And now, back to our regularly scheduled program

The Sideshow's provider does seem to have things back together again. I hadn't realized that some things that appeared to have posted before the page went dark hadn't actually proliferated. But it's all there now, and that's the main thing....

The race/sex card

Nice catch by Hesiod at Counterspin Central:

GEORGE W BUSH IS A RACIST AND A SEXIST: Pretty strong allegations, I know. But I am just applying Republican criteria.

What do I mean?

Well, remember when the Republicans kept whining about how the Democrats in the Senate were "racists," and "sexists," because they refused to confirm Judge Priscilla Owen and Judge Miguel Estrada to the Federal Courts of Appeals?

I certainly do.

And applying that same standard makes George W. Bush a racist and a sexist. How do I come to this conclusion?

Because neither Judge Owen or Judge Estrada were given recess appointments to the bench. You'd think, based upon GOP whining and hand-wringing, that they would be the administration's top priorities.

But conservative, white males, Charles Pickering and William Pryor were the ones who got recess appointments instead.

Art & Politics

The Propaganda of William Safire, by David Corn.

Making Light on some astroturf, Ashcroft, her mother the terrorist, and Elmore Leonard?s ten rules for writers.

Sports and entertainment

Throw rocks at boys and watch a drawing take shape (via The Biomes Blog).

Stuff I wanted to post today

But I still can't FTP to The Sideshow, so here it is.

Tonight is apparently the last chance to hear The Mike Malloy Show on i.e.america. What a bummer.

Talk Left reports that a grand jury in Palm Beach has issued a "a scathing report" on the privatized girls prisons in Florida, and has this: How many times does this go on when and no one finds out? A high school principal has admitted planting marijuana on a student he suspected of using the drug.. Plus, a powerful reminder that children can and do sometimes make false accusations that can ruin lives. On a lighter note, a pointer to the Sex & the City quiz. (I am 40% Carrie. Well, no surprises there.)

Digby on Kerry's appeal to Democrats.

Barefoot And Naked explains that the Texas redistricting has two important goals. One is stated openly in analysis by congressional aide Joby Fortson, who said: "This has a real national impact that should assure that Republicans keep the House no matter the national mood." The other is an attempt to silence Rep. Martin Frost, the most important Democrat in Texas. He has a real chance to win his race, though, and maybe you can help.

As mentioned earlier at The Sideshow, George Bush has admitted that he ducked service in Vietnam. He also did so more recently on Meet the Press. But now, Marc Racicot, chairman of Bush's campaign, is claiming that Bush volunteered to go to Vietnam. Yeah, right. Josh Marshall has details and wonders if anyone is going to ask questions about this latest lie. (Also: Look, folks, the only thing about Nader's campaign that matters is how it diminishes what's left of his reputation. It's not an issue in the race. No one supports him. Hell, even Noam Chomsky is telling people to vote for the Democrat. And Michael Berube says we should file him away with LaRouche.)

Speaking of Berube, check out his posts responding to continuing right-wing claims that the presence of non-right-wing professors in academe represents...er, something-or-other.

Life happened: If you want someone to be a successful on radio, you don't get TV stars or politicians, you get radio guys. Ed Schultz was a successful conservative talk radio jock, and then life happened to him and he moved to the left. Then he became even more successful in his market - in North Dakota. Esquire has the story.

Service restored

BT wuz here and fixed the phones. God, what a relief!

Daily News Online

There's this other thing I'm doing called Daily News Online. Fortunately, I had e-mailed an article for it to someone else to post on the grounds that my computer kept crashing. My computer seems to be working now, but since I still can't get online, I still can't upload to The Sideshow but here's my article about LatinAmericanizing the US.

Live from an Internet cafe!

Yesterday I discovered that both of my phone lines were dead. BT admits it's a problem on the network and not me. I think it's those guys that were digging on the street just down the road.

BT promised they would send an engineer by....

Monday.

So I can post here from the local Internet cafe, but I can't post to the Sideshow from here. *sigh*

Statistics Don't Support Bush's Claim that Tort Reform Will Minimize Costs

"Grassroots"

Hesiod Theogeny (of Counterspin Central) e-mails:

Check out what someon e-mailed me. It's from Marc Racicot.

