Posts by Blue Texan

Blue Texan is a regular contributing blogger for FireDogLake.

Republican National Convention: Whitest in Forty Years
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on September 4, 2008 at 5:01 PM.

Last month, the wingnuts freaked when Howard Dean called the GOP "the white party." But chances are if you saw the convention last night, you didn't see much color.

Organizers conceived of this convention as a means to inspire, but some African American Republicans have found the Xcel Energy Center depressing this week. Everywhere they look, they see evidence of what they consider one of their party's biggest shortcomings.

As the country rapidly diversifies, Republicans are presenting a convention that is almost entirely white.

Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.

"It's hard to look around and not get frustrated," said Michael S. Steele, a black Republican and former lieutenant governor of Maryland. "You almost have to think, 'Wait. How did it come to this?' "

How'd it come to this, Mike?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Thuggish Cops Get Physical with ABC Reporter in Denver
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 29, 2008 at 8:27 AM.

As Jane noted yesterday,

Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.

... Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

See for yourself. Ugly stuff.

Kennedy, Michelle, and Two Little Obamas Make Dems' First Night a Win
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 26, 2008 at 10:11 AM.

I'm a little puzzled by some of the hand-wringing about the tone of the convention last night. I've argued that the Democrats need to attack this week, but last night wasn't the time to do it.

Ted Kennedy's seriously ill, and you don't trot him out on that podium to hit McSame with gotchas and zingers. You don't ask Michelle Obama, who right-wing assholes are still caricaturing as an angry America hater, to use her speech to deliver political attacks.

My favorite moment of the night was the interplay between Obama and his adorable little girls. You can't build up to that moment with a night of "John McSame suxxxxx!!1!!11!!"

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Border Fence To Keep Out Illegals Being Built By Illegals
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 12, 2008 at 5:02 AM.

I'm going to file this one under "shit about the Bush administration you couldn't possibly make up."

Is it possible to build a border wall without the help of the very people it is intended to keep out?

That's an open question all along the border, and especially in the Rio Grande Valley, where the wall is widely unpopular but is now becoming a reality ...Valley longtimers have cracked wise about the barriers, saying they not only won't thwart illegal immigrants intent on entering the country but that illegal labor will probably help build them.

People in South Texas know what the deal is. It's happened before, after all:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bush Administration Putting Immunity For Blackwater Over The Lives Of Our Troops
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 9, 2008 at 11:17 AM.

While McSame runs around accusing Obama of wanting to "forfeit" Iraq, the Bushies are finalizing the negotiations for forfeiting Iraq by 2011. But the negotiations have hit a snag.

The sticking point?

The U.S. officials said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with al-Maliki on Wednesday to try to resolve the issue of legal immunity for U.S. contractors working in Iraq.

The officials described the phone call as tense.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bush Joins In: Says Economic Woes Are All in Our Heads
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on July 15, 2008 at 4:43 PM.

Mr. 26% gave a totally pointless presser this morning to screw with the coverage of Obama's excellent speech and repeated the latest wingnut talking point on the Bush Recession: the serious economic and energy problems the country faces are just all in everyone's head. Quoth President Arbusto:

"I readily concede that it's [drilling] not going to produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it's going to change the psychology."

And don't you know it -- McSame said exactly the same thing a couple weeks ago.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

100-Year McCain Has a Sadr Moment (As Does Joe Lieberman)
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on April 2, 2008 at 11:12 AM.

St. McCain is quickly becoming the Lauren Caitlin Upton of the GOP with yet still another Iraq gaffe:

In an interview with CNN earlier today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that he has long understood the influence of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:

I said he was still major player and his influence is going to have to be reduced and gradually eliminated.

But in a report on The Situation Room today, the network noted that just two weeks ago McCain -- trying to paint a rosy picture of Iraq -- described Sadr very differently while speaking to CNN's John King in Baghdad:

His [Sadr's] influence has been on the wane for a long time.

Yikes.

Meanwhile, Joe Lieberman, pimping his BFF on Fixed News, seems to be equally confused.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

100-Year McCain Yet Again Compares Iraq to Germany, Japan
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on April 1, 2008 at 11:08 AM.

St. McCain is increasingly annoyed that his "100 Years In Iraq" pledge is predictably biting him in the ass.

Responding to Obama's frequent mocking of McCain's suggestion that U.S. troops might remain in Iraq for 100 years, the Republican nominee-in-waiting said the Illinois senator failed to understand that America has kept forces in Korea, Japan, Germany and Kuwait long after wars in each country ended.

