The jokes write themselves

Watching John McCain twitter is going to be more fun than watching Pat Sajak blog.

How the Fred Hiatt Clownshow operates

Not only don't they correct clear errors, but once they know it's an error they let George Will write a second column perpetuating the error.

...according to Bill Chapman, a climate scientist with the center, there was no call from Will or Post editors before the column appeared. He added that it wasn't until last Tuesday -- nine days after The Post began receiving demands for a correction -- that he heard from an editor at the newspaper. It was Brewington who finally e-mailed, offering Chapman the opportunity to write something that might help clear the air.

Will's second column pushing the lie AGAIN, appeared yesterday.

No wonder they're so profitable.

BTW, I stand by my opinion of the new WaPo Ombudsman from last week.

Well, his lips were moving

Bizarrely, but they were moving:

Louisiana's transportation department plans to request federal dollars for a New Orleans to Baton Rouge passenger rail service from the same pot of railroad money in the president's economic stimulus package that Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized as unnecessary pork on national television Tuesday night.

Dude's career is cooked...cajun style.

Oh my...

Even with CPAC in town, the Washington version of Rick Santelli's "tea party" looks to have gotten maybe three or four dozen supporters. Including Michelle Malkin -- who must have been totally thrilled to show off her megaphone skills -- she's hoping to someday to direct all manner of minorities back into internment camps, thrilled with the prospect of being a Capo.

And then non-Joe the non-plumber was there because, well what the fuck else does he have to do?

And just whether you are wondering, the sign above, NOT A PHOTOSHOP.

UPDATE: The 'teabaggers' got all of maybe 400 people to show up for a small meandering march in Chicago, the home of the Santelli Tea Party.

When we reached the Michigan Ave Bridge, a tea bag was broken open and dumped into the river to signify the birth of a new American Revolution.

Yeah, shine on you crazy diamond, shine one.

Isn't She Lovely?

Why, yes. She certainly is.

Works For Me

NYT:

The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters.

/thunderous applause
/sigh of relief
/unbridled cheers
/tears of joy

Why?

The history of the United States economy over the last 70 years can be roughly divided into two periods: the decades immediately after World War II, when inequality plummeted, and the past three decades, when global economic forces and government policies caused it to soar. Mr. Obama is setting out to begin a third period that looks more like the first than the second.

That agenda starts with taxes. Over the last three decades, the pretax incomes of the wealthiest households have risen far more than they have for other households, while the tax rates for top earners have fallen more than they have for others, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

As a result, the average post-tax income of the top 1 percent of households has jumped by roughly $1 million since 1979, adjusted for inflation, to $1.4 million. Pay for most families has risen only slightly faster than inflation.

Before becoming Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers liked to tell a hypothetical story to distill the trend. The increase in inequality, Mr. Summers would say, meant that each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners.

That last three decades started with Ronald Reagan, who, if you take a look at this chart, put us on the course to our current debacle.

I look forward to the Newties and Grovers and Rushes of the world and their respective armies of dimwitted acolytes argue against this budget (with its tax cuts for middle-to-low income families) in an environment where millions of jobs, houses, and dollars in retirement savings are being lost.

Nobody could have anticipated those towels being ruined

Let's face it, liking porn is not exactly rare, but where is isn't rare would be surprising if it hadn't been something we'd always suspected:

Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.

This article needs a quote from Larry Craig and David Vitter.

(found here)

Yes, Bobby Jindal lied

Lied out of his chipper little pie-hole by pulling a story out of his little pie-destination hole.

But in his defense, he now says he recalls the story wrong because he was in Baton Rouge monitoring volcanoes.

I'm so going to have to give up blinging out the barrel I'm now wearing

OUCH!

The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as consumers and businesses ratcheted back spending, plunging the country deeper into recession.

The Commerce Department report released Friday showed the economy sinking much faster than the 3.8 percent annualized drop for the October-December quarter first estimated by the government last month. It also was considerably weaker than the 5.4 percent annualized decline economists expected.

Looking ahead, economists predict consumers and businesses will keep cutting back spending, making the first six months of this year especially rocky.

(pic from here)

The Villagers!

Nate Silver is exactly right, the whining about Obama's tax cuts for 95% of us (I'm waving) and a tax hike for the rest of the country making more than a quarter-million in income, comes from a particular class of reporters:

As one reporter observed after the briefing, "Did you notice all the questions about taxes came from reporters making over $250,000 a year, especially the TV guys?"

BING--fucking-O!!!

Amazing how the people who are going to READ THE NEWS AT US are withing that 5% that will have their taxes raised -- so the hopes of the GOP language ("class warfare!") not driving the debate, is rather dismal.

This Says it All

Especially the kicker. Take it viral, and cram Limbaugh down the GOP's throats to infinity.

Who am I to argue?

Krugman endorses Obama's budget, and as we all know, he calls 'em as he sees 'em:

Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course...

And these new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in.

Many will ask whether Mr. Obama can actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises. Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can.

Republicans will now set brains to default position, lie. By the way, GOP if you never change the setting, it'll get stuck there.

Liz Sidoti must be face-deep in doughnuts

Were you worried I'd say face deep in something else?

Anyhoo, she had nothing to do with this AP column I'd reckon:

Claims that President Barack Obama's tax plans are an assault on small business skirt the likelihood that most job-producing small businesses wouldn't feel that pinch at all.

