(Cross-posted at http://metasailor.blogspot.com/)

The end of her campaign also means the beginning of GOP divide-and-conquer ops. Not at all surprising, but still interesting to see. If this email is genuine, of course.

From Wikileaks.org :

McCain's Plans to Wrest Clinton supporters from Obama

MEMORANDUM

To: *******

From: S. Schmidt

Date: May 15, 2008

Subject: Clinton Strategy

...the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly polarized along certain segments of its base...[There is a] growing bitterness between certain supporters of Clinton and the Obama camp in general...

Over the past few weeks I have become incredibly aggravated by, and frustrated with, aggressively anti-candidate diaries.

And to be clear, I mean this towards all anti-candidate diaries. I think the anti-Obama diaries have been over the top, and the anti-Clinton diaries have been over-the-top, and the anti-everyone-but-my-candidate diaries in toto. And, even worse, I think this "I-know-you-are-but-what-amI" debate has sucked all the air out of discussing the candidates' stances and actions on the ISSUES - which in my opinion is a much, much more worthy area of discussion.

But I understand people want to express what they don't like and don't want candidates to do; and I get that it's primary season, and passions run high. So me asking for what I see as politeness, and people sticking to what I personally consider are the important issues, is both a waste of time and egomania on my part.

Therefore: how about a new tag, to be applied to anti-candidate diaries? Which those of us who don't want to see, can then have filtered out for us?

My definition of "anti-candidate diary" is also included, below the fold.

And that's all there is to it. Sitting up here at 3 AM Pacific, getting over bronchitis, and I feel like a bit of a rant.

I get that this is primary season, passions are running high, and people have great and valid reasons for preferring one person over another. And now is absolutely the perfect time for us to pick the best possible candidate. I can also say that Obama, Hillary, and Edwards are each flawed in one way or another.

But I also absolutely hope that everyone keeps in mind the utter necessity of voting for a Democrat in the general election. Even if we think the nominee is Satan's stepchild, it's guaranteed he/she is estranged from Dad because he's working with the GOP.

I'm a bit bothered in general by how ideological purity can derail our overall purpose [cough]Nader 2000[/cough], and screw us over in the present for some possible advantage "Someday" - like Someday is a day on the calendar between Christmas and New Year's.

So let me lay it out: First item on the checklist "Saving the Human Race" is "get the GOP out of the freaking White House NOW". Period.

As you can see from his inexplicably front-paged diary, Larry thinks it's a great idea to force all Americans to serve the (for now) Land of the Free, for two years or more.

As pure coincidence, Larry thinks the best time for this is when people are younger, and are apparently just wasting their lives doing what they want.

There is no time in life quite like the late teens and early twenties. Many young people are bursting with energy, a sense of adventure, and an idealistic determination to make the world a better place.

Larry's spirit of someone-besides-my-self-sacrifice is inspiring! But I disagree with Larry on one point - I think there is no time in life like exactly the age Larry Sabato is right now!

And whatever age all his friends and family are, too.

Just surfed onto this:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/...

A task force probing allegations of illegal activity by Karl Rove and other former and current White House officials is in jeopardy due to lack of funding, according to its spokesman.

Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical assistance it needs to investigate allegations that White House political operatives may have improperly injected politics into government activities, according to Jim Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

Who controls the funding? In school they taught us that Congress holds the purse strings for everything.

In that case - WTF IS GOING ON??

As info comes in, it turns that there were, of course, multiple warning signs that this guy was about to go nuts.

Teachers didn't want to teach him. Students were unnerved by what he was writing. Girls reported him to the police as early as 2005.

Yet he was still able to buy guns, because he had no specific criminal record and no recorded history of mental instability.

Could this be avoided in the future if we:

1.  have a national database of people who are considered "at risk" for being about to go nuts? That are showing, say, 10 out of 15 signs of an "at-risk" profile.

2. make it easy for teachers and police to add people like this dude into the database.

3. require mandatory psychological profiling for any case where a restraining order is taken out.

