Friday, December 30, 2005

The Year in Review...

Or what I Learned on the Blogosphere.

Chiefly nothing, The Chimes at Midnight is notable for it's churlish consistency.
Along the way though, we discovered that Lawrence Novak has mysteriously disappeared into the bowels of the Commonwealth's legal system, taking the secret of his gold with him.
Mitt bailed on us and wants to elect what amounts to a slightly shopworn Troll Doll in serve in his stead.
Jeff Jacoby, Joan Vennochi and Scot Lehigh all wrote stupid and laughable columns.
Brian McGrory managed to do likewise as well, but mostly he spent the year experimenting with a new text based form of anesthesia.
We watched as New Orleans was destroyed while the President played his guitar and Condi Rice went shoe shopping.
Harriet Miers flared and died, the value of being a toady unto La Famiglia Arbusto having been suddenly devalued.
Our boys and girl kept getting blown up for no good reason in Iraq.
Scooter Libby got indicted...the Veep's entirely unconstitutional domination of foreign policy was exposed for all to see.
It was not in any sense of the word, a good year....unless wallowing in schaedenfreude is your thing.
And that gets old quickly.

And we lost...
Rosa Parks
Arthur Miller
Max Schmeling
Shirley Chisholm
Eugene McCarthy
Will Eisner
Ossie Davis
Sandra Dee
Hunter S. Thompson
Anne Bancroft
George F. Kennan
Simon Wiesenthal
Richar Pryor
Pope John Paul II
James "Sunny Jim" Callaghan
Edward Heath
Robert Wise
Don Adams
Bob Denver
Terri Schiavo

Rest in Peace all of you, the rest of us are in it up to our armpits

Thursday, December 29, 2005

More On Mihos

Why does Christy Mihos want to run for Governor as an Independent?

Assuming this isn't a tactic to intimidate Kerry Healey into giving him access to the GOP Primary Ballot unmolested, then Mihos may have come to the realization that the value of the GOP Gubernatorial nomination has fallen into an abyss over the last 16 years of uninterrupted republican domination of the Governor's office.
Consider, the GOP's field organization in the Commonwealth has reached an advanced state of decrepitude, as a consequence the party does not win state wide on its ability to muscle & hustle precincts. No the game plan has always to run as a outsider-bulwark against the state legislature. This plan depends on three things, money, image and willingness to run statewide on a hard sell time urgent advertising campaign.
These days the Massachusetts GOP is more and more a flag of convenience and fund-raising PO Box. It is inevitable that someone with enough money could appropriate their game plan and run with it as an independent. Frankly the GOP's local organization is in such decay, I'm surpised it hasn't happened sooner than this.

Can Mihos Win?

Maybe, historically third party candidacies are dicey propositions, that having been said in the past twenty years Independents have been elected Governor in Maine and Connecticut. Moreover, Reform Party Nominee Jesse Ventura carried the day in Minnesota with something like 33% of the vote in 1998...thats an interesting statistic in Massachusetts where independent voters themselves are over a third of the potential electorate.
Don't forget, Mihos will undoubtably run as a socially moderate fiscal conservative type yap, the local punditariat i.e Scot Lehigh and Brian McGrory will mark out hard for him as they are particularly vulnerable to this kind of mallarky.

Sounds GREAT! Where do I sign up!?

Right now Christy Mihos is only threatening an independent candidacy, Romney may yet talk him out of a move that'll cause the State GOP nothing but trouble next year.
I however would like to humbly suggest that Christy Mihos run on the "Misogyny Ticket". After all he made his bones shoving aside Acting Governor Jane "Jingle Money" Swift and then jacking up Shannon O'Brien in the General Election, now he wants to mug Kerry Healey...anyone else see a pattern emerging here?

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Power Mad Political Boss Demands Bay State Governorship....

Or so the headline in today's Globe ought to read....
So Christy Mihos wants to be Governor eh?
Part of me is fine with this even down to Mihos notional independent gubernatorial candidacy, as democrats we've had to put up with yaps like Jill Stein for a while now, why should the GOP perpetually profit by ideological strife on the left?

On the other hand, it was Christy P. Mihos who tempted Romney into the Governor's race in 2002 and now proposes to run as just the man to fix the mess made by Willard's ineptitude, egomania and neglect?

Someone else smell hubris here?

Frankly I was hoping that Romney's withdrawal might tempt someone else into the Democratic Race for Governor (Joe? Yew out there big guy?)...but all the action seems to be popping on the other side of the aisle.
For the moment....

Right on schedule...

Jeff Jacoby has rolled out his annual "The LEFT is guilty of HATE SPEECH" column. An embarrassing and increasingly childish tirade that does little to advance Jeff's prospects as Boston's next big think conservative.
This particular gem though, stands out:
Antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan, who denounced President Bush as an ''evil maniac" and ''Führer" and said his administration -- ''the biggest terrorist outfit in the world" -- is committing ''blatant genocide" in Iraq.
Jeff buddy would it kill you to just mention even in passing that Cindy rendered up her son for the current war in Iraq?
A sacrifice you yourself won't have to contemplate with young Kaleb for another thirteen or so years assuming Jeb succeeds George and Neil then assumes the Overseership of Plantation USA.
Careful excisions like this are a hallmark of the current anxiety ridden conservative zeitgeist.
Well what of it?
We can't expect any reasonable thinking from Jeff.
He claims on the basis of nothing but his own wishful imagination that the right is better policed than the left when it comes to "hate speech".
And yet when Ann Coulter mused about blowing up the New York Times did Jeff spring to the defense of his nominal employers?
No.
When Bill O' Reilly snarled at San Francisco wishing a terrorist attack on that metropolis....did Jeff speak up?
Nope.
And when Rush Limbaugh ranted that John Kerry wants to get rid of Christmas....Jeff maintains a decorous silence.

Where was the right's self policing mechanism in any of these cases?
Nowhere because it exists as naught but an annual rhetorical device favored by one ambitious Boston Globe columnist.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Props for Ben (of Romney is a Fraud fame)

by way of the Boston Globe's metro pages.

This is RiaF's second newspaper "profile", serious Chimes at Midnight fans (all seven of you) will recall Ben's debut as the subject of a column by Dan Kennedy in the Phoenix.

Still no press attention paid to the poor old Chimes at Midnight, guess my reputation as a bland passionless moderate in the helpful but hapless mode of Joe Lieberman has gotten the better of me.
:)
Seriously though, congrats to Ben.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Who signed the anti-gay marriage ballot Initiative?

The answer lies here.

Mission Accomplished

no...really.

Nothing left to now but wait for the inevitable self congratulatory Jeff Jacoby column by, which will of course, be but a curtain raiser to the next round of bombings and kidnappings.

Pointing this out of course, makes one liable to be accused of "liberal hate speech" by Jeff...which makes it all the more delicious.

Happy Holidays to all.

Santa is coming, duck!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Willard must love this time of year...

the cold air properly refridgerates his hard little heart and he can strut around in snowstorms showing off his viceregal immunity to low temperatures.
or he can start blustering at the Globe and Herald, accusing them of distorting his views.

(BTW check out that picture in the link is that an ugly little smirk or what?)

This is plainly and coldly hilarious, Mitt has turned on the very newspapers and the pundits therein that once smoothed his path to power in 2002. It had to be expected though, Romney dumps on the Commonwealth at every chance when he goes a-touring amongst the wowsers, why shouldn't he start snarking off at Morrissey Boulevard and One Herald Square?
Hell it might immunize him from some pot-shots when the time comes up in New Hampshire.
That and his inhuman resitance to cold makes him a credible candidate up there come 2008, I mean forget his five different positions on abortion all relentlessly dictated by space-time co-ordinates!

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The Bush Admin offers

a novel excuse for the NSA's unauthorized domestic wiretapping program...to go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Authorization Court (aka FISA)involved cumbersome paperwork.

Wa-al Shit Ah'm all choked up at how this Admin fights on and on against needless wasteful red-tape.

Truth is, collecting the oil depreciation allowance, nomination electors to the Electoral College, starting phony charities all involves reams of paperwork...which these rampant assholes all happily fill out while they look around for new ways to reduce us all to peonage.
I've said it before and I'll say it again until they bust down the door and drag me off to a faith based re-education camp, these bastards are all driving this country towards a revolution.
I for one do not look forward to such a conflagration....but its their ardent desire and nothing much gets in their way when it comes to the Praetorian Class' Ardent Desires.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Savage criticism of Governor Romney from

Boston Globe Metro columnist Brian McGrory:
To be sure, Romney has been somewhat of a disappointment as governor. I expected him to be a master of compromise, which he never was. I believed he would be a far-reaching reformer. He wasn't. I thought he'd be zealously nonpartisan. He hasn't been

"Somewhat"?

Gee that Brian McGrory is just wallowing in rage and invective isn't he?

It seems Romney's aides are telling Brian that Decaf will be running for President as "Mr. Fixit", a character who "saved" Massachusetts sans recourse to a tax hike.
Oh boy....
Being a polite man, Brian apparently neglected to remind this un-named aide that the Governor has run up a cautious surplus by raising every single miserable little fee he can lay his cold boney hands on.

Like I said, that Brian McGroy sure is polite to a fault.