Obama is proposing to raise taxes on households earning over $250,000 by increasing the rate on the top two tax brackets and limiting deductions, starting in 2011.

Republicans and other critics, knowing they will get little mileage from defending the rich, instead are casting the plan as a tax hit on people who run industrious little companies driving job growth.

That's not likely, according to one in-depth analysis, which found that more than 95 percent of small business owners would be off the hook.

Obama does not propose higher business taxes.

But critics reason that owners of many small companies report business income on their personal tax returns instead of filing corporate taxes. That exposes their business's earnings to Obama's higher tax rates on the wealthy.

To be sure, some business owners would get caught in that net.

But for one thing, most small businesses don't create jobs. They tend to be lawyers, accountants and other professionals who earn some of their money from partnerships or otherwise organize themselves as a business entity.

When not attempting (and failing) to entertain America (or at least .000007 percent of it) I'm one of these small businesses. And as one of them I say, tax reform away President Obama.

Shorter George Will

Science is complicated and what I say goes. I'm not some political ideologue like those flim-flamming scientist.

My hair and I would NEVER lie to you.


(pic from Scott Ableman)

Credit Crisis for the Intellectually Bankrupt

Some doomsday cults go out in style -- sweatsuits and pudding.

But without a comet to "ride", the conservative movement just flounders like Rush with a Dominican.

Young conservatives bemoan they cannot get a government job (oh, how conservative of them):

Young conservatives could apply for regular jobs, they acknowledge, but they also believe that their 20s are a safe age -- likely no children, often unmarried -- to start low- to moderate-paying jobs that potentially could launch prestigious careers in politics or public policy.

Golly, people in their 20s who attend CPAC are single, stunning.

As the picture are right shows conservatives or in their rightful place:

Coulter in the mens' room signs books while waiting for Larry Craig. Perhaps her contract rider mandates she be within 20 feet of purge facilities?

And the hot new name on the conservative scene Joe Sammy the Plumber Wurzelbacher and his new book?

About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border's bookstore to hear Joe speak...Total copies of "Joe the Plumber" sold: five.

Joe's future plans? To work in construction -- undoubtedly on projects which are the result of the Stimulus package. Where he can listen to Limbaugh.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wall Street v. Reality

Unemployment claims skyrocket; durable goods orders fall far more than expected.

Naturally, the stock market stages a rally.

This, again, demonstrates my continued rant about how "Business News" slavish devotion to the Stock Market as the be all, end all, of economics is one of the things killing us.

Well, there goes my suggestion

Apparently since Moose & Frank are out for the Obamadog, my suggestion of "Boehner Biter" won't fly either. I also understand they are getting a 'Portugese Water Dog'. My suggestion of a mutt that was half 'Japanese Chin' and half 'Rotweiller' called the 'Malkin Hound' which is bred to herd Filipino nutjobs into internment camps has also been rejected.

Speaking of Rush

Beyond satire

Self-awareness anyone?

Limbaugh To Convene A ‘Female Summit’ To Figure Out Why Women Hate Him

Uh, yeah.

Why not just ring up the 3 ex-Mrs. Limbaughs?

Apparently, Ann Coulter is not invited:

One thing about the Female Summit: sorry, no transsexuals. We’re not going to have anybody who’s had an addadictomy, and we’re not going to have anybody who’s had a chopadickoffamy. We’re going to have women from birth.

Just lie back and think of english muffins

Hey George Will, everything okay at home?

Tuesday evening he was given the final word for ABC after the Obama speech:

"I don't know when men started to hug each other, but hug they do, and look at that"

And given an opportunity to discuss (aka write bull***t) the same speech in his WaPo column, George Will, to the horror of western civilization, eastern civilization, and the entire Orion-arm of the Milky Way (but not the jerks in the Sagittarius Arm) decides to write about ... sex.

Light the incense, grab the baby oil, put on the Barry White because this one won't be easy:

Today "the all-you-can-eat buffet" is stigmatized and the "sexual smorgasbord" is not.

For the love of all that is holy get a restraining order on behalf of the Sunday Brunch at Cafe Bonaparte, I don't want George Will dropping trou near the hollandaise.

(pic from here)

[cross-posted at FDL]

Things that don't go over well anywhere

Having folks from some other region of the country, come into your region of the country, and call you all a bunch of incompetent rubes. Or worse yet, accuse a Minnesotan of being dishonest.

States have their own self-images. You could probably accuse Illinois politics of dishonesty and get away with it there, because well, they are used to their culture. However, I'm sure there are buzzwords that don't work there if you point the finger at a politician. But in Minnesota, deserved or not (and in this case it's the later) you don't say that in the Gopher State without any evidence.

Yet, that is the Norm Coleman strategy apparently, bound and determined to take the Minnesota Republicans down with him, by hiring the same obnoxious that once defended and proclaimed the exact opposite in Florida.

Oh, good plan.

All the "News" That's Fit Not to Print

Ah, the NYT. Journalists in the public service. Guardians of the public trust. Brave chroniclers of Michelle Obama's fashion choices -- and cowardly concealers of George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

h/t watertiger

Like a Volcano

David Brooks hasn't been this animated since he discovered there was a Quiznos in Platte, Nebraska.

"It's just a sprinkling for the May Queen"

Oh my. Oh my, my, my. There' a bustle in my hedgerow. Or is that Patricia Krenwinkle?




I wonder where I've seen norm before?




Thanks to Phoenix Woman for the picture, apparently TBogg unearthed it first.

