The attack on Glenn's writing style is the only part of that jackass's overblown prose that even approaches something like an argument, and yet, there isn't a single molecule in it that is true.

It never fails to amaze me what passes for rational argumentation these days.

I remember seeing a bunch of military vehicles driving around the streets of this area. There is no military base anywhere around here, so I wondered what the hell they were doing. And I haven't seen them since. I am not a particularly paranoid person, but I wonder if they will be showing up again sometime soon. Because I think that Obama and his gang are worried about public unrest and they want the power to keep us under submission. Transparency is the last thing they want. An ongoing discussion about restoring our civil liberties is also the last thing they want. This is getting more and more alarming.

Time to go buy an "America is scary" t-shirt from Glark.

War is peace.

Tyranny is freedom.

but also...

Doing precisely the opposite of what one vowed passionately to do in the primaries and what one was voted into office for is 11-dimensional chess.

My vision seems to be affected. I cannot tell how many fingers Mr. Obama is holding up.

Anyone who can ask "why the outrage?" in these circumstances really has my puzzler puzzling.

Apparently Black's comments on Moyers have caused a big stir, and he has provided details about his claims at NPR. Also, some jackass at DKos has written a blog calling Black a stinking liar, so another Kossack interviewed Black, and the interview, along with the transcript of the NPR interview and a link, can be seen at the link below. The Kossack remarks, btw, that he is dismayed to see the vitriol around Black's comments, because it comes from an unreasonable hero worship of Obama.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/6/717306/-William-K-Black-Responds-To-Daily-Kos-Critics

linky at siggy

When Bush won his first election, I had hopes that at least, when things went bad, citizens would get angry and become more engaged in the political process. So I can understand why some might think that a McCain administration would really wake people up and finally bring about change.

But my current feeling about the state of the country's zeitgeist is very different from what I imagined eight years ago. People did slowly become more and more angry. But I think a great many also came to feel more powerless in the face of that administration's massive corruption, lawlessness, rapaciousness, and extreme hostility to dissent. And in the last election, perhaps such feelings contributed to the quasi-religious fervor for--and the aversion to any criticism of--Obama. Certainly the fact that he was the first Black man to become POTUS was a powerful symbolic victory. And there were plenty of reasons to think he was a good candidate at the time.

But it seems to me that a battered, impotent-feeling citizenry dovetailed weirdly with the ongoing Bush/Cheney push for a unitary executive in making a lot of Obama supporters view him as a great charismatic leader who will fix things that we citizens of a democracy no longer can. The obvious danger is that they will overlook Obama's continuation of Bush/Cheney's plans, perhaps even want to give Obama any tools he might need to make change.

You have some spirulina on your teeth.

Jonathan Turley just talked about Obama's recent moves on Countdown.

Keith Olbermann said, this is the equivalent of saying, "I can go and steal your money, but if I don't spend it, I am not guilty."

Turley: This is a breathtaking claim, far beyond anything we have seen. Before this, it was assumed you could sue government agencies.

This leaves citizens without any protection, because it is impossible to have a constitutional protection that cannot be enforced.

This is a terrible rollback, a terrible decision.

Keith: How do you reconcile Obama as a professor of constitutional law with this?

Turley: I have a harsh view. Plenty of professors are constitutional relativists. Our president is more interested in programs that principles.

His supporters have to come to grips with this. They have to say that he cannot eviscerate rights of privacy because of some cult of personality.

Those who were angry at the Busheviks found their rage impotent, meaningless to its object, perilous if openly expressed too stridently. Impotent rage tends to be suppressed or diverted to other channels which are not as potentially dangerous to the individual.

Exactly. And that's why I think a lot of people have, perhaps desperately, directed all of their energies toward Obama as some kind of savior, seeing no other way to manifest their political will.

Most of the people who are angry now are stocking up on guns and ammo, fatigues and survival supplies. Their rage has been channelled into forms of action they believe will protect them "when the time comes." That time, they believe, is soon. Very soon. And they are prepared for "battle." Whatever that may mean to them.

And they have plenty of both media and congress people stoking those fires up. For the good of the nation, I am sure.

There are more crazy mofos in heaven and earth, Horatio...

Following the recent changes to the law concerning gay marriage in a number of states, a freakish group called "National Organization for Marriage" has come up with a TV ad that has this text: "Lookout! Civilization as we know it has ended! Marriage rights for gays are popping up everywhere, whether you and your religion like it or not." And then this subtext: "The ugly truth is, they want to turn you and your children GAY!"

They refer to themselves as a "Rainbow Coalition." Somebody hand me a barf bag.

Link at sig.