Well, the problem here is simple, Brian is a fervent believer in the myth of the rampant state legislature which must be restrained by some heroic martyr of a moderate republican.
And if a moderate republican can't be found, well then Brian McGrory and Scot Lehigh etc will simply pretend the captioned GOP candidate is a moderate and say no more.
The reason why is simple, most of these pundits are themselves moderate republicans, they like low taxes, small government, a quiet efficient bureaucracy, a lavish interpretation of the first amendment (for indeed that is were they make their money) and keeping the theocrats confined to Sunday Mornings. They are well paid, prosperous and frightened of the future.
Fair enough, not everyone can be liberal blogger....but what kills me is, the Globe's punditariat are such absolute enablers, they won't fight for anything.
They'll happily make their peace with Christy Mihos (a bloated corruptard is ever there was one) or even a fraud like Kerry Healey and call it moderation.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Monday, December 19, 2005

Joe Keohane, Editor of the Weekly Dig

(and a man who turned down several of my resumes back when I was at loose ends), had a long appreciation of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here in yesterday's Globe.
Breathlessly Joe thinks the book's tale of a Fascist takeover in the USA is scary & prophetic etc.
Well, Humble Elias is glad that old Sinclair is getting some props, but methinks this is a superficial reading of one of his personal favorites.
After all, the book has never been out of print, in fact it had a great deal of cachet when Nixon was tearing up the landscape.
In troubled times with rampant policians we tend to retire to this volume for any one of a number of reasons.
Conflating Buzz Windrip Lewis' American Dictator and an excellent caricature of Huey Long with George Bush is a mistake in Humble Elias' opinion.
Buzz Windrip and Huey Long both share a blood-lust for power and dark talent for demogaguery, but they are both lacking in any mythical ideological preoccupations. Lewis describes Windrip as a sort of Babbit like figure animated by a tawdry mind and coward's love of absolute power. Arthur Schlesinger noted Long's lack of a ubermenschen myth to his hodgepodge of "Share the Wealth" notions.
This is because, Long lived and died and Windrip was written prior to the revelation of Auschwitz and the Soviet Union's Great Terror. Prior to 1945 or so, no one truly believed mass murder on a cosmic scale might be undertaken and then justified solely to appease mere ideology.
No, Long and Windrip are not really any relation to George Bush. The President is after all a true believer, God, the freemarket, simpleminded paternal values and a messianic sense of destiny co-mingle in some dangerous ways in that otherwise empty uncomplicated head of his.
If anything Bush resembles that durable mystical caricature of liberal Presidential failure Edward M. Jason from the Advise and Consent series by Allen Drury.

Ah but Humble Elias promises you, Joe hasn't read any of those books.
:)

A Paranoid Note...

if you dig deep enough into this NSA domestic spying thing, no dount you'll find a few staffers on the Kerry Campaign being officially wiretapped. Maybe even the man himself?
Who knows?
The Admin's justification for this patent illegality seems to be that the Patriot Act invalidated all previous laws and safeguards and that therefore the President, like King George the Third may do as he pleases.
Never has so mucg power been given so quickly and misused so completely.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Mitt Departs in a Cloud of Noxious Vapors...

Connecticut, governed by a Republican no less, has signed onto the Northeastern Greenhoue Gas Initiative. Romney, seeking the votes and approval of petrobarons etc, has denounced the pact.
Shows you what he thinks of us doesn't it?

In the Panic Grove...

I give them about two maybe three weeks. Then the polls will hit and if Reilly and Patrick are outpolling Lt. Governor Healey by a wide margin, you'll see the pride of the Local GOP's Machers start burning up their cel-phone minutes looking for a candidate.
It won't be subtle believe me.
The process is as poll driven and opportunistic now as it was four years ago when Willard was fly out of Salt Lake on the strength of one poll commissioned by Christy Mihos.
Humble Elias has no names to conjure with, but the broad parameters are easy enough to see.
This notional challenge to Healey in the GOP Primary will have to be undertaken by someone who can self finance all the way through the electoral process. There is no time to work up fundraisers for say, Andy Card or Peter Blute.
This also reinforces the need for a reformer-businessman-outsider, someone with no disturbing ideological baggage and who can appeal to the independents in the Commonwealth.
So what this means is, pretty much 2006, will look alot like 2002 right down to thr daredevil do-it-yourself republican politician who skydives in at the last minute to save us all from the consequences of 16 years of GOP Governance.
But again, this isn't driven by any desire to do right by the citizenry, it is powered by polls, ambition, spite...all those tried and true GOP family values.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Thursday, December 15, 2005

God Bless Romney is a Fraud...

Ben can roll with the punches as none other....

The Boston Globe Wakes Up...

and calls for Mitt Romney's resignation on grounds of being a smug ass-hole.
Normally, this would be consummation devoutly to be wished.
To be rid of Willard's mixture of bluster, egomania, inexperience and faltering ineptitude would be plainly wonderful, but Lt. Governor Healey has all of Romney's vices times two with a dose of naive' stupidity thrown in for good measure.
Putting her in power the way Weld put in Cellucci and the way Cellucci put in Swift only underscores the real problem here in Massachusetts, inconstant and inept leadership in the Governor's Office. Creating a sixth Governor in fifteen years is not the answer. unless of course, Kerry Healey were to resign as well, she is a much a symbol of Mitt's detached and depraved style of leader as anything else.
no, the sturdy yeomen and yeowomen of the Commonwealth, voted this dingbat in, he ought to have enough basic respect for his constituents to serve out his full term...which none of his last three predecessors were able to do.
Alas that decision lies with Mitt and his festering Potomac fever and he may yet betray us one last time.
However, to do so would make Kerry Healey Acting Governor and the de facto incumbent, and Humble Elias suspects that Willard isn't as committed to her candidacy as some people think.
remember what he did to Jane "Jingle Money" Swift, Willard could well be preparing another coup on behalf of Charlie Baker, Boss Christy Mihos or perhaps the remains of Henry Cabot Lodge.
It is appalling to think that is his main reason for retaining office.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

File this Under: "Couldn't happen to a nicer

self righteous rightical chic Blonde Fembot"

Now if only Nancy Grace and her alleged stalke could get handcuffed together in the approved Fox Sitcom Style, that would be utter heaven to watch.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Romney Caves In...

The AP reports he has decided against running for Re-election as Governor of Massachusetts.

Well thats that.
The Romney Aufklarung is over....around here at any rate.
Now the game is really afoot, if not in the Democratic primary, then perhaps in the Republican.
I mean, 300 or so Town and City GOP Chairs are gonna wake up tomorrow with one thing on their minds, that well-fed, well-funded, utterly brainless Kerry Healey is currently the front runner in their gubernatorial primary.
I can hear the phones ringing all over the Commonwealth...to Mike Sullivan, Christy Mihos...and who knows maybe Andy Card or haggard old Pete Blute.
Someone...anyone!

Come Watson, the game is afoot!

The Democratic Party is about to be Outlawed...

in Ohio.
Details can be found Hyar.

Dunno, I saw no spot of blood on the moon last night, and the air was quite still...and yet I know the Praetorian Class is relentlessly driving this country towards revolution like a thoughtless and drunken Country Squire.

How much are those plots in the Baja goin' for?

Fixed the link to the

"Blue Mass Group"....which was buggin' Humble Elias as it is a fine daily read.

Marry in Massachusetts...

after some polite apple-polishing from Humble Elias at this weekend's Blogleft Event, has graciously consented to link unto "The Little Blog that Cried".
Which, by the way, was a great time all around. Stirling Newberry is as effective a speaker as he is a writer and Frederick Clarkson reminded all and sundry that the wowsers are coming next summer to fight for the Gay Marriage ban here in the Commonwealth.
And it was nice to mingle with my fellow bloggers, Sco, the Blue Mass Group, Andy et al...if I've forgotten anyone then please forgive.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Galvin ist Kaput...

Secretary of State Billy Galvin has unceremoniously dropped out of the race for Governor.
This is a shame, although Humble Elias wasn't in accord with some of Galvin's positions he is a man of some ability and ought to have had a chance to present his views to a democratic primary.
I wonder what Billy knows that we don't?
I wonder what Reilly had to promise to get Galvin out of the race?
Not that Humble Elias is suspicious or anything....

Meanwhile nuts to the Globe for exiling this important news to page three of the metro section....this on a useless newsday noted for an above the fold frontpage headline that does nothing but underscore the President's inability to count.

And this is bad news for Cam Kerry, Galvin's announcement that he'll seek re-election knocks the Senator's brother out of the SoS race.
Too bad, he is another able man in many respects.
Just a quick shout out to Cam, dude, steer clear of the Middlesex DA's race we are already overloaded with talent!

Warren Tolman is calling this a two man race in the above linked article, Humble Elias is still hoping for someone else to parachute, but its getting late in the game for even the machers he has in mind.

The problem is, everyone I like is either dead or out of politics.

Oh and Decaf still hasn't enlightened the local peonage as to his plans next year. According to the Olde Fahmas Almanac, Autumn ends on December 20th in these here parts. So it is seven days a counting....Geezus the Viceroy is drama-queen just announce asshole and be Done With It!

Monday, December 12, 2005

Mad Doctor Frist

the National Cat Torturer, threatens to blow the US Senate sky high if the Democrats dare filibuster the many opinioned Judge Alito.
This is truly hilarious, a man who may shortly be facing a jury on securities fraud charges dares to lecture Senate Democrats and the whole wide world on ethics.

All I know is, Harriet Miers didn't get a "up or down" vote so why should Alito?

Eugene McCarthy is Dead...

An Icon and a Hero to many, he was, by the time I came on the scene a man with a complicated and unhappy legacy.
Yes, his was a lonely and courageous stand against LBJ and the war back when it counted.
Alas he is also the man who endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 with the pithy epigram "Better a competent extremist than an incompetent moderate".
A more Goldwaterian meditation cannot be imagined by Humble Elias.
This would be the same Ronald Reagan who famously "joked" about turning North Viet Nam into a "parking lot" making the late President a comparatively rare example of a pure genocide humorist.
This was a man who once famously waxed poetic before the nation on behalf of Adlai Stevenson.
All gone.
All of it.
Yup that was Gene the man for Humble Elias, whose youth came to an end on a overcast Wednesday morning in the First Week in November back in 1980. He and so many others were duly hustled aboard a long shit-train which shows no sign on stopping as of 12:28pm EST 12-12-05.
Indeed it's picking up speed isn't it?
Where was Gene McCarthy and his boundless love for the Youth of the Nation when MY bad scene was coming down under the aegis of Ronaldus Maximus?
Nowhere...he was spewing venom at Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Carter etc etc...and still in his heart you know he harbored a vast secret bestialand penultimate hatred of Bobby Kennedy.
To tell the truth, there was always something spiteful about Gene McCarthy he could be relied upon to give perpetually disaffected progressives a nicely impotent electoral option in any given presidential election, a position now admirably filled by Ralph Nader.
But yet for all that, when Allard Lowenstein came knocking on his door, hat in hand desperate for an anti-war candidate....Gene said yes.
Better men than Gene had begged off, but McCarthy at least put his money where his mouth was.
Too bad he could never live up to that one supreme act of courage.
But then who can.
Rest in Peace, Gene.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Newspanic Seven...