"In all due respect, it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history, of how we've maintained national security, and what we need to do in the future to maintain our security in the face of the transcendent challenge of radical Islamic extremism," McCain told reporters on his campaign plane.

Someone who favorably compares Iraq -- three religiously and culturally distinct countries crammed into one by British after World War I -- with the ethnically, culturally and largely religiously united societies of Germany and Japan, displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

Someone who favorably compares the United States' peaceful occupation of Germany and Japan, neither of which were resulting in American casualties 5 years after our arrival, displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

Someone who asserts that occupying Iraq for 100 years is the solution to "radical Islamic extremism" displays a fundamental misunderstanding of history.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McCain on War in Iraq: "We're Succeeding, I Don't Care What Anybody Says"
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on March 25, 2008 at 1:07 PM.

Just like Vice President Last Throes, St. McCain doesn't give a rat's ass what the American people think about his awesome war:

Returning from his eighth trip to Iraq, McCain didn't back down on his promise to see the war through despite yesterday's tragic milestone of 4,000 deaths. "We're succeeding. I don't care what anybody says. I've seen the facts on the ground," the Arizona senator insisted a day after a roadside bomb in Baghdad killed four U.S. soldiers and rockets pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone there, and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide.

Recent polls indicate that over 60% of the American people 1) oppose Bush/McCain's handling of the war, 2) want our troops out within a year, 3) think the war wasn't worth fighting, and, screw you St. McCain ---4) think neither side is winning. To summarize, the American people hate the war and want it over, yesterday. But St. McCain doesn't care. And he continues to dishonestly talk about "success" when even Petraeus admits the surge has objectively failed.

The arrogance is staggering.

****

UPDATE by Scarecrow:

I agree with Glenn Greenwald that the US media cannot let go of the myth that John McCain's years in the US Senate and his frequent trips to Iraq make him an "expert" on Iraq and foreign affairs. Washington pundits excuse his repeated "misstatements" confusing Shia with Sunnis, al Qaeda with Iran, while Fox News ominously calls this astonishing ignorance a "senior moment."

Yet almost every day, McCain says something that shows his "expertise" is nothing more than ideology divorced from the actual facts. Consider only McCain's statements yesterday on Iraq:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GOP: Only Our Pastors Can Say Crazy Sh*t
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on March 18, 2008 at 1:13 PM.

As the wingnut chorus predictably disses Obama's eloquent speech, it's important to remember how completely ridiculous and manufactured this whole Wright "controversy" is:

...the idea that America deserves terrorist attacks and other horrendous disasters has long been a frequently expressed view among the faction of white evangelical ministers to whom the Republican Party is most inextricably linked. Neither Jerry Falwell nor Pat Robertson ever retracted or denounced their view that America provoked the 9/11 attacks by doing things to anger God. John Hagee continues to believe that the City of New Orleans got what it deserved when Katrina drowned its residents and devastated the lives of thousands of Americans. And James Inhofe -- who happens to still be a Republican U.S. Senator -- blamed America for the 9/11 attacks by arguing in a 2002 Senate floor speech that "the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America" because we pressured Israel to give away parts of the West Bank. The phrases "anti-American" and "America-haters" are among the most barren and manipulative in our entire political lexicon, but whatever they happen to mean on any given day, they easily encompass people who believe that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 attacks, devastating hurricanes and the like. Yet when are people like Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Inhofe and other white Christian radicals ever described as anti-American or America-hating extremists? Never -- because white Christian evangelicals who tie themselves to the political Right are intrinsically patriotic.

Well, yeah. Duh.

By all accounts, George Bush had private conversations with Pat Robertson about matters as weighty as whether to invade Iraq. Isn't that a big scandal -- that the President is consulting with an American-hating minister -- someone who believes God allowed the 9/11 attacks as punishment for our evil country -- about vital foreign policy decisions? No, it wasn't controversial at all.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Petraeus Admits the Surge Has Failed
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on March 14, 2008 at 11:13 AM.

Proconsul Petraeus, Who We Must Never Question, on the Bush/McCain Surge:

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Did you get that? Failed.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

No one, except of course, for St. McCain and the war cheerleaders.

Just as a reminder, here's Bush 14 months ago:

I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.

Since that speech, 1034 Americans have been killed in Iraq.

Peggy Noonan's Lame Smear of the Obamas, Is This All She's Got?
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on February 22, 2008 at 10:50 AM.

Nooner really needs to lay off the sauce.

Right now Mr. Obama is in an awkward moment. Each day he tries to nail down his party's leftist base, and take it from Mrs. Clinton.

