Oh, Peggy ... One Line Does Not A Column Make

Perhaps, amid the clutter of empty wine bottles, our favorite #1 Ronald Reagan Groupie is at it again.

She was all full of herself yesterday, proud as a peacock, because she got to bash President Obama, and the Democrats, over Healthcare Reform.



And all because she came up with, what she thinks, is a really witty line;

Demon Pass.

See, if the move to pass the legislation, it is said, to get the votes in the House, Nancy Pelosi will employ a procedure known as "Deem-and-Pass", being they will "deem" the already-passed Senate bill, and then vote on the changes to the bill.

So, Our Girl Peggy thinks she's being cute.

Demon Pass.

You can read her column ('Now for the Slaughter'), in which half of it is the transcript of the President's interview on the Faux New Network the other night, as it full of all the PartyofNoican talking points, how this is going to cause the country to implode, and people will be left to run around with their heads on fire.

Excuse me, but it is embarrassing—really, embarrassing to our country—that the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he's having trouble passing a piece of domestic legislation he's been promising for a year will be passed next week. What an air of chaos this signals to the world. And to do this to Australia of all countries, a nation that has always had America's back and been America's friend.

How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff.

[snip]

And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass.

For a better view, one based in reality, read Paul Krugman, as he explained yesterday, using real, actual facts, why we need Healthcare Reform.

And, as per the rapid developments of the day, today, which included the Teabaggers showing their intellect, calling to Congressmen with racial and perjorative insults, the Democrats don't have to go with the "Deem-and-Pass" move, so Little Miss Peggy doesn't have a peg to hang her column on.

You think and old pro like the #1 Ronald Reagan Groupie would know when to pull her punches.

Isn't that what Ronny would have done, there, Little Miss Peggy?

Least We Not Forget ... Seven Years In Iraq

Today was the 7th Anniversary, when our Court-Appointed President, The Commander Guy, fully embraced the NeoNitWit's, marching us off to invade and occupy the country of Iraq.

Seven-years, and we are still there.

The editorial staff over at Truthout posted an Editorial to mark the dubious occasion

George Vanity of Vanities: The Iraq War Seven Years Later

We are still shocked. We were never awed. We have not adjusted. The senseless waste of our blood and treasure, our honor and our reputation continue. Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom - the latter unleashed seven years ago today - have morphed into a single Operation Enduring Occupation, set to bankrupt this country financially as well as morally, to destroy our own security as it has that of the over 31 million people who populate Iraq and 32 million people of Afghanistan.

[snip]

And as Benjamin Franklin might have agreed ("They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." {notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, 1775}), perhaps we deserve what has happened to us for allowing ourselves to be cowed into colluding in the ultimate crime against humanity, one which the Nuremberg tribunal powerfully condemned: "To initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

[snip]

Surely, the Iraq war's only obvious "successes" - the enrichment of the military industrial complex at the expense of ordinary citizens, the implementation of an ever more pervasive and intrusive "security" regime at home and the insurance of a second Bush term - could have been achieved without dragging the long-suffering people of Iraq into it. People - it may still need to be pointed out - who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 and harbored no weapons of mass destruction.

Obama doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get us out of there, and, he's even less-so motivated to bring the war criminals who perpetrated this to justice.

That deserves a damning editorial, as well.

How Do You Parole Someone For Killing The Future?

A little-noted news item was espied today;



Killer of Malcolm X Granted Parole

Thomas Hagan has been held since moments after shots rang out in the Audubon Ballroom in 1965. He has been on work release for more than two decades, but he still spends two days a week locked up at the Lincoln Correctional Facility on West 110th Street in Manhattan.

[snip]

Mr. Hagan, who turned 69 in jail on Tuesday, was a militant member of the Nation of Islam on Feb. 21, 1965, when Malcolm X was shot while giving a speech at the Audubon, in Washington Heights. Mr. Hagan, then known as Talmadge X. Hayer, was captured by the crowd and shot at and beaten before being rescued by the police.

Two other men, Muhammad Abdul Aziz (then known as Norman 3X Butler) and Kahlil Islam (then Thomas 15X Johnson), were also charged with the murder. They maintained their innocence. Mr. Hagan did not, testifying at his trial in 1966 that he was responsible for the murder and that his co-defendants were innocent.

