Still looking for all his lost clues

This surprised you?

A guy who's pro-choice and not opposed to gay marriage caucusing with the majority part that also does...yes, really really shocking.

Vatican and Republican Approved

The World they'd love to have in the U.S. of fuckin' A:

A woman has died from blood poisoning after Irish doctors allegedly refused to perform an abortion stating ‘this is a Catholic country’. 


An investigation has been launched into the death of Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant and suffering a miscarriage and septicaemia.

The 31-year-old dentist’s husband Praveen says his wife had complained of agonising back pain when admitted Galway University Hospital.

She was found to be miscarrying, but doctors repeatedly refused to carry out a medical termination because the foetus's heartbeat was present.

Mr Halappanavar, 34, also claims that after several requests by his late wife for a termination, they were told: “This is a Catholic country.”

Abortion is illegal in the Republic of Ireland.

Via Atrios 

And speaking of the world they want -- a scientific study (the first known one) of women and abortion has been published and managed to show ever right-wing, anti-choice argument is as spurious as every other argument they make about every other subject as summarized at Balloon Juice:

• Turnaways (from abortions) were more likely to stay with their partners, and as a result, were more likely to be victims of domestic violence.

• Women in the study who were denied abortions were more likely to be in poverty than the women who had abortions.

• There was no indication of lasting, harmful mental health issues for women who had abortions when compared to those turned away. But, there was a clear finding that being denied an abortion was a risk to physical health, with childbirth being more dangerous than abortion.

And right now Rick Santorum has the biggest boner of his life.

Let's compromise

I know many of you are sick of Petraeus' stories...and so am I...as I have now run out of material (a few posts ago, but still, I've learned to spell Petraus on the first or second try).

So let's compromise.

And write about some other over-covered story of an over-rated individual.

Tim Tebow*

Tebowmania may have captivated the NFL last season, but Tim Tebow’s new team doesn’t believe that he’s a savior.

More than a dozen Jets players and members of the organization painted a sobering picture of the player who rallied the Broncos to the playoffs last season. In their eyes, he’s simply not very good.

The prevailing thought in the organization is that Tebow is nothing more than a gimmick.

“He’s terrible,” a defensive starter told the Daily News.

How terrible is he?

But most members of the Jets don’t believe that what they saw from Tebow last season is sustainable. “We can’t win running that shit,” one player said.

So, who wants Tebow to be the starter?

“Nobody,” a member of the team said.

*compromises also suck

The best article today

The Williams-Sonoma Catalog of X-mas crap that should start a revolution every god-damned year...and the comment of the year about it:

Pearls of Wisdom Everyone go to your nearest Williams-Sonoma store and grab every catalog (do they call it a catalogue?) they have. Carry at least one around at all times, so the next time any person starts talking about repealing Obamacare and how the government has no place telling rich people how to spend their money, just hand them one of these.

Morons gonna "Moronate"

Good to see that the Unskewed Polls guy had about 48 hours of reality-time before getting back to the paranoia:

(click to make bigger and more susceptible to pointing and laughing)

Those who know them best

Not only did Romney lose every "home" state he has and every one he has a home in (other than Utah) but Paul Ryan's home state too...and even the hometown:

Even though Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) won re-election at the same time he was on the national ticket, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes he was crushed in his hometown of Janesville, WI by challenger Rob Zerban (D), 55% to 44%. Ryan had never lost Janesville in a re-election campaign before. In addition, the Obama-Biden ticket defeated Romney-Ryan ticket in Janesville by a whopping 25 points, 62% to 37%.

The Legacy he should have

As Petraeus' career and prospects go up in the flames, Michael Cohen of the Guardian notes that his real legacy isn't his broken marriage vows but the Afghan surge that has failed miserably.

...it's worth remembering that when asked by President Obama, point blank, if a surge of troops to Afghanistan could turn things around in 18 months, Petraeus responded: "Sir, I'm confident we can train and hand over to the ANA [Afghan National Army] in that time frame." Petraeus was wrong – badly wrong. And more than 1,000 American soldiers, and countless more Afghan civilians, have paid the ultimate price for his over-confidence in the capabilities of US troops. And it wasn't as if Petraeus was an innocent bystander in these discussions: he was working a behind-the-scenes public relations effort – talking to reporters, appearing on news programs – to force the president's hand on approving a surge force for Afghanistan and the concurrent COIN strategy.

