Remember that one time

When the son of that one guy was interviewing that Guy whose daughter was on another channel talking about him and then they went to the panel where that son of that one guy led a roundtable where the son of another guy dominated the panel?

And then I went to this one website where the son of this one woman discussed the whole issue praising the Guy and his Daughter with the other guy who was the son of another guy.

And then we found out that the daughter of this one guy was hired to work for a network who had so recently hired the son of a guy who had employed him for a long-time and who really liked to interview this one old guy whose daughter has signed a book contract because she's his daughter? And this was all unnoticed by the daughter of one guy and the son of another guy.

But they all hated affirmative action. You have to give 'em that much.



I'm pretty sure you remember because that "one time" is continuous.

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it's really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There's a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.

The de-evolution of the NBC Today Show Correspondent

AKA, Survival of the Drunkest:

Go ahead and hum Also Sprach Zarathustra if you wish:

.........

Self-awareness FAIL

I give you Glenn Beck's new book about how Obama is a fascist:



Um, wow?

Somewhere Ann Coulter is wiping seminal fluid from her black cocktail dress...even though she's been alone all weekend.

UPDATE:

In the latest display of Beck "genius"

Winning Election = Coup

Oh please, oh please

Can we have Andy McCarthy spend a few moments with R. Lee Ermey?

Though I'm not a big fan of his overall politics in some areas, at least he's rational.

I imagine a meeting of he and Andy McCarthy would be something like this.

Yeah that's about it

Sully on Chris Wallace latest embarrassment to his father's legacy:

When it comes to Cheney, one of the most incompetent vice-presidents in the country's history, with a record of two grotesquely botched wars, war crimes and a crippling debt, Chris Wallace sounds like a teenage girl interviewing the Jonas Brothers.

Quite an amazing victory

Talk about taking down an ideologically bankrupt party.

Japan's opposition swept to a historic victory in elections Sunday, crushing the ruling conservative party that has run the country for most of the postwar era and assuming the daunting task of pulling the economy out of its worst slump since World War II...

Fed up with the LDP, voters turned overwhelmingly to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which ran a populist-leaning platform with plans for cash handouts to families with children and expanding the social safety net.

Oh dear, but Japan already has universal health care (even the conservatives approve of it). I guess that just leaves socialism.

Can't he just tweet it up?

There are 98 other living Senators available...and not all of them are Joe Lieberman.

For those keeping score at home, [yesterday was] McCain's 12th Sunday morning appearance since President Obama's inauguration in January. That's 32 Sundays, for an average of a McCain appearance every 2.6 weeks.

Losing the Kennedys, keeping the Cheneys (OY!)

"...the Dick goes on, the prick
endures, the dope still lives,
and the man shall always lie."


It was quite a juxtaposition this weekend. If Saturday was for remembering the Kennedys, Sunday was for dealing with the Cheneys. Camelot vs. Torture-a-lot.

Dick was mumbling up a storm about how awesome torture was, including an even more twisted cheer of "drill, baby, drill!", to which the FoxNews position was F%@$ YEAH!!

Meanwhile, Liz Cheney, born in time to keep Dick out of Vietnam was on ABC working to keep Dick out of jail. Truly, the gift of a child that keeps on giving...at least to Daddy. With Liz's appearance, as Scarecrow mentioned for ABC it came down not to a means to an end, but rather just for the means themselves.

But at least CBS had John McCain on to say that Cheney is wrong and torture is wrong, but that torturing people should not result in any consequences for anyone actually torturing someone.

So in summary, we said goodbye to Ted Kennedy one day and the next we were deciding how much we as a nation can torture people. And even more disturbing were the proposed answers.

Nobody said "NO". Rather the responses were: "Yes"; "Oh Yes!"; and "Oh well".

USA! USA! USA!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Banned Words of 2010™: Waning Summer Update

Because it's never too early to put the world on notice.

New items in BOLD. Add your suggestions in comments.

1. Recession
2. Gunman
3. Bonus
4. Teachable Moment
5. Lockdown
6. Too big to fail
7. Octomom
8. Toxic assets
9. Stress Test
10. Obamism
11. Green shoots (re the economy)
12. Temperament
13. The New New (or The New Normal)
14. Twitter
15. Bánh mì
16. Swarovski crystals
17. Empathy
18. New media, including but not limited to "Social Networking"
19. Closely watched yardstick
20. Compromise/Bipartisan
21. Emboldened
22. Cougar
23. Serious
24. Walk back (As in Republican and former Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo is walking back his comment about La Raza being 'The Latino KKK (except that he didn't ever walk them back now, did he?) Josh Marshall: I love you; but you've run "walk back" into the ground.)
25. Fascism (All references to this right-wing ideology outside serious works of history or political theory must die.)
26. Statement Jewelry (Not the jewelry itself, just the stupid, ubiquitous term used to describe it).
27. Perfidious (You can thank Steve Simels for this one. His overuse has diluted whatever punch it once packed forever.)
28. Gang of [INSERT NUMBER HERE] (re douchebag senators or congresspeople who are trying desperately to impede progress.)
29. Socialism (All references to this left-wing ideology outside serious works of history or political theory must die.)
30. Czar/Tsar (unless discussing the Romanovs) (Sandia Blanca, from comments)
31. Devastate/Devastated/Devastating (Can we get some perspective with regard to this one, please? You not getting into Harvard Law and having to "settle" for NYU is not "devastating". Devastate means " to bring to ruin or desolation by violent action" or "to reduce to chaos, disorder, or helplessness". You missing out on a trip to Cancún because a tropical storm precluded your plane from taking off is disappointing, not "devastating". Sheesh.)
32. Post-Racial (guessed from comments)
    

Oh lord

What is she going to be, the "Vodka Critic"?

