Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Archive for May 2009

Who Listens to this Dumb-F**k?

(cross-posted at kickin it with cg)

In his usual brilliance, Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that he hopes Sonia Sotomayor fails.

In case you missed it – Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge who was first appointed to the bench by Republican George H. W. Bush, is President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Her nomination was announced at a press conference yesterday morning. Hours later, Limbaugh was lashing out on his radio show:

Do I want her to fail? Yeah. Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes. She’d be a disaster on the Court.

Do I still want to Obama to fail as President? Yeah, — AP, you getting this?

He’s gonna fail anyway, but the sooner the better here so that as little damage can be done to the country.

A true patriot.

What A Wonderful World

On May 26, 1987, Donna White – in a beautiful pink lace dress – took the hand of a haggard young man in a white sport jacket in Toronto City Hall, and she said the two most fateful words ever spoken by starry-eyed youth.

Twenty two years, five states and three children later she still does.

Babydoll, since we happen to have 700 milles between us tonight I thought I’d just say this in public: thanks for sharing this wonderful world with me, for oh-so long.

nouns, verbs & 9/11 thrown at Sotomayor

(My apologies for writing a second diary today, but this got too long for a comment)

Well we should have known it was coming.  

In the twisted logic of wingnut non-thinking un-analysis (is there such a word?) at the National Review online, Wendy Long, of the Judicial Confirmation Network states:

Sotomayor for the Court  [Wendy Long]


Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

The Limits of Incentive-Based Diplomacy.

(cross-posted at kickin it with cg)

Once again, Kim Jong-il is testing the resolve of the international community. The latest North Korean nuclear provocation – an underground detonation yesterday – is the biggest trial of the Obama administration’s foreign policy and of China’s newfound global status to date.

The stakes are high not only because Pyongyang’s provocations undermine security in northeast Asia, but also because a critical issue facing the US is nuclear proliferation to Iran. Should North Korea acquire the status of a nuclear-weapons state, any effort to prevent the nuclearization of Iran would lose validity. Additionally the prospect of a nuclear Iran could unravel U.S. Middle East policy, threatening the survival of Israel as well as the security of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf oil-exporting states. For China, the stakes in North Korea are no less important. It has banked its credibility on restraining Pyongyang through the diplomatic process of the six-party talks on Kim’s nuclear program.

The Kim family dynasty’s determination to secure its survival through the acquisition of nuclear weapons not only threatens South Korea, but also may provoke Japan (the only country that suffered an atomic bombing) to weaponize its advanced nuclear technology. Yet Kim has success doing what he has been doing in the past – winning foreign aid to stave off his people’s hunger and provoking diplomatic apoplexy to feed his megalomania.

A unscrupulous dictator, Kim bankrolls his state by counterfeiting U.S. currency and the export of narcotics. He has no fuel for his factories and no foodstuff to feed his people yet finds the time to kidnap teenagers from the beaches of Japan. He goes through the motions of building nuclear reactors, then wins subsidized oil shipments from the outside world in return for suspending construction. With thousands of land-based missiles pointed at South Korea and 1.2 million soldiers under arms, Kim has long had the West over a barrel.

The response to the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of countries supporting terrorism has been for Kim to renew his campaign of nuclear blackmail. He has no fear of the UN Security Council, whose resolutions he has defied on multiple occasions in the past five years.

With yesterday’s events broadcast through the global airways, North Korea created critical mass.  No doubt a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia would undermine the U.S.-Japan security treaty and inflame a fear of Japanese militarism in the rest of Asia, especially in China, where bitter memories of Japan’s aggression simmer just below the surface.  It’s pretty safe to say that a scramble to acquire a nuclear stockpile in any region of the world is not what the international community is hoping for.

The only way to restrain Kim from his course is the joint and explicit cooperation of the rest of the participants in the six-party talks, led by China and the United States and supported by Russia, Japan and South Korea. China’s swift condemnation of this week’s nuclear test by North Korea signals that its patience is at an end.

In the coming days, we will see whether the international community can rise to the challenge. The limits of incentive-based diplomacy have been reached. The world must now tolerate imposing painful sanctions on Pyongyang. The price of inaction is too high. The risk of a war that would once again devastate the Korean Peninsula has deterred any military option. So it would seem that only close co-ordination between China and the United States to devise sanctions (such as a total energy embargo on a state that has no domestic source of oil) might constrain the continued operation of the North Korean regime without firing a shot.  However it could also provoke a suicidal attack on South Korea or Japan from a power-crazed and desperate neighbour.

Kim threatens the world with the push of a button out of weakness, not strength. The world may ultimately be forced into an uncomfortable and uncharacteristic game of brinkmanship, because clearly it seems the international community is running out of options.

3 cheers for Bronx homegirl Sonia Sotomayor (UPDATED)

Okay folks.  I’m biased. She’s a Boricua (Puerto Rican), from Da Bronx.  She grew up in the projects.  Anyone who knows the projects and the daily lives of po’ folks in the Big Mango (aka the Big Apple) gets a gold star in my book.

She is really smart.  Saavy. Gutsy.  Has a sense of humor.

take a listen.

World's Oldest Blogger Passes.

(cross-posted at kickin it with cg)

A 97 year-old blogger, Maria Amalia López from Spain passed away Wednesday in the northern province of La Coruna.

With hits from around the world, Lopez started blogging in December of 2006 at amis95.blogspot.com  

Charming readers with a homely mix of memories and chat, one of her entries reads  “My grandson gave me this blog when I was 95 on December 23 2006 and my life changed, since that day I’ve had 1,570,784 visits from bloggers from 5 continents who have cheered up my old age.”  

"Demographics is Destiny"

A few weeks ago, James Carville appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to talk about his new book, 40 More Years:  How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation.  He argued that the American electorate was evolving demographically in a way that favored Democrats.  In support, he revealed a stunning statistic.  If the American electorate had not undergone any demographic changes since 1992, John McCain would have won the election in 2008.  In other words, if the percentages of white males, white females, blacks, latinos, etc were the same in 2008 as they were in 1992, Sarah Palin would be the Vice-President of the United States.

What is happening is that younger voters are voting heavily Democratic and demographic groups that traditionally support Democrats–single voters and non-whites–are growing.  The groups that support Republicans–married people and white men–are shrinking at the same time that younger voters are rejecting conservatism.  The GOP will certainly evolve to appeal to more of the changing electorate, but as Carville noted, that means moving closer to the principles of the Democratic party.  So while the Democratic Party is highly unlikely to rule America for forty years–and even I believe it should not–the ruling coalition will be ideologically more like Barack Obama than Sarah Palin.

Susan Boyle and North Korean Nukes Open Thread

Susan Boyle sang “Memory” yesterday.

Just over a month – and over a hundred million views on YouTube – later, Susan is still warming hearts and uplifting souls.  Is there marketing involved?  Does it matter?

Oh yeah, and Kim Jong Il (or his corpse, or his rivals – who can tell?) fired off a nuclear weapon.

Which one matters more to you?

Consider this an open thread.

Ode to a colored soldier whose name I bear

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Military service to this country has been a tradition on both sides of my family. My dad was a Tuskegee Airman in WWII.  His white forebears fought in the Civil War on the side of the Union, in the Mexican War and the War of Independence. But I am named for my mom’s great uncle, who childless at the time of his death left his land in the hills of Loudoun county VA to the women of my family, and it is passed down to the oldest daughter to maintain.

His name was Dennis Weaver, he was a slave who ran off to fight for the Union as “a colored soldier” and in his honor I was named Denise. My grandfather was named Dennis for him as well.