John McCain’s BFF
Ayers! Wright! Blarg! God, how the wingnuts have yammered on and on about Obama’s friendships with radicals and “terrorists,” and what a lot of good it’s done them. But not enough, on the other hand, has been said about John McCain’s friendships with radicals and terrorists. Wingnuts by definition are radicals, so we can pass by such relationships as outside the scope of this post; but what about terrorists?
Above: Stacked and packed?
Well, as it happens, John McCain is best friends forever with an actual state terrorist, convicted felon, would-be assassin of journalists, planner of firebombings, and all-around Nazi-lover, G. Gordon Liddy. So far few have called McCain on his relationship with Liddy: Carl Bernstein, Chicago Tribune reporter Steve Chapman and David Letterman:
[Video link here until another Sadlynaut with the keys can embed it.]
Now The Wall Street Journal, in its typical, roundmouth-the-GOP sort of way, focused its account of the Letterman-McCain chat on the alleged bad blood between them, heavily hinting that McCain’s agreement to do the show demonstrated his magnanimity or something. Thankfully, John K. Wilson at The Huffington Post seized on the truly newsworthy item in the Letterman interview:
Last night on Letterman, here’s what McCain said.
DL: But did you not have a relationship with Gordon Liddy? JM: I met him, you know, I mean… DL: Didn’t you attend a fundraiser at his house? JM: Gordon Liddy’s?
“I met him”? “I met him”? And when you’re asked about attending a fundraiser at his house, you don’t answer? You don’t admit that Liddy hosted a fundraiser for you in 1998? You just say, “Gordon Liddy’s?” as if you don’t know what Letterman’s talking about?
After the commercial break, McCain quickly tried to explain himself:
JM: I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt. He went to prison, he paid his debt, as people do. I’m not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy. And his son, who is also a good friend and supporter of mine. DL: But you understand that the same case could be made of your relationship with him as is being made with William Ayers. JM: Everything about any relationship that I’ve had I will make completely open and give a complete accounting of. Senator Obama said that he was a guy who lived in the neighborhood. OK, it was more than that.
Note this: McCain said that Liddy’s son is “also a good friend and supporter of mine.” That means McCain is saying that Liddy himself is friend of his. Contrast that with Obama, who has never called Ayers his friend (David Axelrod described them as “friendly,” which is much different).
And the affection is mutual; Liddy says as much in an interview with brown-nosing John Hawkins:
[…]John McCain is a good, personal friend of mine[.]
So Gordon hearts John, and John hearts Gordon. What does this say about McCain’s judgment? After all, even Richard Nixon, the man for whose great agenda Liddy perpetrated or planned many crimes and terrorist actions, thought Liddy was “nutty,” and said so to his aide H.R. Haldeman in the so-called smoking gun tape. Nixon was, safe to say, an expert on what’s nutty. Dick employed nuts; John McCain embraces them, calls them friends, and considering his friendship with Liddy as well as his selection of running-mates, it’s apparent John McCain is utterly incapable of distinguishing normal people from the criminally insane:
As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in “if necessary”; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a “gangland figure” to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap “leftist guerillas” at the 1972 Republican National Convention — a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain’s campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy’s radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled “John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07” includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an “old friend.” During the segment, McCain praised Liddy’s “adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great,” said he was “proud” of Liddy, and said that “it’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program.”
Additionally, in 1998, Liddy reportedly held a fundraiser at his home for McCain. Liddy was reportedly scheduled to speak at another fundraiser for McCain in 2000.
Of course one knows of the burglary Liddy was famously involved in, and burglary is not terrorism. But Liddy’s actual crimes (that we know of) — and plans for additional crimes — go far beyond all that, into the realm of terrorism. Indeed, even years after the Watergate era, Liddy was a mouthpiece for the terroristic impulses of the far-right, and Liddy always had a terrorist’s imagination. And, ironically considering all the bugfuck-extreme chatter on the right about William Ayers’ past, Liddy rationalized the criminality he was to engage in on behalf of Richard Nixon by citing the Weathermen’s threat to law-and-order; Liddy asserted that his extremism was merely in response to the threat from the political left. From his memoir, Will:
Looking back now from a decade later many people think of that time as the era of the “flower-child” and wonder how we could think of them as a war-like enemy. As a reminder that we weren’t simply dodging flowers in those days, I offer these lines, spoken by Mark William Rudd, leader of The Weathermen faction of the Students for a Democratic Society. He delivered them in 1969 at a national “war council” of the Weathermen in Flint, Michigan:
“….We have to start tearing down this fucking country. We have to have a revolution in this country that’s going to overthrow — like bombs, like guns, like fire bombs, by anything and everything….The most important thing that the Weathermachine should be right now is to create a consciousness, a political consciousness and the best way to create this is by doing and performing some kind of exemplary action, like offing some pigs, creating chaos in the streets, blowing up pig stations, blowing up banks. Once the Weathermachine begins this and starts the ball rolling, then the Weathermachine will not have to be involved as much. Other white revolutionaries are going to get involved and try to destroy the system that we all hate so much.”