NBC's "Today" show has hired someone with White House experience as a new correspondent – former first daughter Jenna Hager.

The daughter of former President George W. Bush will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television's top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer.

Journalists losing jobs, right and left, but the Bush family keeps failing upward.

Awesome.

Wellstone this motherfuckers

Ted Kennedy made sure he could speak clearly beyond the grave ... will the media notice that Kennedy specifically win one for the American people for the Big Cheese?

Kennedy's dying letter to Cardinal McCarrick, read by McCarrick at Arlington National Cemetery at the last of the services:

I want you to know, your Holiness, that in my nearly 50 years of elective office I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I've worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination and expand access to health care and education. I've opposed the death penalty and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and have been the focus of my work as a United States Senator.

I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to get access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field and will continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national policy that guarantees health care for everyone.

(fez tip Digby)

MATLOCK!!!

Tut-tut, looks like lame:

I badly misjudged the broad public reaction to the angry August congressional town meetings. Instead of provoking a pro-Obama backlash, as I had expected, the town halls, amplified on sometimes hostile cable channels and talk radio, spread disquiet about what the president has in mind. And Obama's patient, didactic responses have not quieted the reaction, let alone built fresh support for a vitally needed overhaul of our expensive, dysfunctional health system.

Yeah, we noticed too

Last night I attended a health care rally at the State Capitol there were probably 250 supporters there and about twenty counter-protesters who were generally fairly well-behaved. Oh, occasionally they shouted "read the bill" which in addition to be quite ironic considering the concern they never expressed over the Patriot Act was also quite ambitious, reading.

There was one protester who held a 36x24 placard that literally had a paragraph (in all caps) written on it. I'd like to have spell-checked it, but it was lettering was too small to read what the hell he'd written. I don't mean to be overly critical there bunky, but illegible and all-caps is not a good protest strategy, though kudos for the ambition.

But the rally went on, it was a lovely evening, and it didn't last forever, so thank goodness for that.

And all this really leads up to this section in today's NY Times Editorial:

In recent weeks, it has become inescapably clear that Republicans are unlikely to vote for substantial reform this year. Many seem bent on scuttling President Obama’s signature domestic issue no matter the cost. As Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, so infamously put it: “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

Superficially seductive calls to scale down the effort until the recession ends or to take time for further deliberations should be ignored. There has been more than enough debate and the recession will almost certainly be over before the major features of reform kick in several years from now. Those who fear that a trillion-dollar reform will add to the nation’s deficit burden should remember that these changes are intended to be deficit-neutral over the next decade.

Deficit-neutral, y'know unlike that ungodly piece of Medicare D prescription piece of shit the GOP shoved through the Congress in 2004.

Mr. Obama should know from sad experience the pitfalls of seeking bipartisan cooperation from a Republican Party that has sloughed off most of its moderates and is dominated by its right wing. His stimulus package was supported by no Republicans in the House and only three Republicans in the Senate, so-called moderates whose support was won by shrinking the package below the size at which it would have done the most good.

Now the same sort of damaging retreat may be happening in the Senate Finance Committee. Three committees in the House and one in the Senate have used their Democratic majorities to approve liberal health reform bills. The only bipartisan negotiations are between a rump group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the Finance Committee who hail from largely rural states with small populations, namely Iowa, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming. Somehow this small, unrepresentative group has emerged as the focal point for bipartisan health care reform.

The six have been working hard to reach agreement, but the concessions demanded by Republicans will most likely make the reform effort weaker and smaller.

Fuck 'em, pass something that will do some good, something with a public option. Use Ted Kennedy if you want, but mostly just do what's right -- it will benefit you politically anyway.

Prisoner Missing; Presumed Escaped

Well, ten days later, I stormed the Bastille.

I think my days as absolute monarch -- or budding CIA director -- are over.

The Kennedy Service

Was quite lovely, and when the choir sang "America, the Beautiful" well that was time for some tears to well up.

And then I remember poor Andrew Breitbart.

The whole funeral must have provoked so many angry tweets between furious sessions of masturbation.

Oh well.

If it weren't for the fact that the GOP is run by aggressive morons who hate us

The ineptitude and spinelessness of the Democratic Leadership would cause me to do more than get alternatively angry and despondent. It's pathetic. And what really sucks is the fact that so far, President Obama has not exactly cracked a whip...unless it's Rahm trying to do it to the base...i.e. those Congress-critters who think like the vast majority of the country, let alone the base.

As Atrios said, we elected the Democrats to get something done -- not just because they weren't as crazy as Republicans.

As I drink my coffee in a fog

Getting ready to watch Burnley visit Chelsea (how American!) there's a reason I'm tired. I stayed up to watch the nighttime space shuttle launch because it bore a package that will truly change humanities view of the cosmos.



Okay, maybe not.

When teabagging becomes (more of) a performance art

Keep your socialism out of my social security says Mr. Moneybags!

Actual event at recent Michelle Bachmann (R-Bizarro Minnesota) townhall.

Yeah, he's a right-wing Mor(a)n alright

Good thing there's no "C" in FAIL!

Dear FoxNews,

Can you not even buy your douchebags an editor?



I mean seriously,

"Oligarhy"?

He worked all fucking day on that and still couldn't spell.