All three men were sentenced to 20 years to life.

Count me on the side that would have liked to see these guys serve out the "to life" part of the sentence.

Setting aside the internal politics, and disputes, of the Nation of Islam, at the time, in killing Malcom (Little) X, they snuffed out a piece of the future, possibly incredible greatness for the common good, and that should have been considered before freeing any of his killers.

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

Happy first day of Spring!

Another spectacular day here, in the Northeast, with temps up around 70-degrees.

And, have we got a gem for you.

We turn to a very underrated, almost ignored, tremendous vocalist, who left us far too early, the late Irene Kral.

Enjoy!

irene kral/spring can really hang you the most





Visit Irene Kral's web page

This Date ... On The Garlic

20 March 2009... On The Garlic

Up Jumped Spring


20 March 2008... On The Garlic

Hillary Camp Livid: - "They Look At His Passport, But Not Ours!" ...Breaking News: Bias Charged; Hillary Wants Florida and Michigan To See Her Passport

Top Ten Cloves: Signs That It Is First Day of Spring In the White House

"So Long Scooter, We're Through With You ..."


20 March 2007... On The Garlic

The Laura Bush Bummer Bombing-of-the Day; Warning - Bypass this post if you don't want to be discouraged

Top Ten Cloves: Things Not Anticipated About Grand Canyon Skywalk


20 March 2006... On The Garlic

Iraqis To Launch Massive Protest Against Bush and Cheney, Over Civil War; Want Credit For Battles; Some See As Early Positioning For Future Funding When Government Collapses

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard At HP Shareholders Meeting Last Week

The Garlic Is Offering A New Feature - The Garlic Poll!

Waters of March

We are now into our third day of some spectacular weather (after 3.5-days, and nearly 9-inches of rain), and we sit on the doorstep of Spring springing tomorrow.

That calls for a tune, and we have an absolute gem.

We turn to the late vocalist, Susannah McCorkle, who, horribly, and tragically, took her own life.



However, she left her legacy, and, IMHO, the best rendition (by an English-language singer, anyway; Elis Regina, probably gets the nod, as the best, overall) of the Brasilian classic, Águas de Março (Waters of March).

Visit Susannah McCorkle's website while you drink this one in

Enjoy!

Waters of March - Susannah McCorkle & Antonio Carlos Jobim

This Date ... On The Garlic

19 March 2009... On The Garlic

We Already Know What He Was Thinking - Us vs. Them


19 March 2008... On The Garlic

No Intel Inside

Good Thing Time Travel Isn't Here Yet

The O.K. Corral Is About To Become A Whole Lot Bigger


19 March 2007... On The Garlic

Garlictorial: The 4th Anniversary, Or "How I Invaded and Occupied Iraq and All I Got Were These Lousy Iranian Bombs"


19 March 2006... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

What's The Big Deal? ...They Already Hired The Cheney Fluffer

It's getting to be a real, dubious, sliding-scale, CNN's claim of "The Best Political Team on Television!"

The Blogosphere, and World Wide Web has been reverberating the past few days, with the news that CNN went out and reeled in one of the vilest feces-flinging Flying Monkey of the Right Wing Freak Show, Erick Erickson, who mans the dung heap Red State blog.



Lou Dobbs must be climbing the Immigration fence in rage over this one.

Steve Benen, over on Washington Monthly can give you a "Reader's Digest" of some of his greatest hits;

For example, it wasn't long ago when Erickson explained his belief on why the left has a stronger online presence than the right. He attributed it to an asymmetry in free time, since conservatives "have families because we don't abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism."

This is the same Erickson who recently called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a "goat f--king child molester," referred to two sitting U.S. senators as "healthcare suicide bombers," praised protesters for "tell[ing] Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to send Obama to a death panel" (he later backpedaled on that one), and described President Obama's Nobel Prize as "an affirmative action quota."

And perhaps my personal favorite was the time, just last year, when Erickson was angry about new environmental regulations relating to dishwasher detergent. He told his readers, "At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?"