Let's send Bobby Jindal to Yellowstone

Really,

Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.

Um, yeah.

The swarm of earthquakes that hit Yellowstone National Park in late December and January was the second-largest earthquake swarm in Yellowstone's recorded seismic history, the Yellowstone Volcano Laboratory said today in its updated analysis of the quakes...

The Yellowstone Plateau, which comprises Yellowstone National Park, is one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world and has gone through three volcanic cycles spanning two million years that included some of the world's largest-known eruptions.

Yeah, no need to monitor that.

But then Bobby Jindal probably thinks the Earth is only 10,000 years old.

THAT'S the GOP's best hope ladies and gentlemen.

Update: Nate Silver was on this same line of thought last night.

Over the line

Well, well, well:

President Barack Obama met with 10 members of the press today over lunch at the White House — two from each network. The guest list consisted of ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, CBS' Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer, NBC's Brian Williams and David Gregory, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and John King and FNC's Bret Baier and Chris Wallace...

Stephanopoulos tweeted about it after leaving. "Terrific sense of what Obama thinking and feeling. Clearly relishes job--esp tough decisions," he writes. He also gave a glimpse at the menu. "Lobster bisque w beignets, seared Virginia bass w leeks and pot, pound cake w fruit compote and lemon sorbet,"

Charlie Gibson was so agitated over those making a quarter-million a year getting their taxes raised he no doubt left with many, many "stimulus dime bags".

The stages of Ron Fournier's grief

I guess he's reached acceptance.

Alert Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

Oops, apparently Ms. Kübler-Ross reached the acceptance stage a few years ago.

Pop Culture question

Does Nicholas Cage make all these goofy shit movies because he has absolutely no skill at picking a script...or because he no longer has a choice?

At least -- on occasion -- Tom Cruise shows some talent for being in a quality film and saves the goofy shit for odd-numbered years.

S.S. Minnow

So the GOP is now pretty much led by Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour and Sarah Palin. Gilligan, the Skipper and Mary Ann, they want to bail out the Millionaire and his Wife and screw "and the rest".

AWESOME live TV identifies the moment of Candidate Death

So much for 2012...but the hilarity will live forever.

10:22 p.m Eastern

Time of Death, the Bobby Jindal Presidential Campaign of 2012.

A speech which had a creepy combination of a stoned Mr. Rogers, Bollywood Bob Denver, Fred Flintstone, and Chauncey Gardner with the mannered delivery of a freshman giving his first speech in college with their fly open.

WOW! He really sucked. Made George W. Bush look like Lincoln.

Change you can believe in!

Took long enough, but finally there's a Labor Secretary that likes Labor.

Who'd a thought it was possible?

Congratulations Secretary Solis.

A non-obscene graphic Malkin & Santelli can ignore

At the gathering of tea-baggers.

Look at the middle line.

Headlines I can believe in

Somewhere Lindsay Graham's antennae have sproinged.

The "Village" ladies and gentlemen

More Drudgico quality journamalism:

Washington’s 10 Most Influential Twitterers.

And who's number one?

1. Karl Rove: www.twitter.com/karlrove

Was that a-hole twittering through the time he was supposed to be testifying in Congress yesterday?

ONLY in the Village would Karl Rove be top's in both Twittering -- making him WASHINGTON'S BIGGEST TWIT* -- and 'Animal Husbandry' (wink wink and ignore Senator Bunning over there with the Hereford).


*now there's a list I can believe in.

Good luck Republicans

Obama speaks to Congress.

The GOP response comes from Bollywood Bob Denver.

Village Idiots

Oh, Drudgico, must you strive so strongly for stupidity...or does it all come naturally?

Meanwhile, in reality, the opposite is true.

But when the "Village" decides that the way to cover the economy is to have Dick Morris and William Bennett provide analysis; when CNBC decides that only Wall Street matters and fills the on-air slots with supply-siders you get the economic news that makes ESPN your news channel of choice.

It's not a nation of Santelli's, it's a village of them -- a village full of idiots. Oh well, at least they can all get together and tea bag.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Two things

1. It occurs to me that America hasn't built a good stapler since we stopped going to the Moon.

Or since I last had one of those "Pillsbury Space Sticks" with my Tang in the morning. Mmmm, pasty faux chocolate & sugary, gritty orangesque drink (like Metamucil) -- what a delightful combo.

Same time-frame.




2. Enough of this classy sexless, sexy, scenes in movies, and move on to the ever reliable and reoccurring K-Lo video display sent to her newest crush.

Point of personal privilege

When I, Atta J. Turk, shuffle off this mortal coil there is something that has a better than 50-50 shot at being the cause of death.

An embolism caused by frustration from MY FUCKING OFFICE STAPLERS!!!!

No matter where they come from, no matter how many I buy, no matter who buys them for me, no matter whether I load the staplers or someone else does. My entire career, hell my entire life, there is one thing rarer than true love, true hate, sex, taxes, violence, and the Vikings not choking in an important game.

A RELIABLE STAPLER!!!!

Thank you for your indulgence.

And the hits keep on coming

I guess his excuse is, he's senile and everybody knows it.

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning predicted over the weekend that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would likely be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

Quite a classy weekend for the Republicans.

Little known fact about Richard Shelby

It's not that he was abducted and anally-probed by aliens.

It's that he was the abducting alien -- and he specialized in the anal-probing of livestock.


