It's like Pol Pot vs. Idi Amin

Pissing match between Ann Coulter and World Nut Daily's Joseph Farah.

I bet Coulter can outspell him in the snow.

You know it's funny that

Glenn Beck and his Association of SPF-500 users can have their "rally" on the anniversary and in the same place as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" yet demand any member of an entire religious faith cannot build on the site of an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory.

Your character as character-witness

This seems rather bizarre:

Pat Buchanan, the MSNBC commentator who's no stranger to controversial statements, said today that he thinks Newt Gingrich went "too far" when he compared the developers behind the Cordoba House Muslim community center to Nazis. It's "absurd," said Buchanan. "There is no valid comparison there."

Now at first it appears that Buchanan is condemning Gingrich for his absurd and bigoted statements as unfair to the Cordoba House people...but then I remember that Pat is a bit of a Nazi-apologist. So maybe he's saying it's unfair to the Nazis?

Aw, and to think I've never listened to her ever...

Apparently Dr. Laura (Ph.D most decidedly NOT in Psychology or Psychiatry) is quitting radio because mean people have taken all the fun out of using the "N-Word".

"I'm not retiring, I'm not quitting, I feel energized, actually. Stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country."

Yes, we all need to hear more ethnic slurs, surely.

Of course she didn't give a more traditional and accurate response:

I'm leaving so I can spend more time mentally scarring my family.

I'll have you know

Brett Favre has not announced yet whether he'll play football. But he has come north -- to build a Nordic Religious Center two blocks away from Lambeau Field. Hail Odin!

BTW, how dare the Twins get in the way of Brett Favre news.

I'm so glad

I've retired from posting about Brett Favre.

All our self-proclaimed patriots choose Churchill

It's funny how many American conservatives have a Winston Churchill fetish. It makes sense I suppose. From colonialism to opposing women voting Churchill was usually wrong, but he got one big thing correct, once. Which puts him one up on most American conservatives. God forbid conservatives have any praise for the man who pretty much saved Britain's ass, Stalin? American and Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt. FDR, or as conservatives know him, the 3rd worst American of all time, right behind Barack Obama (I know, I'm surprised he qualified too) and in a case of life imitating a Simpsons episode, history's greatest monster, Jimmy Carter.

But nobody has a bigger Churchill woody than John Bolton and to be a modern Churchill there can be only one John Bolton solution, sh*t must blow up and it must blow up in one place, immediately!

August 17, 2010:

Bolton calls for Israel to strike Iran in the next eight days.

Sounds familiar...

May 25, 2010:

The way to confront North Korea, is to bomb Iran!

March 2, 2009:

Don't talk to Iran, bomb them into regime change.

May 6, 2008:

Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq.

September 30, 2007:

Bolton calls for bombing of Iran

March 6, 2006:

John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action could bring Iran's nuclear programme to a halt

To be fair, Bolton, like Churchill, is not just a one trick exploding pony:

February 26, 2009:

John Bolton at CPAC: The Benefits of Nuking Chicago

(pic from here)


[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sound the DRUDGE SIREN!!!

Exclusive photos of actual Obama swim -- it wasn't in the Gulf at all!




MUST CREDIT ATTATURK






NOOOOOO, not ATATURK, ATTAURK!!!

Can't these two assholes in New Jersey find common ground

And discuss their common experiences, like shared STDs obtained via Snooki?

Don't hold your breath

In a familiar it's already too late attempt to demonstrate that the truth is putting on its pants now that the lie has circled the globe a few dozen times -- the Upshot writes that the "Ground Zero Mosque" is 'Holy Roman Empiresque' in its definition -- as it is not at Ground Zero, nor is it a Mosque. They interview several news organizations on their lazy phrasing. It also calls Pam Geller a "conservative" when it fact she is "a complete and utter right-wing nutcase and bigot".

However, there is one unintentional piece of dark comedy to finish the piece:

The Upshot has reached out to Fox News to see if it has specific policies and will update when we hear back.

Yeah, good luck with that. A policy of being lying, douchebags is custom and practice, as opposed to committed to writing.

(pic from here)

No longer finding things in Whitaker Chambers' Pumpkins

This is a real confidence builder:

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists.

Earlier the CIA had 'SOMEHOW' erased all of it's torture porn interrogation tapes of this period. Somehow this one shows up.

I have a feeling we know who the one guy not waterboarded on video is.

Everything's coming up Corpses Roses

What an awesome idea this all was, this splendid little multi-trillion dollar war.

BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday among hundreds of army recruits who had gathered near a military headquarters in an attack officials said killed 60 and wounded 125, one of the bloodiest bombings in weeks in the Iraqi capital.

Profiles in pissed pants

Brave, brave, Sir Robine Harry Reid.

Harry, you're a Mormon, what the fuck have you guys built around Mountain Meadows?

Never Speak Ill of the Dead

Rather, let them speak for themselves.