The Stupid really burns on this one (and how the fuck does a Mormon get the right to call anyone an Oligarch [or Oligarh in Beck's world]?)

And he said this would be his most important show EVAH!

What a razy, inoherent oktease that fuking douhebag is.

UPDATE:

Hey Glenn,

Here is a real "Oligarchy" in action.

If you've ever wanted your chance to tell Randall Terry

"You really, really suck"

And you live near or close to Omaha...

Well, here's your chance:

The Nebraska National Organization for Women is coordinating the counter-protest demonstrations against Operation Rescue, Rescue the Heartland, and Nebraskans United for Life on Friday August 28th and Saturday the 29th outside of the Bellevue Health Clinic located at 1002 W. Mission Avenue in Bellevue, Nebraska.

Nebraska NOW and NOW members from thoughout the country will assemble with other pro-choice activists from around the country to protect and defend Dr. Carhart’s clinic in Nebraska.

We need you there. If you cannot be present at the clinic we can still use your help in many other ways. Please contact me if you want more information or if you would be willing to help.

Erin Sullivan
Nebraska NOW and Omaha NOW President
nebraskanow@cox.net

With the murder of Dr. Tiller, Carhart is the last place in Nebraska offering this service and the only one between Des Moines and Denver. No doubt the man has gotten many threats on his life - by people who would do it. The kind of people who listen to assholes like Randall Terry.

Dear Teabaggers

Would it be too much to ask to go a few days without a veiled or direct threat to the life of the President of the United States?

Would it be possible for Republican candidates or elected officials to tell those people to knock it off when they do it in front of their faces -- or even participate?

I suppose not, but here's to hoping.

The LYING COWARD

Observe the medicare receiving speaker in an Iowa town earlier this week:

The president of the United States, that's who you should be concerned about. Because he's acting like a little Hitler, I'd take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me.

Observe that Grassley says NOTHING to dissuade the gentlemen from his thesis or desire.

FEEL FREE TO SHIP AROUND THE INTERNETS.

Coming Soon To a Theater Near You

Best movie I've seen in a long while.

Here: read the NYT review.

And yeah: read this Hitchens article on it, too.

Just as an aside, some of my favorite movies of recent years have come out of Germany.

Der Untergang
Das Leben Der Anderen
Bella Martha
Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage

When is Netflix getting Der Himmel über Berlin?

What an unearthed gem

Found through TPM. Ted Kennedy speaking in Alaska in April 1968 just three days after King was assassinated and filling in for his Brother.

If you are in a hurry fast forward to about 5:10 and listen on as this becomes an amazing recitation of what liberalism is and should be.



Now compare it to this piece of stunning stupidity from Michael Steele today as a defense of conservatism.

UPDATE: It turns out, Jane Hamsher was actually present when Kennedy gave this speech and puts it into some context.

That's nice, and how does your mother feel?

Heh, indeed.

Yeah, it's offensive

And it's also certainly true:

U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins offered encouragement to conservatives at a town hall forum that the Republican Party would embrace a "great white hope" capable of thwarting the political agenda endorsed by Democrats who control Congress and President Barack Obama.

Were I a less cynical person...

I'd fear that...:

A new survey commissioned by the AARP asks respondents to what degree they support or oppose "[s]tarting a new federal health insurance plan that individuals could purchase if they can't afford private plans offered to them" -- a public option, in other words. The results are interesting, though not necessarily surprising to those who have been closely following the debate.

All: 79 percent favor/18 percent oppose
Democrats: 89 percent favor/8 percent oppose
Republicans: 61 percent favor/33 percent oppose
Independents: 80 percent favor/16 percent oppose

...a sizable portion of our institutional leadership holds all of us in contempt and views their role as portraying us a ill-informed, angry, and all-around miserable.

But, as a cynic, I am already confident that this is the case.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Oh please Mitt, listen to this idiot's advice

Does this moron have no recollection of Romney's popularity rating when he stopped being Governor of Massachusetts?

And that was before the world's most outwardly venal man took a hard turn to the right so he could appeal to the base of the GOP.

It would be an intriguing thing if, after waiting a day or two out of respect for the late senator, Romney were to downshift and announce he will be a candidate in the upcoming election to fill Kennedy's vacant Senate seat.

Such an announcement would likely be embraced immediately by the Republicans, who would like almost nothing more than to deny Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada his new, hard-won, 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. As a self-funding candidate who has already been elected once statewide, Romney has nearly 100 percent name ID. And, in an environment where President Obama seems to be dragging the Democrats down, he would be a serious threat to the Democratic hegemony in Massachusetts's congressional delegation. Meaning Romney likely would win.

There are more than a few fact-free clauses, sentences, and hell, paragraphs in that...uh, paragraph. But let's just get down to the premise:

Running for Senator in the place he dissed as a Presidential Candidate sounds like a SWEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL idea, (or as Mittens in reacquiring a mysterious New England accent would say "idear").

Please, please, oh, please go for it Mittens. Not only would you lose (and badly) -- but you'd be finished for 2012.

Leaving the playing field as Palin, Huckabee, and Gingrich (and if Jesus loves us enough Hannity).

How much do they pay this moron at US News?

Have to admit, I like this one

In Which I Channel My Inner Dick Cheney

Last Tuesday night I was washing my face with some invigorating apricot scrub and minding my own business, when I looked into the hall outside my bathroom to see a truly gargantuan waterbug on the floor. After emitting an "Ugh" of disgust I stared and it and went into my whole "Wish it no harm" routine. That lasted all of two minutes, until I realized that it was gently waving its antennae at me. I screwed up enough courage and flipped the bathroom wastepaper basket over on the sucker.