So John Aravosis is wrong, well, somewhat there was that incident at a truck stop bathroom outside Tuscaloosa.

That's all I know. I've seen no documentation to refute this.

And space aliens, with a bestiality fetish, are completely unmentioned in the Constitution so I guess he can serve in the Senate.

At least he's not as big a freak as Vitter.

The price of failure

Apparently is just over $800,000 per book.

Soon available for "bulk order" everywhere and discount bins shortly thereafter.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has agreed to a three-book deal with Crown Publishers, starting with a memoir about her years in the administration of President George W. Bush...

The deal is worth at least $2.5 million, according to two publishing officials with knowledge of the negotiations. The officials asked not to be identified, citing the confidentiality of the talks.

Let's see:

Volume 1: Pout and Prejudice.

Volume 2: Nobody anticipated the price of a Ghost Writer.

Volume 3: I'd tell you to walk a mile in my shoes, but you couldn't afford them.

No word on who will pay Bush himself to color-in his memoirs. Apparently Highlights Magazine has passed on the excerpts.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

In Honor of the Academy Awards ...

In discussing movies with R this morning, I said the first scene in "Milk", wherein Sean Penn picks up James Franco in a subway station, proves the cliché about the sexiest movie scenes being ones in which both parties remain fully clothed. Two more examples: the trunk scene in "Out of Sight" and the phone scene in "It's a Wonderful Life". R thought lots of people would nominate the eating scene in "Tom Jones" (although he thinks it's highly overrated).

In any case, the category is "Sexiest Scene in Which Both Parties Keep Their Clothes On". Put your picks in comments.

It isn't snark if it's true

I see a long life of not even being invited to even cut ribbons at supermarkets and casinos:

A jovial former President Bush walked into Elliot's hardware store in Dallas this morning taking customers and employees by surprise...

Elliott's had made the former President a lighthearted offer in a letter and ad in the paper, to come be a greeter at the store. Janet James says, "I guess we knew that wasn't going to happen but."...

The also gave him a blue-jacket and name tag. As the picture reveals though, Bush won't go anywhere without a "Presidential Embossed Jacket".

That jackass is going to demand he be buried in one of those.

Indeed

The original shrill one is right -- again. Krugman:

Show some independence, and you’ll face a lavishly financed primary challenge from the Club for Growth. Be a loyal soldier, and you will be taken care of — through what’s commonly referred to as “wingnut welfare.”

Thus, lose an election, and a think tank with the usual funding sources will create an America’s Enemies program for you to direct. Mess up the occupation of Iraq, and you’ll be appointed to run the World Bank; mess up there, and there’s still a chair waiting for you at AEI.

But it appears that wingnut welfare is breaking down when it comes to former Bush officials. Is this the beginning of the end for movement conservatism?

Mmm...doughnuts

You can take the Republicans out of power, but you can't get them out of Liz Sidoti.*

The officialsaid Obama hopes to achieve his deficit-reduction goal by generating savings as he follows through on three core campaign promises over the next four years. He has pledged to wind down the Iraq war by withdrawing most combat troops within 16 months of taking office. He also has said he would let the temporary Bush tax cuts expire in 2011 for people making more than $250,000 a year, effectively raising taxes on those people. And, he has vowed to scale back spending and improve government efficiency by eliminating programs that don't work.

It's always going to be filtered in the best possible light for the GOP.

*Please don't think too much about this phrase. Thank you.

We can all await

The never forthcoming apology of Michelle Malkin, Ace o' Base, Michael Goldfarb and such others that attacked Scott Beauchamp.

A US soldier has been convicted of murder for his involvement in the killing of four Iraqis who were shot and dumped in a Baghdad canal in 2007.

Sgt Michael Leahy Jr had confessed to investigators that he shot an Iraqi in the back of the head from close range.

Who is that guy? John Cole has the answer:

One of four men from Scott Beauchamp’s unit who is charged with the murders, including Beauchamp’s old first sergeant, who wrote the following completely and totally unprofessional letter at the height of the affair, publicly scolding Beauchamp

Hi,

BEHOLD AND CHERISH ME


I'm Andrew Alexander, the new Ombudsman of the Washington Post. I know that this week in particular has seen some abysmal lies and frauds perpetrated on our readers, but enough about Charlie Krauthammer, let's talk about me. Because I'm a people person and the person I love to talk about most is me, Andy "Awesome" Alexander. Say, I'm the new Ombudsman, have a I mentioned that yet?

Therefore, I'm not going to say anything all "Ombuddy" today (and since I am that, have I said that yet? I have that right). Because the most important job of the Washington Post Ombudsman, which I now am, is to say as little as possible. Man, I love me some "oms" -- but the "buds" are fantastic I have to say. See that, that's a little Ombudsman humor -- which, I am now completely qualified to do, because I am your new Ombudsman. Please enjoy me -- relish me -- behold me -- but don't touch, just soak in some Andy goodness.

In fact, let's imbibe in me together, ready...go...

You're welcome.

No wonder we're making money hand-over-fist(ing) in this business.

Well, toddles.

Your New Ombudsman (did you know that yet?)

Andy "Awesome" Alexander
Ombudsman

Drudgico -- aiming to offend

You can say a lot about how David Patterson has done as Governor of New York, but prattling on with NY Post level smears is not one to be proud of.