James J. Kilpatrick, Conservative Voice in Print and on TV, Dies at 89:

“Conservatives believe that a civilized society demands orders and classes, that men are not inherently equal, that change and reform are not identical, that in a free society men are children of God and not wards of the state...” he wrote.

Read the entire obituary here.

Van Gogh died penniless...Emily Dickinson, a complete unknown

Apparently they were not orange-enough!

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Jersey Shore $30,000 per episode

This is good news for John "Boner" Boehner.

Cathy is going away...

Aw, and I was hoping it would take Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D; down when it went.

Admittedly, I haven't read any comic strip in about 15 years, but never read any of the above.

Has anyone actually known anybody that read Mary Worth or Rex Morgan?

Killing ourselves with praise

We've pretty much spent the last 30 years telling ourselves we can never criticize the military ... and now we cannot criticize the CIA except when they are not assholes.

Well, look where that's got us now:

At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.

But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.

The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.

This two pronged-strategy of bashing American Muslims domestically and firing missiles into Muslim nation's internationally -- "The Krauthammer Strategerium" sure seems like a "real winner" -- no possible blow-back at all.

She certainly has a right to her opinion

But it is disturbing that some of the news shows are so lazy that they portray all of the thousands of close relatives of the nearly 3,000 who died via the World Trade Center disaster, now nearly nine years ago, through one person. One person who is obviously entitled to her opinion, but who has been a right-winger since -- and undoubtedly was before.

Six years ago, when three 9/11 survivor spouses were critical of the Bush Administration, they could not be attacked quickly enough by the same people who now attempt to use, and are allowed to use, Debra Burlingame, to be bigots.

Pakistan's Tears

It only makes tragic sense that the area so affected by modern terrorism, fruitless unending wars, and ethnic violence -- Pakistan -- would be home of a gigantic environmental disaster.

And as ever, we are either ignoring it or complete misunderstanding it.

As people go without access to clean drinking water and basic health services, deadly cholera outbreaks can spread quickly. Other cases are suspected among the tens of thousands of people suffering from diarrhea and fever.

Revising an earlier official estimate that 14 million people had been affected by the floods, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said Saturday that 20 million -- nearly 12 percent of the population -- had been displaced.

At this point the death toll is estimated to be just under 2,000 people, but with so many people displaced and so little relief a huge cholera outbreak is imminent.

But, hey, priorities, right Washington Post?

With the Pakistani army taking the most prominent role in the government's relief efforts, concern has grown in Washington that the flood will detract from the country's battle against Islamic militants.

Hard to believe there's ever any resentment of the United States, right Villagers?

Various relief organizations can be found here.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Bullshit candidate, possible bullshit charges

Alvin Greene in the interviews I've seen looks like a guy who could use some serious psychological counseling of some sort -- or at least a job that doesn't involve politics. And he may be a political plant, or just the by-product of the short-comings of the primary process.

In any case he goes on a list of people who probably shouldn't hold office -- so in South Carolina coming up against Jim DeMint that makes two of 'em.

But I do have to wonder about these charges:

Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene has been indicted on a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student...

Greene was arrested in November after authorities say he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.

I don't know exactly what happened here, and it certainly is both very creepy and not exactly an effective "dating" technique. There could be more to this that makes it criminal, however, if he literally approached a woman and showed her the cover of a porno-tape or a Hustler, is that really a felony?

That seems a bit harsh, even if it is especially disgusting.

Always the victim, never the John

John Ensign has sent a fund-raising letter claiming the big bad liberals are out to get him -- apparently for encouraging him to sleep with his best friend's wife. All he had was a boner that needed relivin'? You know if we liberals are that powerful, why don't we have universal health care?

But I digress:

“I have taken responsibility for my actions and worked hard to become a better husband, father, friend, and senator, but I have been accused of doing things I absolutely did not do.”

Where to begin?

That mistake — this is just about sex! — did not lead to a “difficult legal battle.” Ensign is in legal jeopardy not because he slept with his wife’s best friend and his best friend’s wife — that never sounds less grotesque, does it? — but because of how he tried to cover it up, pay off the couple through Mom and Dad and then try to hush up the cuckolded husband by importuning people he regulates to hire him.

It all sounds so sleazy when it is accurately summarized.

That's nice

I could not care less about whatever bullshit passing as "wisdom" Maureen Dowd is spouting today, but via Firedoglake, we can comment on the fact that Dowd thought the trip to San Francisco for the Prop 8 trial was good for shopping.

If I may

Let me wish good luck to my chosen English Premier League team -- chosen for no logical reason.

C'mon Stoke, go Potters. Try to score a goal this season that wasn't from a throw-in!

Please feel free to comment, or ignore, on your team this year on the Opening of the season.

Better somewhat late than never

After sitting on his hands a while, Obama finally weighed in on an Islamic Community Center's wanton destruction of an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory in the general vicinity of the former World Trade Center.

Let me be clear: as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

Good!

It'll never end

But the nerds/geeks always win the pop-culture alluding day.

Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Preview - Evolution Under Attack
www.comedycentral.com
Futurama New Episodes Roast of David Hasselhoff It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Socialist hell-holes spend their way out of recession

Well, lookie here!

Those expectations went out the window early Friday, however, after national data showed Germany, Europe's largest economy, blew away already-strong expectations for growth. Germany posted a quarterly GDP expansion of 2.2% versus a forecast for 1.4% growth.

Germany's growth was fueled in large part by strong gains in industrial production as the export dynamo benefitted from a sharp resurgence in international trade amid strong demand from emerging markets. Read about Germany's second-quarter performance.

France, which grew at a 0.6% rate, also exceeded expectations.

Meanwhile, in those places like Greece and Ireland which went the austerity route Republicans seem to love so very, very much. Not so much:

Greece's economy shrank a bigger than expected 1.5% in the second quarter, flash estimates from the statistics service (ELSTAT) showed on Thursday, and analysts predicted more pain to come as austerity measures bite.

They'll never be satisfied until we bomb every brown person on Earth

Glenn Greenwald takes a metaphorical 2x4 to Jeffrey Goldberg -- who well, of course, feel nothing as he keeps pleading for somebody to bomb something:

This is what a propagandist, by definition, does: asserts any claim as fact in service of a concealed agenda without the slightest concern for whether it's true. Will the existence of a vast and menacing Iraqi nuclear program help my cause (getting Americans to attack Iraq)? Fine, then I'll trumpet that. Now, however, it will help my cause (mainstreaming an attack on Iran) to claim that the Israelis permanently ended Iraq's nuclear efforts in 1981, thus showing how well these attacks can work. No problem: I'll go with that. How can anyone take seriously -- as a Middle East expert and especially as a journalist -- someone with this blatant and thorough of an estrangement from any concern for truth?

This looks like a job for Rupert Murdoch and Roger Aisles, this Goldberg guy needs to guest on the next nine-dozen episodes of Fox & Douche!

Tomorrow belongs to all of us

(this chart makes Ben Quayle giggle uncontrollably)

While Republicans cravenly play to their base and the President and much of the Democratic Leadership cravenly stays quiet, there is some good news as pointed out at the Great Orange Satan, the social issues of the "professional left" are becoming the majority viewpoints of we mere amateurs.

Do you think gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid?
49% Yes, 51% No

Do you think gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid?
52% Yes, 46% No

So, when the average person -- a non-legal scholar -- is asked what they think the Constitution says they are split, but support for the belief that same sex-marriages SHOULD be a Right grows.

And it's growing all the time. The bulk of the support comes from people thirty-five and under who favor it overwhelmingly. So even if the Democratic establishment will not lead, they will still have to get out of the way.

But hey, in the long-run, as their base dies off, the Republicans will probably still have this guy:



Yeah, suck on that one every religious organization in the country.


(cross-posted at Firedoglake)

There's something called the "Age of Majority"

(Michelle Duggar, artist's representation from here)

But I suppose the poor Duggar kids only know about Jim Bob's version of "God's Law":

Daughters
Jana, 20, and Jill, 19, oversee cooking all the meals, changing diapers, homeschooling their siblings, giving haircuts and washing the clothes they make themselves. Every minute of the eldest girls’ days is taken up by chores, or “jurisdictions,” which Michelle assigns.

But, as Star reports in our Aug. 23 issue, a weary Jana is beginning to crack under the pressure. “For the past few months, I’ve just really been struggling with attitudes toward different family members,” Jana admits, saying she has asked the Lord to help her find strength.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there is an end in sight as Michelle and Jim Bob, who do not believe in birth control, say they are ready for Baby #20. Though the older Duggar boys enjoy the freedom to work outside the home, it seems that the girls don’t have many options to escape the burden of raising their parent's children.

The worst of us

I think there is something to be said for the notion that the very worst base-impulses of the right-wing and hell a great number of xenophobes and bigots of all stripes were probably kept in check when Bush Jr. was President, him being a white child of a powerful white father.

In fact...

'Ground Zero Mosque' Imam Was A Bush-Era Partner For Mideast Peace

I have to say though, that though this story reflects the baseness of the bigots, the headline doesn't help.

It isn't a "Mosque" and it isn't on "Ground Zero" -- its essentially a Muslim YMCA in an abandoned Burlington Coat factory two blocks away.

Things you'll never hear on FoxNews...or other cable news outlets for that matter.

Forget the wedding pictures

I want to see the Limbaugh divorce documents that have been put under seal.

MATLOCK!!!

God forbid I mention taxes, suffering is for the little people.

Ready to Rapture...

Your newest effort of Denny's to kill you:

Fried cheese melt,"made with four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread. It is served with French fries and a side of marinara sauce." It and the other new items should be available starting Aug. 24.

After you eat it, they wait five minutes then strip your corpse.

Plus, it needs mayo.

My home state...

Not much to do here sometimes:

Chef Christopher Turla earned his Davenport, Iowa restaurant a $335 ticket Wednesday after health inspectors saw a video of him kissing and licking toads in the kitchen.