That, to me, is war. I was ready. And willing.
Sure. But this won’t do: there’s a fundamental moral difference between the pirate and the emperor; Liddy’s terrorism was in service of the government. And at least Rudd didn’t approvingly quote Nazis. Finally, who really thinks that Liddy would have been a decent, law-abiding operative had there been no Weathermen? The fact is, he was “willing” no matter what.
John McCain says Liddy did his time, paid his debt for his crime. Well, not really: much of Liddy’s sentence was commuted by then-President Jimmy Carter, who actually was the forgiving sort, willing to reach across the aisle, that John McCain falsely presents himself to be. In the next few posts, I’ll describe some of Liddy’s “principles and philosophies that keep our nation great,” as well as some of the crimes and terrorist acts Liddy perpetrated that McCain is so “proud” of and for which, still, Liddy is absolutely not contrite for:
Let’s get one thing straight right now: I’d do it all again[.]
G. Gordon Liddy is right. If you leftists ever try and take away our Constitutional right to bear arms, you will be met with iron and with blood.
Apologies to everyone that I simply don’t have time to do this right. I wanted to do a “Super Wingnut” post, like that I did for Rich Lowry. But the election’s Tuesday, I’m sick, and I have to plant wheat this week. So I’m gonna instead try to get a post up on Liddy’s Naziphilia and another on his planned assassination of Jack Anderson, but that’s it.
Sorry. I know this is late and incomplete and totally unsatisfying, but I really tried to do better.
FAIL.
Hey, anything that shines more of a light on this cockroach, the better. Nixon was an asshole, but he’d have been very limited in his ability to subvert democracy without the willing assistance of insects like Liddy.
Jebus that pic is just wrooooongggg.
McCain befriended a radical Communist war protestor who went to North Vietnam with Jane Fonda and made tapes denouncing American pilots as “war criminals”.
But when that traitor was in a position (as editor of TNR) to do McCain some good, McCain snuggled right up to Dave Ifshin, who crafted McCain’s mavericky image.
But Ifshin, when the winds of revolution didn’t blow as strong as he hoped, groveled and apologised his way into mainstream, Dem and AIPAC politics. He’s “repentant” you see. Unlike Ayers, who’s always referred to as an “unrepentant”.
Good old McCain. If you think about it, McCain’s friendship with Ifshin makes all his blather about Ayers even stinkier. McCain had no problem befriending a guy who treated with the Viet Cong, when that guy could do him some good.
I hate you.
JM: Everything about any relationship that I’ve had I will make completely open and give a complete accounting of. Senator Obama said that he was a guy who lived in the neighborhood. OK, it was more than that.
Exhibit #57, File “McCain’s terrible campaign strategies”: Professing that your opponent’s relationship with a criminal is worse than yours because you have a better documented friendship with your criminal buddy.
“There’s millions of words said in the campaign, it’s politics come on…”
That’s right John, it’s all bullshit and you do whatever it takes to win. That’s just politics.
Rugged, we don’t want to take away your guns already. Jeebus man, whose kool aid do you drink?
Could you please start fighting today’s lefties, and not the 1970’s version you CLEARLY have in mind?
G. Gordon Liddy is like the real life version of Rorschach from Watchmen; he especially comes off this way in his books. I couldn’t of been the only person to have noticed this?
If you leftists ever try and take away our Constitutional right to bear arms, you will be met with iron and with blood.
My friend, the State Troopers are gonna take away yours/mine if you don’t start taking your meds! You just landed us our third restraining order today, ON THE SABBATH!!!!