Of course, ultimately it is on the President, when these policies are approved and do not work, but all that death without any real achievement should have some of it also placed on its advocates and architects door. And this:

The greatest indictment of Petraeus's record is that, 18 months after announcing the surge, President Obama pulled the plug on a military campaign that had clearly failed to realize the ambitious goals of Petraeus and his merry team of COIN boosters. Today, the Afghanistan war is stalemated with little hope of resolution – either militarily or politically – any time soon. While that burden of failure falls hardest on President Obama, General Petraeus is scarcely blameless. Yet, to date, he has almost completely avoided examination for his conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

All his cultivation of the media -- which also led to his downfall -- will also ensure there is no examination of his military leadership made widely known to the public. Yet another orphan of a disastrous war.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Base

Why not just ask to secede like the slightly less crazy (but still really crazy) people?

Police say a woman who was upset over the outcome of the presidential election ran over her husband because he didn't participate in his civic duty.  Police allege Holly Solomon ran over her husband after they had an argument over the 2012 presidential election.

Holly Solomon, 28, chased her 36-year-old husband Daniel Solomon with the family Jeep SUV on Saturday night over a political argument stemming from the fact he didn't vote, CBS station KPHO in Phoenix, Ariz. reported. She pinned him between the underside of the SUV and the curb when he tried to run for help.

The husband told investigators that Solomon believed her family was going to face hardship from President Barack Obama's re-election.

Because if he had voted for Romney, the outcome in Arizona would have been no different (probably) and Romney would only have lost nationally by 1 vote less than the 3.3 million plus he's behind now.

But then again, rationality clearly has nothing to do with this.

BTW, the husband is still in critical condition.

The Petraeus thing is one "Drew Peterson" away from a Lifetime Movie

So make it happen Oprah Network!

Not only with porn-like names

But now close-in-name non-pornographic actors are getting nearly porn plots:

Gen. John Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, is under investigation for what a senior defense official said early Tuesday was “inappropriate communication'’ with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Florida who was seen as a rival for David H. Petraeus’s attentions by Paula Broadwell, who had an extramarital affair with Mr. Petraeus.

Jill Kelley had a lot of guys being really socially awkward with her.

This is opposed to the women I have dated over the years who to my knowledge have had only had to suffer one guy being socially awkward with them.

Teabaggery

The New York Times has some background on some of the characters in the Petraeus matter and one individual in particular seems right out of the Clintonian 90s with an extra-touch of teabagging douchery:

Ms. Kelley, a volunteer with wounded veterans and military families, brought her complaint to a rank-and-file agent she knew from a previous encounter with the F.B.I. office, the official also said. That agent, who had previously pursued a friendship with Ms. Kelley and had earlier sent her shirtless photographs of himself, was “just a conduit” for the complaint, he said. He had no training in cybercrime, was not part of the cyber squad handling the case and was never assigned to the investigation. 

...

 Later, the agent became convinced — incorrectly, the official said — that the case had stalled. Because of his “worldview,” as the official put it, he suspected a politically motivated cover-up to protect President Obama. The agent alerted Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who called the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, on Oct. 31 to tell him of the agent’s concerns.

This idiot has future contributor to Breitbart all over him...along with baby oil.

(via Josh Marshall)

How about a fresh round of misogyny?

Neither I nor most people know the "juicy" details of David Petraeus's love life -- in fact, I'd rather not thank you very much. But as ever there are only two stories that the national political media are capable of following. The horse race and a sex scandal -- and with the election just over... But the reaction that follows the immediate reaction of a sex scandal is always depressingly the same -- it was the woman's fault as Mother Jones summarized yesterday:

After information came to light about Paula Broadwell, the alleged mistress, Business Insider posted a piece from writer Robert Johnson, who talks to an unnamed "senior military source." The source praises Petraeus' "honor" in admitting that he was having an affair with a woman who "got her claws—so to speak—in him."

Ah yes, poor honorable General Petraeus. I'm sorry who is the person of cheap virtue here?

Prominent members of conservative, Washington-based defense think tanks were given permanent office space at [Patraeus] headquarters and access to military aircraft to tour the battlefield. They provided advice to field commanders that sometimes conflicted with orders the commanders were getting from their immediate bosses.