If this was the South, that would have just been foreplay.

That's a lovely dress the tranny

That married Rush & Elton John is wearing.

Dear Penthouse, I'm just a Republican Candidate who went to a well-endowed private University...(hehe well-endowed)

Of course, conservatives claim to hate affirmative action, so it's a good thing their kids can trade in on their names later in life. Which brings us to Ben Quayle, son of Dan Quayle -- who is to his father as George W. Bush is to his. So give Ben some credit for being able to chew his food.

Ben is running for Congress from Arizona's Third District. When we last encountered him he had a lovely little commercial preaching family values next to his two little girls. Except, of course, they weren't his girls. A few apologies and promises to stay 1000 yards away from schools later, we have some new info about this chip-off-the-old-blockhead.

Ben is one of the founding contributors to a website called "The Dirty" (NSFW) which specializes in putting up pictures of women in various stages of disrobing and, of course, later shame. When asked about this, he lied…then later admitted it but could not remember ever writing anything in particular.

Well, we better remind him then.

Quayle posted under the Web alias “Brock Landers” and documented his quest to find the “hottest chick in Scottsdale.”

Family values.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Now this is how it's done

Florida Goober-natorial candidate Rick Scott (R-Medicare Fraud) was going to hold a press conference saying he was as ethically clean as a newborn white baby in a holiday creche when the completely schadenfreudelicious occurred!

What "FREEDOM" taste like

Is the rapture coming soon, oh pretty please:



When does General Mills counter with MethBerry Crunch?

Beardie ran away

But J-Stew (I say that because it makes it seem like I actually know him) sums up the last month in talking points succinctly.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Municipal Land-Use Hearing Update
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Of all the embarrassing and inappropriate violent crimes to be accused of

I think freaking out because there are no Chicken McNuggets available is the most embarrassing (non-Mel Gibson category).



Imagine if they were out of food?

Please run Newt, PLEASE!!!

Such a moral crusader, Newt Gingrich's second ex-wife, Maryanne:

She kind of guessed it, of course. Women usually do. But did she know the woman was in her apartment, eating off her plates, sleeping in her bed?

She called a minister they both trusted. He came over to the house the next day and worked with them the whole weekend, but Gingrich just kept saying she was a Jaguar and all he wanted was a Chevrolet. " 'I can't handle a Jaguar right now.' He said that many times. 'All I want is a Chevrolet.' "

He asked her to just tolerate the affair, an offer she refused.

He'd just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he'd given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, "How do you give that speech and do what you're doing?"

"It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."

I guess you can chalk it all up to Newt just wants to bone a Chevy Nova, oh and a gigantic fucking hypocrite.

Feeling de-based?

Ah yes, it really does appear that ol' Rahm and company including the President had the GENIUS idea that what you really, need to do is insult your already disenchanted base by spewing right-wing talking points about them.

Good job fellas, makes me want to really get out the old checkbook or work the phone list.

I make no claims to be a policy wonk, I'm just a guy who writes blog posts as therapy. But even I know it is time you guys do nothing but kiss our left-wing asses the next three months. It's what you do to avoid 24 months of checking the kerning on your certificate of live birth and investigating Michelle's socialist triceps. And just think about how it has come to that. It's reached that point even though the competition is a 'Costco Warehouse of Crazy'.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

In a World ... of Self-Important Hypocritical Asshats

...there is no Self-Important Hypocritical Asshat bigger than Newt Gingrich:

He'd just returned from Erie, Pennsylvania, where he'd given a speech full of high sentiments about compassion and family values.

The next night, they sat talking out on their back patio in Georgia. She said, "How do you give that speech and do what you're doing?"

"It doesn't matter what I do," he answered. "People need to hear what I have to say. There's no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn't matter what I live."

Read it all.

Oh, and Esquire? I wish you'd held this profile until after the 2012 RNC.

Well, this would be a nasty coincidence

Years ago, Senator Ted Stevens and his wife were involved in a plane crash that killed her. In his later career Stevens did some things that were rather creepy considering that event (declaring the vote NOT to open the Alaska Wildlife Refuge to drilling "the saddest day of my life" considering his wife died in a plane crash seemed a bit much).

Now comes information that the only recently former Senator is feared to have been involved as a passenger on another crashed flight.

I don't mean to be hyper-critical Myanmar

But your "white elephant"



Is kind of a white elephant.

Now, if you were saying he looked like Ed Asner or Bob Hoskins (the British Ed Asner), I'd agree with you.

A fitting Einstein Quote

For the Shafley family (see here), or most of the conservative movement would be:

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

Oh great!

More deluges in the greater Des Moines area. I drove by my long-term storage area where I keep the record of my legal accomplishments and deeds and the water was only three feet from overtaking them. So this added few inches of rain is well-timed.

Yeah, my life is THAT exciting.