Did "Special Report" cutaways twice last night during The Apprentice to hype that plane crash in Chicago.
Which wasn't even a crash, the damn thing just rolled off the runway in a snowstorm causing one unfortunate fatality.
Which is all Newspanic Seven neededto start howling and writhing like the Soviet ICBM's were a flyin' over the North Pole hellbent for James Michael Curley's House in Jamaica Plain.
Sadly this sort of vulgar nonsense is SOP at Channel Seven, the landfall of a minor hurricane in the Carolinas several years ago required live updates from a reporter who could recount nothing save high winds and rain.

And yet Newspanic Seven prattles on, desperate for carnage and death....desperate in a sort of a pathetic way even.

of course, whats the real issue here? That Channel Seven's news operation is a sensation driven scandal or that Humble Elias actually watches The Apprentice?

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Why Massachusetts is Losing Population...

a good motivation to move or perhaps flee can be found here:

Meanwhile our corrupt and insincere Governor flies around the country in airplanes owned by big pharmaceutical companies defaming the Commonwealth when he isn't blaming our economic woes on high wages and good benefits.

Sickening, I'm beginning to think Massachusetts can't be saved and that it might be time to put a down payment on a plot of land in the Baja.

Denny Hastert is apparently

worried that Congress needs "extra help" in making up its ethics training.

Good god this is hilarious, you can't teach ethics to a bunch of bloodthirsty highwaymen. Piracy is a professional not known for its lofty standards of conduct...
but then sits Speaker Hastert all perturbed over Congress' lack of ethics.

Not for nothin' but, aren't all these GOP congressmen wowsers and bible thumpers? HEll they don't need ethics classes they've got da "good book"!
If they've taken to theft and pillage it only underscores their very selective understanding of the biblical injunction against stealing...but that is not news to any of you.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

An old fashioned New England Channukah...

In which, once again we are exposed to the diresome parameters of Jeff Jacoby's Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Some mope, some wail, Jeff screams for blood.
Ah but its the same every year with Jeff, this time he carries on endlessly and tastelessly about the death penalty, the "assault" on Christmas and then ends the holiday season with an annual tedious and increasingly bizarre screed accusing liberals of "hate speech".
Poor guy you can tell this time of year is tough on him.
Because to be a successful conservative these days, one must be more than a bit of pimp, and this Jeff just doesn't have that in him.
Oh he tries to thunder like a bloodthirsty praetorian but its clearly a pose in his case and one he can't quite pull off either.
Hence his moodiness and the churlish holiday tone he sinks into every December.
Everything is the fault of the liberals and yet still he sits by the window watching a grey snowfall wondering why the pain doesn't go away...wondering why he isn't clad in shiny armor cutting down straw men on AM Radio somewhere.

Happy Channukah Jeff...try to get some rest whydoncha?

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Lt Gubernatorial Candidate Tim Murray on NECN last night

interviewed by the redoubtable Chet Curtis. Murray seems poised soft sopekn well informed etc...alas I tuned in too late and so if his stance on abortion, stem cells and gay marriage was brought up I didn't hear it.
Wouldn't say he is a scintillatin' speaker, but the position sought is hardly known as a source of independent eloquence.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Blue Mass Group

has a new site...

CNN...

yesterday devoted quite a bit of screen time to slagging Katherine Blanco, the Governor of Louisiana in respect of her decision to release all documents pursuant to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
They reported (on the basis of no cited evidence) with the sort of lip smacking relish one associates with Fox News, that the Governor's aides were "concerned" with her "image" in various e-mails.
It was to say the least, an unsubtle partisan hatchet job.
Meanwhile, Today's Globe asserts that that Karl Rove was after Blanco to federalize the National Guard and declare martial law and ghod only knows what else.
This would be the same Karl Rove who has been calling all democrats traitors nigh these past five years. If this is the guy Blanco was dealing with before during and after the hurricane then no wonder the whole thing spiraled into catastrophe.
Does the President really expect any easy dealings between his most partisan aide and any incumbent Democrat?
No the man's very inclusion automatically puts the entire crisis on a partisan &agenda driven basis and thus, thousands drowned needlessly while Bush's government blustered and dawdled.

Friday, December 02, 2005

This is hilarious...

GWB has been called up for Jury Duty in Texas.
Ghod but this is naught but a comical fraud dreamed up by the President's increasingly tone deaf political handlers.
I mean...anything to slavishly imitate John Kerry (Who served as foreman on his jury last week and got the job done expeditiously)....what next will the President take up windsurfing or maybe he will finally start serving the country with decency, modesty and honor.
Fat f*ckin' chance of that happening.
Good grief, I pity the panel that gets sequestering with George Bush Jr, four hours of his footling personality and they'll vote to empty the Texas State Prison system en masse.
Either that or days will be wasted by proud Texas rednecks trying to explain to their President how juries work and why Jus gladii doesn't work anymore.
Nope, this has to be a big stupid frame up from the git go, what defense attorney is going to allow Bush to be empaneled if the case has even the smallest chance of devolving into a plea for Executive Clemency?

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Elias Quoted:

I'm actually quoted verbatim off the .08 Site Comments Board on the Boston Phoenix Website.

The rumor on the street is,

Tim Murray the current Mayor of Worcester wants to run for Lieutenant Governor on the democratic ticket naturally.
The Blue Mass Group has the clues and details such as they are.

Don't know much about this guy, he could be a saint or a sinner, I do know there is a something of a vacuum in the Lt. Governor's race and the entry of a seasoned pol with a constituency and a fundraising base could be a good thing.
Right now the Lt. Guv's race is dominated by un-tried well meaning activists, there is a need for higher profile people therein.
And this might shake the race out a bit, clearly Murray would be competing for the towns-and-cities vote with Deb Goldberg from the git-go.
As for Andrea Silbert and Sam Kelley...can't assess the impact on them other than to speculate the race is gonna get tighter and media scrutiny will ramp up.
So polish up those stump speeches kids.
Moreover, this a Boston-suburban centered pack, it might be nice to see what Worcester County has to say in respect of the burning issues of the day.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

"Springtime for Romney"

Or so sings Scot Lehigh in his latest Sycophantic Screed.
Scot is the original imbedded reporter, nowhere in this long appraisal of Mitt's elevation of the chairmanship of the GOP Governors Conference does he dare question the ethics of morality of Willard's ongoing abandonment of the Commonwealth.
Nope its all props for Mitt's clever political manuevering in the lead up to Campaigns 2006 and 2008.
Oh there are some clouds on Mitt's horizon...somewhere out on the hustings Willard might just be forced into a position where the inherent phoniness of his Moderate GOP bona-fides might at lat be exposed.
Scot practically shudders at this prospect.

Meanwhile, Peter S. Canellos is idly talking up a "McCain-Romney" Ticket in 2008, a columnist's Wet Dream Team surely...The ubiquitous McCain paired with an entirely ersatz moderate Republican Governor for Veep...the punditariat will masturbate itself into oblivion at the mere thought.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Kultur Notes:

Why does Boston Catholic Television sell airtime to their nominal religious competition evangelical protestantism?
Is the Dioceses in that much financial pain that they must sell prime time slots to freakjobs like Jack Van Impe and those godawful Left Behind Films starring that aging Tiger Beat Lothario Kirk Cameron?
To quote the Timeless Shane "Hurricane" Helms "Whassup wid dat??"
Normally BC-TV is given over to the harmless antics of Mother Angelica re-runs, clean cut priests running incoherent game shows, the rosary and talking heads which sometimes feature my old college chum Father Stan Fortuna.
But then on Sunday Nights seemingly every born again zombie from here to Waco starts screaming for cash and blood.
Its disconcerting, no it is sad quite frankly.

Friday, November 25, 2005

BullSchmidt

vulgar and ill-tempered Congresswoman Jean Schmidt(R-Ohio) has been rightly chastised for calling her colleague John Murtha a coward.
Only afterwards did this profoundly stupid and surly woman discover that Rep. Murtha was after all a decorated veteran of the Marine Corps.
Left twisting in the wind, Schmidt did the "right thing" and apologised and then blamed the whole thing on da liberal media.
Ho hum just another day in the Rightical Chic Utopia.
Except for this, somewhere in this whole mishaugas there is an unwholesome assumption, ergo that the only thing in question here is Jean Schmidt's attack on a decorated combat veteran. Implicit in this sub-rosa reasoning is the malign notion that she'd be justified in calling say Ed Markey a coward if he'd a gotten up and called for a pullout from Iraq.
And isn't it interesting that the only response they've got for a call to pull-out is an assault on the advocate's manhood?
I mean...talk about ideological bankruptcy.
You see how all this just enables the bullying? And how it ever easier to indulge in this kind of petty brutality on the floor of the US Congress?
look for more of this kind of nonsense as the bodies keep piling up.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

A ray of light in the darkness...

Somone decides to speak up on behalf of Senator Kerry.

John Kerry as Jury Foreman

Yahoo's News Summary gets all cutesy with the news that JK got yanked for Jury Duty down at Suffolk County Court House.
Of course, nowhere in the this article does it mention that our Junior Senator was once a District Attorney, and might on the face of that and other accomplishments make an unusually able Jury Foreman.
Maybe too able...can't figure out why he wasn't excused quite frankly, but it sets a good example for other potential jurors I guess.
And if you want some especially gruesome reading click "Discuss" at the bottom of said article, the scum of the nation are, as usual, in full cry.

Blogleft Event...

there is an upcoming event for local bloggers being run by Lynn of "Left in Lowell" fame. The details can be found Here.
Hell, I'll be there...Humble Elias will be the one dressed very very nondescriptly.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Flip....and Flop...