Despite what you liberals have to say about Timothy McVeigh, he did have some genuine gripes with the federal government. I don’t agree with his bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building, which killed some innocent people, however it is necessary to look at the root cause behind his actions. The federal government has absolutely no authority to regulate private ownership of firearms. Timothy McVeigh was righteously angry about the Assault weapons ban, however he went about it the wrong way. Armed revolution is always the last resort, after all peaceful methods have been exhausted. Our constitution first and foremost gives us the ballot box, if the ballot box fails us then we as American citizens have the jury box, and then only if both the ballot box and jury box completely fail us do we resort to the cartridge box. Timothy McVeigh did not do this, instead he immediately resorted to the cartridge box and was rightfully punished. But do you really want 70 million law abiding gunowners angry with you?
Ah, I see. Rugged in MN doesn’t advocate treason unless he disagrees with the results of our country’s democratic institutions. Just so we’re clear on that.
So. How is that different from what scary boogeymean Bill Ayers and his band o’ idiots tried to do, exactly? Jeebus, conservative hypocrisy strikes again.
Wait< you’re example of a “law Abiding Gun Owner” is a domestic Terrorist?
“Which killed some innocent people…”
I apologize if this is a troll, but he parked the fucking bomb directly under a daycare center, and you’re going to minimalize that because you both agree on the AWB?
No Adam, that’s not what I said at all, you are deliberately taking my words out of context. What I said was that, I support armed revolution against the federal government as a last resort (which is different from treason, read the writings of our Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson), if our constitutional rights are being taken away by said federal government.
Please, Anthony! It’s not like the children were fetuses or anything. Jeez.
I suppose Rugged won’t mind when armed homosexuals start murdering Republicans if Prop. 8 passes.
I am not trying to minimalize what McVeigh did at all Anthony. I specifcally said that he deserved to be punished for what he did, which you probably know, but will not admit since you people base your entire blog on words taken out of context. All I said, was that you should look at the root cause behind what McVeigh did. That root cause was the assault weapons ban. There would have been no bombing if there was no weapons ban. That’s not exusing what he did, that’s just stating the obvious.
Jebus that pic is just wrooooongggg.
Yeah, no doubt. Liddy a la banana-hammock is pukeworthy.
Adblock, take me away!
Everybody believes in gun control, just a matter of where you draw the line. As my old dad loves to say. Shotguns? pistols? automatics? rocket launchers? Tanks? Anti-aircraft? bombs? Nukes?
I hope Joe the Plumber isn’t reading this post, it’ll just remind him that he’ll always be McCain’s second favorite plumber.
… if our constitutional rights are being taken away by said federal government.
And the right for a private citizen to own fully automatic assault weapons is guaranteed by which clause of the Second Amendment? Give me a break.
I believe the Second Amendment provides an individual right to bear arms, but you are a crazy moron if you believe that it provides individuals the right to bear any arms they want. Should individuals be able to own grenade launchers? Or RPG’s? Or roadside bombs? If you agree there are some reasonable limits on weapons possession, it’s pretty obvious that assault weapons should be included in that list.
And I don’t have to know shit about McVeigh’s motivations. He was a fucking monster brainwashed by fucking monstrous rightwing retards. Fuck ’em.
The horns of a dillemma:
Feed Rugged in Montana a steady diet of Pie?
Dammit, I LIKED the honest one. But this new strident, irrational one bugs the crap out of me.
Shit…
mikey
The most coo-coo bananas part I recall from Will was a little party trick G. Gordon liked to do to creep out people he was afraid of. He describes himself as a frail, fearful and anxious child who invented a variety of tests of will to overcome his self-loathing of his inner weakling bedwetter. G. Gordon relates the tale of how, years later, he would hold a lit cigarette lighter a few inches under his outstretched palm until the smell of charring flesh convinced those watching him that he was indeed, more bug-fuck insane than they were.
Role model for the country, bitchez!
mikey: If you want, you can go ahead with the pie, and then like Smiling Mortician, wait for those of us without these screens to give the “Sweet Rugged is back!” signal.
I don’t see any fail here. McCain’s more than a hypocrite, he surrounds himself with the lowest life, and Liddy’s a scumbag no presidential candidate worth his salt would have anything to do with.
Dirty filthy pot calls kettle black.
