From a post titled “Rush’s Law“:

Rush should be urged to share his story with America. Here’s he is, an impotent, thrice divorced, ex-drug addict, conservative, parolee who went on a sex tour in the Caribbean and found himself rudely embarrassed for carrying recreational prescription drugs in his doctor’s name. Who can’t relate to that?

I don’t post much these days because I stopped posting about politics. Posting about design and development means taking time to explore new things, which means you have to have time to explore new things. In the meantime, a brief return to the days of old…

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has a post up that exemplifies everything that is wrong with the right wing of the Republican party. I’m not going to gloat or rant. I am going to excerpt a few choice bits and recommend you go read it for yourself. If you are a Republican, ask yourself if this is the party you want to be associated with.

From the Post: The Turd World Shithole Known as Mexico Whines:

…the pendejos from Drug and Whoresville are bitching and moaning…

Well, Pancho Villa, you could avoid all of that if you’d actually be the great “friendâ€? that Vicente’s bathhouse gay friend Jorge always claims that you are…

(Jorge refers to George Bush here. Pancho Villa refers to Vincente Fox, President of Mexico.)

Nuke Mexico

And, lest you think the people reading this crap are any less psychotic:

Don’t worry Verminte you pitiful shitstain, Bushito will be back on all fours licking your boots in no time. I highly doubt Bushito has found some self-respect and loyalty to Americans over Mexicans. I hope he proves me wrong and tells you to go fuck yourself. In the meantime here’s a message from Los Angeles with love: GO FUCK YOURSELF!

We have to be very careful after nuking Mexico, Mein Imperator! Burritos stay hot for a LONG time.

We could use their cadavers as an energy source for heating homes in the southwest for years to come.

Yeah…but they’re so pretty when they glow in the dark.

I like Stephen Colbert but I have to admit that I prefer his mentor, Jon Stewart. After the White House Press Correspondent’s Dinner though, I have newfound respect for the man. My jaw dropped watching his ballsy, spot-on performance at the dinner:

Update: I realized after posting this that it doesn’t contain the full video (and it has an annoyingly long introduction). To see the full thing check out Salon’s Video Dog. They also posted his press secretary audition skit.

Austin, TX
i just got back from voting in the primaries. I live in a golf course community, so it probably makes sense to have the primaries at the golf course but it sure seemed strange. The elections are normally held two blocks away at an elementary school. The school is on the main road, not down a side road; everybody knows where it is and I think a lot of people would feel more comfortable there than in the clubhouse of a golf course.

Democrats would certainly feel more comfortable not getting their “voting code” (for the Diebold voting machine) from a guy who proudly wrote “Republican” on his name tag.

I’m probably just being paranoid but I would really like to know why the election wasn’t held in the same place as the last few have been? This is my first time voting in a primary. Is it usual for it to be held at a different location that regular elections?

Update: Austinites, check the Democratic primary results herre.

Here’s a Democratic marketing idea: hand out rubber stamps that have an elephant crossed out (using the standard circle with a diagonal line through it). The message: Republicans are rubber stamps for their party leadership and/or Bush.

It’s gimmicky. People love gimmicks. Just look at the purple band-aids that Republicans wore in 2004. Sure the stamps won’t denigrate the service of every purple-hearted veteran but that’s okay. We’ll leave that to the Republicans.

Prometheus 6 points out that Bush is seeking a line-item veto with specific wording that he believes will withstand a court challenge. P6 is against the idea but I’m a bit more open-minded.

I would like to see a line-item veto bill with a sunset clause that required it be renewed every 10 years. That would cross presidential election boundaries and would let us weigh its usefulness every decade.

The fact that a Republican congress granted this power to a Democratic president (before the Supreme Court struck it down) makes me believe they really thought it would be a good idea. I can certainly see the benefit of having some way to eliminate pork. Can you say $500,000,000 bridges to nowhere?

Yes, I have a great fear that it would be abused, which is why it should be limited in scope to only apply to budget bills. And if it doesn’t work out, hey, it won’t last much longer than Bush’s presidency and it would certainly cause a lot less harm.

The tea leaf reading media seems to think the Supreme Court isn’t all that concerned with the redistricting that took place in Texas back in 2003. Scalia even joked about it. There may be some concern over one district.

Republican bloggers, like Betsy, seem pleased by this. I don’t quite understand the joy of watching people who don’t give a shit about you make a grab for more political power. My question to them is a simple one:

What about the people? The voters.

