Another shrewd guy is General David Petraeus.  Whether or not you like the guy, ya gotta give him props.

Leaks from a recent top level briefing by General David Petraeus are causing quite a controversy. The general pointed out that, “Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.” Mark Perry reported this on March 13 in Foreign Policy.

At Petraeus’s pay grade, you have to be politically savvy as well as diplomatically aware.  But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude one of the biggest obstacles accomplishing anything, anywhere in the middle east is our cozy relationship with Israel.  The real question is whether the Arab world will buy the kabuki theater where Israel makes such an obvious diplomatic blunder it would leave the US with no choice but to rebuke it’s greatest ally in the region.

And it plays.  It works here at home to allow our administration to show it’s backbone to Arab allies with the support of all but the most die-hard AIPAC and NeoCon malcontents at the Weekly Standard and the assorted Town Hall blogger.  The Village is eating this up.

Nicely done.  The only question left is what will the Obama administration do with its new found (Arab) street cred.  One also wonders how far the Israelis will play this.  The other shoe is due to drop in a couple of weeks at the AIPAC conference when Netahyahu pays a visit.

WALLACE: I know that three years is an eternity in politics. But how hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?

PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played — and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day. Say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.

Really Sarah?  Buchanan? War in Iran? Seriously? There are three distinct hooks we can hang our critical hat on in this one simple (for her) answer.

Note the cynical, almost casually callous way she invokes the notion of a war with a nation that has committed zero acts of aggression towards us, never in (modern) history started a war despite its bluster against the West and Israel, a sovereign nation of 74 million people, twice as many as California, and almost as large as Alaska. She thinks this is a political winner? Now?  In the middle of two wars on either side of Iran?  You and whose army Sarah?  Never forget, war is just a game to neocons.

And that brings me to the second point. She has no original ideas, no thoughts of her own.  Small wonder she is the darling of people like Bill Kristol. She’s an empty vessel, much like George W. Bush, so adverse to learning, to understanding how tings really work with no appreciation for history whatsoever that the warmongering cultists at the America Enterprise Institution can easily propagate her brain with tough sounding sloganeering containing little or no substance or foundation in reality.  Turning our foreign policy over to the whims of Israel’s militant wing is the thematic backbone of neocon dogma.  It’s like she’s the long lost third daughter of Dick Cheney.

Last … Pat Buchanan? Really? You’re admitting you crib notes from one of the most notorious xenophobes in American politics? A guy who ran for president more times than Jesse Jackson and lost in such spectacular fashion three cycles in a row?  That Pat Buchanan, the paleoconservative Nixonite, culture warrior who, by the way, was one of the lonely few on the right who opposed the invasion of Iraq you incessantly cheer-lead for?  Good strategy that.

This all assumes that Palin herself would advocate a war on Iraq if she were running for office.  Or is she being almost too clever by half?  She ain’t, and never will be a serious candidate.  She’s a flirt, and will milk that to sell her brand, but that’s all.  I’ll take her at her word that she is offering advice to President Obama, advice from someone dedicated to his failure, hoping he’s as stupid as she is and do something guaranteed to cut his term in office short — just like she did to her own stint as a chief executive.

Bush still had a congressional majority when he tried, and failed, to fix immigration, which tore his party in two. I’ll give him education reform, something he put through with decent bi-partisan support (most importantly, with help from the late Ted Kennedy who was also expecting No Child Left Behind to be funded).  However,  President Obama plans a sweeping overhaul of education policy to fix the gaping holes and unmanageable metrics Bush’s plan left behind.

Bush also pushed through two huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans (which are about to expire) on top of the unfunded Medicare Drug Plan (addressed in both the House and Senate bills), plus starting a couple of pathetically run wars (now hopefully being handled more responsibly with less cowboy “strategery”), the illegal one about to be wound down.

Bush’s stunning nose-dive in approval, from 90% to 22%, helped usher in Democratic majorities in Congress and all but assured that whoever won the Democratic Primary would become our next President.  But it was his foreign policy fiascoes that were primarily responsible for bring him down and contributed to thwarting his late term legislative initiatives.