I guess the Almighty is throwing craps after all

(Einstein shown just after Gandalf tricked him and he turned into stone - per Conservapedia, pic from j.colman at flickr.com)

Yesterday Watertiger made note of a study that America's Generation X was XIIth in the world in college degrees. As I'm at least a decade older than the nation's 25 to 34 year olds let me say "Suck It!", my generation was at least Top 5. And we didn't have Liberty U., Regent U., or even Kaplan U. (go Fightin' Strip Malls!).

I credit Art Fleming's Jeopardy over the inferior Alex Trebek's Jeopardy.

But really is this a decline in our national intellectual resources? We must bring on the analogies that disprove this finding. Conservatives you love analogies (wonder if that plays a role?) show me brains are for thinking, not eating:

Conservapedia founder and Eagle Forum University instructor Andy Schlafly -- Phyllis Schlafly's son -- has found one more liberal plot: the theory of relativity.

Oh for f**k's sake!



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Glenn Beck, he's no racist...no sirree:

Glenn Beck says that America under the Obama administration is like "the damn Planet of the Apes."

FoxNews.com is the "MySpace" of news sites

Not terribly surprising:

"Foxnews.com averages around 12 million or 13 million monthly unique users, according to Nielsen Online, rarely approaching the 35 million to 40 million uniques that leaders Yahoo News, MSNBC and CNN regularly deliver in aggregate."

I hate to rely on "analogies" because bullshit analogies are what drives most conservative thought [see, "if only we let college students have guns" and "Mexico wants to reconquer New Mexico, Arizona and California"].

However, I know a few FoxNews viewers who have the internet (or as they still call it "America On-Line"), they are the only people I know that mass-forward bullshit emails. Those people don't browse much on line, they just get their Spam of the day and forward it to the rest of us for *sighs* and *giggles* and a 30 second reply citing Snopes.com's evisceration of the bullshit.

Whistling past the graveyard

Apparently, in large part because of global warming a huge-swath of Russia is on fire. Not that anybody ever mentions it. God forbid we take any action on climate change.

Not so happy Anniversaries

Today is the 65th Anniversary of the dropping of the second-atomic bomb -- this one more powerful known as 'fat man' on Nagasaki.

This project of intertwining Google Maps and the personal stories of survivors is a brilliant and thoughtful use of technology -- and quite moving.

Just depressing

Thanks so much FoxNews...and thanks for completely not being there Anti-Defamation league.

Little minds embrace their hobgoblins

John Boehner delayed one of his 119 annual golf rounds yesterday to bring his orange-glow to Meet the Press. As usual he managed to say something ridiculous -- this time without crying.

GREGORY: Do you support efforts to have the 14th amendment amended at this point?...

BOEHNER: Listen, I think it’s worth considering. It’s a serious problem that affects our country, and in certain parts of our country, clearly our schools, our hospitals are being overrun by illegal immigrants...

Yes, some people with an identifiable skin tone not usually confined to the Wonka factory are alleged to have done something that barely effects white people but bothers some of them nonetheless.

By GOD let's change the Constitution!

Meanwhile, we cannot even get Republicans (and too many Democrats) to even read the first half of the Second Amendment. Not that it is considered polite to ask them to do so. They might level their .38 special at you for your impertinence.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sleeping Beauty on the 5:21

Dear Sleeping Beauty,

You were fast asleep when the 5:21 from Newark Broad pulled into Penn Station, your copy of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens askew on your lap. About five us tried to wake you up. I think the last of us succeeded. I wonder if that was the intensest rendezvous of your day?

xxx...res

Stupid First Amendment, interfering with God's laws

Unlike the Second Amendment which gives you the right to be an asshole with lead -- as long as you only read the last half of it.

Yes, being dictated to by the unknowable sky-god as interpreted by a large corporation, it's what the Constitution is ALL about!

There is only one issue before each of us Californians: Is Marriage of Divine or of Human Origin?

Judge Walker pays no attention to this fundamental issue

That's Cardinal Mahoney, who is clearly as good a theologian as he is a legal scholar, as our nation's divorce courts would demonstrate.

MATLOCK!!!

I do indeed sympathize with Senator Turkey-Neck and believe that rewarding Republicans for throwing gasoline on a fire will be good for the country.

...it's not like I have to hang around this place much longer.

It is Sunday

What manner of terrorist sympathizer will Tom Shales divine from Christian Amanpour today?

Quote of the Day (at least that's when I decided to note it)

"He's just obsessed with the limelight and I got played."

-

Sarah Palin on Levi Johnston -- ah, still no self-awareness

Hearts & Minds

How's that goin'?

Ten members of a medical team, including six Americans, were shot and killed by militants as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages in northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the team said Saturday...

...Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity."

Naturally this demands at least six-more months of war -- and some more stupid bigotry in kind.

Sick Stuff

Two recent articles that are well worth your time are here and here.

Good for him

Nice to see a stand taken:

"Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize," Zakaria writes in next week's Newsweek. "I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation."