Oh awesome, the Kagan family does like to play soldier. And I'm sure John Bolton's advice on swinging was much appreciated...at the time.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Oh I do love my double entendres

Today's best headline from the WaPo:

ba-dum-bah!


  And when you read the article the "funny" joke becomes the outrageous one:

Prominent members of conservative, Washington-based defense think tanks were given permanent office space at his headquarters and access to military aircraft to tour the battlefield. They provided advice to field commanders that sometimes conflicted with orders the commanders were getting from their immediate bosses.

John Bolton undoubtedly was invaluable when it came to how to live the swinger's lifestyle.

Well I'm guessing it was a quiet weekend...too quiet...at the Petraeus' household

Apparently there is another individual allegedly making it a "lust" triangle, her name is Jill Kelley.

Waiting for Petreaus's other alleged intimate relationships to be exposed -- Jenny Jameson, Mary Ann Chambers, Nina Hartleby, and -- of course -- Sanka (and if you got all those references you are totally middle-aged and realizing you have wasted your life).

It is hardly a surprise

That Allan West -- for whom everything has always been logical and classy -- would be a gigantic asshole after losing a close election.

Pissing and moaning

One need look no further at the jackassery of the Papa John's pizza guy's complaining about health care reform than saying he'll cut employee hours (so a person without health insurance can make your food -- ooh, increased risk of hepatitis, good plan!) while he lives like this.

This large and over the top mansion is owned by the founder and CEO of Papa John’s, John Schnatter. The house is 40,000 square feet and it resembles a castle. One interesting feature on this 16-acre estate is the 22-car underground garage, complete with an office for valet parking, a car wash and even a motorized turn table to move limousines. The home also has a state-of-the-art exercise suite and a huge 6,000 square foot carriage house.

Pope Canute yet to google Santorum

In the wake of three more American states voting for legalized same-sex marriage bringing the number of States in this country that do so to nine plus the District of Columbia, the Roman Catholic Church is not only standing fast, but becoming bigger jerks in opposing it:

In a front-page article in Saturday’s Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Holy See sought to frame itself as the lone voice of courage in opposing initiatives to give same-sex couples legal recognition. In a separate Vatican Radio editorial, the pope’s spokesman asked sarcastically why gay marriage proponents don’t now push for legal recognition for polygamous couples as well.

That's right, they are not only opposing it, they are endorsing the Rick Santorum position of false equivalencies.  

I guess you'd expect that from folks who are clearly experienced in marriage.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Of course they do

The GOP isn't going to change until the same folks that voted in 2012 show up in 2014, the GOP base is NOT going to accept they need to change, they'll just continue their other reality:

The widely syndicated conservative radio host Mark Levin, a hero to many in the tea party movement, could barely contain his rage at the establishment after the election results were in.

"The very people who keep nominating moderates now call us purists, the way the left calls us purists," Levin said Wednesday. "And we have to hear this crap from pseudo-conservatives and Republicans."

 Again with the surreality, we do not call you purists.

The Ground Game

I have been impressed by the Obama "ground game" since they were everywhere the night of the 2008 Iowa Caucuses.  But you always wonder if their effectiveness is overstated in a general election.  You wonder, but they are.

Here's an excerpt from a discussion with an Obama campaign manager:

In describing the ground game, the official told of a conversation he had with a top field director on Monday. The GOP had tweeted that they had knocked on 75,000 doors in Ohio the day prior. Not to worry, the [Obama] director said, 'we knocked on 376,000.'

"Then the president came in, and this aide said, 'Tell him the door thing.' So he did. And the president responded, 'That's my team.'"

FoxNews....wrong again, No!

Inconceivable...the paranoid delusion that Obama orchestrated the Patreaus deal has been the trumped up phony story on FoxNews this weekend...

Who could have anticipated they'd be wrong...yet again?

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor spoke to an FBI whistle-blower two weeks ago who accused then-CIA Director David Petraeus of having an extramarital affair and potentially jeopardizing the security of classified information, according to a news report.

Cantor’s chief of staff, Steve Stombres, later spoke with FBI officials to pass on the accusations from the whistle-blower, the New York Times reported on Saturday night.

Now they're going to have to recalibrate their outrage.