Governor Romney has abruptly thrown over the notional Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative after praising the pact as "good business" not two weeks ago.
Of course, since then, the usual coalition of potential campaign contributors have gone to work on Willard with the desired result achieved in but fourteen short working days.
That has to be local record for abject spinelessness.
Ah but these oil and gas guys know how to play a political amateur like Romney...promises of money, pledges of support in tropical primaries, jobs for the lackeys who carried his banner in the legislative races, its an old story believe me.
And all this comes at a odd and telling moment for Mitt and his ambitions to be President, suddenly improbably, he looks like a credible candidate.
Look at the competition...Frist is up on ethics charges, Santorum is falling apart like a cheap toy, Jeb's state has been reduced to picturesque rubble...that leaves Condi, McCain and Mitt as the only GOP aspirants who are unscathed and ready.
So of course, he is throwing over the Greenhouse Gas Initiative, he is after all if nowhere else but in his own mind, the Front Runner for 2008.
Nonetheless, for you "principled conservatives" out there take heed, see how quickly Mitt changes up when there is benefit or commodity in the air.
He made be sold to you as a number of things, but please when the time comes, DON'T buy into any of that nonsense about Romney's lonely courage!

Monday, November 21, 2005

Mary Matalin on the Imus Show today...

caught a few minutes of her extended rant this morning on the way to work. Humble Elias no longer drives to work every day so today was an anomaly.
Truly my friends, there is nothing more exquisite, no finer vintage of sheer schadenfreude to be had than the sick sad spectacle of Mary Matalin whining like a schoolgirl over the "criminalization of politics".
This would be the same Mary Matalin who as Bush I's campaign flunky made it her life's mission to paint Hilary Clinton as a corrupt shyster lawyer who wanted to pee in the Men's Room and sell your children to Castro.
Ah Mary truly what can we say? Only that politics gets criminalized, wehen crooks go in for politics.
And really good luck with that "Everyone in town knew that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent" line, it sounds like you are preparing an insanity defense, for your husband and kid's sake lets hope it works.
Maybe you should start dressing in rags and affecting the mannerisms of the Simpson's "Cat Lady" tossing felines at unwary reporters.
***
Still, you have to give Matalin credit, Libby, Rove and Cheney are all about to get frog marched off to Leavenworth (and who knows Mary might be in that number as well) and she is still ever shrill in her insistence that it is all Joe Wilson's fault.
Oh and Bob Woodward? He is man of integrity, so squeaketh Mary.
Honestly Emmett Kelly and the Clown Car at Ringling Brothers Circus was not so funny as this.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Friday, November 18, 2005

Shameful...

Romney is whipping up the tattered remnants of the state GOP to gather signatures for the anti-gay marriage ballot question.
I'm too god-damned tired today to rant on about what a bad idea this ballot question is, I've already quoted Abraham Lincoln at length with respect to this malicious perversion of "popular sovereignty".
No I just wanna say I think it's appalling that the State GOP is so desperate and ideologically bankrupt as to go whoring after the fag-bashing vote. This proposal is a great way to keep their base in a state of morbid terror and excitement and its fundraising potential is limitless (Especially when you factor in the out-of-state-wowsers) but as policy the gay marriage ballot question is a moral and ethical catastrophe.
These ass-holes actually propose to ride to power in 2006 over the backs of a minority of their fellow citizens....nothing is more reprehensible...nothing.
If this question does make it onto the ballot in 2006 then i urge my readers (all six of you) to vote against any restrictions on the right to marry in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
To place the rights of a minority before the electorate is in and of itself the very negation of personal sovereignty.
There...I've said my peace, let the rubble fall where it may.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Spiteful Joanie is at it again...

She must write this "spineless dems" shit twice a month now.
Her argument today seems particularly strained in that John Edwards and John Kerry are somehow complicit in Bush's catastrophes because they believed his lies.
Which is naught but the same line of attack the President favored on Friday last in his celebrated Veterans Day harangue before the troops.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Barking Mad on the Potomac?

the trendily conservative Washington Times (Owed by that paragon of two fisted Americanism The Rev. Sun Myung Moon) seems to think GWB might have a few problems...upstairs.

Fletcher Knebel once touched on this very subject in his novel The Night of Camp David...and of course true devotees of political fiction recall the sorry fate of Allen Drury's "President Edward M. Jason".

February, 1952

Whenever the praetorian class gets into serious trouble, they shudder, bulge their eyes and start invoking the hallowed example of Harry Truman's lonely courage to keep their spirits up.
That would be the same Harry Truman that the praetorians and punditariat of 1952 were hell bent on driving from office by fair means or foul.
Such is the case today with that Laughing Young Senescence Jeff Jacoby who compares his tattered hero George Bush to the late President Truman.
As I've said before, the problem with Jeff is, not so much his conservatism as his glibness, superficiality and charmless gullibility.
He forgets that February 1952 (The Month of Truman's 22% Approval Rating) was a killing time for Harry S. Truman, McCarthy was running amok, the electorate was pissed off at him for firing General MacArthur and the war in Korea was at a stalemate.
The Jeff Jacoby's of that far off era were calling him every name in the book and braying for impeachment....when they weren't bellowing for atomic war and apocalypse now. When Truman left office, Allen Drury noted in his Senate Diary that the President was a feisty gamecock whose blundering had nonetheless brought the World to the brink of war and the US to the brink of defeat worldwide.
Yipes!
Did Harry fly off to an army depot to denounce his opponents as dupes and cowards on Veteran's Day? Did he get loaded up on something and go staggering through press appearances like a berserk rock star? Did he retreat to Camp David to rage and pout?
Did Truman lie to get us into Korea and then lie about the lying???
No.
But he didn't exactly prosper either, in due course a now forgotten Tennessee pol named Estes Kefauver beat Truman in the New Hampshire Primary and compelled the President to decline re-election. In effect for all his now celebrated heroism and Missouri contrariness, Harry threw in the towel after almost eight years at the top.
People forget that part of the story.
In time, much of Harry's pugnacity and good judgement was vindicated, but we shouldn't conflate that with George Bush Jr's stupidity, bluster and infantile stubborness...because after all there is a difference between being right and being an angry self deluded freak.
So you see, there really wasn't any comeback for Truman in February 1952, he kept on with his job, did his best for the troops in the field and remained honest and upright.
Very little of the same can be said of President Bush.

Sick
Demented
Typical

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The never ending Search for the Worst and the Stupidest

goes on and on.
Is this the same Michael Graham who got caught taking "pundit payola" from the Bush Admin?
Ghod where does WTKK find em'?
They must have to look under rocks, that is the only explanation.

"It is all John Kerry's Fault!"

or so the President screamed into the microphone on Veterans's Day.
Well, once a dismal little prick, always a dismal little prick I say.
Who else but our oafish graceless President would defame the honor a REAL veteran in front of our very own armed forces? A callow and desperate performance that calls to mind the Emperor Nero's frantic attempts to win back the loyalty of his wavering praetorians.
I begin to think Bush is losing it for real, he is out of ideas and out of luck so it seems. And we are stuck with his tantrums and increasingly bizarre behavior til' 2009.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Deval Patrick in Menotomy Part II

last week the local democrats hosted a "candidate night" wherein the usual suspects can brush up their stump speeches in front of a carefully vetted audience whilst the Town Committee rakes in some necessary scratch.
And there is a cash bar too...not a bad take in for a famously sleepy burg like Menotomy.
Alas on the gubernatorial level, the only attendee was the ubiquitous Deval Patrick, Galvin hasn't announced yet (Note to Billy, just announce already willya!?? Leave the Drama Queen Act to Romney) and Reilly was a no-show. This was slightly disappointing as I've yet to take Tom's measure up close and personal.
Galvin I've seen in action back in '02.
As such it was another sterling performance from Patrick, his stump speech has gotten tighter since April and he is still calling out Romney on the right emotional issues. Patrick has also mastered the art of the dodge (He sounded down on Hanscom AFB expansion but said nothing definite)and the resolute unpopular stance (He is for the Cape Wind Farm).
Patrick also made a charming admission to the effect that he is not an education expert.
Good god such candor!
Most of the Great and General Court and the Executive Department of the Commonwealth have already formed a vast College of Pedagogy on Beacon Hill and here is Deval Patrick declining admission??
It was the most sensible thing said all night.
The man speaks well and is undeniably charismatic, but is Massachusetts ready for him?
By that I mean, what does he have to say to Shrewsbury, Bellingham or Greenfield to bring them over into the democratic column next year?
2002 witnessed the political immolation of two female candidates for Governor (Jingle Money and O'Brien) who can say that 2006 won't occasion a Waterloo for Deval Patrick?
I'm just not sure the Commonwealth is ready...I wish it was but I have my doubts. Since the Imperial Glory Days of Ed Brooke, African Americans haven't fared too well in statewide races.
Anyone else out there remember another bright articulate go-getter named Augie Grace?
***
Then out rolled the Candidates for Lieutenant Governor, chiefly earnest Sam Kelley and Deb Goldberg. Andrea Silbert was a no-show.
Frankly nobody impressed in this field, Kelley is a doctor and an activist but he is new to the game and hardly more qualified than Kerry Healey for the Office he seeks.
Goldberg on the other hand is well spoken and smart, but she is a selectperson in Brookline which is way down in the political minor leagues. She wants to be a voice for cities and towns, but how that plays in Peru and Mendon I do not know.
Frankly we could use a stronger candidate or two in the Lt. Governor's race, Senator Havern was in the back of the room...he is an able man but he has a good solid committee assignment and the state senate is well run these days...so why bail on a sure thing?
Reps, Marzilli, Kaufman and Paulsen were all there too...but you don't see them thinking about a race for Lieutenant Governor either.
Thus is the field is left to do-it-yourself politicians, activists and earnest uplifters.
Then Cam Kerry (The Senator's Brother) got up and rolled out his stem-winder in anticipation of a run for Secretary of State. HE came off as reasonably well-informed and earnest. My only cavil is that he sounds like his brother in every way and has a slightly tentative tone to his voice, gotta work on that a bit. Otherwise, Cam seems like a sure bet in the sparsely attended S of S primary.
Of course, if his brother had won last year, anyone else out there doubt Cam would be running all out for Governor this year?
The candidates for DA were all there as well, but that race has a serious embarrassment of riches goin' on. It is hard to pick out one man who overawes the others.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Up to his old tricks...

at a meeting of the conservative Federalist Society this week, Governor Romney laughed uproariously when his hosts compared Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to Klansmen and then got up to denounce the Commonwealth's Supreme Judicial Court as a bunch of brie-eating faghags.
The whole sick sad story can be found here.