However, this is not a stand at all:

Soon after the decision by District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, the White House issued a statement condemning Proposition 8 as "divisive and discriminatory" without elaborating further. On Thursday morning, presidential advisor David Axelrod told MSNBC that "the president does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples, and benefits and other issues, and that has been effectuated in federal agencies under his control."

It's never too late to do the right thing, and it would relieve more than a few of us to see you do that on occasion, Mr. President.

Putting laughable incompetence into a lack of malice defense

Andrew Breitbart seems damned determined to show malice isn't too hard to prove after all.

The Guy who taught Breitbart how to operate...

Drudge posts a big-fat lie. Posts said lie in a manner that will attract the most hits possible -- a woman's boobs.

Water is wet.

With the massive threat of Chinese Dong...

How much will we have to cut rich people's taxes to pay for protecting our carrier from missile penetration, aka "Operation Chastity Belt"?

"Ah say, we must have comity and decorum whilst I scurrilize yonder Harpy!"

Thou SHALL NOT make fun of the Right Honorable Senator Turkey-Neck, his bullshit talking points must be respected, HARRUMPH, GOBBLE, HARRUMPH!

Now back to re-writtin' the 14th Amendment and opening his mouth when it rains!

Hmmmm...

I wonder if Brett Favre has any insight on this Dong-related national-security issue?

I am so totally done with

Brett Favre blogging.

Today in failed Metaphors

For years American naval power has been able to swing it's big stick unchallenged. As our Nimitz-class nuclear carriers were thrust into every place oil was to be found in abundance international hot spot. Full of overcompensation and seamen.

But our virility is threatened.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).

This can mean only one thing. No universal health care, no infrastructure renewal, no "home-based" stimulus until we build a new form of carrier impenetrable to the Chinese Dong, or at least 'theoretically'.

This is the greatest threat to America's naval power since John McCain was on the Forrestal, so government, please spend $1 trillion dollars immediately on this necessary project immediately -- for peace.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Awesome FARK Headline

Very nice...and accurate:

Newt Gingrich Prop 8: "Congress now has the responsibility to act immediately to reaffirm marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy." Unlike his policy of one man and one woman not dying of cancer

America's Slump Buster Tries to Speak

Remaking Marriage
August 04, 2010 5:21 PM
By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Actual quote from the ruling today: “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage.”

This is a court ruling, not an academic seminar at Berkeley.

This isn’t about equality. This is about recreating our fundamental institutions.

Says the woman who's relationship experience in total is dreaming of being a barnacle during Fleet Week and getting shot down by both Mitt Romney and Rich Lowry.

If you're so obsessed with this, why am I the one with the gag reflex?

Conservatives are really obsessed with things being "jammed down their throats".

You'd think they'd lay off the "Baconators" then, wouldn't you? But I suppose they think the Medal of Honor will be forthcoming if they're brave enough to inhale one...or three.

I never really thought a good opening for the mating ritual was "I hate foreplay!", but I guess some people enjoy "thinking of England".

Just the way it was planned

If a rich white guy's daughter cannot get away with theft the terrorist will win...as we learned on 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.

Caroline Giuliani, 20, a student at Harvard University, was caught about 3:30 p.m. shoplifting more than $150 worth of cosmetics at a Sephora on E. 86th St. and Lexington Ave., sources said...

Once store employees learned who the suspect's father is, they told cops they didn't want to press charges, a source said.

OMG!

That's totally legitimate journalism, unlike this future Pulitzer nomination, which I would believe ONLY if it involved John Madden's cell phone.

As I've said before

I am totally not going to blog anymore on Brett Favre.

Well, this pretty much sums up FoxNews and their viewers approach to things

Take it away propagandistas:



Yes, who gives a shit what the Constitution says...except for the second half of the Second Amendment of course.

It's just like when they use Frank Luntz and a cast of white people to discuss the Kenyon usurper -- all in the name of fair and balanced.

Lame Madisons

Well now that a Federal Court has joined a small number of State courts and ruled that Equal Protection applies to every American, I imagine that the modern GOP will re-double its efforts to re-write the Fourteenth Amendment based upon truly valid and contemporary documents like the Donation of Constantine. Thereby undoing one of the great accomplishments of the Republican Party, vintage 1865.

In fact, I believe we have an proposed re-write of the Fourteenth Amendment right now, fresh from the office of weak-chinned strongman Mitch McConnell:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside -- except anchor babies who are not from Europe non-socialism branch, gays and gay anchor babies no matter where they are from. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Oh, and no liberals.

It's just a draft, they'll keep working until they can at least save Michelle Malkin's citizenship.

The GOP Leadership, so crazy even Alan Keyes won't go there.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Good news...

Prop 8, which banned same sex marriage, has been overturned in the Federal District Court in California.

Here's a link to the long decision.

The World's Greatest Deliberative Body

Read it and weep.

The Creative Arts

In the immortal words of George Lucas....


Star Wars XXX casts its porno Darth Vader

There is, of course, an evolution to this. Soon there will be 'Citizen Kane XXX' and 'The Battleship Potemkin XXX'.

And finally...

'Triumph of the Will XXX', where Hitler delivers one-balled money shots from his outstretched right-arm.

If nothing else, this will keep Mel Gibson in show business.

HaHa Fail

You remember the "walk your dog against Allah" protest in California?

Turned out to be rather awesome:

In the end, the people trying to stop the construction of a mosque in Temecula, California were vastly outnumbered by the crowd welcoming the growth of the Muslim community in Riverside County.

Turns out the leader of the stupid didn't even show and only one leashed dog showed up with the owner saying she was protesting because...

"many Muslims believe that the saliva of dogs is impure."

Yes, as opposed to many Christians who think dog-drool is the most awesome thing ever and sell it under the brand name "Bud Light Lime".

Gee

I sure hope Brett Favre can change his mind a few more times. Lord knows the nation's sports talk radio hosts have vast reservoirs of faux outrage to spew and he kills at least half a three hour program Monday through Friday, all three hours in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee.

I just want to announce

I've retired from Brett Favre blogging.

Another pin knocked down

Here we go:

Perry v. Schwarzenegger Prop 8 Decision Tomorrow

It is anticipated that the Judge in the California case will follow the path of the Iowa Supreme Court last year and find a right to same-sex marriages.

Causing Republicans to advocate adding another category to exclude in their proposed 14th Amendment Revisions.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, except anchor babies who are not from Europe -- non-socialism branch, gays and gay anchor babies who are not from Europe -- non-socialism branch, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Oh, and no fat chicks, though fat dudes are hereby declared AWESOME! or liberals.

Dig Deeper

Yesterday another step was taken in the building of an Islamic Community Center a few blocks away from the site of the 9/11 attacks. The matter was noted by New York Mayor Bloomberg in a powerful speech, the kind Rudy Giuliani is incapable of making, not that he won't try for a big check:

"Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values - and play into our enemies' hands - if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists - and we should not stand for that."

But the low point in this whole matter has remained the Anti-Defamation League, which took the tact, literally that "all this religious bigotry is too bad, but if the Islamic Center is built it will cause emotional harm to 9/11 victims, therefore the bigots must win".

Thankfully, this caused a lot of criticism of the ADL's position from people who can read the First Amendment everywhere. But Abraham Foxman of the ADL is not done digging.

"In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center would unnecessarily cause some victims more pain. And that wasn't right."

Once again, that logic train doesn't work so well. For example, by that logic should there have been a modern Israeli state in place of the Palestine and y'know the Palestinians that lived there?

This will "surely" build up confidence

Color me skeptical:

The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.

Of course, the report also says (undoubtedly in a smaller font)

the government remained concerned about the ecological damage that has already occurred and the potential for more

But that will almost certainly not be emphasized in the interpretations of this report.

One can't help but wonder if somebody in the government got a transfer:

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

I expect various Republican Congresspersons to demand a Constitutional Amendment mandating drilling in the National Parks any minute.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

If nothing else he knows how to kiss ass

The Uriah Heep method of maintaining employment:

Newsweek’s Fineman helped bring Harman to the table

Fineman said he's known Harman and his wife, Congressman Jane Harman, for many years. Their children all went to Sidwell Friends, the same elite school the Obama daughters now attend. Fineman said he doesn't know Harman's exact plans but described him as a "a deep guy" with varied interests in the arts and philanthropy.

If I were the Harman's I'd get tested for STDs immediately.

Alternative Universe Jon Stewart is right!

Evidence for the vault on how we went the way of the Aztecs, Incas, and the Roanoke Colony:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Wedding of the Decade of the Century of the Millennium
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

BTW, Jon are you just going to keep that Jeff Bridges beard forever?

Knock me over with a feather

America's Concern Troll, comes out with a conclusion the opposite of what I forecast.

Nineteen so-called "jihadists" crashed four airplanes that day in 2001. This is 19 out of about 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, an infinitesimally tiny percentage indeed. Nonetheless, this math is lost on the likes of, say, Rick Lazio, who is running for New York governor and, probably as a consequence, is a vociferous anti-mosqueteer. He of all people should know that it is unfair to judge an entire people by the criminal behavior of a few: capiche?...

This mosque and Islamic center were approved by the local neighborhood advisory board and have the backing of the mayor. To an alarming extent, the opponents are mostly Republican politicians -- Palin, Lazio, Gingrich and even congressional candidates in other states. They pretend to have the courage of their convictions, but the truth is otherwise. When it comes to convictions, they have none at all.

Normally, this would cause me to reassess my position, but not this time -- see immediately above.

Beaten to the Punch

In the opinion section of the Washington Post (where else, really?) comes an editorial about Hugo Chavez that undoubtedly has some ring of creepy truth, no doubt emphasized by it's creepy author:

Shortly after midnight on July 16, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez reached back in time. He presided at the exhumation of the remains of Simón Bolívar -- Latin America's greatest independence hero, who helped liberate the region from Spain in the 19th century, and the object of Chávez's personal and political obsession.