There never was any sense that the Democrats ever wanted to take George W. Bush down they way they want to with Obama, and tried with Clinton.  Within hours of the 2006 “Thumpin’” that turned Congress over to the Democrats, Speaker Pelosi announced that impeachment was “off the table.”  These two parties simply operate with different rules.  One wants to actually govern, while the other doesn’t care if they accomplish anything as long as they can say they “won.”

When all is said and done, it doesn’t look like there will be any lasting effects from the Bush Administration’s agenda, save for the hundreds of thousands killed, millions forces from their homes and the dreams of a comfortable retirement for so many Americans shattered. 

The list of Obama’s legislative accomplishments is pretty impressive when you put it in perspective, a first year’s laundry list that trumps anything since the New Deal or the Great Society according to Norm Ornstein (via):

[T]his Democratic Congress is on a path to become one of the most productive since the Great Society 89th Congress in 1965-66, and Obama already has the most legislative success of any modern president — and that includes Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson. The deep dysfunction of our politics may have produced public disdain, but it has also delivered record accomplishment.

* * *

Most of this has been accomplished without any support from Republicans in either the House or the Senate — an especially striking fact, since many of the initiatives of the New Deal and the Great Society, including Social Security and Medicare, attracted significant backing from the minority Republicans.

It’s a pretty striking wish (fulfillment) list, even if the gaping hole known as Health Care Reform languishes in perdition:

We stabilized the banks:

• The economy is now growing again, really growing,
• Passed a credit card holders’ bill of rights,
• Providing for stiff oversight of the TARP funds.

Saved 2 million jobs:

• 200,000 for work in construction and clean energy,
• 300,000 are teachers and other education workers,
• Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders.
• Extended or increased unemployment benefits for more than 18 million Americans,

Passed 25 different tax cuts covering 95 percent of working families:

• Cut taxes for small businesses,
• Cut taxes for first-time homebuyers,
• Cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children,
• Cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college.

Made some health care reforms in advance of the sweeping changes that are closer than ever to becoming a reality:
Made COBRA 65 percent cheaper,

• Approved $19 billion for health-information technology,
• Passed $1 billion for research on the effectiveness of health-care treatments.
• Expanding children’s health insurance
• Allowed the FDA to regulate tobacco

Even passed some infrastructure modernizations with “massive investments” in:

• Green technologies,
• Clean water,
• The largest land conservation law in nearly two decades,
• A smart grid for electricity,
• $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs,
• $7 billion was allotted to expand broadband and wireless Internet access.

Of course, neither the Pundiocracy, the public nor Greater Blogistan should let facts get in their way, especially when this Congress, which has accomplished so much in so little time, has a dismal approval rating.  Pile on, kick the dogs when they’re down. 

The nearly complete absence of cronies and lobbyists from administration positions, federal boards and commissions has only made it easier to count and point out the few that got exemptions.  Where was the snark when Bush let lobbyists write his budget or Cheney and his oil executive buddy’s took crayolas to the map of Iraq?  Watching the Health Care sausage get made has us sick to death of the debate, but that hasn’t stopped the carping because every discussion with everyone, everywhere wasn’t on CSPAN once actual legislation passed both houses of Congress.

Yep, unemployment sucks beyond belief, and that overshadows all things great and small.  But could it also be that our liberal media, the real liberals like Olbermann and Schuster, may have forsaken policy analysis for gotcha games with rival conservative pundits and the tweets of rat-F’er wannabees?

The rally cry for every incumbent Democrat this fall should be: “Have you SEEN the list of what we got done?”

UPDATE: DRAFT ED PETITION

Where would the Anti-Beck, Ed Schultz be more effective?  Should he run for the Senate as requested by retiring Senator Byron Dorgan and the party elders, that august body that deliberates the sweeping changes this nation so desparately needs at a glacial pace?  Or should he remain in broadcasting, fighting the culture war and acting as one of the few voices countering Beck’s lies, misinformation and hysterics while continuing to educate the public with, you know … facts.

