Historical fun facts

Even Hitler thought Franco was a dick. After their meeting in 1940, Hitler said he'd rather have several teeth pulled than ever have to spend any more time with Franco.

When the Furhrer decides you're too much of an asshole to ever want to see again, it's time to reassess. Unfortunately, the Generalissimo appears not to have been sufficiently sensitive to have taken the hint.

End of the "Monster years"?

Krugman reflects on the election:

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.
What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.
And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”
Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.

Unfortunately for us, there are 56 million voters out there ready to welcome the monsters into their homes and keep them alive until the next election cycle. Our monsters aren't going away anytime soon.


hat tip: Crooks and Liars

WTF are those people thinking?

Let's recap:

The Republicans have spent the bulk of the last 30 years aggressively redistributing income upwards in favor of the very rich few, deregulating the economy and especially the now precarious financial sector, and putting the country on the brink of an economic crisis of historic proportions. They misled us into a disastrous and unnecessary war of aggression, instituted policies of what amounts to extrajudicial abduction and torture, seriously threatened fundamental freedoms like habeas corpus, and engaged in wholesale warrentless wiretapping. And they ran a transparently fraudulant and mean-spirited campaign which included race-baiting and red-baiting and religion-baiting directly attributable to the campaign and the party apparatus.

All of that and more, and they still get 56 million votes.

Small celebrations of democracy

6:20 this morning, PAF voted for Obama.

More people than I expected at the polling place that early in the morning, many of them visibly happy about voting in this election. One woman ahead of me had her son in the booth with her and emerged grinning at me. She said nothing, but it was clear as day: she was so pleased to give her son the gift of a piece of history by sharing her vote with him.

This is not the rapture and we're not saved.

But it is a sweet moment for a whole bunch of good reasons, and it was great to see fellow citizens so obviously enjoying that feeling.