Congratulations Ben Smith, you suck:

Now, his administration is in deep trouble, and the consensus in Albany is that the problem is something approaching chaos in the executive chamber. Today, the New York Post — which had been a Paterson ally — says publicly something that's often said privately: that the governor's blindness is a disability that makes it difficult for him to do his job.

Paterson's blindness severely constricts his ability to acquire basic information.

It goes on to blame Patterson's problems, not on his own deficiencies as a politician but because he's blind.

The 21st Century ladies and gentlemen. Presidents as apes, and demeaning the blind.

Why I'm Not Moving to Montana After All

Last night, noted blogger and Bobblespeak Translations author Culture of Truth and I ventured to that most sacred temple to Liberal Elitism to hear the world's coolest, cuddliest, grumpiest grandpa ever discuss his latest book, which is about two world-class losers who used the power vested in them by the state of New York to do hits for the mob. I'm glad no one asked him if David Berkowitz still writes him letters. He confirmed that, yes, there really was a garbage disposal in the form of a lion in the basement at 51 President Street back in the day. He told us about running for city council president (on a ticket with mayoral candidate Norman Mailer). He talked about attending funerals for young guys killed in Iraq (and the courageous young woman who approached a general at one of those funerals to ask, "Why is my boyfriend dead?") and about how he thinks the war is killing our culture in addition to our kids and about how he's disappointed that Obama's sending 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. He compared a guy who graduated from Brooklyn Tech and wound up testifying against the aforementioned losers to Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. He talked bout Richmond Hill and Ozone Park and the Lion's Head, about why Warren Buffet was boring, about how Studs Turkel was prescient (because he new Obama was going to be president before anyone else), and how education (and RICO) had laid the mob low. And just when I'd started to really marvel at the riches that are this one man's experiences he told us about the day two weeks ago when he ran into shakedown Rod Blagojevich when Blago was in town to do Letterman.

Could I do that in Montana?

P.S. En route, C/T and I sat across from what had to be the wingnuttiest wingnut in all of New York. She was wearing a huge button that said, "I want my country back". The "O" in "country" was an Obama logo and it took every ounce of strength I had not to say, "Suck it, wingnut!"

OMG -- Something else for Michael Steele

One more "toke" of Lawrence Welk -- Eric Cantor themed:



Yes, Lawrence, "a modern spiritual".

Can't...stop....laughing.

(thanks to commenter Moistenedbink at Watertiger's place)

Hey Conservatives

May I just point out this information, since you have in the past considered it the "test" of political anathema.

I'm pretty sure Rush Limbaugh is once again "fatter" than Michael Moore.

Two pathetically covered stories

1. The asshole freakout on CNBC yesterday decrying the mortgage bailout to those in trouble. I'm sure that guy thought bailing out AIG, Bank of America, and CitiGroup was AWESOME. NBC managed to whore itself last night and made this guys diatribe the lead story. The ability of Americans to kick their fellow Americans when they're down -- but totally accept a bank bailout for the abusive but powerful, is sickening. What a bunch of decrepit bullies.

2. OH NOZ, Iran has enough "enriched uranium" to build a bomb. Yeah, genius, except they haven't done that yet have they -- nor shown any desire to do so, as of yet? You have to make enriched uranium capable of being weapons grade. Yet, the BOMB 'EM 'TIL THE RUBBLE BOUNCES brigade will be out in force today (no doubt also cursing the mortgage bailout). Golly, another country wants to bomb me, that sure sounds like the world's worst incentive for not building "the" bomb.

...speaking of which, Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast, is right. Dick Cheney & Scooter Libby managed to ruin the cover of Valerie Plame for pure politics. Maybe we could have used her and her specialization (preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear material) the last five years?

Fuckers.

Just another day in conservativeland

Eric Holder made a speech, for Black History Month, asking for people to speak maturely and respectfully to one another and not let race be such an impediment.

Rush Limbaugh, called Holder’s comments “inexcusable” on his syndicated radio program

Which really means something considering in same program Limbaugh compared the psychology of Democrats to that of rapists and murderers.

FoxNews displayed the kind of maturity one would expect, by showing us what their brand journalism is all about, ending with John Gibson (possibly, it is in dispute) comparing Holder not only to a monkey, but to its "bright blue scrotum".

Meanwhile, Rupert's other property the NY Post apologized to anyone who may have thought it was comparing Obama to a monkey and shooting him -- except, of course, those who most loudly complained. "Those people", apparently, need to learn their place.

One caller to a conservative talk-show summed things up perfectly:

“Most white people I know have black friends,” another complained. “How many white friends do black people you know have? That’s the problem.”

Yeah, good use of logic there genius! Care to contemplate that statement a tad more?

Have fun Michael Steele.

[crossposted at Firedoglake]

There is so much wrong

With this clip in so many different ways, from beginning to end -- and what is it with Rupert's people and associating apes with Obama Administration officials? ...oh, yeah, their assholes.

For those just joining our program...

Someone in comments asked what the "Matlock!!!" reference means in regard to anything related to David Broder.

I know most of you already know, but now it can be demonstrated.

Michael Steele gets down with his ownself

Fo-shizzzzzzzzzzzz

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says his party is going to launch an "off the hook" public relations campaign that will update the GOP’s image by translating it to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings."

Here it is, on display:


Oh man, we're in trouble now.

Why I Am Moving to Montana

SCENE: This morning, trying to get to work, the subway
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Me, and every single asshat in New York

My stop: Arrive to a packed station at 8:30 AM. Must wait for seven trains to go by to board.