If "awkward" means -- raising shitloads of money and winning state after state all over the map -- then yes, he's in an awkward moment. And this notion that the "leftist base" are beholden to the hawkish Hillary of the DLC is just laughable. She actually gets paid to write this crap?

But here's the rub:

His problem was, is, his wife's words, not his, the speech in which she said that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of her country, because Obama is winning. She later repeated it, then tried to explain it, saying of course she loves her country. But damage was done.

Ah, yes. The damage was done -- with the crowd who for the past year have been screaming Balackhusseinosama and who've been forwarding e-mails about Obama being a Muslim and hating America because he didn't put his hand on his heart during the national anthem. Oh noes! Those wingnuts will never vote for Obama now!

Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America?...Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised--so raised in the liberal cocoon--that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think? And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?

Using words like "snobs" and "pampered" to describe Michelle Obama, who grew up the daughter of a Chicago water plant employee, and Barack Obama, who grew up without a dad and eschewed a cushy, six-figure legal gig to work as a community organizer on Chicago's posh South Side is really rich.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Cindy McCain Must Be Proud of Jim Crow
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on February 20, 2008 at 1:07 PM.

Either she's a liar or a sociopath:

"I am proud of my country. I don't know about you? If you heard those words earlier, I am very proud of my country," Mrs. McCain said while revving up the crowd and introducing her husband.

When asked at a media availability afterward if they were responding to Michelle Obama's comments that this election was the "first time" she was "really proud" of the U.S., Sen. McCain deferred to his wife-who reiterated her previous words.

"I just wanted to make the statement that I have and always will be proud of my country," McCain said.

How nice.

Given that she's lived through segregation, My Lai, and Abu Grhaib, though, that's a fairly disturbing thing to say. Always? Really? No matter what it does?

Of course this is about Michelle Obama's comments and the phony outrage machine that they inspired. To wingnuts, patriotism means being proud of your country like a child is proud of her mommy -- it can do no wrong. Ever.

(Adding, it's okay to hate the half of the country that votes Democrat, because those people aren't real Americans.)

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

John McCain Doubles Down on "100 Years in Iraq" Pledge
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on February 16, 2008 at 8:10 AM.

St. McCain has officially adopted "Iraq 4 Evah!" as a campaign slogan:

Republican presidential front-runner Sen. John McCain on Thursday defended his statement that U.S. troops could spend "maybe 100" years in Iraq -- saying he was referring to a military presence similar to what the nation already has in places like Japan, Germany and South Korea.

This again? For the last time, no Americans were getting killed in those countries 5 years after those wars started. And there weren't radicalized religious movements in those countries that our occupation was enraging. And two of those countries had actually, you know, declared war on us and stuff. (And by the way, why the hell do we still have troops in Japan and Germany?)

"It's not a matter of how long we're in Iraq, it's if we succeed or not," McCain said to CNN's Larry King.

Truly the words of a madman. Ahab-esque.

So it really doesn't matter how many more Americans get killed or many more trillions of dollars it costs. Doesn't matter if we lose another 4,000 men and women, another 30,000 wounded, spend another more trillion dollars, and kill a few hundred thousand more Iraqis. Doesn't matter how many more thousands of jihadis our occupation of Iraq is creating. Doesn't matter!

As long as we can spike the ball in the endzone at some point in the undefined future and say, "We won!!!!"-- it's all good.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McCain's First Ankle Bites at Obama
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on February 14, 2008 at 11:19 AM.

Just a preview of what we're going to see over the next several months. (updated)

McCain: I can tell you there are dramatic differences in our views. He's been endorsed by MoveOn.org, same organization that ran the Petraeus ad. It indicated where he is. He was wrong when he called for immediate withdrawal and timetable for Iraq. He was wrong when he said we could not win militarily.

Well, we knew as soon as MoveOn endorsed Obama, the wingnuts would cue the phony outrage chorus and sing "Betray Us, Bush/Hitler Ad!" over and over. But someone who kissed the ring of Jerry Falwell should probably be careful about playing that game. Should we ask St. McCain if he believes that 9/11 was caused by the gays?

As for Obama being wrong about not being able to win in Iraq militarily, take it away General:

"There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency of Iraq," Petraeus told a news conference, adding that political negotiations were crucial to forging any lasting peace.

If St. McCain really wants to make the 2008 election about Obama's refusal to acknowledge just how awesome Iraq is and that an organization that endorsed him said mean things about David Petraeus, he's going to be in for a long campaign.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »