On the internet, nobody knows you're a PUMA

So, hipparchia, what do you think? Are the PUMAs primarily a GOP front org, as it appears?

--- SB, the YDS

It's a fair question to ask about an issue as potentially important as electing the next president, so I'll answer it: I dunno.

What I do know...

The PUMA un-party appears to have arisen spontaneously, on or about the 1st of June, out of a conversation here, at the pro-Hillary blog The Confluence. The Confluence was started by riverdaughter, who was goldberry, apparently after getting thrown out of dkos, which isn't terribly difficult to accomplish. I've had one of my sock puppets banned at dkos [concern troll!] and if I can do it, anybody can.

While I've only lurked very occasionally at The Confluence --- some of the commenters do seem to be terminally suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome, which is just tiring to read --- and only in recent weeks, riverdaughter and her blog both appear to be genuinely pro-Hillary and liberal [though not nearly so cool as my readers!] and have been for some time now. Additionally, I've run into Confluence contributor ronkseattle in various venues around cyberspace over the past 3 or 4 years, and he has always been reliably liberal.

Very shortly after that, murphy started Puma PAC, and Will Bower started P.U.M.A. At that point, being a bit on the solitary side myself, like many a real-life Florida panther, I mostly lost interest in actually following these people around the internet. I have, though, been quite partial to the idea, and have been spending a fair amount of time hanging out with the [mostly] uber-liberals at Corrente, keeping up especially with vastleft's blog and Sarah's manifestos there.

So, yes, Virginia, there are PUMAs and they are real and they are real liberals.

What I don't know is how much of the newly viral PUMA phenomenon is being hijacked and propagated by Republican operatives who see this as one possible means-to-an-end to sink Obama.

Certainly there are people declaring themselves Hillary suppporters who vow they was will vote for McCain before they'll ever, ever, ever vote for Obama, and unfortunately, a noticeable number of them do seem to be rather, ah, bigoted. It's quite possible they are Republicans who were, genuinely or not, crossing party lines and supporting Hillary Clinton. I mean, c'mon, look at what their own party has given them as candidates this year.

As for Darragh Murphy's assertion that that $500 contribution to McCain's primary campaign in 2000 [the one that Pandagon, and ilk, is all in an uproar about] was one of those strategic moves that politically active people try, supporting the opposition of the candidate they hate most, I find this entirely plausible. But even if Murphy really is a registered Republican, why shouldn't she, and others like her, be allowed to want Hillary for President?

But, yeah, the very virulent racism displayed by some of the self-proclaimed PUMAs is the main reason why I haven't formally joined them or endorsed them, even as I approve of their rebellious mood and actions.

Old age and tyranny

will overcome youth and beauty any day of the week.

PUMAs are

Or not. I link, you decide.






additional reference


update: post title edited, h/t michael in comments

update update: post title changed yet again, as steve reminds me that rats are pretty darn kewl ackshully.

It's true, women do get more radical as they get older.

Ok, so I'm just one data point, but when I did this 2 or 3 years ago, my score was, iirc, -6.5, -6.8. Today --



Which leaves me feeling like I'm looking through the wrong end of the telescope --



I dunno, I'm thinkng his latest statement on FISA moves Obama up the authoritarian scale a couple of notches.

minor edit to add additional graphic

Talk bout American imperialism

All your personal data are belong to US.

Femi Nazis in Phoenix

So, if you're a grrrl, you can belong to the Phoenix Country Club, but you can't eat in the Mens grill room.

And if you complain about this, men will come to your house and pee on your landscaping.

New favorite blogs

• food


• satellite imagery [with bonus oil wells!]

Google has a

public policy blog.

Urban agriculture

In France, the doctors make house calls, even in the middle of the night.

All of Michael Moore's SICKO, in 13 parts, here.

Yes, kittens really do come from flower pots

Just because you're paranoid...

more on FISA

[note to self... ]

back car into parking spot, just in case.

Grandmother, may I?

go to war?

get up off the floor?

