DebateGate

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100429/entertainment/centertainment_us_beatles_auction

It's the manuscript in Lennon's own handwriting.


<< . . . with Lennon noting where Paul McCartney would insert his more upbeat verse.  Lennon's words appear to be inspired by newspaper headlines and articles. . . .

<<McCartney's contribution, an upbeat middle passage about falling out of bed and dashing to catch the bus, does not appear on the manuscript to be sold.>>

Funny, but when I saw the headline, the first lyrics that popped into my mind were the only part of the song that happened to have been written by Paul McCartney.  I never knew.  That was by far the best part of the song.  The only part that stuck in my mind.  And I always thought that Lennon was the heavyweight.  (Comparatively speaking)

 . . . and they don't even need the U.S. Army to show them the way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/28/iraq-prison-torture-mutha_n_554748.html

Yep, it sure is a good thing they got rid of Saddam Hussein and his "rape rooms."  That kind of thing was intolerable.

Let's see now, how many "exploded" reasons for the U.S. invasion and occupation does that make?  Uhhh, there was Weapons of Mass Destruction, but that didn't work out so well.  There was "Saddam and his torture chambers are gone," and THAT didn't work out so well.  There was "Bringing Democracy" but that didn't work out either.   And there was "bringing peace and stability," but that didn't happen either.

Quick, guys, get the Rationalization Machine going again.  New reason please.  On the double.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0423/Tea-party-activists-Do-they-hate-liberals-more-than-they-love-liberty/%28page%29/2

Good article in the Christian Science Monitor about Tea Party objections to Big Government coupled with their unconditional love of the police (in the face of a horrendous police beating of an innocent student,) huge expenditures (only not in the defence budget, which Bovard likens to "holy water" in the eyes of the Tea Partiers,) 57% support for big-spending, budget-breaking George W. Bush, a previously-noted phenomenon, support for the National Security State and its Big Brother citizen-surveillance propensities, etc.

These are some seriously confused (if not downright hypocritical) individuals who seem to be totally incapable of serious intelligent thought.

According to Glenn Greenwald, it looks like Obama is set to nominate Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. The prospect has already gained the approval of Joe Lieberman,  which should tell you something about the nature and quality of this appointment.  Despite the availability of numerous judges whose progressive views are well-known and well-documented, Obama seems set to nominate Kagan, who has pronounced virtually nothing on any of the Constitutional issues of the past decade.  Kagan's few publicly pronounced opinions favour the Bush version of the so-called "War on Terror" which Stevens opposed vigorously  in any challenges brought before the Court while he sat on it.

Greenwald highlights the folly of passing up a chance to re-balance the increasingly conservative court by adding a known progressive jurist and picking instead a largely unknown quantity, who can at best turn out OK and at worst - - as most commentators, including Jeffrey Toobin expect - - push it further to the right.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan/index.html

Here's the low-down on the Tea Partiers and their dyed-in-the-wool Republican roots.

Teabaggers are just embarrassed Republicans
http://www.dailykos.com/
by Jed Lewison

Tue Apr 20, 2010 at 07:50:03 AM PDT

<<Over at 538, Tom Schaller asks Perot movement expert Ron Rapoport of William & Mary to compare the tea partiers of 2010 with the Perotistas of the 1990s:

<<The Perot movement is inherently different. It was formed around a candidate during a presidential election campaign. This explains the support by Perot supporters for a third party which tea partiers at present lack. The major difference is that Perot movement was a total rejection of both parties, while the tea party movement is a total rejection of only one party--the Democrats.

<<Whereas only 5% of tea party supporters said that they usually or always voted Democratic, fully one-third of Perot supporters had voted for Walter Mondale in 1984 and slightly more had voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988.

<<In the New York Times survey, 54% of tea partiers rated the Republican Party favorably. Only 17% of Perot callers rated either party as “above average” or “outstanding” and 43% rated both parties as “below average,” or “poor” with 8% rating the Republicans as “above average” or “outstanding,” and 9% rating the Democrats as “outstanding” or “above average.” Sixty-nine percent rated the Republicans as “below average” or “poor,” with 64% saying the same about Democrats.

<<The level of favorability among tea partiers for George W. Bush is extraordinarily high—far more than in the population as a whole. Fifty-seven percent of tea party supporters rate Bush favorably, and only 27% rate him unfavorably (for the sample as a whole the corresponding percentages are reversed 27% favorable, 58% unfavorable. On the other hand Perot supporters rated both Geroge H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton unfavorably, Bush moreso than Clinton.

<<Rapoport's analysis underscores the extent to which tea partiers are really just embarrassed Republicans. Actually, putting it that way is a bit of an oversimplification. I should say: tea partiers are really just embarrassed Republicans -- unless they think that the Republican Party is too liberal for them. But there's nobody in the tea party movement who thinks that the GOP is too conservative. And there's nobody who is angry at GOPers but not Dems.

<<Tea party sponsors like Fox have eagerly pushed the claim that teabagging is a bipartisan thing to do, but there's no real evidence to support that myth. Instead, we've got a bunch of conservatives who think that the best response to the failure of their ideas is to rebrand conservativism as tea partyism instead of Republicanism.

<<They'd be better off rethinking their ideas.>>

http://www.gocomics.com/tedrall/


"Etiquette for War Criminals" based on the recently released videotape of the New Baghdad Massacre - - hilarious suggestions on how the helicopter thugs of the U.S. Murder Corps can clean up their language before the next massacre so as not to shock the puritanical among you and at least pretend to be something other than the murderous Nazi criminals that they are.

http://www.progressive.org/wx041210.html

He draws parallels between the Obama administration and the Weimar Republic.  The collusion between the Obama administration and the financial services industry, the obscene rewards of the wealthiest while unemployment hovers around 10% and real wages for the employed stagnate for about 30 years.  The extreme rapidity in the growth of both the Nazi Party and the Tea Parties, both fueled by escalating disgust over the situation where a handful get rich at the expense of the masses.

Good article, and short too.

<<Karzai knows the only way to end the Afghan conflict is to enfranchise the nation’s Pashtun majority and its fighting arm, the Taliban. Political compromise with the Taliban is the only — and inevitable — solution.

<<But the Obama administration, misadvised by Washington neocons and other hardliners, is determined to “win” a military victory in Afghanistan (whatever that means) to save face as a great power and impose a settlement that leaves it in control of strategic Afghanistan.>>

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2010/04/09/13530691.html