Thursday funk

Call it post-teaching exhaustion, mostly. Last night's marathon went 4 and a half, and I am walking around in a daze today. I know there are those who are on their feet or talking or doctoring for those kinds of hours all the time. I don't know how they do it, and my hat is off to them.

Saw a story about one of the guys in the CIA working with Panetta. Turns out he was one of those who helped cover up the torture death of a detainee in Afghanistan. We dumped cold water on him and left him in a cell over night. He froze to death. They buried him in secret and rigged the books.

With that in mind, I am posting the link to this 2008 documentary: TORTURINGDEMOCRACY.ORG. My conservative evangelical friends assure me that they are mostly opposed to torture, just not terribly sympathetic. I would suggest that that is mostly because they still, STILL, don't know what was done in their name.

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And because I am in a snit today, I am reminded of the incredibly infuriating FB conversation with the God-quoting evangelical woman who accused me (in passive aggressive fashion) of not really knowing what was going on. That is why she wanted me to read some Heritage docs and stop reading that liberal trash from Forbes.

Yeah, that one. I love it when people who clearly don't know shit lecture me on being informed. It always makes me so happy. Well, she dropped that story about how the new ACA would require the hiring of 16,000 new IRS agents and the accompanying cost. It won't surprise anyone here that story turns out to be pulled right out of John Boehner's ass. Amazing how just a speculating about it in the news translates into the Republican drones repeating it as fact.

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With that in mind, a preemptive post on another meme circulating around the conservative brain--namely that the stimulus money mostly went to Democratic districts as a political ploy to buy votes. Except, as Nate Silver points out, this "scholarship" didn't account for the money going to states through districts that include the state capitol. Of course, given my conversation with the annoying woman, I have absolutely no doubt that FACTS matter one iota in this, or any other conversation. Discussions of how much Bush added to the deficit made her tell me that the Bush tax cuts increased revenue.

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And finally, this good post from Steve Benen about a tweet from Larry Sabato saying that Jim Webb was hardly a stereotypical liberal, because

"Ever met a liberal who's won a Navy Cross for heroism, a Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Purple Hearts?"

Because, of course, as everyone knows, liberals cheer for the other side. So fucking annoying. Republicans have it incredibly easy. They can fuck up the military, place them in unnecessary wars, undermine their credibility with torture--yet it is the liberals who are anti-military.