn't, however, said anything to shoot down Senator Jake Knotts' claim that Knotts is certain the outing story was a project of unnamed "plumbers working" for or at the behest of, the Luv Guv. Mike Rogers, who broke the story, says he did his own shoeleather on the story and nobody played him for the fool. But Rogers hasn't/won't put up any evidence to support his claims about Bauer.

So Rogers says Bauer is gay. Bauer says he isn't. Bauer ally Knotts says Sanford's behind the story. Sanford says he isn't. Rogers says Sanford isn't either. So what gives? Is somebody else playing a really deep game, or is the story true and is the Bauer camp letting Sanford take the heat to distract attention?

One? Three, 76?

Savonarola's peddling a new line of magical thinking headlined:

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2009

Why the Obama Administration Will Implode in WeeksWe'll take the bet. How many, Savvy?

Strange, ain't no soap operas literally consuming our neighborhood, nor has state gummint ground to a halt

Aced out by Mike Rogers, Anaconda's trying to pump some life back into his sex scandal, and the florid writing suggests, once again that Mande Wilkes is the Imaginary Friend who lives in his thumb:

“We don’t know where she is,” a friend of Maguire’s told FITS. “Except that she is not at home with her family.”

That’s a bit odd, especially considering how Maguire cited the need to spend more time with her family as her official reason for resigning.

Also, while Maguire has stepped down from the state board, there’s no word yet on whether or not she has also resigned her post as a SC GOP executive committeewoman. In that role, Maguire wrote the S.C. Republican Party’s education platform, which is obviously far less interesting than Bridget Keeney’s work.

Obviously, Maguire remains a “person of interest” in South Carolina political circles given her proximity to disgraced S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, whose own sex scandal broke earlier this summer. That scandal has since erupted into a full-blown political soap opera that has literally consumed the state and paralyzed its government.

Meantime, Rogers- peddler of the Bauer outing- has a way past the sell-by date copy of state senator Jake Knotts' letter accusing the Sanford plumbers of playing Rogers to smear Bauer under the title "Lies, Lies,Lies."

Rogers still hasn't brought any of his "proof" to the table, though. Odd, that.

Black racists, Communists and a form of Truther conservatives WON'T suck up to

Mike's America, who hates liberals except when it serve his resume padding to note that he studied under Zbigniew Brzezinski, is brandishing a scalp:

Obama's Resident Communist, Racist, Cop Hating, Environmental Whacko, 911 Truther Resigns as Green Jobs Czar

One more under the bus. Who's next? Michelle?

White House Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, (the communist, racist, "Republicans are assholes" 911 Truther) made the following statement at Midnight Saturday:

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me.They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide,"

The vile, hateful and insulting statements this man made (the list above is a short one there are MANY more) is the reason he's out. Instead of taking responsibility for his own words and beliefs he did what most socialist cowards do and blamed someone else.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Yet, there are still many more like him in the White House. Holdern, Obama's Science Advisor who co-authored a book in favor of forced abortions and sterilizations is another. So is the First Lady, who openly proclaimed she was never proud of her country before now.

It's quite a nest of nasty socialist mean mouths they have in the White House and it will take quite a while longer to clean up the mess. But this is a good step in the right direction!

Where will their parents send them on Tuesday?

NYT:

Quotation of the Day

"We see 8-year-olds telling Mom not to worry, don’t cry."

BILL MURDOCK, chief executive of a charity in Asheville, N.C., on the insecurity and turmoil faced by homeless schoolchildren.

Somewhere, former congressman Mark Foley is laughing.

h/t Savonarola:

Diane Jewell is a home schooler mom who let her kid go to public school and not only now regrets it but says the President of the United States should ask her for permission to speak:

She says it is not Obama's place to talk to children directly, without parental input.

Contractors make good contributors

Given Republican opposition to the stimulus package, who knew making a parking lot could be so...Republican?

A chronically poor state, predictable sins

Wired has a chart of how American regions score according to the 7 Deadly Sins.

SC scores big with envy, wrath, and pride; flatlines on greed, sloth, and gluttony. Lust subsume the Low Country and midstate, but seems to halt at the barbed-wire boundary of Bob Jones University in the Upstate.