Then when someone goes psychotic and tries to buy guns, they can not only be refused, this can then cause the cops to know who to pay attention to.

Alternately, what else can we constructively do, to not have this happen again?

I am inexplicably addicted to going onto rightwing nuthouse websites and telling them they're wrong. Occasionally in the course of this I find that something I've been holding onto as gospel is basically wrong instead.

This appears to have just happened to me re: Cheney and his "deferred compensation" from Halliburton. I thought Darth had held onto a bunch of Halliburton stock which leapt up an incredible %3000+ percent as a result of Halliburton gettin' the Afghanistan and Iraq contracts, and all that sweet taxpayer $.

http://www.npr.org/...
http://rawstory.com/...

Turns out I was wrong.

The morning was...sultry. I awoke early, here in eternally infernally sunny Venice, CA. It's gotta be 87 degress already!

I pounded another 850-odd words into my National Novel Writing Month novel (a worthy endeavor I recommend to anyone. Write every day in the month of November, and in 1 month you can be a Novelist or Novelista!) - fried some eggs, showered, did my quick research on ballot initiatives (San Francisco Bay Guardian vs. LA Times) and then I walked up the street to do my civic duty! :)

And I was done! Now I'm off to work.

And how was your voting? Please tell us your tales below.

I'm responding to some GOPropaganda I got in my email box. It's one where they show the picture of the soldiers "Striking back at Kerry" for "insulting them."

Now it seems logically obvious to me that Kerry botched the joke, and it was actually intended to be pointed at G W Bush. And I've heard it stated by Chris Matthews and such that the transcript of Kerry's speech says it clearer, and is directing the punchline of the joke directly at George Bush.

So, does anyone know where to find the transcript of that speech? I've been googling for it a bit, and I can't seem to find that transcript of that speech directly.

So my blessed stepmother, one of the sweetest people I know, is also deep within the Conservative Republican mindfudge. So she likes to send me "joke" emails she gets, about how bad the Democrats are.

You know, "Democrats are all Satanic perverted drug addicts who hate America, and dance when soldiers die. What? Can't you take a joke?"

This morning she sent one about the Democratic National Convention 2008. The usual tired crap, plus Howard Dean is the devil and let's still mock Al Gore even though he isn't running for anything.

So I retooled it and shot it back to her. Here it is, below the fold. If similar email shows up in your inbox, please feel free to adapt at will from my own. And also, please create your own items for the RNC agenda. Could be very fun.

Already I can see one item is missing:

10:25 P.M. Global Warming Doesn't Exist! Shut up, shut up, shut up! George W. Bush and Exxon presiding.

UPDATE: As requested, the original Democratic-hatin' crapaganda is shown, directly below my re-edit.

Brace yourself for the spin! I thought I was ready for it, and then - whoosh! Off my feet I fly, like a cat hit by a firehose.

A while ago I signed up on Focus on the Family's email list. I did this for the same reason that I used to read David Brooks' NYTimes columns; dissecting the layers of conflated pseudologic in this email is literally intoxicating. It's one of the cheapest ways possible for painful things to be done to my brain.

The Family Research Council got my email; the organizations are basically identical, as far as I can tell.  So I expected weapons-grade BS in my email when I opened it just now.

Still, even my high expectations were blown by this fresh pack of .666 calibre denial:

Pro-Homosexual Political Correctness Sowed Seeds for Foley Scandal

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, Hastert and Boehner didn't keep this under warps to preserve the GOP's political power. They did so because they're so well known for being politically correct. Right.

But wait; even crazier crap below the fold...

I just receieved a freaking onslaught of right-wing nuttery below. Be warned. Hold on to your facts.

My stepmom, one of the sweetest women on the face of the earth, is deep in the clutches of propaganda just like this. I just don't know what to do about this. I refute point after point of this exact crap, and the right-wing points pop-up somewhere else, like a metaphysical game of whack-a-mole.