The skeleton was pulled apart. Pieces were removed, such as teeth and bone fragments, for "testing." The rest was put in a new coffin with the Chávez government's seal. Chávez, who also tweeted the proceedings, gave a rambling speech in which he asked Christ to repeat his Lazarus miracle and raise the dead once more. He also apparently conversed with Bolívar's bones.

Of course, it takes the author, Thor Halvorssen about 4/5ths of the column to tell you his cousin is running against Chavez but not that his father was a rather controversial figure in Venezuela himself -- the Post itself never bothers. It's the Liz Cheney Rule, I guess.

But the real question is, how long until the Republicans are off to Reagan Library to repeat this trick?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Okay sports fans

Over/Under that tomorrow's Richard Cohen column comes down against building a Islamic community center within several blocks of Ground Zero?

I'd say it's 80% likely.

100% it will be badly written no matter the topic.

I'd say this is beyond the pale

But anybody who has ever seen Tom Shales would know it literally is not beyond "the pale".

To tread ground maybe I shouldn't (and to trod the ground he's already tilled), let me suggest that maybe he ate Fred Hiatt?

Obscene Letters from a non-Birmingham Jail

Lindsay Lohen freed from jail...freedom comes with balance of Shark Week still at hand.

Just like Mandela.

Woman without guts to finish term of office

And who will only be interviewed by ReachAroundNews uses mispronunciation of spanish for testicles to assert Obama is a coward.

In other news, Steve Doocy's underpants are sticking to him in an uncomfortable spot.

Land of the not so free, home of the craven

Will Bunch looks at SB 1070 in Arizona and founds the right-wing has already pretty much shot both of the State's feet off...naturally leading to hate the non-white people even more, for doing to logical thing and getting away from those assholes.

The goal of SB 1070 has already been mostly accomplished -- creating a climate of fear and loathing to drive away Mexicans, and not just those that are here without documents. This law hurts everybody -- it also harms non-Mexican residents of Arizona by blowing a huge whole in their already reeling economy. And it has greatly harmed all of America, and our reputation as the kind of nation that would never codify such ugliness in our laws. And it's too late for the damage to be undone.

Nothing like listening to xenophobes and racists and hurting your own economic self-interest.

And that, is not just the nasty underside of American politics, it's the nasty underside of any Democratic system. That's not to advocate some other system, which have even worse problems -- but that doesn't mean it should not be recognized.

Let us not tweet for a moment of silence

I just hope the Pringles guy is okay.

Morrie Yohai, "an accomplished photographer, poet, professor and businessman," as well as one of the dudes that created Cheez Doodles, died of cancer at age 90.

This story, it sounds familiar

Ah, the good old days, when the government had to invade your privacy the old fashioned way. Howard Zinn, the great historian died earlier this year, TPM's Muckraker section (personally I always read TPM's sports section first) did some digging and discovered:

...the 423-page FBI file that the FBI kept on Howard Zinn, who was a life-long activist and political science professor at Boston University from 1964-1988, we discovered something interesting: someone in the upper echelons of the university's management was an FBI informer who reportedly plotted to oust Zinn in 1970.

They wanted Zinn to go, because he was against the war we were fighting then. Sadly there were plenty more stupid wars to oppose and be punished for doing so to come.

Of course, the effort to oust Zinn went nowhere, and he was right about the war too (again, sound familiar?). Those were the old days.

In contemporary America, some a-hole releases a heavily edited videotape of you and you're out before Fox & Friends is over.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Meanwhile, an Afghani Wedding and scores of dead civilians hit by a Predator Drone undoubtedly went unmentioned

BEHOLD THE JOURNALISM!!!

Freedom's just another word for "or you're out of the Will"

David Chappelle skits come to life:

Was Saturday's Uni-Tea rally in Philadelphia a success? Well, it depends on your definition of "epic fail". If you're more on the defensive end of the tea party spectrum, you would have left the rally this afternoon even more convinced that the movement is not now about race and never has been. If you're the kind of tea partier who'd like to see that abounding not-racism result in some actual demographic diversity in the movement, the Uni-Tea rally appeared to be a boderline disaster.

And a crowd well-below estimates...a couple hundred or so...

Among those who did make it, for most of the time the numbers of non-white faces could be counted on two hands, and maybe a foot.

The same can't be said for the group who went up on the event's small stage, so the small crowd listened to a variety of ringers and this...which certainly could not have done much but driven away any borderline crazy:

Uni-Tea reached out the hand of tea party acceptance to young people, too -- in the form of white conservative rapper Hi-Caliber and a band of veterans called The Bangers. "This reaches out to the 18-34 year-olds," organizer Jeffrey Weingarten said. It should be noted that Weingarten was successful in getting at least one 18-34 year-old to join him for the day: his son, Freedom Weingarten.

Freedom, undoubtedly and unironically, was compelled to attend.

The had to let her out

You can't keep Snooki in prison, she blends too well into an orange jumpsuit.

*rimshot*