Quote of the day

House Speaker.... for about 10 more months, Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just told reporters that she does not believe she has enough votes in the House to pass the Senate health care reform bill as-is—at least not yet.

“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi said. “The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn’t like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them.”

“In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is,” she said. “There isn’t a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made.”

Well that sure was a nice health care reform effort that was made, but it's time to give up. I mean there is that new 41-59 Republican majority to think about.

I just want to say thanks to Democrats for wasting the last year, failing to understand what the fuck they're reaping, damning themselves to severe losses in November, placing political gamesmanship over making advances in the US health care system, not learning a goddamn thing from any of the previous failed health care efforts, and for convincing Americans in one year that they don't want you anywhere near the reins of power. That last one was impressive, it took Republicans eight years of failed wars, terrorist attacks, corruption, civil liberties violations, torture, spying on citizens, Constitutional violations, and economic failure to decide that they were unfit to run things.

Way to fuck up as always Democrats. For extra comic effect, do you think you all could attempt to organize a one car funeral? I'd just like to see what happens.

Whoops! Pobody's nerfect.

Hmmmm. I don't know how to quite say this, as I know the revelation will shock and horrify you. But it seems that our terrorist detention, rendition, and interrogation policy wasn't as smart and effective as we all initially thought it was. I know, big surprise. It seems some rather large mistakes were made. The Washington Post has come forward with another story of how some...faux pas...were made.

An al-Qaeda associate captured by the CIA and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques said his jailers later told him they had mistakenly thought he was the No. 3 man in the organization's hierarchy and a partner of Osama bin Laden, according to newly released excerpts from a 2007 hearing.

"They told me, 'Sorry, we discover that you are not Number 3, not a partner, not even a fighter,' " said Abu Zubaida, speaking in broken English, according to the new transcript of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
...
Abu Zubaida, a nom de guerre for Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, told the 2007 panel of military officers at the detention facility in Cuba that “doctors told me that I nearly died four times” and that he endured “months of suffering and torture” on the false premise that he was an al-Qaeda leader.
...
He described the response he received: "You are not American, and you are not on American soil. So you cannot ask about the Constitution."

I can't believe it three guys we waterboarded (and it was only three!!! No, you can't check records to see if that's true) wasn't even who we thought he was. So let's revisit the checklist: not only were we engaging in massively illegal conduct deemed illegal by our own laws and international laws, not only did we spend our waterboarding time asking about mythical Iraq/al-Qaeda connections, but one of the guys wasn't even who we thought he was.

Slow golf clap everyone. I'm not sure they could have fucked up more stages of this. Not only weren't we asking useful questions, we weren't even waterboarding the correct people. Were they even using water? Are we certain they weren't trying to waterboard people with syrup or dirt? Bush decides to break laws and torture and then handles it will all the care of a drunk Inspector Clouseau in a china shop. Wonderful, we didn't even get to sell our national soul for something good. Isn't that always the way? Though, to be fair, if this was baseball, batting .666 would be a pretty legendary career. So if you think of it that way it's....mildly less shame inducing.

The Bush popularity boom

With only a few days left on his stewardship of our fading empire, our boy emperor is seeing a popularity boom. Since November, George has risen 9 points from an abysmal 25% to an abysmal 34%. The cause for this outpouring of affection? Republicans. See they've come back around on the boy, moving their opinion of him from the 55% they registered back in October, back to the mid/high seventies. Independents have moved from the mid twenties to the high twenties, and good ole Democrats have kept their opinion of George Bush right in the single digits. I guess the GOP has come around on the kid, fantasizing about him in his flight suit and remembering that while he may have destroyed the country, Bush did ram two far right judges onto the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately for the number wonks, Bush at 34% means he is no longer the most unpopular President ever to leave office. Truman clocked in at a 32% and Nixon slid into home with a 24%. Bush only finished with the second highest disapproval number, a 61% to Nixon's 66%. Bush even failed at failing. But that's more on us, America. What does a man have to do to be less popular than Nixon? Because whatever it is, Bush has certainly done enough to deserve it. Or do Americans just hate warrantless wiretapping, torture, war, Katrina, and Dick Cheney less than they hate shoddy burglaries?

Unfortunately the fact that Truman and Nixon are on that list is going to give Bushie hope, as both have seen their image rehabilitated over the years. Truman by the fact that people came to respect his integrity and that no one gives a shit about MacArthur getting fired or McCarthyism anymore, Nixon because of the existence of the George W. Bush presidency. So take heed George, there's an outside shot people will respect your integrity (say if we're ruled by brutish barbarian overlords for 1000 years) or if people decide that we have a President that's even worse than you and therefore come to hate you less. Cross those fingers.

Barry v. Osama

Osama bin Laden decided to pop back up today with a message for the world and our new President. It was a tape of his congratulations to his Muslim brother and a signal to ease tensions in the Middle East. Just kidding, it was all about the Jews! OBL is, surprisingly, not a fan of this Gaza conflict. He called for a jihad against Israel, which was surprising because I thought one had already been called years ago. Maybe this is a new one, or maybe in all the hubbub of 9/11 and Iraq, Israel just slipped al Qaeda's mind. It happens. He also vowed to open new fronts on the war on terror against the US.