Erickson says CNN made him an offer "he couldn't refuse."

Well, we can.

We don't have to watch, and, likely, will not, beyond an initial, curious peak.

He's slated to be part of the a new John King program.

That's the same John King that almost bumped out Hayes for the Cheney Fluffer position, him looping softballs in an interview last year.

And, it would seem that, perhaps, CNN is lowering their sights a bit, as to going after a big, wide audience.

In Tuesday's announcement, CNN political director Sam Feist lauded Erickson as being a voice for small-town values.

"Erick's a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach," Feist said.

King was to dominate "small-town America?"

That ought to rack up the ratings.

In the end, this shouldn't really be surprising.

CNN, after all, egregiously hired Cheney-Fluffer, Stephen Hayes, and they went out and plucked off the PartyofNoican's welfare roll the El Jefe of Scooter Libby Apologists (and another Dick Cheney staffer) Mary Matalin.



Wolf Blitzer can breathlessly shout "The best political team on television" all day long.

About the only ones believing that are those CNN-produced holograms.

With the way they are stocking themselves with the stars of the Right Wing Freak Show, It's almost as if CNN should be a block of programs on the Faux News Network.

Bonus Erickson Flying Monkey Riffs

Eric Boehlert: CNN's Ed Henry should quit while CNN is behind

Steve M: WELL, HE IS THE EMBODIMENT OF MODERN CONSERVATISM, NO?

Alex Koppelman: What was CNN thinking with latest hire?

Sadly No: The death of our media

TBogg: News you can use

Eric Martin: At Least He Hasn't Written any Hagiographies of Dick Cheney...

This Date ... On The Garlic

18 March 2009... On The Garlic

That's Amore!

Idiocracy, The Sequel

A Bonus, For Your March Madness Fever!


18 March 2008... On The Garlic

Down Goes Rose! ... Down Goes Rose! ... Down Goes Rose! ... Or: Charlie Rose Wins "Save of the Day"!

Obama-Wright, Part II ... Some Perspective


18 March 2007... On The Garlic

"Karl, We're Going to Have Harriet Coach You For The Grand Jury This Time, Okay? ... The Results - The Garlic Weekly Poll

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves


18 March 2005... On The Garlic

HP To Auction CEO-For-The-Day On eBay

Scandal Hits OPEC; Pricing Tied To Racing Wagers

Top Ten Cloves: Other Things Mark McGwire Won't Talk About

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Reasons Tiger Woods Is Coming Back To Golf In The Masters

News Item: Major decision: Woods will play Masters

10. Still trying to verify announcement; Woods might be messed up by the early Daylight Savings Time

9. Augusta is one city that he doesn't have a mistress in?

8. Topeka, Kansas said they would diss Google, and name themselves Tiger Woods if he came back

7. Looking to crack, get referenced, in that "shitmydadsays" thing

6. Announcement in error; Tiger just was getting early start on his St. Patrick's Day celebrating

5. Needs a new green sport coat, since wife Elin took a scissors to all his others

4. It's a result of a compromise with Britt Hume

3. Was just waiting until Jay Leno went back to 11:30

2. It was either The Masters, or The Marriage Ref

1. Eric Massa tickled him until he agreed to come back to golf in The Masters

Retro Garlic: Hey, We Had That Idea First!

This isn't the first time a news event has converged with something we had here on The Garlic, and, we love it, everytime it happens.

Today's installment is a doozy!



Could Airborne Bears Catch Bin Laden?

Could parachute-wearing bears sniff out Osama bin Laden?

That's one suggestion the Pentagon has received from someone who noted, quite correctly, that a bear's sense of smell is much more powerful than a bloodhound's.

"Overnight, Parachute some bears into areas [bin Laden] might be," the innovator wrote. "Attempt to train bears to take off parachutes after landing, or use parachutes that self-destruct after landing."

The bears-in-the-air idea, and scores of others, came from people who clicked on the "contact us" button on the Defense Department's Web site, which allows the general public to ask questions or make suggestions.

Not that the Pentagon needs any particular help in the idea department. Not long ago, for example, the agency spent $2 million to find out whether honey bees could be relied upon to sniff out roadside bombs.

Go check out the article, as there is more off-the-wall suggestions.

And, we should note, perhaps, inadvertently, the Pentagon let out a clue to a long-standing problem.

There were experimenting with honeybees?

Ah, yes, The Retro Part;

Developing Story - Polar Bears Added To Iraq Options ...Bush Administration Wavering On Polar Bears; Considering Employing In Iraq, War Against Terror ...Rove Claims He Also Has “The Science”, Says Bears “Will Do Fine In Desert Heat”

Bonus Riffs

Andrew Sullivan: Colbert Bait

Balk, at The Awl: Send In The Ursine Parachute Brigade!

Breaking News! ... With DisneyBaghdad, Bush Says “Nobody Wins Hearts and Minds Better Than Disney ...Disney, With Secret Contract, Working With White House, Military On Building Baghdad Moats ...‘Pirates of the Caliphate’, Other Attractions To Mask Security Measures; State Dept. Touts “DisneyBaghdad Will Pay For Itself”

This Date ... On The Garlic

17 March 2009... On The Garlic

Nice Little Piece of Jazz History

Retro Garlic ... Boy, That Karma Thing Works Fast!


17 March 2008... On The Garlic

It's A Pig, with Lipstick, and She Likes To Be Called Bear Stearns ...

OMG! ... The Country Is Still Safe, and Standing!

The Rightwing Smear Machine, Running As Strong and Smooth as the Edsel!


17 March 2006... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: How To Tell That It’s St. Patrick’s Day Around The White House


17 March 2005... On The Garlic

Top Biz Schools Extend Hacking Penalty; Even Thinking About Doing It Earns Rejection

Iraq Parliament Holds First Session Amid Chaos

Top Ten Cloves: How President Bush Will Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

Map of the Day!

Last week, we gave Juan Cole's post "Quote of the Day", on the Israeli announcement of housing expansion on the day Vice President Joe Biden arrived to, hopefully, jump-start the stalled peace talks, and now, causing a good deal of tension.

Today, he follows up (with pointers to the blog flare-up, between Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, with additional commentary from Spencer Ackerman and Matthew Yglesias) with more;

The Map: The Story of Palestinian Nationhood Thwarted After the League of Nations Recognized It

As part of my original posting, I mirrored a map of modern Palestinian history that has the virtue of showing graphically what has happened to the Palestinians politically and territorially in the past century.



[snip]

The map attracted so much ire and controversy not because it is inaccurate but because it clearly shows what has been done to the Palestinians, which the League of Nations had recognized as not far from achieving statehood in its Covenant. Their statehood and their territory has been taken from them, and they have been left stateless, without citizenship and therefore without basic civil and human rights. The map makes it easy to see this process. The map had to be stigmatized and made taboo. But even if that marginalization of an image could be accomplished, the squalid reality of Palestinian statelessness would remain, and the children of Gaza would still be being malnourished by the deliberate Israeli policy of blockading civilians. The map just points to a powerful reality; banishing the map does not change that reality.

Phew!

You can almost look at that map and think it was shaken, like an Etch-A-Sketch.

Go read Juan Cole's "The Map: The Story of Palestinian Nationhood Thwarted After the League of Nations Recognized It", it's a good briefer on what's all the fuss going on.


Bonus Bonus

Steve Clemons, over on The Washington Note, has a bit of fun, creating some hijinks, reworking, tongue-in-cheek, an AIPAC press release;

The AIPAC Statement We Need But Have Not Gotten (Yet): Netanyahu Government Needs to Remove Daylight Between US & Israel

This Date ... On The Garlic

16 March 2009... On The Garlic

Breaking! ... Obama Takes Action, Seizes AIG's March Madness Office Pools and Brackets


16 March 2008... On The Garlic

Tinkerbell Meets Norma Rae - The Daily Kos Strike

Clinton Campaign Causes Havoc, Sends Map Makers Scurrying For Updates ...Satellites Scrambled, Causing Hours of Blank Screens On Google Earth; Rand McNally. Others Dig Through Antique Maps For Answers

Hillary's New Campaign Slogan: Keep Hopelessness Alive! ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll


16 March 2007... On The Garlic

The Laura Bush Bummer Bombing-of-the Day


16 March 2006... On The Garlic

IG Report Casts Doubts On New Bush Security Plan; Says Nation “Out of Strategies”

Top Ten Cloves: Biggest Surprises In "The Da Vinci Code" Author Trial


16 March 2005... On The Garlic

Summer's Takes Vote In-Stride; Won't Resign

Martha Slouching It Through House Arrest

Youths Said To Be Emulating Govt Rendition Program

Top Ten Cloves: Signs Your Massive Fraud Court Case Isn't Going Your Way

This Date ... On The Garlic

15 March 2009... On The Garlic

The Question John King Didn't Ask


15 March 2007... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: How It Would Be Different If Alberto Gonzales Was The Head of March Madness


15 March 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News - White House Launches “Save The Ports, Save Claude” mission

Top Ten Cloves: Potential Problems Mike Wallace Will Face In Retirement


15 March 2005... On The Garlic

First Lady Heads Jingoism Festival

Wheaties Official Breakfast Cereal of MLB; Box To Feature Steroids; Drops Bombshell In Break From Tradition Established in 1934

Bush Appointment Has Mid-East Fearful With New Hughes Role

Top Ten Cloves: Ways To Tell It's March Madness

I Guess They Want To Beat Out Oklahoma

Perhaps, Texas Governor Rick Perry, when he threatened secession last year, meant, only, intellectually.



Texas Textbook MASSACRE: 'Ultraconservatives' Approve Radical Changes To State Education Curriculum

The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum's world history standards on Enlightenment thinking, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

[snip]

We’re just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board’s far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America’s exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America’s Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.

Matt Duss, over on Think Progress, shows how this dovetails with the NeoNitWit philosophy, and notes, with Texas being the second largest market for school textbooks , "It seems like a really bad idea to let the market determine the history we teach our children."



But wait, there's more!

Looks like they'll be buying white paint, by the tanker-load;

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

And, let's not leave the Good Lord out of this;

12:28 – Board member Mavis Knight offers the following amendment: “examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.” Knight points out that students should understand that the Founders believed religious freedom was so important that they insisted on separation of church and state.

12:32 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar argues that the Founders didn’t intend for separation of church and state in America. And she’s off on a long lecture about why the Founders intended to promote religion. She calls this amendment “not historically accurate.”

12:35 – Knight’s amendment fails on a straight party-line vote, 5-10. Republicans vote no, Democrats vote yes.

12:38 – Let the word go out here: The Texas State Board of Education today refused to require that students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others. They voted to lie to students by omission.

Holy Phony Longhorns, Batman!

Last year, when we wrote about Oklahoma, thanks to 75% of their high school students not being able to name the first U.S. President, was bucking to be the location for the Idiocracy sequel, we now see that Texas was planning to give them a run for it.

Tough call, could be a toss up, or maybe, Texas gets saved for the Prequel, on how the state actually sanctioned teaching their children to be dumber than doorknobs.

Just another chapter for the Right Wing Freak show, in their Sisyphus role of pushing that stone back up the hill, trying to make up their own facts.

This Date ... On The Garlic

14 March 2009... On The Garlic

Chew'em If You Got'em!


14 March 2008... On The Garlic

Obama's Turn ... On My Faith and My Church

Get Ready For The SuperSizeMe Fearmongering ... House Passes - Without Immunity - New FISA Bill

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard In House Secret Session Last Evening

Pay No Attention To That Man Behind The Bailout Curtain!


14 March 2007... On The Garlic

Alberto Gonzales Sings 'Justice For Sale'


14 March 2006... On The Garlic

Libby’s Lawyers Mull Using Moussaoui Trial Strategy

Top Ten Cloves: Why Democratic Leadership Isn’t Backing Feingold’s Censure of President Bush


14 March 2005... On The Garlic

Disney Picks Iger but Eisner Says He Won't Go; Digging In For Fight

Rose Cashes In On Steroid Scandel

Youths Nabbed In Corporate Icon Hit; MSN Butterfly, Geiko Tortured; Had Long List of Targets

Top Ten Cloves: Excuses Baseball Will Use To Avoid Testifying To Congress