On the Rick Perry indictment front, I think the best part has been watching to see just how far various liberals go to denounce the evil that is Rick Perry while writing their piece on how fucking shitty these indictments are to maintain their cred. The two leaders in the club house are Jon Chait and the NYT Editorial Board.

From Jonathan Chait's This Indictment of Rick Perry Is Unbelievably Ridiculous - "To describe the indictment as “frivolous” gives it far more credence than it deserves. Perry may not be much smarter than a ham sandwich, but he is exactly as guilty as one."

From the NYT's Is Gov. Rick Perry’s Bad Judgment Really a Crime? - "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is one of the least thoughtful and most damaging state leaders in America, having done great harm to immigrants, abortion clinics and people without health insurance during his 14 years in office. But bad political judgment is not necessarily a felony, and the indictment handed up against him on Friday — given the facts so far — appears to be the product of an overzealous prosecution."

The absurdity of the indictment took another step over the past two days. Yesterday a few Texas newspapers interviewed some of the members of the grand jury (which itself seemed really weird to me as someone who has done the grand jury thing but not the lawyer thing), and those who spoke to the press fought back against Perry's claims that the process was politically motivated.

The Houston Chronicle article quoting some grand jury members got the most buzz, and the quote that put the cherry on the top of the piece was this: "'For me, it's not a political decision,' Chalmers said. 'That's what a grand jury is about – take the emotion out of it and look at the facts and make your best decision based on your life experience.'"

Then today a right leaning media watchdog group found this Rho Chalmers person was a delegate at this year's Texas Democratic Party convention that took place during the grand jury's session, and at the convention she attended events headlined by people who were witnesses at the grand jury proceedings. She's got tons of other things on her Facebook page indicating she is a very politically active Texas Democrat. But she's the voice of detached objectivity in the Houston Chronicle about how her Life Experiences have taken the place of emotion and politics to indict Rick Perry.

This thing is beyond parody at this point.

Also it's worth remembering the thing we have to pay attention to is how insane the Republican Party is and how they will make anything up to impeach Obama. The national Democratic Party is trying to raise money off of Perry's indictments, and the state Democrats are calling on him to resign.

It is very important to make sure the Party of Science is in charge so no one gets impeached maliciously, just indicted on made up crimes that might put them in jail for the rest of their lives.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/p ... book-posts

It's tough when when of their own exposes the guts of the party. It's not my fault, I was republican at the time. lol.

The stories about this ISIS murder are just so tough to read. Apparently ISIS was having tentative discussions with Foley's parents and employer about negotiating his release, but then they contacted his parents last week to tell them they'd be executing Foley due to the US bombing campaigns against ISIS. I mean, can you imagine getting that communication? Good god.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:The stories about this ISIS murder are just so tough to read. Apparently ISIS was having tentative discussions with Foley's parents and employer about negotiating his release, but then they contacted his parents last week to tell them they'd be executing Foley due to the US bombing campaigns against ISIS. I mean, can you imagine getting that communication? Good god.

jesus

jerseyhoya wrote:On the Rick Perry indictment front

Perry shrewdly (have those 2 words ever appeared together in a sentence before?) is blowing this thing up as big as he can, beyond "crazyass Texas politics as unusual" to "prominent victim of "liberalism*" run amok"

good for him - please run for POTUS again, Rick Perry, please please please please PLEASE

*in Perryworld, "positions of anyone who oppose me"

'increasingly likely' a British citizen was the one that beheaded Foley. The UK is freaked.

Scotland Yard stated it's thought that 500 Brits joined ISIL/ISIS, while US is under 100.

Obama is talking tough on ISIL. He's seriously pissed if you hear him. "ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings."

pacino wrote:'increasingly likely' a British citizen was the one that beheaded Foley. The UK is freaked.

Scotland Yard stated it's thought that 500 Brits joined ISIL/ISIS, while US is under 100.