Subject: Action Alert! President Bush's grassroots vs. liberal billionaires.

December 10, 2003

Dear XXXXXXX,

Our Campaign Manager, Ken Mehlman, recently wrote you about the vicious personal attacks Democrat Presidential candidates are making on President Bush.

Now comes news from a Wall Street Journal investigative report that wealthy liberals "have plotted ways around the campaign finance law" to funnel millions in illegal soft money donations "to finance get-out-the-vote efforts and ads slamming Mr. Bush and Republicans."

Of course, there is nothing illegal about what "wealthy liberals" are doing, and naturally this letter doesn't mention that wealthy conservatives have been doing it for decades.

Help us overcome the Democrats' liberal billionaire by making your contribution and emailing five friends today! [link]

One billionaire liberal, George Soros, has already pledged $25 million to get these efforts off the ground. Soros even said that President Bush reminds him of the Nazis.

Soros got another billionaire leftist, Peter Lewis, an ardent advocate of hard drugs, to promise $12 million as a down payment. Their goal is to raise over $400 million to defeat the President and they're halfway there.

To beat these billionaire liberals, we need your help today [Link]!

Please, will you send the Bush re-election campaign $25, $50, $75, $100 or whatever you can afford to give today? You can give by using the campaign's secure online donation form at: [Link]

Whatever way you can, please contribute today.

There's one more thing you can do to help the President overcome the smears and invective of the Democrats. We want to reach our goal of 450,000 grassroots contributors to the President's campaign by December 31st. Will you forward this email to five friends with your personal request to join you in supporting the President?

[Link]

Howard Dean compared President Bush to the Taliban and calls him "the enemy" and "despicable."

Dick Gephardt calls the President "a miserable failure" and the worst President he's ever worked with.

John Kerry compared President Bush to Saddam Hussein, called for "regime change" and accused him of fraud.

Joe Lieberman said President Bush is a "segregationist," compared him to "a felon" and called the Administration "nearly as dangerous" as Iraqi terrorists.

We have 11 months until the election and Democrats are just getting warmed up! They are making this one of the nastiest, vicious and negative campaigns in history.

That'd be hard to do. The 1988 Bush campaign was pretty appalling, but nothing beats the 2000 campaign by his son, unless you want to count the last four years, which have been one big nasty campaign.

Democrats are reduced to personal slams on our President and outright lies about his record because they lack a positive agenda and hate -- hate -- what he has done for America.

He has restored dignity and honor to the White House.

"Outright lies." Of course, there's not a single "lie" listed here, but that's okay, the RNC has already made plenty of lies up and have more to come, I'm sure. As to "personal slams", they generate them so quickly it's hard to keep up. And as to "dignity and honor", well, sorry, but you have to be really, really stupid to believe that.

But yes, we hate what George Bush has done to America. We hate the destruction of our economy, our Constitution, and our standing in the world. Because we're Americans and we love our country.

President Bush has led America with moral clarity and purpose and strength in the War against Terrorism.

With the simple black & white blindness of a 15-year-old, actually, and what he's done is make a complete mess of fighting terrorism. The world has become a much more dangerous place under George W. Bush.

The President provided the leadership necessary to cut taxes and restore economic growth.

President Bush's reforms are making America a more compassionate society where no child is left behind.

Former Governor Bush has provided the moral laxity of giving away the store to his wealthy friends and benefactors while gutting education and medical care for children.

But that positive record ... the President's strong values ... his character and integrity and vision ... that all may not matter.

[Link]

We can turn back this venomous assault from rage-filled Democrats and overcome the hateful efforts of multi-millionaire liberals to pervert the election process ...

But we need your support to do that. Please, will
you give $25, $50, $75, or what ever you can afford by using our secure online page [Link] or by mailing in our online form with your personal check. Whatever method you choose, please respond today.

[Link]

The angry, bitter Democrats smearing our President ... the billionaire liberals who will bend the rules to win ... the Democrat soft money groups .. all hope you say "no" or let this important request pass without your taking action.