Of course, a few hours later an abashed Governor Romney was compelled to "back off" those remarks and absolve Kennedy and Kerry of any kanoodling with the Klan. Senators John and Ted seem to have taken it in stride, Mitt just can't seem to attend any of these movement conservative events without either saying something stupid or laughing like a trained chimp at some slur at the Commonwealth.
None of this made Romney look particularly decisive or strong, so Humble Elias has to wonder, do these Federalist Society-Wednesday Group types really want someone this servile as President?
Trust me, folks, Mitt will say anything, slur anyone and abase himself in the crudest fashion possible in the quest for the White House.
This is hardly the M.O. of the GOP's next Man on Horseback in other words.
Good ghod if this keeps up by 2008 Mitt Romney will be explicitly denying that he was ever Governor of such a politically incorrect place as Massachusetts.
So really, if the lege quietly impeached him, they'd be doing Mitt a favor.
:)
Ah but Humble Elias kids, he kids because he loves, he loves...to kid.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Health Care Blogging (Revised)

My sources on Beacon Hill tell me the current round of health care legislation is gonna end up in conference committee and may well languish there for a good long time.
As callous as it sounds, that might be a good thing.
A bill of this size should be thoroughly publicly vetted prior to passage, the natural venue for such a process is a gubernatorial campaign.
Then maybe we can get a proper debate about issues important to the residents of the Commonwealth instead of the usual wowser pleasing nonsense from out Governor Romney. But of course for this to happen, Willard has to sh*t or get off the pot politically, and so far he is taking his sweet time with that decision.
And another thing, why write a mediocre bill now, that the Governor feels he can sign and use is campaign lit drops up in Epsom Circle, when a better bill could be had with a democrat in the corner office?
I say write a bill the Governor can't sign and let both sides make their case next year.
Or are we afraid to make a campaign for state office revolve around purely state issues?

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Please note...

Sam Kelley, a democratic candidate for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, has seen fit to link to this, "The Little blog that Cried". Humble Elias has a nominal policy of link reciprocity (He needeth the click throughs)...however the link below does not repeat not constitute an endorsement of Kelley's candidacy at this time.
Chimes at Midnight will make endorsements (such as they are) when the time is right and the democratic slate has filled out.

Waterloo Preview...

When the piously praetorian President of the United States can't get a vengeful yap elected Governor of Virginia on a promise of blood and dynamite...then there is something seriously wrong with movement conservatism mah frens'.
The bastards tried everything in Virginia right down to a bizarre sandbox screed accusing Kaine of being soft on Nazism.
And it all blew up in their face...lovely couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Of courseelsewhere in the nation, to spite Massachusetts, Texas has outlawed marriage, sodomy and male-only bathrooms...I forget which.
Sadly setbacks like this only intensify the GOP's desire to find ever more bloodcurdling issues with which to inflame wowserdom. So get ready for yet another propaganda fugue on the subject on gay marriage...it was quite literally their only winning issue last night.
Already Texas anti gay marriage activists are talking up a constitutional amendment, something that would really be a wow on the hustings next year.
of course this is nothing but movement conservatism's version class warfare, they've marked out a single sector of society, preferably small and slightly exotic for punishment, Lenin couldn't have done it better.
However, its a long way to November 2006, and they will undoubtedly be other issues out there.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Sundays with Eileen...

for lack of anything else to do, Globe columnist Eileen McNamara took time out on Sunday to jack up Maureen Dowd ace columnista for the Globe's better half, the New York Times.
This old stuff to any readers of the Chimes at Midnight (all seven of you), Humble Elias has been criticizing MoDo for years....anyone else remember her appearances on Imus wherein Dowd would wax rhapsodic over George Bush Jr's Presidential Candidacy?
"HE is just SO comfortable in his skin" Dowd would sigh.
I remember it well.
Of course now, Maureen has supposedly turned on the President for what exact reasons we cannot know, after all, Dowd's belief system seems to be stale mixture of "Sex in the City" and the book from "Of Thee I Sing".
For all we know, Bush wore white after Labor Day and that was the last straw for Maureen.
Of course, Maureen's glib post ideological snarkiness has opened doors for other writers, Joan Vennochi being MoDo's most consistent local imitator (Or she would be, if Joanie had a shred of talent, which she does not). So as a style Dowd's syndrome seems to be roaring success.
The irony is of course, Eileen McNamara has no discernable belief system to speak of either, much like everyone else in the Globe's Op Ed Section. It seems a bit late to be practicing your stone tossing in the crystal cathedral...but there you have it.

Monday, November 07, 2005

The notion of

Bush's admin, sitting down last Thursday for a half-day cram session on ethics, is nothing sort of hilarious.
Imagine honest G-9 Admin Assistants being forced to sit next to glowering corruptards like Karl Rove and theft apologists like Andy Card is straight out of the pages of the late Terry Southern.
Ethics, insofar as they apply to pulbic life, are the very things these bastards are trying to destroy. Ethics after all means public service presupposes a need for a honest and competent administration, something La Famiglia Arbusto must annihilate if they are ever to sell the nation en masse to Walmart,China and News Corp and thus achieve the conservative eschaton.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Sunday, November 06, 2005

FEMA has the nerve to bill Louisiana some 4 Billion Dollars

for their disaster "recovery" efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
This is akin to getting a bill from the inept and crooked roofing firm who burned down half your house and put your oldest kid in the hospital with a broken leg.
Blanco should fight this in the courts lest the whole thing degenerate into shotgun justice.
4 BILLION meanwhile we are handing out free money in the streets of Iraq to every rug merchant and Mullah who'll take!

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Friday, November 04, 2005

What is the difference between Tom Delay

and the hapless geek who allegedly tried to rob the Maida Pharmacy in East Arlington this Summer?
Operationally nothing, they are both accused crooks in their respective professions be it a stick up man supposedly out for oxycontin or an alleged boodle addicted vengeance hack from Texas.
However, Tom Delay, gets to pick his own judge at his trial, whilst the Maida Pharmacy perp must take his chances in the Courts of this Noble Commonwealth.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Right on schedule...

Jeff Jacoby blats out another one of his "Everything is Peachy Keen in Iraq" columns.
And just as predictably, the guerillas blew up another half a dozen of our brave soldiery.
His current column though, does contain this exquisite howler:
Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time?
If the war is now about said struggle against tyrannical Ba'thism, then why are we re-hiring Saddam's Preening Prussian Officer Class for the nascent Iraqi security forces?
Because the old Fanatic, the Young Fanatic, General Haddad, Mullah Achmed or Major Ashami will all need shock troops when it come time to proclaim the neu Iraqi Ordnung.
And who are we to stand in their way?
Meanwhile poor Jeff stuck in the rear with the gear keeps spouting this nonsense in the forlorn hope that if we simply re-shuffle the ethnic cards enough times in Iraq we will come up with a winning hand.

Jeff's naivete' stopped being charming months ago quite frankly.

Boy oh boy, Janeane Garofalo is starting to look like a prophetess, didn't she say Iraq would get thousands of US Troops killed for no good reason? And that was back when all was high fives and slam dunks from here to the Heritage Foundation.
Ah but none of that registers with Jeff, he is playing the stern modern patriot, that is to say completely unwilling sacrifice either blood or treasure for this mishaugas on the Euphrates.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

A Little Touch of Harry in the Night...

Why shouldn't Harry Reid invoke secret session rules to force a review of US war policy in Iraq?
Was it sneaky and underhanded?
Yes.
Ah then he is the minority leader of a Senate run by the National Cat Torturer Doctor Bill Frist a notorious crook and abject toady for the White House.
Desperate times require desperate measures.
Hell last week GOP Staffers on the Hill were allegedly gathering anti-Harriet Miers information as a prelude to her aborted appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Why shouldn't the democrats take partisan advantage in such troubled and chaotic times?
Harry amde Frist look like a querelous weakling...a page right out of the Gingrich playbook.
And what the hell it worked, the Senate GOP caved and gave Reid everything he demanded.
Does the GOP really expect to rewarded for misgoverning and bankrupting the nation?
I say GO Harry GO!
Lets have some more of the same, maybe this will embolden the democrats to play to their base with a filibuster of Judge Alito, a move I heartily support.
Let that groveling bastard Frist invoke the nuclear option, he will do it sooner or later anyway at least let it go down on terms favorable to us.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Its Autumn...

and we still have no idea as to Mitt Romney's pending political plans. Wasn't he supposed to enlightened us, his "loyal" serfs by now?
I think the current political melt-down in DC and all the weather crises around the country are crowding Willard off the front page.
And we all know how much he hates that.
Nonetheless I still say there is a strong fifty fifty chance he'll run for re-election. The usual collection of corruptards, virtue pimps and zealous hacks would much prefer Romney hang on as Governor as opposed to enduring what may be a contested GOP gubernatorial primary.
However if he does clock out, I do think that its the patriotic duty of everyone within earshot to bombard him with high level policy type questions.
Like does he favor the current GOP brand of reactionary socialism aka "Borrow and Squander"?
Would he nominate the odious likes of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court?
Will Mitt clean up FEMA the way he cleaned up the Department of Conservation and Recreation?
The answer of course to all this is "yes" but it'll be fun to get him on record as a reliably unimaginative and craven lout.

Monday, October 31, 2005

The other day...