I’m thinking Senator Dorgan should call a do-over and chalk up his decision to retire as a senior moment.  But if wishes were horses…

By the way, this all presupposes he’d win.  North Dakota is a fairly conservative state, as all prairie states tend to be.  But I’ve no doubt about Ed’s popularity, and witnessing his enthusiasm at the dozens and dozens of town halls he’s held from Alaska to North Carolina, frankly, I think he’s better “on the stump” than at 30 Rock.  He’s at his best with a live audience, better than the more free-form radio show that made him famous and without the constraints the slice-n-dice format requires for televised news shows.  He just never seems comfortable in the studio … or wearing a tie.  With his charisma and messaging ability, he’s got a helluva shot.

I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I were Ed, what he and his wife Wendy have to consider in such a big move.  There’s a brass ring there for the grasping, and Zarathustra knows we could use more true progressives in the Government.  There’s also the Peter Principle to consider.  But my question is more broad … and selfish.  Where does Ed do the most good for the nation, for the nation that we liberals want to see?

I wonder what Al Franken would advise him.  Is the broadcasting war more important, more effective by offering a much-needed and solid platform for progressive ideas nationally, or (if he wins) getting in there where policy is made and one vote matters so very much?  Okay, I know what Al would say because we all saw what Al did, and I love him for it.

There’s a reason Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh never ran for anything.  Their proffered sense of faux patriotism, in conformity with their notion of conservatism, doesn’t allow them to take a pay cut — because they love their country so much, Feh!

Go for it Big Guy.

I’ve mentioned before that the ratio of Churches to Bars in this town is out of whack. In fact a great deal of the churches look like they used to be bars, but this is just weird.

Imagine going to a new church for the very first time … especially if you haven’t been inside one for a bit. You start to look for a seat and everyone in the pews turns around and shouts, “Norm!”

Double the freak out if your name actually is Norm.

We’re on the right side of history.

That’s it.  It may not seem like much but it’s more than enough to hang your hat on.  The big picture, throughout the overall “arch of history” we have made tremendous progress in creating a truly just and enlightened society, world-wide, in a relatively short period of time.

No, really.

I consider Thom THE most informed and intelligent radio talk show host out there.  His program is the equivalent of a graduate seminar in contemporary political thought.  He persuades us that while this is hardly, indeed never, the time for complacency.  If you look at the way civilization has been organized throughout history the changes we as a species have made in just a few centuries compared to the sheer barbarism of 7,000 years of recorded time is dramatic.

The technological advancements of the last few decades are profound, and it you are reading this online it’s due to several of them.  However, so very many of our miraculous leaps towards a jet-pack in every garage are the direct result of one of man’s most terrible past-times — war.  The internet itself was created as a hardened defense against communication disruption due to nuclear attack. 

That fish-finder you’re considering as a Christmas gift owes it’s creation to submarine-hunting sonar technology.  The nifty GPS locator you want was designed to help missiles track to their targets.  Jets, rockets, even the first computer was developed to crack the German High Command’s codes during WWII.

We as a people have hardly gotten rid of the scourge of war, however the reasons we make war has evolved from mere conquest and subjugation to struggles for “liberation” and “freedom.”  Ideological conflicts over how we order society has replaced religious domination as a “legitimate” reason to take up arms.  It’s not something I see as all that justified, but it sure beats the “my god is better than your god” stuff of superstitious lore, or the type of organized theft when one powerful nation beats up on its neighbor in the rape-and-pillage style common before such things as war-crimes tribunals.

We fought a war in this country largely to end the heinous practice of slavery.  What we now think of as an abhorrent abomination was an approved and institutionalized practice throughout the world, and US law, less than 150 years ago.  The Pyramids were build on the backs of slaves, warships were powered by shackled oarsmen, even the Code of Hammurabi, written about 3,800 years ago codified what was already ancient and accepted practice:

 If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.