Jesus is wondering, "Then where's the love, Coburn? Whatcha doin' about it?"

The Hill's Briefing Blog:

Coburn admits healthcare rationing exists in the U.S.

By Jordan Fabian - 09/04/09 04:03 PM ET

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) admitted at a town hall meeting last Thursday that rationing of care exists in the United States, but "not near to the extent it is in the countries that have single payer."

The physician-turned-senator has frequently suggested that current reform legislation will lead to rationed care in the U.S. healthcare system.

"The control of the costs, like every other country in the world that has single payer, the control of the costs is rationing," Coburn said.

This prompted an audience member to say that rationing already exists in the U.S., after which Coburn said that limited rationing of care takes place under the current system.

The conservative Republican's comments represent a concession to Democratic talking points regarding the inadequacy of the current healthcare system in the U.S.

But Coburn held firm in his opposition to a public health insurance option during the town hall meeting in Bentonville, Ark.

"There is no compassion in any government program...Jesus said love your brother as yourself. We need to be about loving, and you can't love through the federal government," the first-term senator said.

"Every system we have today is bankrupt, this one will be too," he remarked, referring to government-run healthcare plans in other countries.

Coburn also criticized Social Security and Medicare in his remarks, saying that they too were "bankrupt."

Time for Rogers to produce the goods or recant the claim

Blog Active's Mike Rogers is piling up proof, day by day, that nitwittery knows no sexual orientation.

Rogers is becoming the Bizarro Boy Fogle: where McLovin' whined that the Grown Up Media discovered FOIA requests and- once having the file on the "So Gay" scoop Fogle hoped would vaunt him into The Show aced him right out of one of the two "scoops" he claimed when he was still "transforming SC politics" (the other was his legendary Vice President Kaine scoop), Rogers is the gay activist who sulks that SC senator Jake Knotts has sucked all the oxygen out of his righteous, Andre-Bauer-is-gay-claim and made it into a Luv Guv dirty tricks team story.

Two problems are emerging from Rogers' Bauer claim:

1) he doesn't have that impressive a track record in terms of numbers. Most of the people he's outed have been congressional staffers, and when he's bagged a big dog, he's had more proof: Larry Craig, there was a cop's report; Ed Shrock, there was voice recordings; Mark Foley, there was email. In the Bauer story, all Rogers has offered so far is, trust me, I've always been right in the past. And the trouble with actual evidence, as Boy Fogle found with the FOIA requests on "So Gay", is that once the Grown up Media have their own sources they don't need some blogger trying to dole out the dope in order to earn some media.

2) it's just hard to take him seriously when Bauer doubles down and says "prove it" and Rogers responds with this:

Friday, September 04, 2009

"I'm just a girl who can't say no"

So Bauer is directly asked by a reporter... The goodness starts at the 2 minute 24 second mark. As expected it's a non-denial.

...and then runs a photo montage of....cats.

For a blogger who claims to be devoted to truth, it's odd you can't search Blog Active or link to specific posts.

It reminds Waldo of the two-centuries-old controversy over Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: did he or didn't he?

Priorities

-and to think liberals wonder why conservatives make fun of them:

Youth Sailing Center in Mt. Pleasant May be Deleted from Shem Creek Plan

by: wjhamilton 29464

Fri Sep 04, 2009 at 12:13:43 PM EDT

( - promoted by Jennifer Read)

Gary Santos called me this morning to report that The Youth Sailing Center may be deleted from the Town of Mt. Pleasant’s Plan for a Shem Creek park at a special meeting called for Tuesday, September 8 at 5:30.

To those of you who haven't followed our four year fight on this issue, the purpose of such a facility would be to make low cost, supervised sailing available to young people in the town. This activity goes on year round in South Carolina now, thanks to new materials for winter sailing gear. Once established, these programs can usually support themselves through fees. Scholarships are often available for children from families who don't have the resources. It isn't like a yacht club, with high facilities fees. I've been fighting for this for several years. You can read part of the history on my somewhat out of date Fair Winds Website...