(thanks to the vigilant patriots at Air America Radio) I heard George Bush stumbling through one of his terrorism speeches and specifically refer to the need to increase our security at "nu-key-or power pants".
This is the sort of malapropism one woudl associate with Moe Howard or Leo Gorcey...but it is pretty much par for the course with Bush in nearly all types of speeches right down to Rose Garden greetings for the West Virginia Miss Pumpkin Pageant Winner.
Usually I chalk these groaners and gaffes up to the Prez's neurotic need to appear dumber than his core constituency...but this was one of those occasions when he was actually trying to impress them with the danger and the lateness of the hour. "Nu-key-or power pants" would seem to undercut that goal, perhaps fatally so.
I long ago decided that Bush is completly dyslexic and incapable of admitting the fact to himself or his public.
Which is pretty much the man's life-pattern, can't admit he is a drunk, can't admit he stole two elections, can't admit he lied to start the Iraq war...can't admit he is a complete and utter asshole.
So you see these problems start at home and in youth.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Ninety or so Minutes til'

Fitzmas...
The current rumor is that Libby will be indicted whilst Rove will be left to languish in "legal jeopardy".
This is not quite the shitstorm of retribution that liberal blogosphere has been conjuring with...but it'll do for a start as far as I'm concerned.
Minimally, putting Scooter Libby on trial will expose just how much power Cheney has acculmulated outside his highly structured role as the alleged Vice President of the United States.
Of course, the above scenario does leave Karl Rove at liberty to organize a last ditch die-hard Stalingradian defense of La Famiglia Arbusto's Autocracy.
Thats assuming the Bush Family's star is still ascendent...and I'm beginning to wonder if destiny hasn't given up on GWB and his cartoonish crew.
My Ghod but I am throughly sick of this corrupt and power worshipping bunch! They've imported prison rules to the game and I hope the whole damn lot hear the crash of iron soonest!
Ah but La Famiglia Arbusto cannot be wished away...nothing less than a national, populist and progressive movement for real democratic renewal can overcome them.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Vennochi Reviseth...

Her current column extolling Former Governor Jane "Jingle Money" Swift State House Portraiture Unveiling, Joanie Vennochi indulged the following howler:
She ultimately dropped out of the governor's race in 2002. Her decision cleared the path for Mitt Romney to gain the GOP nomination and then the corner office.

Yez kin read da whole sidesplitting piece hyar.
Swift didn't "drop out" of the 2002 Governor's race, she was forced out by Christy Mihos who convinced Willard to abandon his plans to run for office in Utah on the basis of a single poll. Whereupon Mitt Romney flew back across the country like a vulture intent on carrion spouting lies and threats until Swift was shoved aside like an old sack of potatoes.
Where was all this concern, admiration and Girl Power Columnist Crap for Jingle Money back in 2002??
I heard nary a peep from Joanie, Scot and Jeff.
No no no...they were all swooning at Romney's feet desperate to line up behind behind any Republican no matter how inexperienced and duplicitous as long as said candidate protected them from the big bad state legislature.
One thing that never fails to amaze Humble Elias, is the infinite plasticity of the Pundit Memory.
Today's elegy is naught but Joanie's conscience bothering her...
She'd better make what peace she can with it, cause' 2006 is right around the corner and Joanie will have to mark out hard for some other hopelessly corrupt GOP hack if she wants to keep the State Lege at bay.
Ah well, such is the pain of a spiteful no-talent b*tch.

Miers Withdraws...

the sordid facts are herein detailed.
What they don't tell you is, Miers couldn't go on she has vanished.
Yup, gonzo...my secret DC sources tell me that Laura Bush accidentally spinned a bucket of warm water on Harriet last night, whereupon the Supreme Court Nominee melted into a puddle of ooze screaming like a banshee the whole time.
:)

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Latest Rumor from Out Washington DC is...

that the White House has already quietly sounded out John McCain on his willingness to be nominated for Vice President should Dick Cheney step down for "reasons of health" in the near future.
Me personally? I doubt nothing less than a flying squad of Army Rangers would be able to pry Dick from his Vice Presidential Fastness...but a near term resignation is certainly fun to think about.
Of course, if the above rumor is true, then McCain would be a fool to take the offer.
Why climb into La Famiglia Arbusto's burning lifeboat and compromise his mythic status among independent voters?
Moreover this is the same Admin that called him and psycho and worse in the SC Primary, to bail Bush out now makes McCain look craven and conniving.
Sure its a leg up on the nomination come 2008, but Barbara Bush, Jeb and GWB's Dad all know that too which is why they'll be working night and day to derail any prospect of John McCain becoming Cheney's mid-term replacement.
This is the famously autocratic and selfish Bush Family we are talking about, they only serve their own interests, John McCain's ambitions and the good of the nation can go to hell as far as they are concerned.
After all, Jeb hasn't had his turn yet as Overseer of Plantation USA.

Nope Humble Elias still sez the VP Card is:

Pennsylvania Senator Rick "High Pitched Rich" Santorum
Utah Senator Orrin "Oral" Hatch
Secretary of State Condoleeza "The Shoe Fetishist" Rice
and
Massachusetts Governor Willard Mitt Romney.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

A Ringing Endorsement from the White House

From today's WH Press Conference:

QUESTION: Does the President have confidence in the Vice President?

SCOTT McCLELLAN: The Vice President is doing a great job as a member of this administration and the President appreciates all that he is doing.


Dickie yer doin' a heckuva job...

But seriously folks, the indictments haven't come down....yet.
And the last Humble Elias heard Cheney is at home in Wyoming, no doubt ordering Air Force 2 to be gassed up for a desperate flight to Riyadh where he'll proclaim his Government in Exile.
:)

Rosa Parks is dead...

and the tributes, accolades, eulogies and heartfelt christian memorials are pouring in from all over the internet.

Monday, October 24, 2005

And another thing,

According to today's Globe Mitt Romney has been boasting before the troglydytes of Missouri and South Carolina that he "saved" Massachusetts from an entirely spurious three billion dollar shortfall without raising taxes.
Well, the record shows he raised 1.5 billion in fees and then suddenly within two years we had a surplus in Massachusetts thus demosntrated the Governor's original budget figures were raving nonsense.
However, that is not Humble Elias' point this morning, no he thinks it is hilarious that Mitt is trying to curry favor in Spartanburg South Carolina by claiming to have saved Massachusetts. His target demographic in the upcoming Republican Primaries couldn't care less about the Salvation of this Proud Commonwealth and would if they could happily dissolve Massachusetts and sell off the citizenry into slavery.
If you don't believe, check out the Yahoo Discussion Boards the next time their News Summary so much as mentions the Commonwealth, the cries go up for slaughter and slavery thick and fast...and if Hurricane Wilma somehow comes ashore here, the only things well can expect from fine christian Republicans of Missouri etc are ardent prayers that Wilma regain her category five status.

All this is yet another example of Willard's staggering political naivete'...if he was smart he'd resign and claim he was kidnapped and forced to act as Governor until he could escape and return to red state safety.

Smears of the Future...

a lot of seriously demented freepers and rightical chic types on the internet are deluding themselves with the spurious notion that come Wednesday or so, Patrick Fitzgerald will pull a sneaky 180' and indict Valerie Plame,Ambassador Joe Wilson and who knows perhaps Hubert Humphrey's unquiet bones.
This of course, plays to their innate royalism and hatred for the rule of law. How they wish and wish ardently their King (Be he Jesus or George) would sinply sic the furies on their own personal hate objects.
Its all very childish and a little embarrassing, but it does point up the next big freeper talking point; that is that Joe Wilson somehow broke the law by telling the truth and that his wife is a double agent or some such twaddle.
This line of lunacy will be spewed by Limbaugh, Hannity, Jacoby etc starting this week and it'll run like a cataract of raw liquified shit for the next five years or until Cheney turns himself in.
So you heard it here first, Joe and Valerie will come in for some appalling abuse starting this week.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Meanwhile, back in the State House

the lege's watered down drunk driving bill gives Mitt Romney a priceless chance to wag his bony finger at the Great and General Court and grab off a color photograph above the foldin today's Globe.
The Man must be simply writhing with ecstasy....
And on the op-ed page, his pantryman Scot Lehigh was groveling and toadying ad nauseum about Mitt's commitment to education reform.
One of Scot's missions as High Priest of the First Church of Romney, is to sell our increasingly detached, inept and inexperienced Governor as a man engaged full time in the challenging job of being Governor of the Commonwealth.
I'd say Lehigh earned his keep today.

Color me cynical but...

if Fitzgerald actually implicates Cheney in any wrongdoing next week, then how much yuh wann bet Dick resigns before the end of the year?
The Veep will cite his health or some maudlin nonsense like that....there will be no admission of guilt. However one must wonder if Cheney has the stamina for a serious legal battle?
My guess his he does not, which will leave Andy Card as Maximum Puppet Master in the White House and the go-to guy on a successor to Cheney.
Just a thought...

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Rice for Vice...

D.C. is sodden with rumors that Patrick Fitzgerald is about to indict Rove, Libby, Mary Matalin and just possibly cite Vice President Dick Cheney as an unindicted co-conspirator (in deference to his peculiar constitutional status).
Can you imagine the happy little mob that would gather outside the Veep's Official Residence to see The Dickmeister handcuffed and perp-walked into the back of a D.C. Police Cruiser?
Tis' a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Ah but who to replace this doughy old puppetmaster? The current whisper is Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice she of the shoe shopping spree on the very Day Katrina sank New Orleans.
And yes, like Harriet Miers she'd also be the second Bush Family Courtier raised up to high Constitutional Responsibilities.
Condi is of course a very bad choice, but luck may be with us, the usual GOP senate staffers can't figure out if she is pro-choice or not that and her decorous lack of a husband may well squelch this noxious notional nomination soonest.
Nope my money is on a nominee from out the Senate's Laggard Caucus, either someone with too tough a re-election campaign like Rick "High Pitched Rich" Santorum or some groveling old bastard like Orrin Hatch.
Whoever it is, it will not be a man or woman of honor, patriotism or ability, those are tthe wrong qualities in Bush's America.

