Americans Captured in Iraq? Will they be beheaded on the Internet?
GOP, Neoncons Blame Bush It’s about time someone mentioned that the self-styled “emporer” is as naked as Dr Laura in those too-nasty-for-Hustler photos she posed for back when she was 29, “before you know what you’re doing.”
Hoyer (Who?) Undermines Pelosi, Dems Who is this guy, and how could he take over the Democratic House without my never having heard his name before?
Everything Changed On 11/7 The Cheney Monster spent Election Day hunting. To “relax,” he killed a bunch of little birds. Jesus, these sociopaths have been running our nation the last six years.
The Vilsack Buzz This made me laugh when I read the headline, so I had to read/include it. Turns out the writer gives Vilsack the same chances of winning that I do, but then again, where did this Hoyer fella come from?
UCLA Cops go Tazer Crazy You might cry when you see/hear this video. This poor bastard is screaming, “You motherfuckers” every time they shoot him with that tazer, all the time they’re yelling, “Stand up” at the poor bastard who’s being electrocuted.
Fascists push for crooked Gates They can’t have an honest, qualified guy run defense. They need s Bush crony who will risk jailtime to cover-up Bush crimes.
Voodoo on Der Fuhrer If only this crap worked
Restoration by my good friend Gene Lyons - Bush played it off like a high school “Heather.”
Why we hate Her and Carville Why can’t we just get the truth? Are facts bad?
closer
Kellie Pickler – Small town girl If she’s so innocent, why do you have to certify that you’re at least 18 to see her video? 
yo. you need to give the carville teabagging a rest. progressives win. he’s increasingly irrelevant. he stirs shit by naming a few facts on how a tidal wave could have been bigger. he calls for one of the architects head before the g.o.p. corpses are even cold. it’s lame. i’m no kossack, but i can understand the dislike of these old washington insider assholes. the netroots were a huge part of this election. dean was a huge part of a monumental win, and now oldschool wants to hitch the ride of the remora on the new big fish.
Comment by Spacemodulator — November 17, 2006 @ 4:44 pm
Here’s some facts about Carville’s claims.
And some extra food for thought, Bart.
Comment by curtis interruptus — November 17, 2006 @ 6:49 pm
The thing that bugs me about Carville is: When did he know which races those were, that Dean should have spent the money on? Did he know before Wednesday morning?
I’ve enjoyed Carville’s books. He’s got a great authorial voice. But he’s one of the guys who made the Democrats come up below 50% for the last couple of decades. Remember — even such a remarkable politician as Bill Clinton couldn’t get a majority with Carville advising him. Let’s not pay any attention to ol’ James any more.
Comment by joe6pack — November 17, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
Mr. Carville’s day is done. He’s unable to accept it. Dr. Dean did what all the Washington pundit class and so-called “liberal media” said couldn’t be done. He won. ‘Nuff said.
Comment by candymarl — November 17, 2006 @ 7:36 pm
Yeah, I used to love Carville, but this series of hits looks like the same ol’ Democratic circular jerking squad to me. Even if he had legitimate complaints about the way Dean handled his end of the campaign, why make such a distasteful public display of it? Why give the ree-pugs and the whore media a new football to play with, right when we should still be flush with victory? And for chrissakes why hold up as a replacement for Dean a guy who lost trying to run an “out-jesus the other guy” campaign? I’ve read enough about Harold Ford to conclude that he’s exactly the kind of handjob we don’t want in charge.
And you have to admit, Mary Matalin really is an angular harpy. I mean, I’m sorry, but there it is.
Comment by hz — November 18, 2006 @ 2:55 am
Here’s some stuff about Carville’s claims, Bart: http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/11/the_carville_cl.html
And a little extra for you to maybe reconsider your support of DLC-types like him: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/oct/07/did_carville_tip_bush_off_to_kerry_strategy_woodward
Comment by curtis interruptus — November 18, 2006 @ 7:40 am
Bart, you should do a story about the phantom shares in the stock market. It’s hard to explain, but the bad guys have stolen trillions of dollars this way.
The system is set up so real shares and bonds are immobolized at the Depository Trust Corporation. When you buy a share or a bond, you just get an electronic claim on a real share.
The bad guys have used this to make a mockery of the supply and demand auction market. By creating infinite supplies of phantom shares, they can push share prices down, bankrupting small companies and peeling value off of big ones.
Because they are betting in the right direction, that money comes directly from joe sixpack’s wallet into theirs.
The regulators at the SEC, senate banking committee, Depository Trust, etc. are all profiting from this crime.