1st stop: Large group of schoolchildren board already packed train. Teacher, with whom Henry Higgins would have a field day, screaming, "We're gettin' AWN. We're gettin' AWN!" manages to maneuver her size 40FF bust into already packed car, where it towers perilously over stunned-but-still-shrieking children.

Next stop: Dockers- and enormous-backpack-wearing man boards. Refuses to take off said backpack. Hits woman next to me with said backpack. Her Starbucks goes flying -- yes, all over my -- and everyone else's --shoes.

Next stop: Extraordinarily skinny Asian guy with large open Tupperware filled with steaming, smelly stew of some sort boards and proceeds to eat said stew with a spoon while standing. Did I mention that the train is packed?

Three stops later: Guy with smelly food mercifully exits train. Are we saved? Oh, no. I hear, "WATCH yuh back! Watch yuh back!" Large homeless guy with multiple carts full of stuff and with bags dangling from each is boards. Yes, we wait while he loads all of his possessions onto the train. As different sort of smell permeates my end of the car whatever empathy I still possess evaporates.

ME (yes, out loud): "Please kill me." Laughter from some fellow passengers.

Finally: We climb over, snake around, and squeeze by the aforementioned carts and bags to exit the train. I say to two bewildered tourists who look as though German may be their first language: "Do not get in that car." They ignore me. As I pass, I say, "I warned you."

Bipartisanship Broder can believe in

Israel's election outcome came down to a battle between Crazy, Crazier and Craziest and after a negotiation of about a week, it appears that "Crazier" will be Prime Minister.

Looks like at least 6 more months of tit-for-tat in the Middle East keeping up its impressive 8,000 Friedman Unit (F.U.s) streak. You cannot stop the hatred, you can only contain it.

So "Crazier" will be match up against "Unhinged" for those of you in the Israel/Palestine fantasy league.

When it comes to constant senseless bloodshed, the "Holy Land" is really the Cal Ripken of battlegrounds.

My congratulations to foul-tempered Jews, Muslims and other minority eastern Mediterraneans on your perseverance.

Howie Kurtz borrows George Will's fact-checker

Maybe we should all borrow money from this guy?

Put a portion into intersteller travel and then flee the planet.

Oh, the Dumb Hannity!

Nice job Sherlock:

"Stanford Coins & Bullion, a member of the Stanford Financial Group, their name as good as gold," Hannity intones on advertisements that regularly run on his radio show.

That's Allen Stanford as in the Texas Madoff Stanford.

Audio is here.

To be fair (unlike Hannity) ol' Allen loved a lot of people bipartisanly. So good news for the already endangered Chris Dodd.

MATLOCK!!!

Bipartisanship, the perpetual "comeback kid".

Shorter Broder

"I'm tellin' ya Barack, under all that shit, there's a pony in their somewhere!"

I've been diggin' all my life and we've got to be close."

And I'm guessing when the GOP plays Lucy with the football the first person their to blame Obama will be the nation's foremost leader of the Cult of Bipartisan, David Broder.

Since when can a Republican identify one of those?

Coleman's strategy in action!

Stormin' Norm has not yet begun to lose!

Coleman Camp Warns of ‘Legal Quagmire’ in Minnesota

Oh noze, a quagmire?

Well, you have to admit, they do have a talent for making those -- identifying them ahead of time however? Not so much.

Freebasing with the base

"Mary Ann/Gilligan 2012!"



Ladies and Gentlemen, the four future temporary Iowa residents of the apocalypse! - Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry and of course, Sarah Palin.

A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.

It's also meaningless grandstanding.

Still I'm sure that this reluctance to take Federal money has NOTHING to do with their desires to impress the ever shrinking GOP base. So I expect Jindal and Barbour to write big reimbursement checks for that Hurricane Katrina relief money. And Perry can do the same for those funds paid out in the wake of Rita and Dolly. And Palin can say that -- purely out of principle -- Alaska will stop being the number one recipient per capita of federal pork and give most all of it back (the Ted Stevens' Hulk Memorial will, however, not be smashed).

I'm sure the residents of each state will be more than happy to sacrifice themselves upon the altars of their governor's ambitions.

[crossposted at Firedoglake]

(picture from here)

I do so terribly enjoy being lectured about sex

By the Vatican.

Women are prouder than men, but men are more lustful, according to a Vatican report which states that the two sexes sin differently.

They're qualified experts on sex, like Larry Kudlow is an expert on economics. They spout off about it all the time, but don't know jackshit about reality.

Plus, Kudlow dabbles in blow and quite a few priests dabble in ... well, you know.

What jaw droppingly stupid and offensive looks like

Or as the New York Post would call it.

Wednesday.




(btw, "Bewar of Dog" tells you something about the artist)

Suck.On.This. TUPAC!

This is the one with lots of explicit hobbit-on-beorn action.

An early, long-unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien is coming out.

"The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun," a thorough reworking in verse of old Norse epics that predates Tolkien's writing of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, will be published in May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

It'll be like the Silmarillion only even more boring and obscure.

Shallow Musings

How's Roland Burris's self-monument coming along? [My favorite is "trail blazer"]

I figure Burris's chances of lasting in the Senate depend on whether he paid the engraver to chisel "Senator" or "Senator 2009 to ____".

Wingnut Welfare International

Cabbage Patch Jackass.