I mean, it sucks to have seeming confirmation of that (exacerbated by the very public and disgusting act of Foley's murder), but it's not like there haven't been dual citizen or US/UK citizen terrorists before now.

jerseyhoya wrote:Also it's worth remembering the thing we have to pay attention to is how insane the Republican Party is and how they will make anything up to impeach Obama. The national Democratic Party is trying to raise money off of Perry's indictments, and the state Democrats are calling on him to resign.

It is very important to make sure the Party of Science is in charge so no one gets impeached maliciously, just indicted on made up crimes that might put them in jail for the rest of their lives.

bwahahahahha - exactly the sort of psychotic reaction we at the controls of the highly centralized & fiendishly powerful librul political domination machine were sure our carefully orchestrated manipulations in Texas would produce!!! /twirlsmustache /rubshandstogether

Yeh, even if he's completely innocent, it's laughable that a staunch republican would cry foul over trumped up charges on Perry. Welcome to every day of the Obama presidency.

OBAMA PLAYED GOLF AFTER ISIS ADDRESS

at least there's one positive here with all the bad news of late; it seems conservatives truly care about Chicago and its violence problem!!!! They keep bringing it up over and over again.

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, even if he's completely innocent, it's laughable that a staunch republican would cry foul over trumped up charges on Perry. Welcome to every day of the Obama presidency.

That's not exactly exclusive to Obama. I think it just goes with the territory now with POTUS. Clinton and Bush both had their wingnuts levying ridiculous charges at/about them.

The ham sammich analogy is apt for Gov Perry.

You may recall how Mayor Street, the definition of incompetence, was bugged by the feds when behind in the polls to Sam Katz in his mayoral reelection bid. The probe completely misfired, energized the base, and turned the election. Philly had a real shot at competent governance, but Street was bolstered by the feds snooping on his corrupt admininstration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/09/national/09STRE.html

Perry ain't even guilty of anything more than being a ham sammich without mayo OR mustard - but this trumped up charge could give him a huge boost.

And that would suck, because he is an idiot and represents most of what is wrong with the 2014 version of the GOP.

jerseyhoya wrote:On the Rick Perry indictment front, I think the best part has been watching to see just how far various liberals go to denounce the evil that is Rick Perry while writing their piece on how fucking shitty these indictments are to maintain their cred.

I don't get it. Isn't that right? Don't you think Perry is a nasty piece of work but the indictments are a crock?

swishnicholson wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:On the Rick Perry indictment front, I think the best part has been watching to see just how far various liberals go to denounce the evil that is Rick Perry while writing their piece on how fucking shitty these indictments are to maintain their cred.

I don't get it. Isn't that right? Don't you think Perry is a nasty piece of work but the indictments are a crock?

I suspect he's saying it's humorous that it needs to be in every lede. "I dislike everything about Perry, but..." Of course, I think the same articles would be written from the right if Obama were being placed before a grand jury for threatening a veto.

swishnicholson wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:On the Rick Perry indictment front, I think the best part has been watching to see just how far various liberals go to denounce the evil that is Rick Perry while writing their piece on how fucking shitty these indictments are to maintain their cred.

I don't get it. Isn't that right? Don't you think Perry is a nasty piece of work but the indictments are a crock?

I don't think Perry is all that terrible, though I don't want him to be president.

It just amused me that the Times engages in such extended throat clearing before moving into discussing the actual thing they're writing about.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, even if he's completely innocent, it's laughable that a staunch republican would cry foul over trumped up charges on Perry. Welcome to every day of the Obama presidency.

That's not exactly exclusive to Obama. I think it just goes with the territory now with POTUS. Clinton and Bush both had their wingnuts levying ridiculous charges at/about them.

I don't remember dem establishment saying stuff about Bush like things have been said about Obama from actual rep establishment types. Plus, most of the stuff about Bush turned out to be true. There were no weapons of mass destruction and he was torturing people, etc.

But we've had this conversation before on this board.

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, even if he's completely innocent, it's laughable that a staunch republican would cry foul over trumped up charges on Perry. Welcome to every day of the Obama presidency.

I've ruminated on this one a bit, and it continues to strike me as a really fucking bizarre post