"We are on the way to opening new fronts," he said, urging Muslims to "join hands with the mujahedeen to continue the jihad against the enemy, to continue bleeding them on these two fronts and on the others that are open to you."

"The question is, can America continue the war against us for several more decades? The reports and signs show us otherwise," he said. He said Bush had left his successor "with a heavy inheritance," forcing Obama to choose between withdrawing from the wars or continuing.

"If he withdraws from the war, it is a military defeat. If he continues, he drowns in economic crisis," bin Laden said.

I'm not so sure I buy Osama's financial analysis. We can give almost a trillion to banks but ten billion a month is causing us financial trouble? Did insurgents unleash credit swap markets on us? Come on now, claiming credit for our economic failures? That's just being dishonest. Well, unless Phil Gramm was a cell leader. Also big congrats to George Bush, I didn't think you were going to get a big FACE~! from your greatest failure, but OBL did not disappoint. Have I thanked you for pulling troops out of Tora Bora to go to Iraq? No?

But I'm more outraged by his continual use of audio tapes. We're in a Blu-Ray world Osama, Hamas has its own YouTube and you're still pressing record on your boombox. Get with the program Osama, get a blog, a YouTube channel, and a Flickr account and start hammering out some hate and/or satirical news pieces. How are you going to speak to the kids if you can't poke them on Facebook? Then you can challenge the new guy. It's just hard to take you seriously at this point. Web 2.0, look into it.

Bush legacy tour kicks into gear

George Bush kicked his post-Presidential career of pretending not to know what happened to the country over the past eight years into full swing today with his final press conference. Of note was the fact that he actually gave a press conference. No shoes were thrown. Those of you who are too young to remember might have heard stories of a time when our elected betters would stand in front of a podium made out of the bones of their defeated enemies to subdue the screeching attacks of the pampered ink stained elite. These ceremonies have fallen into disfavor over the past eight years as our chief ape was not able to deflect the insightful howling of the writing baboons in a competent manner. Thus the ritual was left to become legend. But it's back and George is still trying to flog what his brain perceives as minor snafus.

In a nostalgic farewell news conference, Bush recalled the start of his own presidency, called Obama "a smart, engaging person" and said he wishes his successor all the best.

As for his own presidency, Bush defended his decisions on the Iraq war, the issue that will define his presidency like no other. There have been over 4,000 U.S. deaths since the invasion and toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

He said that "not finding weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment." The accusation that Saddam had and was pursuing weapons of mass destruction was Bush's main initial justification for going to war.

Bush admitted another miscalculation: Eager to report quick progress after U.S. troops ousted Saddam Hussein, Bush five years ago made a victory speech in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, a sign that turned out to be wildly optimistic.

Ah yes, that damn banner. It all would have gone right if not for that damn banner. And the no WMD's. And starting that war. But other then that: aces. Bush then took time to pontificate on Katrina, actually trying to use criticism of the speed of the Federal response as an attack on the integrity and decency of helicopter pilots who were pulling people off of rooftops. Classic Bush, we're going to miss that unmitigated gall and the implication that any criticism of you is criticism of some other group of honorable citizens. Bush also took time out of his busy schedule to demand the rest of the $350 billion in bank bailout cash. Apparently Paulson really is jonesing to hand out billions again and if he doesn't get his fix he might do something crazy. I' m sure Congress will get right on it.

Bush then more or less indirectly pointed out that everything he did will have to be fixed and addressed by future Presidents, lest they suck us down into some swirling maelstrom of destruction. That's a fitting coda, it will take possibly the next two or three Presidents to undo Bush II. I guess that's a legacy...of a sort.

Bush economy historically bad, in case you were wondering

In case you weren't swayed by the shoe leather you're boiling to eat, some nice economists got together and added up a bunch of numbers and then compared them to other numbers and came to one shocking conclusion: the Bush economy has been an exploding hellstorm of misery and despair. By the way, that's a technical term.

President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, and economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly view his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation's thorniest fiscal challenges.

The number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush's tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans' incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush's father.

Now these numbers only go back seven decades, so it's not a complete picture of failure. Who knows, maybe Zachary Taylor, James Polk, or Grover Cleveland (the second time) presided over worse economies. We'll never know, for some reason they didn't keep extensive GDP records or employment statistics or have electric/polio medicine. But at least he'll have a conversation starter with his father other than "I don't think James Cromwell looked or acted much like you in W". He can start right off with "Isn't it funny how our two Presidencies were the worst for American workers in decades? I wonder how that happened." before then switching the conversation to baseball.

So now we're getting the full picture. Not just bad in a "I kinda don't like the guy and feel this has been a shitty eight years." But bad in a numbers, maths+science, doctorate, slide rule, official looking podiums, men with glasses, lab coat, official kind of way. Now we know for sure it wasn't a mass hallucination/bad dream.

Picture of the day - 11.14.08

Shocking.

Deadspin's coverage of this landmark moment in presidential history is not to be missed.