Life's little certitudes. Red Sox fans will mock Alex Rodriguez as "A-Royd"; Lou Dobbs will not be parading on Cinco de Mayo; and conservatives will go into the sewer and praise intolerance and censorship as glorious "free speech".

Meet the new hero of the Right in America. I hope Malkin can get him an appropriately-tasteful placard.

Geert Wilders—who has publicly compared the Koran to "Mein Kampf"—is scheduled to make public appearances in Washington next week, including a Feb. 27 press conference at the National Press Club. Wilders is seeking to promote his movie "Fitna," an incendiary short documentary film that depicts Islam as a religion of terrorists.


The chief sponsor of Wilders's National Press Club event is Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration Pentagon official who now runs the Center for Security Policy, a prominent neoconservative think tank. Others who hope to meet with Wilders include David Horowitz, a well-known conservative activist who promotes campaigns to fight Islamic extremism.

Yes, not some Muslims are "terrorists" -- but ALL are. KKKlassy. And what a nice group to hang out with, Frank Gaffney and David Horowitz. Well Geert, I'd say that's Allah's judgment right there and "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Oh those Jews

J.D. Hayworth ladies and gentlemen. If Brains were fine Italian Cuisine, Hayworth would be "Tuscani Pasta from Pizza Hut" with a 2-liter Mountain Dew.

The California "Morans"

California Republicans would make great suicide bombers except even their small rallies (let's cut the semantics and just call them "putsches") already contain a minimum of 72 virgins.

Village full of Idiots

Fred Hiatt's 'Friends & Family' plan everybody.

See Anne Applebaum, alleged genius, by Village Standards, wank:

But whatever their ideology, and whatever their credentials, most of the pundits, historians and economists who debate the Great Depression agree about one thing: Whatever may have caused the crisis, protectionism, trade barriers and, yes, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, helped to ensure that it lasted as long as it did.

Site linked to by "alleged genius" as her authority says:

In fact, few economists think the Smoot-Hawley tariff (as it is most often known) was one of the principal causes of the Depression.Worse mistakes were made, largely out of a misplaced faith in the gold standard and balanced budgets. America’s tariffs were already high, and some other countries were already increasing their own.

And, of course, the most essential point of the latter article is that Hoover did not listen to what most economists said -- which is actually the opposite of what the Obama is doing now -- but exactly what the GOP, the new Hoovers are doing.

You may also note that Ms. Applebaum manages to not to discuss NAFTA while singing the praises of all-out free trade.

More than just a thrice-married, drug addicted, felonious, racist, jackass

Add complete computer illiterate.

Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that Democrats "have reformatted the [economic recovery] bill -- they've made it a PDF file when they posted it. ... And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this." In fact, as Adobe Systems notes of PDFs: "You can run a search using either the Search window or the Find toolbar. In either case, Reader searches the PDF body text, layers, form fields, and digital signatures."

This, of course, is known to about everyone that uses Adobe products, including, as stated above, the FREE Adobe Reader...as is generally known by everyone with even basic computer literacy.

Also, just about every fucking document released on the internet is released as a PDF for a number of reasons. And I'm willing to bet any cursory research will show this was the predominant method of release under the GOP Congress.

But that asshole is too lazy to know or care.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO reenactment of Rush before a computer found:

Mr. We Could Use a Man like Gray Davis again

Remember when recalling Gray Davis and putting a Teutonic Jackass in his place would solve "Cully-for-nya's" problems?

Hey, look, it's Republicans!

California lawmakers were stymied Monday in their frustrating search for one more vote to approve a $42 billion budget-balancing plan state leaders say is needed to stave off fiscal disaster...

Lawmakers have been trying to pass a combination of spending cuts, tax hikes and additional borrowing negotiated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and leaders of both parties, who warn that California faces insolvency unless the Legislature enacts a midyear budget fix to close the projected $42 billion budget shortfall through June 2010.

The plan continues to fall short of votes because rank-and-file Republicans have refused to agree to $14.4 billion in higher taxes. Lawmakers believe there are enough GOP votes in the Assembly, but the Senate has fallen short by one.

Can we fire you now?

Such are the times that for more than a generation, this individual has been held up in public as Mr. Success. A guy who took his father's already successful business and bloated it up until he gets proclaimed the epitome of business genius. No matter how many times he fails. Yet, he's always around bragging and pontificating somewhere on his awesomeness.

When in reality, Donald Trump is only a few cuts up from being the George W. Bush of business.

Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc, Donald Trump's casino group, is expected to file Tuesday for bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported...Such a filing would mark the third appearance in bankruptcy court for Trump Entertainment, which most recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings in 2005, the newspaper said.

Three bankruptcy filings including one that recent?

How the hell is that possible?

And, of course, it isn't just his resorts company that has had this problem.

Oh, yes, he's too arrogant to fail. It must be the hair.

(photo from bballdunker55)

[Cross-Posted at Firedoglake]

You, yes, YOU can marry Salma Hayek if you follow this basic plan

For I have the secret. You must only do one thing, one simple thing.

GET A BILLION DOLLARS.

So I expect some AIG official to take a stab at it pretty soon.

In your heart, you know he's not very bright

How else to explain how the guy that picked Sarah Palin thinks he gets to tell Obama who he should appoint.

And no, I'm not kidding:

But it does show that what I would have done -- and I hate to keep saying it that way -- is get outside the Beltway; get outside of Washington. Get people who have succeeded. Get the Meg Whitmans and the Carly Fiorina

People know what you would have done Grill-Master.