We still have the death penalty, but it’s largely eliminated in much of the world and reserved here in parts of America for only the most egregious of crimes with exacting (albeit hardly fool-proof) standards of proof.  Four millennia ago, simple burglary and robbery were cause for the death of the transgressor.  In fact, you could lose your hand if you slapped your father or give a slave the wrong kind of haircut, let alone get caught stealing.  Most of the planet sees that as excessive, even in countries where the lash and mutilation are legitimate punishment.

Over two thousand years later, during the Roman Empire, the Code of Justinian showed little progress in the nature of “civilization.”  Women and children were still property, wars of conquest were the norm, and slavery was just the way of the world.  Although the Corpus Juris Civilis recognized that, “According to Natural Law, all men were originally born free,” the Law of Slavery in Rome was detailed and deeply ingrained in their entire system of jurisprudence.  However, this is one of the first instances of the state finding itself obligated to address what was and was not proper, humane treatment of people who were owned by other people.

With the Romans progress is reported in the history of slavery, a practice as old as beer.  You had to have a reason to kill your slave, one “recognized by law.” The Emperor Antoninus Pius also decided that if “the severity of masters should appear excessive” they could be forced to sell their slave (victim?) “upon equitable terms.”  Mind you, this was in no way a purely altruistic thought.  Having endured major slave uprisings (think Spartacus) the Empire learned that mistreated slaves and their sympathizers were a dangerous source of discontent.

It took another 1,200 years for the first European nation-state, Portugal, to abolish slavery in 1761 (although it allowed it to continue in Brazil and its African colonies.)  Not long after the British made slavery illegal in 1833, we fought our Civil war.  It took another 23 years after that for all Brazilians to be free.  China stopped the practice in 1906 and it still continued in much of the Middle East throughout the 1960’s.  It took until as late as 1981 for Mauritania to decide slavery would no longer be a legal institution.

And you’re ready to write off the fight for a better country because health care reform is stalled in the Senate?  You’ve decided to call it quits because Joe Lieberman is being a douche-bag … as usual?

HA! 

Women, half the nation, couldn’t vote in this country until 1920 — and they had to fight like hell to get that privilege.  The usual suspects, the intellectual East Coast elites, did not lead the way for women’s suffrage, but the people of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.  Men have been casting ballots since the Ancient Greeks. Mind you, we were living in cities thousands of years before the elders of Athens organized themselves around democratic principles for the first time, and that was 2,500 years ago. 

The arc of history is moving, has been moving, and is picking up tremendous speed.  No one can tell you what issue was first determined by a free election, but there are American women alive today that were born to a nation that refused to treat them as anything less than second-class citizens, chattel.

Are we perfect?  Oh hell no, not by a long shot.  I want wars eliminated, unnecessary, not just made more humane with less “collateral damage” and fought for more noble reasons than merely coveting another nation’s resources.  I want universal, single-payer health-care for all, but I won’t despair if all we get is a watered-down “public-option” with opt-in/out triggers as we tick off another check-mark on the progress report.  We just keep on fighting.

I don’t want more of our men and women dying in the Middle East, and I certainly don’t want to bear any more financial cost for the adventures; but if a slow but inevitable draw-down in Iraq is paired with finally having a tangible goal in Afghanistan along with an exit strategy is all we can responsibly expect under the circumstances, one cannot argue it sure beats the inanity that got us in there to begin with.

Today, when we talk about freedom, it isn’t about freeing slaves.  Spreading freedom now is about the free exchange of ideas, even those dangerous to those in power and would rather censor such thought-crime.  It’s about the right to vote and the free flow of goods and services, not eliminating forced labor.  We go on strikes for better wages, working conditions and benefits, not to fight dangerous sweat-shops populated by child-workers, not here, not anymore.

At the risk of being misquoted as unpatriotic, I don’t want the United States to be considered exceptional in any way.  I want the whole world to adopt our most progressive values, as much as most of Europe has done and in many ways surpassed us, and I want us to continue to move that ball.

Don’t despair.  History is moving in a liberal direction at a faster pace than any generation before us could imagine.  In the long … long … run, there’s not a thing the naysayers and obstructionists, nor the professional media propagandists can do.  Neither the Becks nor Boehners, Limbaughs nor Liebermans, not even silly little Sarah Palin can do much to stop the historical march of progress.