They fully admit that the phantom shares (fails to deliver and fails to receive) are at least $70 billion at the current depressed prices. The real number is likely much higher.
Every time a custodian fails (Refco, MJK Clearing (Adnan Khasshogi brought it down Sept. 11th, funny it wasn’t in the news), Adler Coleman, etc.) it turns out the problem is much bigger than disclosed.
You can learn more at:
http://www.investigatethesec.com
http://www.thesanitycheck.com
(Click on blogs, several posters post almost every day)
Comment by phantom — November 18, 2006 @ 12:24 pm
My mail is running almost exclusively anti-Carville. He has pissed off a lot of people, so if I was JC, I’d make my case for why I was right or, failing that, consider a lower profile.
Comment by Bart — November 18, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
Comment about Time Magazine:
(Yeah, I know this is a Carville thread, but the site said there’d be a thread on Time Magazine).
We on the Left have done an awful lot of complaining about how the MSM has let us down. How they failed to do their job to uncover the truth, and keep the country informed.
I’d just like to take a moment to point something really important out. The “Mainstream Media” is composed of corporations, and corporations only have, by law, one job: To increase shareholder value.
There are many reasons *why* this is. Legally, it’s this way because you invest in a company to see a return on your investment, not to see your money put toward’s the CEO’s personal goals (whether good or evil). Functionally, it’s this way because a company which cares more about profits that any other concerns, will simply out-survive any competitors who put something else first.
Do I like this? Hell no. It makes corporations, which have a much larger influence over our lives than we’d like to admit, amoral by definition. This is a *bad* thing for us. Which is why we, as citizen, hope to have laws passed that prevent companies from making profits in ways that hurt us. Unfortunately, because of the way our political system works, when we do get such laws passed, an amoral company will simply do whatever they can to have any laws which stand in the way of increasing their profits changed. Just remember, the FIRST goal of a corporation is profit. Any road to profit at all, WILL be taken. The will change the laws – via lobbying and campaign contributions (aka legal bribery) to increase profits, and they will readily *break* the law when the fines or public backlash against them is still outweighed by the profits they make in doing so.
And again, if they don’t, they will be crushed by companies that do.
Why do I bring this up? Because we have to understand what we’re dealing with – and right now we don’t. We think we’re dealing with an MSM that’s crazy, or scared, or loves the GOP or something. They are not any of those things. They are systems which seek profit by any means available. If we want to change their actions, they ONLY thing we can use to do so are things which affect their profits.
That means that, when a company does something you don’t like, you must do something to lessen their profits for having done so. You must boycott their products (and tell them), and you must reward their competitors (and tell them). Then, doing the things we want them to do become more profitable, because it improves their sales, and they will automatically do them.
As far as political corruption by corporations go, it means we must reward politicians for voting the way we want, not for doing a superior job of marketing themselves to us. Bartcop types probably do this more than anyone, but we always need to stay aware of the only thing that will work. If a politician can vote to say, have every third person in your town murdered – and then use the political contributions from funeral homes to run ads which gets them elected anyway – well, that’s what they’ll do (or they be defeated by the first guy willing to do it).
So this also means that we DO have to make political contributions to whoever the best candidate in the field is. Not the candidate who does what we want, but the candidate who does more of what we want than any of the others. If us Liberals donated time and money to the most liberal politicians, they way Christians donate time and money to their churches – we’d easily overtake the amount of donations politicians got from amoral corporations, and get progressively better politicians whether most people voted based on ads or not.
But mostly my point is that we need to stop thinking that corporations, like the MSM, will do a damn thing to help us, the country, or the planet – unless that the most immediately profitable option on the table. They won’t. Ever. And this will not change in your lifetime. So either support news sources which *aren’t* profit driven, or tie a corporations profits to how they behave. Ideally both, if you happen to have a hell of a lot of time on your hands ;-).
To sum up:
1. Get your news from Bartcop, DailyKOS, places like that. And click on the damn ads. Stop reading and watching the MSM, unless it’s confined to the best of the breed to make their most liberal writers their most profitable ones.
2. Contribute time and money to the most liberal candidates you can find.
3. When possible, boycott the products and services of the most evil companies (Walmart, Newscorp, check out opensecrets.org for more) and let them know why you’re doing it.