Blue Dog

more art







more videos

PUMA power

"The problem is the party itself. 2008 was the year that the party abandoned its principles. It is no longer the party of FDR and shared responsibility. Now, it is the party of wannabe rich libertarian Democrats. It is the party of the Ariana Huffingtons who, dissatisfied with their own party, have decided to steal someone else’s."

You have two assignments for tomorrow, June 19

Health care

If you live in one of the following cities:

• Atlanta, GA


• St. Louis, MO


• Albany, NY


• Boston, MA


• Baltimore, MD


• San Francisco, CA


• Louisville, KY


• Pittsburgh, PA


• Philadelphia, PA


• Harrisburg, PA


• New York City, NY


• Minnetonka, MN


• Oklahoma City, OK


• Jacksonville, FL


• Chicago, IL


• Indianapolis, IN


• San Antonio, TX


• Newark, NJ

there will be a pro HR 676 [single payer national health insurance] demonstration in your area.

Try to go [one reason why you should]. More information here.

===============================================

FISA

Quite possibly as early as tomorrow, your Congress could be voting to give your telephone company immunity from prosecution for spying on you. Call, write, fax, or email any and all of these people to object to telco immunity.

Beer!

The good news: there's gluten-free beer to be had.

The bad news: you have to go to Finland to get it.

Otoh, while you're there for beer, you could get medical care, a bear dog or two, and oh, those choirs! [h/t]

It's ba-a-a-ack!

Bonobo Handshake returns!

Rivers of blood

War, dreadful war, and Tiber flood
I see incarnadined with blood.
-- the Sibyl

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood".
-- Enoch Powell

Whether Powell was just a racist dickhead or some dude with ears licked clean by the temple snakes, he and many others were, are, and always will be justifiably afraid of the consequences of smashing established social institutions.

Arguably, the Late Unpleasantness didn't turn out well for a lot of folks, though it freed some People of Color from at least one form of slavery, and if you're reading this, you've probably reaped a few benefits from that little tea party that some of our ancestors threw, even though it didn't turn out so well for a number of other groups.

On a lesser scale...

Several people died in the Haymarket Riot, a handful of anarchists were later executed [or committed suicide], and the cause for which the tens of thousands of workers were demonstrating -- shortening the work day to 8 hours -- wasn't immediately instituted by management, but an awful lot of workers since then are indebted to those early labor activists.

More recently, in fact mere weeks after Powell's speech, rioting in France at first only hardened the hearts of the morally conservative, authoritarian government,

 

but now, 40 years later,



France is a liberal, egalitarian society with perhaps the finest, or at least the most coveted, health care system in the world.

In light of all this, I have a modest proposal for you. Instead of working to heal the rift in the Democratic Party, now is the ideal time to part ways with the centrists and form the NFP -- National Feminist Party -- because NWP is already taken, plus there's that unfortunate W that we'd be better off without.

We'll ask Hillary to run as our first Presidential candidate for 2008, right after -- or perhaps right before would be better -- the Democratic Party Coronation of Obama, be it May 31, June 3, or the upcoming contretemps in Denver. She's got the chops, she's got the following, we'll just need to convice her to break with her centrist past and adopt a slightly more socialist [single-payer national health insurance] and populist [rescind corporate personhood] platform, but that might not be too difficult once she's no longer bound to the DLC.

Rather than the bland, homogenized, post-racial, post-feminist ideal of the Obamaites, I envision a possibly unruly but mostly like-minded assemblage of ovarians and penisians who will all be able to profess outright admiration or even envy of each others' melanin status. And while we won't have to go back to square one, the first thing I'd like to see is passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, with updates and improvements, of course.

The danger is that we'd be very unlikely to take the Presidency in 2008. Hillary's got roughly half the Democrats in the country rooting for her, but given the chance to jump off the cliff, a fair number of them will opt for safety and go with Obama. And while there's a good chance that splitting the erstwhile Democratic Party in two could leave McCain with the lion's share of votes, it's entirely possible that once a third -- and demonstrably leftist -- party is available for a yardstick to measure the other two against, many more Republicans will be comforted by, and will likely vote for, Obama's evident centrism.