More brazen than Jeff/Jim Gannon/Gluckert on a day pass taking a nap in the Lincoln Bedroom.  Check out these fame whores. 

White House Party Crashers Are Awesome, Sad
from Gawker by Adrian Chen

Did you hear about this DC couple that crashed Obama’s first state dinner last night? Michaele and Tareq Salahi—aspiring reality show stars, bedeviled vintners, polo enthusiasts and lawsuit magnets: You inspire and sadden us in almost equal measure.

No doubt in the coming weeks/months we’ll know everything about these two from their stance on Afghanistan to Bailouts to Michele Obama’s taste in clothes.  (Okay, Ms. Salahi’s dress is fabulous, so maybe they’ve got some expertise there.) 

No doubt soon they’ll join the reality-star galaxy of celebrity policy makers in the infotainment driven, government-as-a-sporting-event culture.  Let’s just hope they’ve got more on the ball than Carrie Prejean, Joe The Plumber, and their fearless fame-whore leader, Sarah Palin.

She’s earnest, folksy, even compelling in her worry about pushing through this bill during these frightening economic times.  Of course since the thing doesn’t even go into effect until 2013, if we aren’t fully recovered from the recession by then we’ll all be on welfare anyway the way I see things. 

Did I mention that this sweet worried lady was a health insurance broker?  She didn’t either until Sean complimented her on her articulate statement of the industry talking points.  She embellished, noting that the job she was really worried about was her own, since blood-sucking leaches like her will have to find something actually productive to do.

You know, the free market is great, when actually free and fair.  Cartels like the health insurance companies who enjoy the same anti-trust exemption as Major League Baseball are not operating as market forces would dictate, or actually they are acting exactly how monopolies with no competition operate: destructively.

In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries. Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 alone, the chief executive officers at these companies collected combined total compensation of $118.6 million—an average of $11.9 million each. That is 468 times more than the $25,434 an average American worker made that year. Moreover, the health insurance industry invests more in buying back its own stock and rewarding its shareholders than in improving system operations, reducing premiums, or in developing ways to pay doctors and hospitals fairly.

Health Insurance Broker?  What the hell is she brokering?  Where?  She’s a damn sales person with a Chinese menu of choices: “one from column A(etna), two from column B(lue) and C(ross), oh, so sorry, we’re out of column A, and B and C are pretty much the same.” 

A decade in which the national GDP never declined below the value it held on the day the government stepped in.  A decade in which the maximum unemployment rate was 5.5%. A decade in which the government actually expanded its support of both business and individuals, a decade in which retirees gained new benefits, a decade in which the government did not coerce consumers to fuel the economy with reckless debt, a decade in which not one Japanese citizen lost his or her right to health care services provided by the government.

So just how lost was that decade again?

If only we can keep the conservative kleptocrats at bay for a bit.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.

Bob Cesca and DougJ at Balloon Juice have already deconstructed the above quote for its simplistic stupidity — which should be readily apparent.  Broder and his Village idiots simply don’t care if they’re right or wrong. “How about the Washington corporate press stop hectoring and let the president make the right decision about, you know, war.“

Against my better judgment I decided to read more of Broderella’s waste of tree pulp and at the risk of Fisking the entire column, found something absurd in almost every paragraph.  Broder begins by telling us the internal debate is stretched to the “breaking point.”  This is something he knows, somehow, via intuition or clairvoyance I presume.

The leaks?  The time? Feh. Leaks are the sauce of Washington intrigue, indicating someone is losing an argument, not that the argument itself is going on too long.

This is Broder of course, the man who professes to value comity and abhors discord above all.  Invoking Clark Clifford’s defense of Harry Truman, Broder’s latest excuse to badger President Obama is the voice of a half century ago telling us that being decisive is more important than being right — advice from a man who later, advising LBJ flip-flopped like a slinky on a waxed stairwell when it came to Vietnam.  Escalate, don’t escalate; end the bombing, don’t stop bombing! Cease, cease the bombing!!!