Buncha wussies

From The Daily Dish, an interesting pathology of today's Republicans- they're closet cases who project their own demons as the solutions to public policy. They scared of learning (keep the kids home Tuesday), scared of things that might scare them (the President's breakfast choices carry subliminal messages), scared of sex (teenagers, gays, overbreeding immigrants, unmarried teens unless a parent is running for vice president), scared of moderation in any form (Christianists might stay home and not vote for them), scared of the idea that a white America could elect a black president:

From Fear To Fearfulness

by Chris Bodenner

This reader nails it:

Can someone remind me what it is the NIMBY crowd thinks these detainees are going to do once transferred to the U.S.? They act like these guys are half-MacGyver, half-Houdini, and half-Lecter. Do they think they're Transformers or X-Men or something, and that as soon as these mostly low-level terrorists touch U.S. soil they're going to shoot lasers from their eyes and throw cars at people?

If this proves anything, it's that the Bush-era scare tactics worked better than we thought. The Republican Party has gone from the party of fear to the party of being afraid. If the left ever acted like pansies about something the way the right has about this, they'd be taken to task and labeled "weak" or "soft".

He's right; fear is weakness.

What would they be doing with the flashlight?

Looks like blatant nipple-pinching to us. And

by a governor no less.

While the search for the source of the Bauer outing story drowns in recriminations and denials, Wesley Donehue called in some Internet tubes experts to track down a slag job on Congressman Gresham Barrett. Wolfe Reports, who knows from slag, summarizes just what a little blog piggie Boy Fogle really is:

This is fun. So, alleged Richard Quinn & Associates new media firm “Two Lantern Media” constructed “bailoutbarrett.com,” a site dedicated to ripping gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett. Per Wesley Donehue’s site, the coding for bailoutbarrett.com was the same as other sites the firm constructed — notably, Palmetto Scoop, Rep. Rex Rice’s congressional campaign site and Rep. Nikki Haley’s campaign site.

This morning, after the site was called out, it was taken down within minutes. From what we heard, Haley’s campaign was thrown under the bus as the proprietors of the operation. According to Donehue’s post, the guy now “officially” responsible said that the whole thing was done, and we’re not shitting you, by “a rogue coder.”

We’re of the opinion that Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster’s consultants are so scared of Haley, they’re totally willing to blame another gubernatorial campaign for an anonymous attack that they generated. After all, remember “TheRealWolfeReports?” These guys couldn’t find their ass with two hands and a flashlight.

We report. You decide.

If you want to pick on every little thing...well, yes, we do.

When Senator Kennedy died, we noted, in passing, the paucity of imagination that led Savonarola to dredge up a 47 year-old campaign jibe and still manage to get it wrong:

Were his name Edward Moore, he would not have been elected to the Senate.

As usual, the quote didn't tell the tale. Eddie McCormack was hardly a plucky outsider taking on the Kennedy dynasty, as Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in 2007:

The New Jersey Frelinghuysens are well into their third century of political droit du seigneur, from Frederick (born 1753), a delegate to the Continental Congress and later a United States senator, through Rodney (born 1946), a current member of the House of Representatives.

If anything, the dynastic dynamic has picked up speed in the past half century or so. It reached a perfect storm in 1962, when Massachusetts voters filled the Senate seat vacated by John F. Kennedy, grandson of Congressman and Mayor John F. Fitzgerald and son of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, when he was elected President—the very seat that, in 1952, J.F.K. had wrested from Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., who was a great-great-great-grandson of Senator George Cabot, a grandson of the Senate titan Henry Cabot Lodge, and a son of George Cabot Lodge, who, though himself a poet, married a Frelinghuysen. (Are you following this?) The 1962 Democratic nominee for senator was, of course, Edward Moore Kennedy, then thirty years old. His Republican opponent was—wait for it—another George Cabot Lodge, this one a son of Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and a great-great-great-great-grandson of, etc. Nor was that all. There was a third-party “peace” candidate, too, a professor of European history at Harvard: H. Stuart Hughes, grandson of Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, Chief Justice of the United States, and 1916 Republican Presidential nominee. During a primary debate, Kennedy’s opponent for the Democratic nomination told him that if his name were just Edward Moore his candidacy would be a joke. A real zinger, but it might have been even zingier if its deliverer, Eddie McCormack, had not been the nephew of John W. McCormack, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Friday in Crazy

Mrs. Bachmann says Democrats hate her because they fear her destiny.