History warns us that if we're the bleeding edge, the instigators of radical change, we'll be the ones to take the biggest hit, and we might even have to wait a generation or two before we become acceptable and unremarkable and society at large incorporates some of our goals. It's worth trying though, and no time like the present, and all that jazz.




original photo

Not giving up the fight

from the inbox---

Dear [hipparchia],

Last night, significant news broke that directly impacts our push for Impeachment Hearings and a possible Inherent Contempt charge for Bush Administration officials such as Karl Rove:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has revealed in his upcoming book that:

• Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Vice President Cheney lied about their role in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson – actions easily amounting to obstruction of Justice.

McClellan also admitted that:

• There was a coordinated effort within the Bush Administration to use propaganda to pump up the case for the Iraq war and hide the projected costs of the war from the public.

Scott McClellan must be called to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee to tell Congress and the American people everything he knows about this massive effort by the White House to deceive this nation into war.

Last week, a subpoena was issued for Karl Rove to testify before the Judiciary Committee. It appears he will take every legal action to block this subpoena. The truth is that Congress has the right – and obligation – to hold him accountable now - not months or years from now. It is long past time to pass Inherent Contempt and bring Rove, Libby and others before Congress.

We simply cannot ignore these recent developments, nor should we postpone serious inquiry until after the next election.

Your commitment to accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration, and the support of 230,000 other Americans who signed up at wexlerwantshearings.com, has inspired and motivated me in my effort to hold impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney and Inherent Contempt for Rove and others. During the past months I have been a tireless and dogged advocate of this vitally important cause.

Many of you have written me, asking for an update on where we stand with regards to impeachment hearings. I know most of you believe - as I do - that impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney – are not only justified, but that it is our constitutional obligation to look into the serious allegations of wrongdoing that have been raised. This is especially true based on the newest revelations from Scott McClellan.

I believe that it is the duty of Congress to pursue impeachment whenever there's significant evidence of wrongdoing, be it by Republicans or Democrats, regardless of the timing of elections or the current political environment.

Some of you have written me demanding that I deliver hearings or impeachment. As hard as I have been fighting for this cause, I cannot make impeachment happen by myself. What I can do, and what I have been doing at every turn, is trying to communicate two simple messages to my colleagues:

• the serious allegations of wrongdoing and the clear-cut rationale for impeachment hearings;and
• the fact that the public will support our efforts when Congress boldly acts on the side of justice and accountability.

Unfortunately, to date, these arguments have not been enough to convince even a majority of the liberal and progressive Members of Congress to support impeachment hearings. In addition, the leadership of the Democratic Party in Congress genuinely feels that pursuing impeachment will jeopardize our congressional agenda and threaten gains in the November elections. Although I genuinely disagree with this view, to date I have been unable to convince them to change this policy.

I understand the challenges that we are up against, and I recognize the odds that we face. Nevertheless, I remain unfazed and unyielding.

This new evidence from Scott McClellan could be the tipping point – but we must move quickly. I will use the McClellan admissions to help convince my colleagues that we must hold impeachment hearings.

Regardless, I will continue to fight for progressive values and our Constitution. I will do everything I can to pursue accountability for criminal actions taken by this Administration and this Vice President. I will be a furious opponent to any expansion of this misguided war, and I will fight against the use of torture by our government and to protect our civil liberties here at home.

Most of all, I will continue my efforts to convince my fellow members of Congress and voters, that we should not be a party of passivity - but that we succeed when we present the public with stark choices that are based on the guarantees in our Constitution, and not on the politics of the moment.

I will continue - at every pass - to call for impeachment and accountability. While I wish more of my colleagues supported our movement, we must not let our discouragement lead to apathy and distraction in this important election year when we must break free from eight long years of illegalities, corporate handouts, and a tragic and devastating war.

We should not end the calls for impeachment. I will push against the crimes of the Bush Administration whenever I am provided the opportunity. I will use my role on the Judiciary Committee to take on Administration officials – like I have done with Condoleezza Rice, Attorney Generals Gonzalez and Mukasey, and FBI Director Mueller.