Loneoak, my dear boy, the Second Amendment reads in its entirety “A well regulated (meaning disciplined in 18th century English lingo, nice try there liberals) militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.” What part of SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED DON’T YOU LIBERALS, DEMOCRATS AND SOCIALISTS NOT UNDERSTAND! Shall not be infringed means exactly what it says, shall not be infringed. It does not say, shall not be infringed except for fully automatic rifles, it does not say shall not be infringed except for semi automatic handguns. It simply says, shall not be infringed. The constitution means what it says liberals, I hate to break it to you. Maybe you should try to read the plain text of the constitution instead of making shit up, such as the “right to privacy” which is no where mentioned in the entire text of the constitution. Learn to read, and then get back to me.
McCain’s willing to give a complete account of all his relationships? I want to know how many women he cheated on his wife with. Both wives. He doesn’t even have to name them by name.
Rugged, then which arms do you believe the federal government can prevent individuals from owning? Fully armed fighter jets? Cluster bombs? Sarin gas? Ammonium nitrate bombs in the back of moving vans?
Furthermore, do you believe that the federal government can prevent convicted felons and mentally insane people from owning guns?
When I get an answer to those questions, then maybe we can discuss the meaning of “shall not infringe.” My bet is that we draw a different line across which infringement occurs. It’s just an act of utter idiocy to believe that “shall not infringe” means the federal government has nothing to say about which weapons can be owned and sold.
I actually suspect he’s more the Comedian – when pinned to it, Rorschach actually acted on his convictions, never hobnobbed with polite society. Like the Comedian, Liddy has been glad-handling the people he purports to have a fascist disdain for forever. He thinks he’s a tough-as-nails independent; he’s just a fascist dipshit.
So long story short, construing the Second Amendment to protect something the Founders wouldn’t recognize as ‘arms’ (as the Roberts Court did recently) is heroic constitutinal literalism; interpreting the clearly implied penumbral rights of the freedom of association (appearing in the First Amendment, an adjunct to freedom of religion and freedom of speech) and the long paraconstitutional tradition of privacy (‘Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail’; the general construing of security in person as the most precious natural right by the early Court) is judicial activism.
Why don’t you just admit that you only care about the government when it makes your dick feel small and be done with it? Christ, you people are diseased.
RUGGED IN MONTANA wrote:
You just landed us our third restraining order today, ON THE SABBATH!!!!
Yes – shabbas, the sabbath, which you’re allowed to break only if it’s a matter of life or death.
This will not stand!!!
Dammit, I LIKED the honest one. But this new strident, irrational one bugs the crap out of me.
The funny RiM has signalled his lack of appetite for pie by spelling his nym with all caps.
Meanwhile the strident, irrational one is shouting out anything he thinks will shock the grown-ups. This strikes me as an odd way to spend one’s time, but I have some strange and disturbing hobbies of my own, so I am in no position to criticise him.
Did I just see a Marty Peretz column at TNR online saying the vote should be taken away from American Moslems? Got linked there and scurried away. But I thought I saw that as I ran.
Someone with a stronger firewall and stomach should go and check.
Cigarette lighter! Luxury! When I were a lad, if I wanted to burn the palm of my hand, I had to make do with tinder-box and tallow candle!
But do you really want 70 million law abiding gunowners angry with you?
If they’re law-abiding, why would it matter? And once they use their guns to influence the political process they’re criminals. Terrorists, in fact. So you’ve just told us that law-abiding gun owners are only that if they agree with the laws? Thanks, I thought so.
We need to regulate the hell out of these idiots. And regulate them even harder if they think they can threaten us. In fact, the threat, which always, always comes from gun nuts, is the best reason to take their guns away.
I want a grizzly cannon.
And HTML, you’re too hard on yourself. It was a good post on a seriously under-discussed topic.
but I have some strange and disturbing hobbies of my own, so I am in no position to criticise him.
Well…Yeah.
Sure. I guess.
Ok. I S’pose.
But I’m not sure that recognizing that I may occasionally indulge in behaviors that others might find objectionable means I need to tolerate objectionable behavior in others.
If I am a flawed man, so be it…
mikey
Why Muslims Shouldn’t Vote in American Elections
So no, he isn’t saying that.
But I’m not sure that recognizing that I may occasionally indulge in behaviors that others might find objectionable means I need to tolerate objectionable behavior in others.
That is a tricky ethical issue. It all depends on the objectionable behaviors, I reckon, and how the objecting is carried out.