I know the efforts of mine and many others to keep the record straight shows. For example, it is no longer asserted that Saddam was part of 9/11. (More below the fold.)

Today a Wall Street Journal op-ed was published, that was written by none other than Newt "Contract On America" Gingrich.

http://opinionjournal.com/...

In this piece, Gingrich is doing the interesting dance of comparing Bush to Abraham Lincoln, while at the same time admitting that Bush is utterly screwing up Iraq.

The first part is necessary, because conservatives can't bring themselves to admit what a loser the GOP put in office. The last part is utterly necessary, because even conservatives realize they can't be credible without recognizing this reality.

So I did my part for logic and truth, and sent a letter to the WSJ in response. I don't expect the WSJ to print it. So, I'm printing it here. I'm interested in your thoughts and responses.

As a side note, isn't it interesting that the latest GOP PR is comparing Bush to Lincoln? Can it be that because Iraq is degenerating into civil war, they want the GOP thought of as the party that won the Civil War? Or am I just too cynical and paranoid of Rove's black magic with unconscious parallels?

Letter below the fold.

Hey, all. So I'm going to Burning Man this year. And nothing seems better than producing some sorta live bloggin' of said event. So I'm gonna endeavor to hit that every morning. With pictures. Work-safe pictures...well, most likely work-safe. :)

For those of you who don't know, Burning Man is a festival that's been going on in the Nevada desert every Labor Day, for over 14 years now. I think it's worth posting about on Dailykos for many reasons. Not the least of which is because Burning Man is a shining example  of individual freedom AND group responsibility working together, through a) radical individual responsibility, and b) radical respect for others.

It really is something that libertarians, liberals, progressives, moderates and independents come together and all make work.

And I'll be writing about my little corner of it.

Yesterday, on an 8-hour drive, I had the chance to really listen to a lot of music uninterrupted. One old chestnut that I dug out, which I hadn't heard in years, was Soundgarden's classic "New Damage", from their 1991 album "Badmotorfinger".

The album is wall-to-wall great; this song in particular jumped out at me, for it's near prophecy and current relevance. It refers to Bush I's declaration of a "New World Order" in connection with the original Persian Gulf War; it could have been written yesterday about the day before.

I immediately thought of sharing it here; and I also wondered, what are some other favorite songs of the Kossacks?

So I post the lyrics below, and ask all of you to please share your current favorite inspiring songs, as we march forward to 11/06, 11/08. and beyond.

A while ago I signed on to an email list for David Horowitz. Why? I think I just like to get incredibly pissed off at right-wing trash. It's better than coffee. Especially around that 3 pm sugar-crash.

Today's email was neat. Given current events of the last few days, Horowitz has a bit more to write about than his typical subject - the extracurricular activities of academics who are bent on making gay commie atheist terrorists of our helpless college students.

Horowitz's message in today's email: all those who criticize Israel are Leftist anti-Semitic Nazis. Unless, one supposes, they're Pat Buchanan.

The email's also interesting, because it indicates that Horowitz or at least someone who works for him reads Dailykos. Maybe there's some hope that some sanity will eventually break back through.

Sections of Horowitz's Rubik's-logic email, with commentary I couldn't avoid making if I wanted to, below the fold.

This morning, inspired by this article on the Huffington Post,

Let's Call Those Attacking the New York Times What They Are: Liars.

I leapt into the blogging fray. On the Daou Report, I looked for a likely GOP stooge to whale on. I found Professor Bainbridge. I told him to put up or shut up, and show what the NY Times article revealed that wasn't previously known.

His response is worth noting, and is below the fold.

I don't have anything particularly deep or even controversial to write about today. So, I figured I'd squander my diary ration on some pointless fun.

Some might question having a brainstorming session for porn names. To them I say:
a) I've already admitted that it's pointless, and
b) it can't be battle ALL the time.

So come on, cut loose a little, and get your Left brain working. When you head back into the fight, you'll be glad you did.

My first set of contributions, below the fold. :)