I grabbed a copy of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, which, at 1,072 pages, is a doorstop of a cookbook, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (2,560 pages), and put them on top of the overturned wastepaper basket for good measure. I could hear the damn thing moving around under there, crashing against the sides of the basket in a futile effort to escape. Just the sound of it scratching against the metal was skeeving me out.

I left it on where it was overnight. In the morning I started calling the setup it "The Bastille", but then I realized that, as the absolute monarch of my domain, "Bastille" was probably not the best metaphor. So I started calling it GITMO, but I thought that in poor taste. Later in the week, I settled on thinking of it as my own personal Black Site.

A week later, it's still there. I know. I know. As a liberal committed to non-violence, you think I'm a sadist. If you're in PETA you think I ought to be shot. As someone who's outraged by Bush, Cheney, torture, extraordinary rendition, detainees, and military tribunals you think I am just not funny.

I don't give a damn.

My question for you is, after one week and one day, do you think that little fucker is dead yet?

What Obama Should Do™

I had one of those annoying What Obama Should Do™ discussions with a friend yesterday. This one in regard to health care reform.

It's too late to do What Obama Should Have Done™, which is to say, had a big prime-time address to a joint session of Congress where he laid out say, three parameters for a health care reform bill he'd be willing to sign (e.g., cover everyone, re-regulate the insurance industry, institute a program to bring medical costs under control) and then let congress go out and draft a bill).

But it's not to late to do What Obama Should Do™, which is to say, challenge a Republican -- any Republican -- to debate him about health care reform live on national prime time TV at some point during the week after Labor Day.

If the Republicans balk they are sniveling chickenshit "Party of No" losers. And if they don't, well, who the hell are they going to send up there? A Bronzed Boehner? Mitch McConnell's Wattle? Mushmouthed Imbecile Eric Cantor? Mittens Romney? Tim Milquetoast Pawlenty? I'd vote for Michael Steele, but what the hell do I know anyway?

There's still time to do What Obama Should Do™, Mister President. And you don't even have to thank me (or, more accurately, my friend) for the idea.

Danziger

Warts & All

Pareene:

The man's many, well-documented flaws aside, he was on the right side of history, most of the time, and he did more to actually make America a better place than 90% of the careerists and charlatans who pass through the United States Senate.

And as the undemocratic institution of the Senate (and this celebration of the life of a man who won his seat due to family connections and held on to it for almost fifty years proves the anti-democratic nature of that body) continues to destroy whatever hope this nation has of governing itself responsibly, we'll miss a man who more often than most tried to show that politics can be about tangibly helping real people.

RIP

The Glory Holers (cont....)

As I was saying:

"If we need to save our penises from anybody, it's Obama"
-- Rush Limbaugh

Fill in your own goddamned jokes.

And now back to regular posting

Steve Pearlstein takes the latest lies and slanders of Michael Steele and the GOP to the woodshed:

Republicans seem determined to preserve the uniquely American system under which health care is rationed today -- on the basis of employment status and ability to pay. According to the respected Institute of Medicine, this market-based approach to rationing has held the number of untimely deaths each year to a mere 18,000 uninsured souls. Thanks to Medicare, all of those victims are younger than 65, but apparently that is the kind of age-based rationing that real Republicans can embrace.

And thank you, Mr. Pearlstein for calling the GOP statements what they are, LIES.

Even if your name was just "Edward Moore"

You would be a giant.

Thank you.

res' book bag

These columns are so stupid. Here's what I am currently reading.* What does the list say about me?

1. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama
2. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert Caro
3. Drums Along the Mohawk, by Walter D. Edmonds
4. The three most recent issues of The New Yorker
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Ordinarily I don't read five things at once, but the first two books are huge, and because I can't take them on the train, I read them in the morning at home. Drums and the magazines I take on the train. Guernsey is for before bed. I'm also not giving myself a week to read them. No way Obama is reading all that stuff in a week and playing golf.

By the way, Drums is really good. Actually, they're all kind of great.

Asshole vs. Balloon Knot

Joe Lieberman Sunday:

"I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession," Mr. Lieberman said on CNN’s "State of the Union." "There’s no reason we have to do it all now...'

A Joe Lieberman email to constituents yesterday:

We cannot afford to wait any longer to provide Americans with the high-quality, affordable health care they deserve, even though doing so will require making some difficult decisions.

The Glory-Holers

At least they're consistent. All real crazed right-wingers eventually become fixated on seeing Democratic man-meat.

I guess because it's so hard to see their own.

Not much more to say other than...

READ THIS!



There's much, much more that's disturbing.


(pic via The Seminal)

Bring back the fail

Rudy Giuliani thinking of running for Governor of New York?

Ah, memories. As of last month, this was still up in suburban Des Moines (likely still is).

But we can't have universal health care

These fools would have us spend hundreds of billions on preventing fictional attacks out of an Ed Wood movie:

In May, the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss noted that, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — citing a fictional novel — told the 2009 American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference that the threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse attack against the United States was why he was in “favor” of “taking out Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites.” The next month, the New Republic’s Michael Crowley reported that the “scientifically valid,” but “not strategically realistic” scenario was being used by “a cadre of conservative hawks” to argue for “familiar hobbyhorses” like missile defense and preemptive military strikes. Now, Dave Weigel reports that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is set to headline an upcoming conference on the threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse attack against the United States, titled “EMPACT America”

Hell, we cannot even have a public option in health care ... but we have attack North Korea from something that will not ever happen.