The socialist economy to the north added jobs in August.

The Republican obsession with National Socialism needs more lebensraum every day:

1. The New Boston Tea Party's website's "lead item -- about the president's planned speech to school kids next week -- is entitled 'Dr. Barack Goebbels Obama, Chief Reichmaster Tuesday September 8, 2009.' Another recent post, based on the false 'death panel' rumor, discusses Nazi doctor Josef Megele's human experiments on concentration camp inmates, before declaring: 'WE NOW HAVE ANOTHER DR. MENGELE, AKA BARACK HUSSEING (sic) BARACK MENGELE.'"

2. Anaconda just can't help himself, concluding the President's school day address is a revival of the Hitler Youth, complete with a big photo. A search for use of the words' Hitler" and "Nazi" on FITSnews.com goes on for pages and pages...

Mike's America- complete with its Oscar Wilde-y wallpaper, sternly admonishes us:

No Moral Equivalence Between Reagan and Bush Address to School Children and Obama Indoctrination

So there.

The Garnet Spy has a new & improved version of how the Bauer outing story is the work of the Quinn Posse, and so fiendishly elaborate only he can see through to its core and...still not be able to say what its ultimate purpose is. Not one for whom a conspiracy loses its first freshness, that Spy. Somewhere, James Jesus Angleton is laughing.

Boy Fogle, the SC blogdom's Miss Manners when it comes to denouncing crude personal attacks, has a post up calling Congressman John Spratt senile and a liar.

Can one really lie if he can't remember what he just said?

Savonarola has seen Glenn Beck's bet and raised him: he says the President hates Hispanics, too.

Today's GOP: Schools bad, isolation good

One of the Godomites over at Savonarola is in full-blown, Renfield-eating-bugs spew:

I wouldn't send my child to school on September 8, unless I had a strong death wish for America. On September 8, President Obama will be broadcasting a prepared speech to every school child, grades K-12, in America. On September 8, Obama the Change Agent begins his takeover of the schools…but not with my child, and hopefully not with yours.

Consider the implications of his grand plan. In a style typical of dictators, he is preempting the communications into every school in the nation. He has not sought the permission of parents or local school boards. He will not sign in at the office to get clearance and a visitor badge as everyone else must do.

As a parent, I expect the schools to notify me in writing if a controversial person or group would be making any kind of presentation. I could then decide whether to keep my child home, or ask that he be sent to the library to read during that time. But Barack Obama, with one huge broadcast, will dismiss the rights of everyone, ignore laws, and kick dust on the Constitution.

Bauer: not visiting Mr Rogers' neighborhood

Blog Active's Mike Rogers says no way he got played on the Bauer outing story.

Bauer seems to have called out Rogers to put up or shut up today:

"They don't want to hear gossip and rumors that have absolutely zero fact," said Bauer. "If you've got some facts to back it up, step up. If you don't, let's talk about issues because it's absolutely deplorable, the level that these folks have gone."

It's like thinking one day Sally WON'T yank up the football

James Surowiecki in The New Yorker:

Even in straight political terms, where is the evidence that ordinary voters remember how laws were passed and reward or punish politicians based on that? On the contrary, voters judge politicians (to the extent that they make rational decisions) based on whether the laws they passed worked or not. In my recent interview with Barney Frank, he made this point with reference to the 2003 expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs. That bill passed the House of Representatives by one vote, and only passed because the Republican leadership kept the vote open for hours so that they could strong-arm members into supporting it. But, as Frank said, voters today aren’t asking for its repeal or complaining about the way the benefit was enacted, because—for all of its flaws, like the infamous doughnut hole”—on the whole they’re reasonably happy with the way the plan has worked. The reality is that if the Administration passes significant health-care reform that works—that is, it regulates bad behavior by the insurance companies, makes insurance portable, makes it possible for individuals to buy insurance at reasonable rates, and reduces (as a result) the number of the uninsured—American voters will not care that it passed via reconciliation. Political victory on this issue isn’t going to be determined by how the law gets enacted. It’ll be determined by what happens once it is enacted.