I have not given up our fight to hold this Administration accountable and neither can you. I am grateful for your patriotism and your support. I'll continue to keep you informed and part of the conversation.

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

Florida wants your kids to be SMRT

A handful of Floridians have been fighting off the unIntelligent Design wackos who want your kids to actively resist learning sciece. That's not news, this fight has beeen going on for ages, but now there's a new wrinkle: we can save a lot of money, and keep Teh Kidz safe from Evilooshun, if we just stop paying for schools entirely!

It's not quite that bad yet, but according to this article in the St Petersburg Times, we're getting there. This next year will be the first time that a greater share of the public school budget will come from local property taxes than from state taxes.

Doesn't sound all that horrible on first reading, local control over schools and all that jazz, except that we've recently passed this pesky little amendment making it practically unconstitutional to pay property taxes, and in a market where property values are soaring like lead balloons, no less.

Large group feeding

Sounds like something right out of a biology textbook, and something vaguely distasteful at that: this species can be found descending on their prey in large group feedings...

What it is is a bill passed by some of the infamously compassionate conservatives that we have in abundance here in Florida to starve homeless people stop charitable groups from handing out free food to homeless people in the hopes that they'll disappear from local parks.

Among other provisions is this one:

Not more than two (2) Large Group Feeding Permits shall be issued to the same person, group, or organization for large group feedings for the same park in the GDPD in a twelve (12) consecutive month period.

Hmmm, looks like an opportunity for a somewhat sideways application of method 193. Overloading of administrative systems here. At one meal per day, 12 months = 366 days [for leap year, and makes the math easier] and each group can get two permits, so we'll only need 183 groups [plus a few more for backups] to apply for permits. This isn't an unreasonable burden, twice a year your group has to cater an informal picnic in a park.

Fortunately, there is a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this odious measure scheduled to go to trial in June. Cool. Meanwhile...

Go. Feed.


Homeless on the web [via]:
Homeless Liberation Front
street roots

Trying to reason with hurricane season

Hurricane season is almost upon us, time to stock up on bottled water, non-perishable food, MREs if you can get them, batteries, flashlights, prescription medications, pet food, bleach, etc.

And if you live in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, you'll need your papers.

Hurricane season starts June 1. In the event of a hurricane in the region, emergency officials predict more than 130,000 evacuees will leave the Valley by school bus. They will be checked for identification and citizenship before they can board.


Anyone who is not a citizen or is not a legal resident will be held in specially designed areas in the Valley that are “made to withstand hurricanes,” said Dan Doty, a Border Patrol spokesperson for the Valley sector.

470 mountains were destroyed to bring you this post

Pin this badge on your site.

Also, you might be interested in the relationship between poverty level and mine location.

Impactful

“All I can say is, the surge is succeeding,” [McCain] said. “If someone wants to disagree with that, they’re free to, but I have statistics — whether they be instances of violence, whether it be U.S. casualties, whatever it may be — that prove that this new tactic is succeeding. So I’m willing to stick with it.”

---

“After nearly four years of a failed strategy, the difference in one year is dramatic,” McCain says. “If they make that same progress in the next year,” he predicts, “I think it’s going to be quite impactful on American public opinion, as well as, more importantly, events on the ground.”

from The McCain Doctrines

Out with the old: yellowdog democrats

In with the new: black-white-and-tan-dog democrats

I admit, that's a ticket I'd have a hard time resisting, on a couple of levels.

Take airport toilets, [please!]

which apparently have a big problem with men peeing on the floor. A conventional solution might be posters, or an expensive redesign. But just painting a black fly inside the urinal, for men to aim at, has reduced spillage at Schipol airport, Amsterdam, by 80 per cent.

Which paragraph fairly accurately sums up my feelings about Libertarian Paternalism.

Why vote when you can

let the Brits pick the next VP?



McCain/Rice. Great. Guess this is their chance to get us back for that one little bit of unpleasantness.



yeah, that sarah palin vote is mine

in the beginning...




let there be LOLcats...