Yet, other than us dirty fucking hippies no one ever does the compare and contrast on these utterly banal fucks.

Golly Fred Hiatt

Imagine if you'd written this editorial in 2003 or 2004 instead of what you actually wrote?

Although some lessons are never learned:

The real culprits in this sordid story are those higher-ups, starting with former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney, who led America down the degrading path of state-sanctioned torture and left the next administration to cope with the fallout.

But nevertheless, like Chuckles Todd, you say leave them alone.

And FoxNews goes "La la la la la"

Shockingly an editorial in the Washington Post that is both factual and supportive of health care reform.

5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

But don't worry FoxNews viewers, you can watch this instead, it is after all a fitting theme song for you:

Stories where the headline is more than enough

(via Huffington Post)

Bring.It.On.

Giuliani Clearing the Way for a Run for the Statehouse

Maybe Bernie Kerik will tweet his support for Rudy from the defendant's seat at his federal trial for conspiracy, tax fraud, and making false statements to to the White House.

Run, Rudy! RUN!

L.A.

It's different.

Marilyn Monroe, who's been dead 47 years, still carries enough cachet that the crypt above where she was entombed was sold today on EBay for $4,602,100.

Elsie Poncher, whose husband Richard Poncher is buried in the crypt at Pierce Bros. Westwood Village Memorial Park, said she wanted to sell it to pay off the mortgage on her Beverly Hills home.
...

She said that when her husband was dying, he made a request. "He said, ’If I croak, if you don’t put me upside down over Marilyn, I’ll haunt you the rest of my life.’ "

Right after the funeral, Elsie said, she conveyed her husband’s wish to the funeral director. "I was standing right there, and he turned him over," she said.

I'm speechless.

I know I've followed the Premier League and stuff lately...

But the fact is that the very thought of figuring out how the fuck you keep score in cricket reminds me of figuring out logarithms -- and those are not pleasant memories.

Thus, I know I'm American.

A Country that Deserves what's coming to it...

We really are not in a position to critique any other society on earth for at least a week after this:

In the midst of a staggering obesity epidemic in the US, KFC has doubled down on a high-calorie menu choice. KFC is now offering a "sandwich" which consists of bacon, two kinds of cheeses and sauce between two pieces of fried chicken. That's right, fried chicken as a bun instead of bread.

This brings to mind a certain Patton Oswalt routine:

It's been a great few days

For justifiably getting under media enabler's skin.

1. Aimai of No More Mister Nice Blog - ruins Joe Klein's cocktail weiners with the bitter taste of just desserts. BTW, she's I.F. Stone's grandaughter? How cool is that. In bizarro world that would mean she'd be a TV pundit, but that stuff is only for those who earn it by merit in this world. You know by being the child or grandchild of a Joe McCarthy enabler.

2. Jeremy Scahill has the effrontery to call Chuck Todd on stuff he actually says on the air -- Todd gets all offended like a good villager. Not because what Scahill said isn't true, but because it made Chuck's goatee droop in shame on Bill Maher's show when Chuck wanted to look cool.

Cue Lee Greenwood Redux

Imagine if a Democrat or a Dirty Fucking Hippy (same thing) had said this -- oh, it would set Jake Tappers little member stiff with pleasure and we'd here about it incessantly the next month -- but if you're California Republican Representative Wally Herger instead of say Barack Obama, you can pal around with terrorists all you want:

One speaker said he could trace his ancestors back to the Mayflower and said “they did not arrive holding their hands out for help.”

“I am a proud right wing terrorist,” he declared to cheers.

Herger praised the man’s attitude.

“Amen, God bless you,” Herger said with a broad smile. “There is a great American.”

In addition to the praising of a self-described terrorist (does Herger have a soft-spot for Tim McVeigh?) I do love the guy who says his ancestors came over on the Mayflower "NOT" asking for handouts.

That must come as news to Native Americans. After all, not only did the Pilgrims need help from local tribes to survive (hasn't this guy heard the Thanksgiving story?) but they got small-pox in return. Setting a three-century pattern of White Guys screwing Native Americans and then having the nerve to come up with the phrase "Indian Giver" anyway.

Truly the first Republicans.

Always an asshole

Joe Lieberman's love of spending hundreds of billions on freedom through explosions knows no bounds. There are no limits to how much Lieberman would ask the American tax-payer over generations to pay for his beloved wars. If Obama, for some reason, called Joe up some evening and asked him to vote for $100 billion so as to bomb Tehran he'd have the supportive Op-Ed in Fred Hiatt's hands by the next morning.

But when it comes to providing policies that actually benefit Americans, in America of all places, like health care; no matter how small the relative price, it is too much for Senator "He's with us on everything except the War" (thanks Harry Reid).

"I'm afraid we've got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy's out of recession"

But then again, Lieberman could be expected to do little else.

It reminds me of this little nugget from August of 2004 when we dirty effing hippies suggested that Bush was issuing terror reports for political reasons:

"nobody in their right mind" would believe that Bush would "scare people for political reasons"

Golly Joe, thanks for always being not only stupendously wrong, but also a real dick about it. After all as ranking member and then Chair of the Homeland Security Committee you never lifted a finger to get to the bottom of this or any other matter that might hurt your Republican buddies and indirectly your lovely wars.

Thanks so much for your decade of doing your level worst for the country. No wonder the Villagers love you.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Now that's some nihilism

Betsy McCaughey is a gigantic liar, how big a liar?