Rugged, then which arms do you believe the federal government can prevent individuals from owning? Fully armed fighter jets? Cluster bombs? Sarin gas? Ammonium nitrate bombs in the back of moving vans?
I believe it is implied in The Constitution that each citizen should have the ability to defend themselves against a horde of 300,000 (more or less). Suitcase nukes would be valid in the open countryside, but probably not in the cities. Large quantities of Sarin gas could be stockpiled, but how much would have to be determined as effectiveness varies with weather conditions. As yet undetermined amounts of meliodosis, plague,smallpox and other biological vectors are valid for use, and private, space-based delivery systems are perfectly legal. All conventional weapons systems, tanks, rocket delivery systems, anti-tank missiles, artillery (including “Big Guns”), napalm, bunker buster bombs and the like are ALL Constitutionally guaranteed.
As long as deaths are kept below the 300,000 number (by each individual citizen), nothing should be prohibited from a man defending his home in The Heartland.
The new “nutcase-version” of Rugged is what you’re going to see over the next 8 years.
As I said in a previous post on another thread, the next 8 years will be marked by militias and other Clinton-era wackiness from the whackjobs because the nutjobs are so scared of Liberals.
They are double-plus scared of African-Americans, so it will be worse.
Luckily President Obama will have all the wiretapping capabilities, that the repigs were so eager to give the president, to hunt the repigs down.
(I’ll leave it up to the reader to judge whether the last paragraph is snark, tongue-in-cheek, or serious)
It all depends on the objectionable behaviors, I reckon, and how the objecting is carried out.
I admit that my own disturbing hobbies do not result in otherwise-sensible people treating my provocations as if they were serious statements of belief, and arguing with them earnestly until all Teh Funny leaks out of the comments thread.
“The fact is”?
….hey, how’d this puddle of funny get here?
Here in Minneapolis a few years ago we had a big bru-ha-ha (or however you spell that) over conceal and carry legislation. Those on the far left were predicting gun battles in the street and those on the far right imagined they’d be saving civilians from criminal gangs. Neither of these things happened. The checks and balances worked out just fine. Those who want to ban gun wearers from their business can do that. And the gun owners can wear a piece and fantasize all they want. I think things worked out because a political compromise was reached. Which is how I understand this democracy thing is supposed to work.
…my own disturbing hobbies do not result in otherwise-sensible people treating my provocations as if they were serious statements of belief, and arguing with them earnestly until all Teh Funny leaks out of the comments thread.
I read this as meaning you’re not one of the fake-troll sockpuppeteers and/or that we need more funny.
POOP!
(I’ll leave it up to the reader to judge whether the last paragraph is snark, tongue-in-cheek, or serious)
Almost doesn’t matter, in the end, due to it being, well, TRUE.
I believe the Obama administration will lead an initiative to restore Habeas.
I also believe that he will drive very clear and specific legislation outlawing torture, period. One hopes he will find a way to specify what acts are illegal in the hopes that a future brutal, criminal administration won’t be able to declare specific acts such as waterboarding as legal due to their being “not torture”. That’s risky, because once you start defining what is torture, you leave the door open for someone to find something that you neglected to list. For informative history, see “definition of an assault rifle”.
I suspect that an Obama administration will act much more quietly and below the radar to dispose of the detainee cases and close gitmo.
Beyond that? Nope. FISA, signing statements already in place, surveillance programs,Patriot Act, all that will stay in place. For two reasons.
First, because if the new President rolls back these “Homeland Security” initiatives and something bad happened, it would be wide open to the wingnuts to link the two, and Obama is smart enough to know that. Second, hey, as long as they’re extant, put in place by a hated former regime, why not, y’know?
mikey
That’s one rugged parody troll
This strikes me as an odd way to spend one’s time, but I have some strange and disturbing hobbies of my own, so I am in no position to criticise him.
Smut, this is an example of why I’m so in awe of you, and why I’m turning my face to the east in hopes that your awesomeness will radiate across the Tasman Sea.
I should add in support that my own odd hobbies do not involve weaponry, and are usually perpetrated in the privacy of my own home, so as not to offend passers-by.
I want a grizzly cannon.
Well because of McCain’s relentless campaign against grizzly DNA studies, you will never get one.
As long as deaths are kept below the 300,000 number (by each individual citizen), nothing should be prohibited from a man defending his home in The Heartland.