And they decided to elect the smart guy.

Facing up to our history

Not that most of the media will help, but we have to (via Digby).

Your Bush Administration at work:

[T]the Nelly account shows that health professionals are right in the thick of the torture and abuse of the prisoners—suggesting a systematic collapse of professional ethics driven by the Pentagon itself. He describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgment that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking.

Oh, but we don't torture!

If you want to misinterpret history, at least pick an American

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The New York Times without Kristol

100% more intelligent.

75% less to blog about.

I'll take it.

A Village of only Idiots

Frank Rich:

The stimulus battle was more of the same. “This town talks to itself and whips itself into a frenzy with its own theories that are completely at odds with what the rest of America is thinking,” he says. Once the frenzy got going, it didn’t matter that most polls showed support for Obama and his economic package: “If you watched cable TV, you’d see our support was plummeting, we were in trouble. It was almost like living in a parallel universe.”

John Cole has more.

Cry-Off

Who is the bigger crying performance artist -- Glenn Beck or John Boehner?

Although oddly, both laugh at the end of Old Yeller, screaming out "Shoot Travis, Shoot!!"

IOKIYAR

Republicans love calling Democrats "socialists" which has the benefit of not only being sadly incorrect (I only WISH they were more socialist) but also rather non-damning (oh, those damn crazy Scandanavians and their free health care, unions, low crime rates, and hot swimsuit models). Ideological Socialists (as opposed to those who merely throw it in their name as in "National Socialist" or "Union of Soviet Socialists") have the historical advantage of being the least violent revolutionaries this side of Gandhi.

But the GOP gets to throw these labels around willy-nilly without punishment all while lately self-describing themselves as revolutionaries.

Combine that with the last "8 years" of non-accomplishment and making a felonious, thrice-married, obese, racist, drug-addict as your spokesmodel and you've got the makings or a real minority party.

He must have really been counting on that money from "Big Peanut"

Hard to believe:

Don't say that former President Bush hasn't been hit by the crumbling economy he handed off to President Obama. Friends tell us that it has slowed the drive to raise some $500 million to build and endow the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Dallas's Southern Methodist University. "It's a bad environment," says one.

Boy, some guys just have bad luck that's completely not their responsibility at all.

And then there is Bush.

Back By Popular Demand

Advice for Valentine's Day

Just think Republicans

Somewhere your spiritual leader could very well be spending Valentine's Day with some third-world rental of indeterminate gender.

No wonder you're so popular.

How's that Bipartisan thing working out for the GOP anyhow?

CNN's "silver lining"

80 percent of respondents...say Obama is providing strong leadership for the country, the 76 percent who feel he's doing a good job handling foreign policy, the 72 percent who indicate Obama's doing a good job dealing with the economy and the 68 percent who give the President a thumbs-up when it comes to handling policies on terrorism.

...the president's overall approval rating of 76 percent.

Naturally those figures are within a story wondering if Obama will suffer a political hit for Judd Gregg being a flip-flopping jackass?

Um, no.

Even Drudgico finds a nut:

With Barack Obama’s victory in passing a massive stimulus package marred by days of bad press—as not a single House Republican backed the bill, his Health Czar went down in flames and his second pick for Commerce Secretary walked away—the administration has been cut down to size, and lost some of its bipartisan sheen.

Such, at least, has been the beltway chatter, but so far the numbers don’t back it up.

“It’s eerie—I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me,” said Ann Seltzer, the authoritative Iowa pollster who works throughout the Midwest...

A CBS News poll released February 5, for instance, found 81% of Americans said Obama is reaching out to congressional Republicans, while just 41 percent said the congressional Republicans were looking for bipartisanship.

“There have been a number of different surveys that have shown that Americans perceive that Obama is extending a hand of cooperation, a hand that the Republican leadership is not reciprocating—that’s very striking in the data,” said Mark Blumenthal, the editor of Pollster.com, who also noted that Obama has managed to remain popular even with some Republicans...

“I don’t think he’s lost anything in terms of overall job approval or favorability,” said Andy Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire. “That’s just the a perception inside the Beltway that everybody outside Washington pays attention to politics and eats and lives politics the way you guys do down there.”

Alas poor Broder, a man worth of infinite jests.

Bitter-sweet

The GOP sends some Valentine Hearts to President Obama. Classy with several Ks.

Chuckles the Clown

Could somebody send Krauthammer some King Nut peanut butter or something, it may not make him sick, it would still be a fitting brand for him?

America went on to create a small miracle [Iraq] in the heart of the Arab Middle East.

BEHOLD!

A female suicide bomber killed 32 people and wounded 84 others south of Baghdad on Friday when she blew herself up on a major Shi'ite religious pilgrimage route, police said.

Another Krauthammer MIRACLE!

Bleg

No, not for money.

I am asking for those with TIVO to send me pics of Howard Fineman on MSNBC. The last several weeks -- especially yesterday -- that hair -- What the fuck is with that hair?

Everyday it's another Rorschach Chart. His hair was so many different kinds of brown and black yesterday that John Ashcroft would have been terrified.

If these people had any shame

This might matter. The product of the vitriol of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Goldberg and yes, you too Michelle Malkin.

"Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

"I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

But sadly, they'll keep on keeping on and this powderkeg will fall on another groups head.

Little to nothing of this has been stated on FoxNews (or any media broadcast for that matter)