This big.

And here is my new favorite story involving just how awful she is:

The straw that broke the camel's back appeared to be when she confirmed to the press that D'Amato suggested at a private dinner that she bring Giuliani, with whom D'Amato was feuding, back to the fold by offering him sex. Pataki was forced to demand an apology, and D'Amato was forced to issue one

Well, now considering the company contained in that paragraph it's hard to truly see who the biggest liar is.

Al D'Amato wouldn't be above saying this sort of thing, Betsy would not be above offering it, and lord knows Rudy would not be above accepting.

With a chair

A number of people this week, starting with Emptywheel have browbeaten villager extraordinaire Mark Ambinder for saying he would have questioned the rather telling use of "terror threats" by the Bush Administration -- but he just couldn't trust us dirty fucking hippies and our .875 batting average.

Krugman joins in:

Bear in mind that by the time the terror alert controversy arose in 2004, we had already seen two tax cuts sold on massively, easily documented false pretenses; a war launched with constant innuendo about a Saddam-Osama link that was clearly false, and with claims about WMDs that were clearly shaky from the beginning and had proved to be entirely without foundation. We’d also seen vast, well-documented dishonesty and politicization on environmental policy. Oh, and Abu Ghraib was already public knowledge.

Given all that, it made complete sense to distrust anything the Bush administration said. That wasn’t reflexive, it was rational.

And anyway, who were these reflexively anti-Bushists? Howard Dean? Read what he actually said at the time, and it looks totally sensible (and prescient). Me? I think my columns from that period look pretty sound in the light of hindsight. Bloggers like Atrios or Kos? Again, if you read their archives what’s striking is how sane they come off compared with the “serious” voices of the time.

I'd also like to ask, I think Atrios did this already, why Ambinder seems not to have noticed that Ridge pretty much admitted politics were used in the terror-alert system a few years ago -- but he like most of the media ignored it then. I guess, because somehow, Ridge had become a DFHer.

Well thank goodness

We now know that Sarah Palin quit being Governor so she could take time to find a ghost writer to write cogent sentences about the same old bullshit for her Facebook page.

Typical Republican, using Facebook in a Twittered world and thinking they're cutting edge.

But hiring somebody to do your work is, I guess, why Ol' Sarah isn't on MySpace.

UPDATE:

Meanwhile,

A new analysis by Public Policy Polling (D) finds that Sarah Palin is especially popular with a key Republican demographic: The Birthers.

Among those respondents in PPP's latest national poll who either said that President Obama was not born in the United States or were undecided, Palin had a 66% favorability rating. Of the other three Republicans that were tested in the poll, Mike Huckabee was in second place at 58%, then Newt Gingrich with 46%, and Mitt Romney was last with only 43% favorability.

From PPP communications director Tom Jensen: "I mean this with all sincerity -- Romney's lack of popularity with the birther wing of the GOP really could scuttle his chances at the nomination in three years."

I know the media likes to pay attention to the various struggles of the Democrats in polling, but it ignores the fact the GOP is not exactly gaining in the interim, in fact they are in the toilet and not getting out.

Such is the state of the GOP that the guy who thinks he wears magic underwear is NOT CRAZY ENOUGH for the base.

"They hate us for our Freedoms"

The Bush Administration ran the United States of all Class (and human rights violations):

...the report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri's interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. "The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up," said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with "imminent death."

And in a clear case of "see we did nothing wrong, you can't prove it..."

Before leaving office, Bush administration officials confirmed that Nashiri was one of three CIA detainees subjected to waterboarding. They also acknowledged that Nashiri was one of two Al Qaeda detainees whose detentions and interrogations were documented at length in CIA videotapes. But senior officials of the agency's undercover operations branch, the National Clandestine Service, ordered that the tapes be destroyed, an action that has been under investigation for more than a year by a federal prosecutor.

Liars for Bush (Reprise)

Ah, Fran Townsend. Little Frannie went on CNN this morning to refute Tom Ridge's admission claims about BushCo pushing bogus terror alerts to divert attention from whatever fuck-up they were currently inflicting on the country.

Here's my favorite Frannie memory:

In her resignation letter, Townsend paid tribute to President [George W.] Bush by saying: "In 1937, the playwright Maxwell Anderson wrote of President George Washington: 'There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, til all men walk on higher ground in their lifetime.' Mr. President, you are such a man."

Go away, Fran. Don your best flip-flops and go have a diet Snapple or a Crystal Light slushie with Monica Goodling, Rachel Paulose, and Harriet Meiers.

Lying Sack of Shit (Emphasis on "Lying" and "Shit")

She's missing page 432!

Reminds me of when another lying sack of shit, the Republican dingbat Jeanine Pirro lost page 10.

Thank God for John Stewart.

It's over, Republicans.

But he's fat!

Just wondering

When Odoacer was at the gates of Ravenna in the late Summer of 476 A.D. do you think the Romans inside sat there shouting "SPQR! SPQR! SPQR!"?

Because John Cole is exactly right, the mantra of the Republican Party the last decade or more has been to address ALL MATTERS whether for or against them by shouting "USA! USA! USA!". And if you don't you HATE the same.

This mantra is directly related to this, the most mind-numbingly defiant and stupid interviewer I've ever seen outside of the FoxNews big three -- and probably worse when you get down to it.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Remember when the Soviets were mocked in our propaganda because they allegedly claimed they invented everything?

Well, welcome to the Republicans perpetual 5-year plan -- the kind of thing they'd have you believe only Kim Jong-Il does.