Read: I do not believe in infringements except for infringements.
In other words, I win, you fail.
(P.S. Thank jeebus we have those black helicopters to spy on assholes like Rugged.)
Apropos of this “abortion is baaaad, and so is contraception, so you’ll suffer if I say so, bitches!” viewpoint, this is representative of a regrettable authoritarian mindset which is shared by someone for whom I work. The idea is that contractors will do what they’re told, and if they don’t, well, we’ll make them. If they still don’t, well, we’ll make them harder.
Seems to me there’s something dark in the childhood of anyone who doesn’t realise that ‘making people do stuff’ won’t necessarily work, and it certainly doesn’t win you any friends.
But then again, most of my closest relationships are with furry critters.
Yeah, that might offend some passers-by, the judgmental bastiges.
Speaking of Nixon dirty tricksters, Roger Stone has come out against Amendment 2, which would incorporate a ban on same-sex marriages into the Florida state constution. This according to the Miami Herald’s Naked Politics blog.
Make that constitution.
The funny thing is that I used to use ‘authoritarian’ as a general synonym for ‘hard-assed’, because in American political terms they used to be more or less equivalent.
With the apotheosis of Palin and the continued political viability of Rudy Giuliani, we have an openly and unapologetically fascist faction in our second party. It’s not just that they’re extreme rightists with foul attitudes; it’s further that they have no concept of authority divorced from the magister. You’re the lord’s subject, the lord’s vassal, or the lord’s dinner; the smart thing to do is to be the lord and if you can’t cut it learn to live with fealty.
Rudy and Sarah have revisited this time and time again. They don’t believe individuals, communities, charities, and other non-government groups can do anything; they combine the Thatcherian sociopathic rejection of society with the post-Bush rejection of individual entitlement and have managed to perfectly reverse-engineer the original fascist ideology of the 1920s, pure and untainted by history.
While there’s some overlap with the preposterous reverse-statolatry of the libertarian right (pretending that the federal government using its resources to integrate schools is coercive but the state of Alabama using its resources to keep people from attending them in defiance of the law is not, for instance; in general, they cannot imagine a situation in which oppression radiates from any non-state actor), there is something to be said of how significant the difference is. Even the worst glibbies at least accept to some extent that private individuals have some agency and can achieve some good. For Palin and Giuliani, it’s always about what cooperation of the would-be mighty and proud with the Leader has wrought.
Of course, an ideology that believes the state is responsible for all evil in the world only needs a little bit of tweaking to buy that the state is also responsible for all good in the world. We’ve always had would-be authoritarians among us; it’s only been in the last few years that the Republicans have given them the final push to move from worshipping authority to deifying it.
More like con-shit-tution.
“Rugged” gave the game away when he said “…A well regulated militia (meaning disciplined in 18th century lingo…)”. If we’re going to use “18th century lingo” to define “regulated” then we should use the same lingo to define the weapons the people should be allowed to bear. I have no problems with the right of the people to bear muzzle loaders, blunderbusses, or single ball- shot dueling pistols. Hell, I’ll even throw in black powder cannons. But let’s take a look at some more “18th century lingo”, namely, Article I, Section 8, paragraph 16 of the Constitution describing the power of Congress “To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” THAT’S what “A well-regulated militia” means, and the Second Amendment does not invalidate Article I, Section 8, paragraph 16.
Poll Pr0n, via Atrios.
Can we haz total rethuglican repudiation?
thunder: Have you seen Nate Silver’s recent post on cellphones and polls?
The idea is that contractors will do what they’re told, and if they don’t, well, we’ll make them.
This works so well with cats.
Hadn’t seen it, J–. Thanks for the link!
More like con-shit-tution.
Yeah, as in piling it on, as Florida already has a law on the books that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
Rudy and Sarah have revisited this time and time again. They don’t believe individuals, communities, charities, and other non-government groups can do anything; they combine the Thatcherian sociopathic rejection of society with the post-Bush rejection of individual entitlement and have managed to perfectly reverse-engineer the original fascist ideology of the 1920s, pure and untainted by history.
Damn, dood.
And here I thought I was the S,N! commentariat purveyor of a hopeless, dystopian future. You make me want to go into the hills tomorrow…
mikey
Not only is Obama willing to sit down and talk with Chávez, but now we learn Chávez is willing to sit down and talk with Obama! Only John McCain can save us from such a calamity!