I love the way they make it sound like no rich person has ever given money to the Republicans - or, for that matter - like "angry, bitter" right-wingers have not been poisoning the landscape for decades now. Rhetoric like this is, of course, intended to convey the idea that the Democratic Party is the party of wealthy, sleazy, corrupt donors, while the Republicans are pure. And they are doing this on behalf of a candidate whose principle virtue is and has always been that he can depend on enormous support from the wealthiest people and largest corporations in the world - and he can depend on them because they know he will cut their taxes and line their pockets with our tax money in return.

But you understand how important it is to America that we keep this President, his leadership, his values, his character, on the job, working for us for another term. Please make your contribution of what ever you can afford today and email five friends and ask them to join this important effort. It is vital to our country, our President. I know he will be grateful.

Sincerely,

Marc Racicot
Chairman
Bush-Cheney '04

I'm sure Marc Racicot knows that Bush will barely know those people exist, and if he thinks of them at all, he laughs at how gullible they are.

PS: The Wall Street Journal reported that George
Soros views "America as the gravest threat to world freedom." Help us overcome this liberal billionaire that is clearly out of touch with real America. Please make your contribution to the President's campaign today and ask five friends to join you in this important effort. With your help, I know we will reach our goal.

[Link]

Absolutely shameless.

En Banc - a law-oriented group weblog.

The real reason Arnold is running for governor (via Ungodly Politics).

Story Time: How Margaret Thatcher Accidentally Triggered Regime Change at the American School in London, 1971

Editing the New York Times

David Horsey works it out.

Here's a radical statement-- I hate non-politicians. I don't trust them, because where were they when the politicians were fighting for my rights? - Nathan Newman discussing Wesley Clark.

Eeyew, gross!

George W. Bush, Will You Please Go Now?!

The Sideshow's ftp server has been out of it since yesterday afternoon. Here's the post I've been trying to put up since then:

Informed on the Superhighway

(I just felt like having a graphic there, so I borrowed one from Lois, who remembered to wish Bruce a happy birthday, unlike some people you could name.)

Jeanne D'Arc and CalPundit find out that "No Child Left Behind" really stands for "No Public Schools Left At All."

Sara Paretsky: 'For those who wish to dissent: Speech, silence and patriotism' (Via Holzman, who is also talking about illegal aliens.)

Everybody is on Safire's case. Check Josh Marshall out for the longer version, but for the lazy, there's Elton Beard doing the Shorter William Safire: My transcendent hatred of the Clintons having imbued me with preternatural mind-reading powers, I can discern in their support of Wesley Clark's candidacy a Machiavellian scheme to install Hillary in the White House. But even Elton couldn't get it down to just one sentence, so there are bonus points added. (The last Shorter Tom Friedman, on the other hand, is entertainingly succinct.)

Jeff Cooper has a few words to say about these 36 words in Bush's speech to the UN: The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder and refused to account for them when confronted by the world. What Jeff doesn't say is that the regime of Saddam Hussein simultaneously cultivated ties to the US, who cultivated ties right back, while they were also cultivating ties to the Mujahadeen, and while they did not seem to have any problem with Saddam committing mass murder, which they certainly knew about. If these are good reasons to bomb Iraq, aren't they equally good reasons to bomb his co-conspirators who at present occupy the White House?

"I'm eating cookies. In Republican-world, that means I'm protecting the soldiers." That's from the nice little post at Pandagon on how Republicans Are Great On Defense. (Be sure to catch his 22 Attacks post, as well. And he gives a fine example of his new word, "ridiculosity. Ah, hell, it's all good, read from top to bottom.)

Skippy. Hm, I can't paraphrase this and there's really not a single quote to sum it up, and anyway it's one of those things that makes me wanna spit. Bush. History. "napoleonic." Grrrr. (But read the rest of the page, because Skippy makes ya feel better. And has a short but sweet review of Big Lies.)

TBTM Flash movie on black box voting: Voterevolution.
15:44 BST

Post Ombudsman responds to "Democrat Party" slur

Stupid Quote Saturday

Why Dean and Franken are so hot right now

Snobs and Such

Mull is beautiful - I wish I'd thought to bring the digital camera.

And Martin Smith, who was sweet and cute and our friend is dead at 40, and though we could see it coming it is still devastating, and I hardly know what to say. Oh, Martin, you stupid fool, we are going to miss you so much.

Was the California recall orchestrated from the White House?