USA! USA! USA!

But, of course...

When hasn't this been the case?

The states that have been most skeptical of President Barack Obama's agenda for health care reform also have some of the highest levels of uninsured people in the nation.

A new study by Gallup shows that large swaths of populations in the South and West -- anywhere from one-in-five to one-in-four individuals -- are currently lacking health insurance coverage.

These same regions also have the largest percentage of populations who believe widely perpetuated mistruths about the Obama agenda, including allegations that the president will set up "death panels" and wants a complete government takeover of the health care system.

It's not just 'What's the Matter with Kansas', never has been. Going against their own self-interest in a time-tested formula and when one Party is comprised of anti-science assholes that have no problem sucking up to bigots and liars this is what happens. A fictional world of grudges -- made all too real.

What I did last night

I went out and got my nerd on.

"Sorry Ft. Worth".

The Senator from the State of Moran

Jim DeMint is a long-time member of "the Family" so naturally he is convinced he lies with God's blessing.

I suppose this is just a by-product of my gut-level hatred of Bush (the Ambinder Factorial) but I have to say this statement from Jim DeMint is not only malevolent and slanderous toward the President, it is out and out the kind of bizarre statement that would make a LaRouche supporter blush:

Probably the most heart-wrenching experiences I’ve had over the last several days is when naturalized American citizens who have immigrated here from Germany, Iran and other countries, they come up to me and they say why are we doing what so many have fled from?

Uh, Jimbo, it's been a while since we've had too many immigrants that would "flee" from something going on in present-day Germany.

Though it's true Neo-Nazis are illegal in Germany, so I guess what you're saying is...?

Meanwhile, DeMint could not care less about a person bankrupted by crushing medical bills. It's not like that person has any money left to give ol' Jim's re-election campaign.

[Cross-Posted at Firedoglake]

I FUCKING ANTICIPATED, THAT'S WHO!

Yesterday you may recall I stated in regard to the whackjob at the Barney Frank town hall:

Oh, how, will the Steve Doocys of the world edit this to make Frank look like the bad person and not the person proudly holding up pictures of Obama as Hitler?

Well, now we know:

Steve Doocy says, "He was downright rude—somebody asked him a question, and he said on what planet do you spend most of your time? And then to somebody else, he said trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table."

Well, yes. Except the "somebody who asked him a question" actually asked about his "Nazi policies," and he made the dining room table remark to the same LaRouchite idiot. The best part is when they play only Frank's response, making it look like he's straight-up yelling at voters, and then cut to a shot of an entirely different woman in a pretty hat to make it look like he was addressing her, and not the one who was carrying a picture of Obama made up to look like Hitler.

There is NOTHING FoxNews will not lie or deliberate misstate. NOT ONE FUCKING THING.

All Class

That Tom Delay really mellowing through the years:

Matthews asked, “So you want to get rid of what’s known as Medicare today…[and] replace it with private sector health care?” “Amen brother,” replied DeLay, not realizing that Matthews was asking him a question, not making a statement.

Matthews then asked DeLay whether he is a birther. The former House Majority Leader mistakenly said that he would like to see the President’s “gift certificate” and asked Matthews to personally ask Obama for it. He also compared Obama to “illegal aliens”

(pic from here)

Oh the places they went...

Oh, the Bush Administration, every new revelation another WTF? moment.

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Ah, yes, Blackwater -- the cherry pit on the shite sundae that is the "War on Terror", all part no doubt of an all out -- and profitable -- effort to score some politically convenient points in an election year.

And how'd that work out?

The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

BOO-YAH!

Meanwhile..., there are those pending charges of conspiracy to murder and gun running too.

I'm sure this will all be discussed in the forthcoming Dick Cheney romantic fantasy.

Besides, we've now learned that we need to spend that money where it belongs, on the insurance industry.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

It's all DeDurkheim's mojo working

Burnley beat Man U?

That's like the Minnesota Golden Gophers winning the Rose Bowl. It's like Favre staying retired. It's like a strong Public Option being in a health care bill. It's like the United States taking a couple of decades off from taking military action against a third world nation. Okay, this is getting more and more depressing...

It's all because DeDurkheim adopted them. There, that's better.

Dammit, Attaturk!

You had to post that Squirrelizer thing, didn't you! Now I'll never get anything done.

Awesome

Photoshopping ... made easy.

Comment of the Day

At Wonkette about the Barney Frank smackdown discussed below:

PALIN/DINING ROOM TABLE 2012

So, uh how about reporting the facts then?

I know, silly me, expecting substance and truth over bloviating and lying.

To see Chuck Todd actually be a reporter, instead of Joe Scarborough's frat brother brow-beating into joining a panty-raid is a lovely change of pace.

A-fucking-men

Barney Frank demonstrates how nutjobs are to be handled:

Oh, how, will the Steve Doocys of the world edit this to make Frank look like the bad person and not the person proudly holding up pictures of Obama as Hitler? Because, of course, they either will -- or they'll ignore it completely.

Ponderings...

I wonder if David Broder ever wrote a eulogy for I.F. Stone?

Let Freedom Reign...

More of those Kaganesque celebratory fireworks:

Baghdad was hit by at least six explosions within the space of a few minutes today as a series of devastating attacks hit the Iraqi capital.

Early estimates suggested the number of casualties was high. The attacks are believed to have been co-ordinated, and demonstrate that insurgents maintain the ability to carry out spectacular bombings at will.