Nevermind the elected leaders whose districts were eliminated. And let’s not limit ourselves to just the minority voters who were disenfranchised. The people in general deserve to be more than political pawns.

How about federal legislation requiring all states to redistrict only once every 10 years; for the districting to be done by a panel of judges (retired or otherwise); and for the districts to hew, as closely as possible, to county lines.

That might eliminate a never-ending stream of redistricting battles and court challenges. It might also serve the people. Call me crazy.

I stole the title from Salon who stole it from the Al Franken show.

This is the first post in a new category: Democratic Ideas. I’ll be posting more policy initiatives and policy speeches that I agree with as I find them. (I’ve personally always wanted to write a book titled “If I Ran Things” that would lay out a whole host of policies — but if other people are doing the hard work already, it’s a lot easier to just link to them.)

Grist has the transcript of a speech that Senator Barack Obama gave on true energy independence. Al Franken has been talking about this for a while, and it is something that is one of the planks of the Democratic platform.

Republican talking heads keep asking what Democrats stand for. What is the Democratic plan? Well, we have some tremendous ideas like energy independence, national healthcare, and ethics reform in Congress.

Now go read the transcript.

When the sale of management of six major U.S. ports to the UAE (technically Dubai Ports World of the UAE) first became a topic of discussion I didn’t know what to make of it. I learned, almost immediately, that the management of nearly all U.S. ports are in the hands of foreign or transnational companies.

Rather than assuage my fears, this made me even more concerned. It’s well-known that port security is the weakest point of defense in this country. It’s been repeatedly pointed out that security is still in the hands of the U.S. for all ports, but that’s not entirely true, is it?

Yes, military and police aspects of all port control are in the hands of the U.S., but that’s like saying that the military is the only necessary aspect of an invasion of a foreign country. Turns out that a police force and management play equal roles. They are three equal parts of the whole.

We are not talking about a sale to a foreign company. The ports management was already in the hands of a foreign company. We’re talking about selling national assets to a government-owned company. We’re talking about a sale to the country of UAE. The more I find out about this deal the more concerned I become:

• A law requiring a mandatory 45 day review of sales involving foreign governments was ignored. [1]
• Congress was not informed of the deal. [2]
• The deal was approved by Treasury Secretary John Snow, the same individual who sold off operations of CSX Rail’s port operations to Dubai Ports World when he was the chairman of CSX. [3]
• Money for the 9/11 attacks was moved through the UAE banking system. [4]
• The UAE has been named as a “key transfer point” for shipments of nuclear components. [4]
• David Sanborn, a former Dubai Ports executive, was appointed as head of maritime administration in the transportation department. [5]

Ultimately, I believe this is another case of cronyism and imperialism (”we can do whatever we want”) by this administration. I don’t fear that nuclear material is going to be smuggled into this country by Dubai Ports World. I do fear that there is a potential for mismanagement; that there will be no incentives to scan more cargo (we currently scan less than five percent); and that we are selling off our national assets to corporations.

I’m concerned that most port operations have been sold off. I’m also concerned that Bush is selling off national wilderness to oil companies to raise a fraction of the money he waived that was owed by the same oil companies for leasing the same land. But I digress…

For all the reasons listed above, this deal is more troubling than most. I don’t fear the company will smuggle nuclear materials into this country, but I don’t trust a crony company of this administration to take the steps necessary to ensure that nobody else smuggles in nuclear material.

This goes straight back to what happened after Katrina. We saw firsthand how badly managed FEMA had become under the Bush administration. We cannot afford a FEMA response to port security (again, the management aspect of security).

[1] Where’s common sense?
[2] Bush tries to salvage ports deal
[3] The “people responsible” for port deal? Bush, Rumsfeld say: Not us!
[4] Bush threatens veto — his first — over port deal
[5] Bush insists Dubai firm is safe to run US ports

The New York Times has the article up under a different title: “Ban on Most Abortions Advances in South Dakota”

The ban actually goes further than either title suggests. The law, which is expected to pass, will outlaw all abortions except to protect the life of the mother. That means no abortion if the pregnancy is only going to cripple the mother. No abortions for rape victims. No abortions for incest victims. No abortions during the first 40 or 50 days when even the Vatican doesn’t believe a soul yet exists.

Welcome to the new Republican World Order, where a clump of cells has more rights than an adult woman.