4. Even when we win, and there’s successful programs like the Daily Show, don’t forget that the corporations behind their existence are STILL motivate by nothing more than profit, so don’t assume otherwise. For example, if their was a left-wing website or newpaper or TV show that did an awfully good job of convincing us of say, that the GOP was planning to slip sterilizing drugs into the water supply of blue states – we’d be reading them like crazy for the latest developments. But if a higher readership meant greater profits for them – it’s entirely possible that they only reason they were running the story was specifically to increase their profits – and NOT because it was true. It might be true, or it might not, is what I’m saying. I’ve only seen small hints in our tiny corner of left-wing media so far (drumming up fears of things that kind of go beyond reasonable conclusions but make for very compelling stories); but that’s just because we’re small. Just keep in mind that if we make it profitable to lie to us in a Left-leaning way, rather than making it profitable to tell us the truth, Rupert Murdock is just as capable of starting a flashy GOP Bashing channel to cash in as he was when he created a Liberal bashing network to cash in on dumb conservatives. We’re smarter than Conservatives, but let’s stay that way, is what I’m saying.
I know, this kind of Eternal Vigilence is hefty price to pay just for Liberty. And it’s *real* damn frustrating when it seems like you and your friends are getting stuck with the bill for that Liberty, while a huge percentage of the country free-loads off you, enjoy the freedoms you’ve protected without doing one god damned thing to pitch in.
But the alternatives are either losing the Liberty, or doing nothing and making the people who are willing to work for it work that much harder to cover for you.
Personally, I try to stay focus on the importance of pitching in, whether it’s successful, or the burden is even shared or not. And that’s because when I picture either having Liberty or having Dictatorship, I want to be able to say truthfully that I did what I could, because I’m the type of human being who believes that you should. If it’s a dictatorship, I want the people to meet me to know that I tried to stop it. If it’s Liberty, I want the people who meet me to know I helped bring it about.
The act of helping when I can defines the type of human being I am. And having that definition be “a good one”, is a lot more important to me than whatever else I could achieve in my brief life.
Thanks for listening to my rant
Comment by RexDevious — November 18, 2006 @ 2:23 pm
Just testing…
Comment by SoCalCommie — November 18, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
Bart,
I met Mr. Carville at the Juliefest. Unlike Mr. Conason, Mr. Brock, and Mr. Bartcop, I found Mr. Carville to be a first order prick. Don’t get me wrong; I like my prick. I think my prick is very useful at the right time and place, but most of the time I am thankful that my prick stays quietly in his place.
Mr. Carville is a damn good hit man, but that is the problem. He is in fact a trained killer. I do not like or trust many of his positions. I am afraid that the best thing that Mr. Carville will ever do for the Democratic Party has been done. I will always be thankful for his work in the “war room.”
I come to your site day after day because you have proven to have the BEST bullshit sensor I have ever seen in a plainspoken voice. I think you missed this one. I would expect you, of all people, to be asking Mr. Carville to offer some facts that would indicate that the long-term goal of building an effective Democratic Machine would be enhanced by dumping Mr. Dean.
I look at it this way. We gained control of both houses and can greatly slow the rightwing assault. At this point, ten or twenty MORE seats in the house don’t mean squat. The next election is less than two years away. Why start that fight deeper in debt? If more seats were truly winnable, then two years of good governance and party building will make them even more winnable.
We both know much of what is known about the Republican’s Machine. It will take steady funding and long term planning to keep them at bay. I like Mr. Deans fifty state fight. I want the funding for it to be secure with steady growth. It is too soon to go “all in” but I have seen no evidence that Mr. Dean has made any poor choices in the allocation of resources. Certainly, Mr. Carville has offered none.
Your good friend Conifer
Comment by Conifer — November 20, 2006 @ 12:42 am
Let’s start here: it took the Republican party, after the Watergate-Carter 1970s, about 14 years to build a grass-roots network that enabled their 1994 Contract with (or “On”?) America, which allowed them to break the long, dominant stretch of Democratic Congresses, enabling their half-generation of anti-Clinton, and PRO-Bush majorities in Congress.
It took Howard Dean, former front-running Presidential candidate*, only TWO years.
Read more?
( http://crystelzenmud.blogspot.com/2006/11/thoughts-on-james-carville-ex-genius.html )
Comment by Drew — November 21, 2006 @ 3:49 am
Bart, [Thanksgiving Day]
I could have never pushed on through the past 6 years as you have done. We have been through some very depressing times as we have seen the USA image so badly tarnished by the decider.
But you have persevered. You, Bart, have quit your “day job” to fight for what you believe in.
So — on this Thanksgiving Day — I am thankful for you and your relentless pursuit of a better country and a better world.
Someone in your youth (probably lots of people) has given you a good outlook of what is good and what is bad.
I am also thankful that I stumbled onto your website during a search for “pig boy” many years ago.
I hope you and Mrs.B are enjoying some good weather and some good food.
Bob in Oklahoma City.
Comment by OKCBob — November 23, 2006 @ 10:00 am