Fucknuttier

The overcompensating assholes parading around an Obama event in Arizona turn out to not just be Timothy McVeigh impersonators, they turn out to be pretty much Timothy McVeigh wannabes.

While "Chris" was the guy who carried around the assault rifle at the Obama event in Phoenix yesterday, it appears to have been another guy, Ernest Hancock, who organized the whole thing. And Hancock, who was also on the scene with a holstered handgun, turns out to have had very close ties to a 90s-era Arizona militia group called the 'Viper Militia' most of whose members were eventually sent to federal prison on various weapons and explosives charges tied to plans to bomb federal buildings.

Meanwhile, remember the good ol' days of five years ago when you couldn't even wear a t-shirt that spoke mildly ill of George Bush in his majesty's general proximity?

Yes, it's true

If you as a corporation want to make sure you reach the craziest demographic possible, you should advertise on Glenn Beck. There are, at least ten to twenty-million total right-wing crazies in this country and they are clearly willing to go to the same source for their slop repeatedly.

If you're Cadillac or Lexus you advertise on golf broadcasts, if you sell viagra any sporting even will do, especially golf and football. If you sell soap, there's a reason they were originally called soap operas. Which is why Beck's most dependable advertisers are "home security" systems and "gold venders". If Sealy Posturepedic starts selling mattresses with special internal hidey-holes Beck would be an ideal source for them as well.

Try not to speak ill of the departed...

On the other hand, one shouldn't work too hard to falsely sing their praises.

America's greatest self-proclaimed bipartisan managed to take a break from tut-tutting those liberal sourpusses who favor unions, clean air and health care to type out a eulogy to Bob Novak. It failed to note little things like his role in outing a CIA-operative to serve a petty political grudge or in the case of Robert Hanssen relying upon an actual traitor for the same purposes. But I guess that's what we filthy bloggers are for.

The self-mocking parody of himself that Bob created as the Prince, a grumpy right-winger, was sometimes taken more seriously by his audience than he intended. Bob was pugnacious, when challenged, but his instinct was to help his friends whenever they needed it.

Indeed, and I wonder how often that "help" made its way into his columns, hell when did it not?

But how could 'Mr. Bipartisan' pass up this little bon mot to Novak and his long-time collaborator Roland Evans; observe closely the "bipartisan" hymnal according to the Dean:

Bob's conservatism was real. He grew up with an anti-FDR father in Joliet, Ill. As his doorstop of a memoir makes clear, he and Evans often argued over the tone of their column. Evans had a liking for liberal Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller. Novak preferred the more rigid right-wingers, like Indiana Sen. Bill Jenner.

It's bipartisan as long as it involves just Republicans.

Surely, the funereal dirge of the media in our time.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Peter King has turned into Jenny Sanford

Only he allowed the love of his life to lie to him three (or is it four) times before he finally felt spurned.

But his attitude is even whinier and more petty than Jenny's attitude toward the object of his affections.

King's perpetual contact with football's leading Wrangler pitchman hasn't helped him divine Favre's ins and outs. "So now I've been wrong three times," King lamented last month. "I thought he was retired last year and he played for the Jets. I thought he was retired this year, and I said he'll come back to play for the Vikings unless his arm is a problem. His arm wasn't. And he still isn't going to play. That's why I give up." After Favre's move to Minnesota this week, it's time to update the tally: King has now been wrong four times.

So...

You think with Favre coming back, John Madden suddenly feels a bit like Jenny Sanford?

Weren't they supposed to ride off into the sun together?

NOOOOOOOOOOO....

...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Lanny Davis

Is David Broder's kind of whore. He doesn't work any orifice that requires an extremity, he just blows your mind!

"Hey hon' do you have any of that freedom mustard?"

When NASCAR stereotypes are fulfilled -- the following is best accompanied by banjo music.

Lisa Mayfield, the stepmother of Jeremy Mayfield and a witness for NASCAR in defending its suspension of the Sprint Cup driver, was arrested Saturday night after an incident at her stepson's Catawba County house.

According to Catawba chief of police Cecil Cook, Lisa Mayfield was charged with public intoxication and had warrants issued for four counts of simple assault and second-degree trespassing...

"According to the officers she was pretty high," Cook said. "The officers took her to jail on public assistance ... to make sure she didn't cause problems to anybody or herself. The Mayfields came up [to the magistrate's office] and took charges out. She was arrested on those charges while in jail."...

Jeremy Mayfield was suspended by NASCAR on May 9 after testing positive for methamphetamines during a random drug test taken eight days earlier. He tested positive again during a random drug test taken at his home after the suspension was lifted, according to court records filed by NASCAR...

Jeremy Mayfield, in response to the court filing, argued that his stepmother's testimony was not trustworthy. He accused her of killing his father, who committed suicide in 2007, according to police reports. He also accused her of accepting money from NASCAR in exchange for her testimony. Lisa Mayfield has filed a civil suit against her stepson for defamation of character.

Ms. Mayfield did issue a statement, however, thanking the "Sears' Craftsman/Slim Jim/Old Grandad Division of the Catawba Sheriff's Office for having her arrest proceed so fast."

Stay tuned...you never know if this case may take an "unexpected" turn...as in to the right.







When your booking picture looks like a "last known photograph" it is truly a cry for help.

Totally Anticipated

Patricia Heaton, well-known Fox-News conservative.

And as one would completely expect...GIGANTIC MOR(A)N:

They've got Pat Boone (nsfw) & Pat Heaton.

The Left has George Clooney and Scarlett Johannson.

Golly, no wonder they are incredibly angry and overcompensating.