How doctors in Congress all seem to become board certified as obstructionists

Her's a snapshot of the anti-health care reform shell game:

Some physicians, I should note, were tickled pink to be asked to join the NRCC's phony council. Dr. Michael Richman, a heart surgeon in Los Angeles whose name appears neither on Fred's version of the draft press release nor on the one obtained by Think Progress, put out a press release announcing his selection to the panel. So did Dr. Richard Stanford, a pediatrician in Oklahoma City. (Stanford's name can't be found on Fred's or Think Progress's versions, either.) This is like putting out a press release to announce that somebody phoned and asked you to donate to the United Way.

I put in a call to Rep. Price's office to find out more about the PCRR. They referred me to the NRCC. A press representative who called back said he didn't know anything about the Physicians' Council and would have to get back to me.

I phoned the InfoCision call center and asked for some information about the PCRR. I was referred to Jessica Boulanger at the NRCC. When I phoned the NRCC, I was informed that nobody named Jessica Boulanger worked there. (Apparently, she used to.)

I phoned the InfoCision call center again and asked for Sabrina Taylor, the contact name on Fred's draft press release. I was told she was busy. I asked if Sabrina could call me back. This seemed to flummox the person I was speaking to. "Does Sabrina Taylor exist?" I asked. Yes, I was assured. I left my name and number. Sabrina didn't call back.

I phoned InfoCision yet again and asked for Candace Lyons. This was an entirely different contact listed on the version of the draft press release posted on the Think Progress Web site. Candace Lyons was also busy. Could Candace could call me back? Once again, this request seemed highly irregular. "Does Candace Lyons exist?" Yes. Candace didn't call back.

I phoned InfoCision's public relations office and got a very nice-sounding woman who said she'd get back to me. She didn't.

InfoCision, I can't resist mentioning, took home the "Best Practices" award in May from the Interactive Intelligence Interactions conference in Indianapolis.

Two steps forward, one step back

The Times of London says The British National Party has reluctantly decided to open its ranks to the teeming throngs of nigs, spics, wops, and beaners of a racialist turn of mind:

The British National Party is poised to give up its whites-only membership policy after a legal challenge accusing it of racial discrimination.

Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right party, indicated yesterday that the BNP would accept members of different ethnicities for the first time, blaming Britain’s “undemocratic Orwellian equality laws”.

In a statement published on the BNP’s website, Mr Griffin said that the party would have to adapt or die, even though amending its constitution would “stick in the craw of all dedicated nationalists”. The party is considering the change in light of an injunction being sought by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which claims that the BNP’s membership rules breach the Race Relations Act.

Any alteration to policy would mark a significant moment for the party, which since it was founded in 1982 has only accepted white members.

In a related story, Earl Capps has found another black South Carolina Republican.

With all those billions, capitalism was the perfect front for the Rockefellers to go all commie

Sometimes the stories write themselves:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"I have in my hand..."

Joe Klein on the Dining Room Table set:

I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday--and the number of people who believe that the President has larded the government with communists (!) was astonishing. One woman said there were four known communists in the government and that she'd researched it on the internet. When I asked her afterwards, she said environmental adviser Van Jones, legal advisor Cass Sunstein (who was last spotted being excoriated by the left for supporting the FISA revisions), someone named Lloyd and she didn't remember the fourth. And wasn't it suspicious that Obama had all these czars working for him--that was a Russkie commie term, wasn't it? When I asked, the woman admitted that, among other things, she occasionally listened to William Bennett's conservative radio show. I pointed out that Bennett had once been the Drug Czar, appointed by Ronald Reagan. Life sure can be complicated sometimes.

I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck's fruitful imagination. "We are living Glenn Beck's fantasy life," said this audience member. The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans--a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron--to call bull-- on this, but also thewillingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage. Michelle Cottle reports that there are Republican-sanctioned efforts afoot to have parents not send their children to school on September 8 because the President is scheduled to address the nation's school-children that day and they are afraid that he will fill their little heads with socialist propaganda.