When Barak Hussein X takes power Liddy is just the guy for the Dept of Homeland security, IMO. Mad and incompetent he’d do a heck of a job. I do not think that Emperor Hussein X could buy finer loyalty anywhere. The uniform that Gordo is modeling would be rather fetching in a “boys just wanna have fun” sort of way while at the same time spreading the “don’t mess with me” message so important to sekret Muslim overlorders, the world over.
This works so well with cats.
This is but one reason why I’m opposed to the ‘just make ’em’ theory of human interactions. The only things I can make my cats do is eat food, sleep, and accept patting. Perhaps I’m just not trying hard enough – I put the phone and a list of numbers in front of them, with detailed instructions as to messages, and they just rub their chins on it.
The secret to having a cat obey your every command is knowing what the cat wants to do anyway.
Hey, if McCain wants to be “proud” of his friendship with someone who climbed trees during thunderstorms, let him. You couldn’t wish for a clearer barometer of the man’s abilitiy to judge character.
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Like dave above, I too support the right of Americans to own & carry as many flintlocks as they want. Pretty easy to know who the gun-nuts are, when so many of them wind up with that telling powder-scorched cheek &/or perpetual squint in one eye.
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OT?: You foolish librulz have misunderestimated McCain, & now you shall pay the price for your impudence!!1!
The mighty Wet-Start Express is pulling out all the stops & going for those prestigious high-caliber endorsements now (warning: may contain scenes of live-kitten-eating).
I approve ITTDGY’s message.
Not only is Obama willing to sit down and talk with Chávez, but now we learn Chávez is willing to sit down and talk with Obama! Only John McCain can save us from such a calamity!
Guy has a lot of oil, not too far away. Might be worth talking to. Or we could just kill him, and then we’d get the oil for free, right? Like all that free oil we got from Iraq.
Man, I hope Rugged doesn’t meet those troopers with 16s they’ll send to get his guns with that beat up old Springfield of his. Then again, he’s been working out in the gym when he’s not herding his inherited cattle, so he should be tough enough to take them.
Mehitabel the Abyssinian, I once amazed guests by ordering my cat, Max (no longer with us anymore, sadly), to jump on the back of the couch and scratch it.
I just knew that was what he was about to do.
I had a cat that I taught to play piano. Alas, he did not play well, but he did play consistently.
those prestigious high-caliber endorsements
Cheney says ‘John McCain’ and immediately has a little coughing fit.
What would a psychiatrist make of that?
Ours liked to experiment with his urine.
As horrifying as that sounds, it’s disappointingly innocent: first in the bathtub, and later (with a little coaching) in the toilet.
Endearing, unlike this cat we took care of once – he had to stay in my room and he started making makeshift toys out of his own shit. Christ, that animal had issues.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©, I have taught my house-ape to chase me around the house shouting.
Cheney says ‘John McCain’ and immediately has a little coughing fit.
Hair-balls.
I can summon my cats to the house by whistling. (About 90-95% effective for the younger kitty, not so much for the older one.)
I can call my cats from the vasty deep.
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
uncloaking to say damn you for destroying my beautiful eyes and warping my soul with that evil picture. damn you.
Thunder, you have the secret – cats can be made to do many things, provided those things are what the cat wants to do. There’s a lesson there on the difference between authoritarians and more pragmatic folk, but I’m buggered if I can elucidate further.
So instead of a reasoned explanation, here’s British comedian Eddie Izzard talking about Pavlov’s cats.
Evil picture needs more tassels.
Rugged in Montana,
I know your type. I bet you are orginally from some where in California (Lancanster maybe?) who moved to the Flathead valley to get away from all the “libruls in California.” Please go back to California and start a revolution there, leave us peace loving Montanans alone. By the way I do have weapons but I’m not worried that the ‘libruls” are going to take them away.
Jesus
THEY’LL DO IT EVERY TIME!
Petey Patriot thinks it’s “appeasement” to try and understand why Arabs are willing to blow themselves up just to take some of us down. (“Oh, just give them a cup of tea and tuck them in, you stupid hippies!”)
But just ask Petey about Timothy McVeigh, and suddenly it’s “Hate the sinner, but sympathize with his reasons!” (“He was part of a well-regulated militia of one! And those kids were gonna grow up to be bureaucrats anyway!”)