Yeah, Clark Fucking Clifford.  A profile in wankerdom. 

A more apt Clifford analogy comes not from his reign as Truman’s White House Counsel, but when he actually had a hand in decisions of war and peace advising Johnson.

Clifford took office committed to rethinking President Johnson’s Vietnam policies, and Vietnam policy consumed most of his time. He had argued against escalation in 1965 in private counsel with the President, but then provided public support for the President’s position once the decision was made. At his confirmation hearing, he told the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate that the limited objective of the United States was to guarantee to the people of South Vietnam the right of self-determination. He opposed ending the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam at the time, but acknowledged that the situation could change. In fact, on March 31, 1968, just a month after Clifford arrived at the Pentagon, President Johnson, in an effort to get peace talks started, ordered the cessation of bombing north of the 20th parallel, an area comprising almost 80 percent of North Vietnam’s land area and 90 percent of its population. In the same address, Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection in 1968, surprising everyone, Clifford included. Soon the North Vietnamese agreed to negotiations, which began in Paris in mid-May 1968. Later, on October 31, 1968, to encourage the success of these talks, the President, with Clifford’s strong support, ordered an end to all bombing in North Vietnam.

He advised Johnson right out of office, leaving the mess to Teh Awsum Nixon - who doubled-down and bombed Cambodia.  That turned out so funking well, didn’t it. 

Maybe if those geniuses were more concerned with getting that particular quagmire right instead of just pretending they knew WTF they were doing and trying to look good to the craptastic punditocracy, things would work out better.  Let’s not even mention (okay, mention) Clifford’s stint as one of the Masters of the Universe in the BCCI bank scandal.

Broder lives in the past, a past seen through his uniquely myopic rose-colored spectacles.  Consider the disconnect with reality the following passages represent.  The question NOW is not how we got into Afghanistan, but as Broder himself asks, “Why are we in Afghanistan?” Nowhere in his essay does he address the here and now, however. He answers his own question with a simplistically truncated version of recent history.  No justification for our continued presence whatsoever.  The question should be, Why are we in Afghanistan NOW?

In all this dithering, it’s easy to forget a few fundamentals. Why are we in Afghanistan? Not because of its own claim on us but because the Taliban rulers welcomed the al-Qaeda plotters who hatched the destruction of Sept. 11, 2001. The Taliban also oppressed its own people, especially women, but we sent troops because Afghanistan was the hide-out for the terrorists who attacked our country.

We knew that governing Afghanistan would never be easy. It had resisted outside forces through the ages, and its geography, tribal structure, absence of a democratic tradition and poverty all argued that once we went in, it would be hard to get out.

But George W. Bush said — and Obama seemed to agree — that withdrawal was not an option.

That imperative is reinforced by the presence of Pakistan, a shaky nuclear-armed power across a porous mountain border. If the Taliban comes back in Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda cells already in Pakistan will operate even more freely — and nuclear weapons could fall into the most dangerous hands.

Given all of this, I don’t see how Obama can refuse to back up the commander he picked and the strategy he is recommending. It may not work if the country truly is ungovernable. But I think we have to gamble that security will bring political progress — as it has done in Iraq.

David, David, David. Invoking mushroom clouds? Really?

Pakistan not merely a problem, it is where al-Qaeda IS.  They aren’t IN Afghanistan anymore, not in numbers that pose a realistic threat to the United States, and the Taliban was disbursed years ago. Why are we there NOW?  That’s what President Obama is trying to get his advisers and military personnel to focus on, that and when and how do we end it. 

Obama’s well aware of what the problems are.  He’s trying to solve them, not just look good.  He already looks good you dottering old fool.  The internal debate Broder concerns himself with is at a level well beyond his comprehension.  Do we really want to govern that god forsaken place indefinitely?  Would you really subject the innocent people of the most unconquerable country on the planet to the whims or our Congress?  Sadist.

If you have any constructive opinions regarding the Afghan end-strategy, by all means let’s hear it.  Meanwhile, if you’ve nothing to do but kibitz, STFU*.

[*My daughter says I say fuck too much, F her]