Sick
Demented
Typical

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The Art of the Possible...

I dunno, but if you ask me, I say Andy Card is at the bottom of the Plame-Rove-Liddy-Cheney scandal.
Frankly he may be the secret and perfect stoolie in this matter.
I mean think about it, Andy has been cleaning up La Famiglia's Arbusto's messes for nigh on twenty five years now, a Former Secretary of Transportation and Massachusetts GOP Macher now reduced to tattered courtier status. And its not like he can ever escape that role either, whats he gonna do? Come back to the Commonwealth and run for Governor?
Hell no, the aging Grandees of the local Republican Party (which is now nothing but a collection of fundraising P.O. boxes) don't know Andy from a cord of wood. Even if he won, whats he gonna do then? Run for President in 2012 and get run through a wood-chipper by Marvin, Jeb or Noelle Bush?
No, Andy's only hope is the life of a lackey. Nonetheless I do suspect him of having strong "Hop Frog" tendencies that is to say a earnest even fanatical desire to get Norquist, Rove and perhaps even Cheney himself out of the way in the grand style of Edgar Allan Poe's vengeful court jester.
And why the hell not?
Andy has been around GWB for a good long time now, he knows where the President's wires are, what to pull to release that infamous smirk and all like that.
Why should Andy have to shre power with cavorting Nibelungs and squalid revolutionaries like Karl Rove and John Bolton?
The GOP may well go off a cliff next year in the mid-terms so its pretty much a given that Karl Rove and his machine has pretty much served its purpose...maybe Andy Card wants to shove him aside and seize center stage for the remainder of GWB's misbegotten term.
If Card plays his "cards" right, he might even be able to compel Cheney's resignation, who out ther thinks old Dick has the health and the stamina for a serious legal battle?
I think Andy is betting he has not...and then Oh Boy the fun begins, the guy who hold's Bush's hat will be virtually naming the next Vice President of the USA!
Imagine a neverous little shit like Rick Santorum forced to cool his heels in Andy's outer office while the White House Chief of Staff interviews Orrin Hatch, who sits there hat in hand like Marshal Petain.
If Card can avoid getting his fingerprints on this mishaugas then it's very heady stuff, not to normal people like us mind you, but to a fawning truckling passive aggressive little lackey, its like winning the Powerball.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

If the Taunton Dam gives way...

(and lets all hope it does not)...how much you wanna bet Romney will fly over in his State Police Helicopter to only discover to his chagrin that he is viewing Taunton Massachusetts not Taunton New Hampshire?
Okay that was mean, but last week Mitt couldn't care less and now this week he is Captain Catastrophe commanding the proles to stock up on condensed milk and canned stew against the coming bird flu plague.
Good grief, I take back last week's diatribe, we are so much worse off when Willard contrives to express his concern over our welfare.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Another Sunday in the Boston Globe...

Jeff Jacoby is threatening to hold his breath until he turns blue unless Augusto Pinochet is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Okay...maybe not, but the Globe's own laughing young senescence sure does have a cranky side doesn't he?

Speaking of crankiness, whassup with Joanie Vennochi these days? She keeps trying to plunge that teensy little dagger of hers into John Kerry's back...and he keeps affecting not to notice.
It must drive the Globe's resident shrill no-talent bitch crazy to be ignored like that.
Still, it is odd the way Joanie keeps trying to re-live her starring 2004 role as Boston's own Ann Coulter.
Just...plain...odd.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Drunk Before Noon?

Here is the scoop.

Yeah, yeah, I knowits the National Enquirer, but they were a serious player iin Bill Clinton's Monica Scandal, so you never know they might be on to something here.
:)
If it's true it would explain a lot especially Bush's sweaty bug-eyed nervous stammering press conference style and his fondness for bumptious boasts and threats; its the whiskey talking.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Romney visits Flood Damaged Greenfield Mass...

coerced into it by the badgering of this "The Little Blog that Cried" and others no doubt.
:)
How else to account for his petulant and listless performance as he "toured" a flooded out trailer park (an irksome duty that has to have cemented his earnest desire to flee the Commonwealth soonest)?
The footage on NECN last night revealed a bored monarch who looked like he was being prodded along by off camera bayonets.
The Viceroy has lost interest and focus,while he still indulges in bizarre costumes for the weather (Mitt doffed his coat and tie for the cameras)its obvious he was trudging around like he'd been sentenced to community service or something.
Romney brought no good news to Greenfield (The Mayor thereof all but called Mitt a dilettante and dingbat on camera) and clearly couldn't wait to board his official SUV and high tail back to Boston to huddle with Michael Murphy as to which demogogic tax proposals will best sway the peasants of New Hampshire.
My Ghod what a difference up in the Granite State though, whole towns awash, bridges collapsing losses in the millions and Democrat John Lynch pounces on the crisis like a young tiger! He convened a committee of interested parties both public and private got the shelters opened up and earned high praise from Republican congressman Charlie Bass for his celerity and decision!
This is where Romney's neophyte political instincts fail him. You'd think in the wake of Hurricane Katrina etc he'd want to make a big show of the Commonwealth's disaster preparedness resources...but no a flooded town or two isn't even on Mitt's radar screen. the damn fool lets a perfect opportunity pass him by...lord even a inept hack like Ed King woulda seen the possibilities.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Mitt Romney can't find Greenfield Mass on a map

or the telephone for that matter, said Massachusetts town is flooded out and all the Governor's courtiers can do is snarl in condescension & derision.
Well, the reason for this is easy to see, if your Presidential strategy involves toadying up to out of state wowsers then showing any kind of concern for Massachusetts residents is bound to excite the animus of Spartanburg SC.
And we can't have that now can we?
First he heaps scorn on Massachusetts now he leaves us to bail ourselves out of a flood with Imperial Disdain.
Hell wasn't this the Willard Mitt Romney that Scot Lehigh was lauding for his quick action in opening up Camp Edwards to Katrina Refugees?
All this cuts to the core of Mitt Romney's entirely nonsensical theory of governance. If he regards the Commonwealth with such withering contempt then why in Ghod's name did he ever run for Governor in the first place??
To pump up his resume so he could run for President...from an office he himself can't wait to escape??
Does this make sense to anyone??
Humble Elias is confused...is Romney actually going to undertake a campaign for President on the promise to treat the nation as shabbily as he has served Massachusetts?
Frankly Mitt has a screw loose somewheres if he thinks this is the plan that'll carry him in Roman Triumph to the banks of the Potomac.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

"Well Heeled Bishop Warns of Theocracy Danger"

or so the Boston Globe's headline ought to read...
I'm gonna miss Romney (in my own fashion)when he finally goes over the falls in that stave barrel marked "Potomac or Bust"...because as craven, blustery, opportunistic and plain dumb as he has been the man has also been a source of solid hilarity.
Naught but guffaws should greet the spectacle of a Mormon Bishop, crawling off his plane in Raleigh N.C. squawking, flapping his arms and baring his incisors trying to gin up some terror over "theocracy".
This is the same sworn enemy of "theocracy" and a candidate for President who would happily kiss James Dobson's boney ass in the display window of Macy's all in return for the merest pat on the head.
Well, consistency has never been Willard's strong suit but when it comes to being a bumpious suck up and a drama queen, the Governor sadly has no equals.

Monday, October 10, 2005

You will have Al Gore to kick around some more...

or at least thats what US News and World Report is tryin' to gin up.
Clearly, US News is bored with reporting all the Bush Admin's catastrophes and embarrassments and would prefer to glide through campaign 2008 by calling Al Gore a faggot, a communist and a lunatic.
They could recycle their old stories and editorials, it'll be a definite cost cutting measure.
:)

Friday, October 07, 2005

Diresome Coupling...

Rush Limbaugh (3 to 5 divorces and all) is apparently dating CNN Anchorperson Daryn Kagan.

And not a peep is heard out there with respect to conflict of interest.
however, trust me, if Katie Couric started knockin' boots with Ed Schultz by Ghod the media shistorm wouldnt't stop blowing til' Perdition.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Ah Autumn

when the indictments fall upon the land like acorns in Menotomy...

Romney wallows in approach-avoidance syndrome...

apparently according to the Globe's Metro page, Mitt is putting off an annoucement with respect to his political plans til' November.
Allegedly this is because he wants to get his health care bill through the Lege...but in fact his polls are down hus leadership is wasted and only Scot Lehigh seems to return his calls.
Given all that, he has to make the exit look good somehow...and like a fool he has glommed onto this trivial and fraudulent health coverage bill as the means to do so.
Frankly I think the boys on Beacon Hill will give the legislation all due props and blithely vote it down when the time comes.
Why vote for a bad bill now when they can bide a while until Reilly, Patrick, Galvin or Kennedy is governing and then write a good bill?

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Interesting Post on Americablog

apparently Richard Viguerie and some of the other wingnut grass-eaters aren't happy with the Miers nomination.

Hey...it occurs to humble Elias that if Senators Kerry and Kennedy wanted to lob a 50lb shitbomb into the enemy camp they ought to call a live press conference and assert that "Ms. Miers seems like a sensible person"...
Nothing more.
And make sure their old colleague George McGovern is invited to sit on the podium as well.

That'd be enough to send every rightical chic mullah in America out into the street screaming for blood, dynamite and a fatwah on Ms. Miers.

Toadies in defense of Sycophants...

in today's Boston Globe Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has this to say about Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court:
"A lot of my fellow conservatives are concerned, but they don't know her as I do...She's going to basically do what the president thinks she should, and that is be a strict constructionist."

And this from the Senate's most embarrassing and nauseating Bush worshipper...so much for the strict constructionalist view of the separation of powers.
"She is going to do what the President thinks she should"...I mean screw the letter and intent of the law!
I guess George felt that brother Jeb would need someone on the inside when it becomes his turn to seize power....thats my theory on why the President would nominate the legal equivalent of a charwoman to Highest Court in the Land.

The nice thing about the Miers nomination is that it will revive the debate about Bush's dependence on courtiers and flatterers to function as President. And are these servile trucklers covertly or overtly manipulating him?

Puppet or Puppeteer? The debate rages on!

Monday, October 03, 2005

Humble Elias has a whacking great

cold, so he isn't much for blogging at the moment. However the Blue Mass Group is all over the Miers Nomination to the Extreme Court. Check it out...

The Only Problem with...

this bit of news is that the crooked son of a bitch can't run for re-election...and thus go down in a holocaust of fire and destruction before the democrats.

Friday, September 30, 2005

There just has to be

seven thousand ardent healthy Young Republicans out there who are willing to make up the Infantry's 2005 Recruiting Shortfall.

Think of the opportunities here kids, you can covertly politicize the army, collect liberal silencing service decorations, and yes possibly DIE for the greater Glory of La Famiglia Arbusto Owners and Proud Operators of Plantation U.S.A!
What more can a Young Patriotic Conservative ever Aspire to??
Lay down that blathering volume from Dinesh D'Souza and march my lads and lassies onto the Recruiting Stations...therein you have a heroic destiny waiting in the timeless sands of Iraq.
Go...
Please go in the name of All That is Holy!

The Next Conservative Utopia

A "whiter" New Orleans

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Outed, Doubted & Tossed...

The Raw Story has the Dish
A deeply closeted homosexual is supplanted by an appalling corrupt gladhanding stuffed shirt...
Yipes, the leadership cadres on the GOP dominated Hill are gettin' mighty thin these days.

The President asks for "Sacrifice"

anyone heard his tinny halting requests for car-pooling,lower room temps, use of public transportation & the saving of gasoline in general? He sounded petulant, confused and whiny to say the least. President Carter, by contrast put way more moral force into his conservation homilies.
But then, Bush confused and malevolent as he may be is also a hopeless conservative utopian. Pleas for sacrifice are not really in his line...promises of blood, thunder, and free cashola are much more his style.
One might ask what sacrifices he has asked of the lobbyists who are constantly at the trough of his swinish Administration? What belt tightening has Halliburton, Chevron or Kellog, Brown and Root undergone? What have his so called "rangers" and sundry big money campiang contributors given back in this time of travail??
The answer is...nothing.
Right now our sacrifices are naught but their opportunity to cash in...

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

"Horse Thief Snarls his Defiance at Congress"

or so the headlines ought to read as far as I am concerned.
Instead Brownie goes before congress and is allowed to defame his betters in a desperate but logical bid for vindication.
After all, if he can successfully smear Blanco and Nagin,then he can credibly present himself as a martyr to the DC Praetorian class and thus rip himself off a nice piece of change on the rightical chic book & lecture circuit. Thus in days to come we can expect former FEMA chief Brown to blame the government's inept disaster response on Eastern Effete Intellectuals, Fuzzy Thinking One Worlder Socialists, Abortion Doctors, Secular Humanists et al...
Meanwhile this dismal little bastard is getting paid out of MY POCKET as a government disaster relief CONSULTANT!
Good lord in any well run Republic, Michael Brown would by now be hiding out on Cuttyhunk Island...but no, there he sits before congress alternately petulant and obnoxious...he knows as a part of ruthless rising class of conservative opportunists he need fear nothing in the long run.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I got no beef with Deval Patrick...

but I'm not yet one of his supporters either. I've met him (Briefly) on one occasion he seems passionate, articulate,energetic and all that...but then again, so was Marjorie Clapprood.
So I'm slightly nonplussed to discover Patrick's new campaign blog actually links to this...th' "Little Blog that Cried"/
I mean good grief, you'd think that my constant drumbeat accusations of chronic onanism on the part of the current Governor of Massachusetts woulda scared Deval's people off.
but no, there they are blithely linking to Chimes at Midnight, butter clearly wouldn't melt in their mouths.
Here I'm stuck, I do have a "if you link to me, I'll link to you" policy (subject to revision)...and I'm loathe to ditch a fruitful link even its to a campaign with which I have no involvement.
So I'm gonna link back to his blog with the stated proviso that said link in no way constitutes an endorsement.
At an appropriate time, prior to the 2006 Gubernatorial Primary, Chimes at Midnight will post an endorsement for that key race. However, Humble Elias is convinced that the democratic field is not yet set and he wants to observe developments a bit. As Louis Armstrong once sang "We Have All the Time in the World".

Scot Lehigh apparently thinks

that Mitt Romney's decision to open Camp Edwards on the Cape to Hurricane Katrina refugees is a humanitarian triumph on a par with the Berlin Airlift.
Frankly this is yet another example of Lehigh's compulsive and shrill bar-lowering on behalf of the Romney regime. Hell, opening up state property to natural disaster victims ought to be a no-brainer to even the most corrupt and inept bureaucracies...the whole thing can be accomplished at the push of a button, especially in Massachusetts which is prone to the occasional hurricane!.
Not to Scot though, the whole thing is a victory for Mitt's dashing private sector values...ghod you can hear Scot sighing like a bobbysoxer in every paragraph.
Well, what of it?
Scot has found his own grinning godling and doesn't care a whit what people think when he grovels and renders homage....we have to accept that.

Mitt (may I call you Mitt?), if by some miracle you are reading this, when it comes time to run in 2008, and that time is soon upon us I know, please take Scot Lehigh with you into the snows and hollows of New Hampshire.
By some mysterious sycophantic alchemy, Scot Lehigh has become Waylon Smithers to your Mister Burns... and as such the poor man is simply ruined for anything so mundane as a sensible political commentary.
Take him, Willard, Scot Lehigh is truly your man in every way.

Monday, September 26, 2005

The Ideological Consequence of Catastrophe...

Karl Rove, the President's chief bagman, torpedo and ideological watchdog has been placed in charge of the post Katrina recovery effort.
And predictably, the broad normative aspects of the project have become readily apparent within a week or so of the flood. La Famiglia Arbusto plans to spend lavishly without regards to revenue or deficit projections, tax cuts and tax breaks will be handed out like candy to the right persons and entities, wages will be cut and voting will become a quaint Jeffersonian relic.
So in sum, post Katrina Louisiana is going to resemble post Reconstruction Louisiana in many ways...low wages, low taxes and keep the underclass divided and away from the polling stations.
And that in turn is the conservative utopia that haunts the collective dreams of the Praetorian Class.
La Famiglia Arbusto is driving this country towards revolution and the above is their publicly proclaimed blueprint for the U.S. Eschaton.
They think, when the whole thing goes to smash that the nation will somehow turn further to the right and favor them their peculiar utopian fantasies...but wouldn't be so cocksure nor so dependent on building a new ordnung out of the rubble.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Romney is a Fraud...

is BA-ACK Kiddies!

For however long I do not know but this is a welcome sight!

The Boston Herald is up in arms

over the spotiness of Boston's "evacuation plan".

Well what the hell, they may be right.
I think the whole state's evacuation procedures could do with a thorough top down review and reform.
Hell look at the sheer ineptitude and chaos avowed "Red States" and sundry Admin vassals can expect from their patrons La Famiglia Arbusto.
Now just imagine the sort of neglect and outright deliberate abuse the Commonwealth would have to endure if a similar sort of Hurricane came ashore up here.
Nope I say now is the time to review local disaster preparedness top to bottom.
Most of those plans were no doubt written back in the days when bureaucrats thought one could safely evacuate out from under an all out Soviet Nuclear Attack....but we ought to be able to rationally anticipate and deal with a simple hurricane.
And we need to, believe me, Massachusetts has no friends in high places these days we will need to rely on ourselves.

Scot Lehigh

takes Senators Kerry and Kennedy to task for their pending votes against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.
His thesis seems to be, that if the President's political machine incites vague rumors as to the moderation of their judicial nominee, then our Senators have no choice but to go along like good pantry boys and vote for Roberts.
This despite Roberts' remarkably close mouthed performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee and his long history as a shyster for various praetorian causes.
Nope...when a President renowned for his sneakiness and duplicity points someone out as a moderate...Scot Lehigh just sighs like a teenybopper and believes.

As I've said before, its not that Scot is a neocon and a praetorian camp follower, for these are common things among the punditariat....no it is his sheer mindless credulity that drives me crazy.
Romney give him an exclusive interview, tosses Scot a few moldy press releases and voila' Mitt is On the Job As Our Alert and Engaged Governor!
Ditto Bush and Roberts...a few blast faxes from deep in the heart of DC and Lehigh waddles over to his computer to tap out a ritual denunciation of our senatorial delegations.
Honestly Scot doesn't have a shred of judgement when it comes to the praetorian class...the man's writing style calls to mind a tenderfoot Boy Scout getting prepped for his first snipe hunt.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Health Care Blogging...

According to mein colleagues in the local blogoverse, everyone who is anyone is blogging on the subject of health care this week.
This is supposed to raise public awareness on the issue, stimulate the base with new issues, bring new voices into the debate etc etc etc.
Unfortunately, what Humble Elias knows about health care policy you can put in a thimble.
This Guy however, seems to have some good facts to start with.
Meanwhile how come we never blogswarm on something I understand?
Like local submarine sinkings, the politics of non-proliferation...3rd parties, failed fascist movements...movies...used bookstores...zeppelins...1960's sitcom starlets...something anything!!!!

Ay yi yi...."health care blogging" they want yet!

All I really know is that medicines ability to treat your illnesses successfully is a comparatively recent phenomenon. 50 years ago cancer was a death sentence, 75 years ago a post operative blood clot could kill you and a hundred years ago plenty of Doctors in (Romantic) Menotomy thought germ theory was "just so much chin music".
Medicine's former inability to render treatment went hand in hand with it's local decentralized & unprofitable character...one didn't make a lot of money at it because patients so seldom survived.
Nowadays, medicine is a predictable yapping blabbing self promoting big business because of course nothing in America so profitable ever escapes the myth of rugged individualism.
So it seems to me, if we wanna make health care more equitable, we've got to somehow separate it from the myth of private enterprise.
How we do that, ah do not know.

There...thats my health care blogging...SATISFIED!?