Now he can pair up with Ted Nugent

On Nugent's television show...oh, right I forgot.

NBC Sports Network is dumping the show that featured a guy shooting an elephant in the face. The show—hosted by NRA lobbyist Tony Makris—isn't being canceled for that episode with the elephant shooting, exactly (though that didn't help). Instead it's because Makris compared his critics to Hitler earlier this week. He said of his supposed critics: "And now they're shocked. And they said but they're so big and special and they're smarter. And I went, you know, Hitler would have said the same thing." That didn't go over well.

Of course, given that NBC Sports Network is the home of the English Premier League (up yours Barclays!) they could have given him a competition show where the power of his arsenal is compared to the strength of Luis Suarez's chompers.

Apparently

Being a Republican Politician is the only job one ever willingly enters when you absolutely hate your profession.

Other than National Review online contributor or 18-year old pornstar of course.
 

Do it Again

The Republican Party, now run by the crazy uncle who sends you the emails that keeps Snopes.Com in business, has not yet begun to have a fit.

Undeterred, House Republicans pressed ahead with their latest attempt to squeeze a concession from the White House in exchange for letting the government open for business normally on Tuesday. "Obamacare is based on a limitless government, bureaucratic arrogance and a disregard of a will of the people," said Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind.

Another Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, reacted angrily when asked whether he would eventually support a standalone spending bill if needed to prevent a shutdown. "How dare you presume a failure? How dare you? How dare you?" he said.

Well "open meltdown" is an interesting tactic. But I guess it just goes with the program.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wreckin' it Boehner style

He is, after all, their leader:

No right-wing whack-job who advocates war crimes

Ever remains unemployed. 

Elizabeth O’Bagy, the foreign policy analyst who helped convince Senator John McCain to bomb Syria (and was later fired for lying about having a doctorate from Georgetown) has a new job: an analyst for John McCain. Congrats!

If only Hitler had limited his atrocities to people of color (a model Mussolini wanted followed) he'd have had been left alone by the west for a long career as German Chancellor -- and probably have Ann Coulter write a book full of faulty footnotes to praise him.

Good deal

I do not do a whole lot of media commentary, because "who gives a shit, right?" but I'm glad "Bob's Burgers" was renewed for an additional year before this year's season even starts. For those of you looking for a well-written show to binge upon on Netflix, you cannot do much better.

It's 2013...somewhere else

But not in Qatar. Good job FIFA!

Qatar's construction frenzy ahead of the 2022 World Cup is on course to cost the lives of at least 4,000 migrant workers before a ball is kicked, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has claimed. The group has been scrutinising builders' deaths in the Gulf emirate for the past two years and said that at least half a million extra workers from countries including Nepal, India and Sri Lanka are expected to flood in to complete stadiums, hotels and infrastructure in time for the World Cup kickoff. The annual death toll among those working on building sites could rise to 600 a year – almost a dozen a week – unless the Doha government makes urgent reforms, it says.

That's Panama Canal level.

Who could have anticipated...other than everyone?

I guess it stunned somebody that a notorious idiot, would act like an idiot:

Former congressman Allen West, who was hustled out of the military before being hustled out of Congress after one term, is now also leaving his job at right-wing news outlet PJ Media. And this time the tireless Israel supporter is being accused of anti-Semitism. BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray reports that West is out as director of programming for PJ Media's NextGeneration.TV. Gray's sources tell her West was fired after getting into an argument in which he called an employee a "Jewish American Princess" and told her to "shut up."

When you get fired from a "quality" position like PJ Media...

A Cunning Plan

"Hey, America, this is the NSA, remember that time we listened in on you as you called that 900 number and used your passwords to that porn site you like? Yeah, good times right? Remember how we're pals?"

The day before he is to begin a series of public hearings on Capitol Hill, [Director of the NSA General Keith] Alexander said in a speech at the National Press Club: “We need your help. “The American people have to weigh in and help us get the tools we need to defend this country,” Alexander said.

Hey, maybe a new control room that looks more like Joss Wheden's Enterprise instead of Gene Roddenberry's will do the trick? [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Republican "outreach" seems to involve a clenched fist

Something to match their sphincters:

"We have some real opportunities in 2014," Hickey said Tuesday. "This is a great year in an off-presidential election. Seemingly no Democrat on the top of the ticket against [Gov. Brian] Sandoval. No Harry Reid. Probably where we had a million voters turn out in 2012, we'll have like 700,000. A lot of minorities, a lot of younger people will not turn out in a non-presidential. It's a great year for Republicans."

So it comes down to this...fewer voters is better for Republicans.

DEMOCRACY in inaction!

Most projectionist projection of all projections

I'd call it performance art, but that requires at least a modicum of talent.

In an interview Wednesday shortly after his 21-hour talkathon to defund Obamacare had come to an end, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) lamented to shock jock Rush Limbaugh that too many lawmakers think their constituents are naive.

"They think their voters are gullible rubes," Cruz said in the radio interview.

And then they hit the cough button had a good laugh and muttered "thank goodness".

And ....who cares?

I remember when I was a kid and they were still stuffy old-money white guys (and Ted Turner) racing in single-hulled ships and people sort of cared.

Now I'm old and I just demand those catamarans get off my fucking lawn (or pier).

Because Sharks are no longer interesting enough to scare us...

We have found a new scary monster!

Although it's native to the Amazon, a testicle-eating fish species called "Pacu" has been turning up in places including Denmark, France and Illinois. 

Now, a large Pacu has been found in northern New Jersey, just more than 10 miles outside New York City. 

Retired bus driver Tom Boylan hooked a 10-inch-long Pacu on Saturday at Third Ward Veteran's Memorial Park in Passaic, N.J., according to The Bergen Record, which posted a photo of the fish.

Pacu have wide teeth shaped like molars and strong jaw muscles that allow them to crack open tree nuts and other tough aquatic foods. Somewhat terrifyingly, however, the fish have been known to mistake human testicles for tree nuts. Two men in New Guinea reportedly died from blood loss after a Pacu chomped on theirs.

Okay, two additional things we've learned from this article:

1.  It doesn't actually eat testicles...deliberately.

2.  The Amazon is so long it not only flows through much of South America...but also half-way around the world, through the Pacific and into New Guinea (logically even were this true,  I have the technicalities of the river's flow wrong, but in the spirit of the article just go with it).

Oh, and a bit of research reveals what the Huffington Post apparently could not suspect well enough (New Guinea and Amazon and no suspicion at all, huh?) that this "testicle-biting" is all a big ole hoax.

Maybe Ted Cruz should talk about it...seems factually accurate enough for him.

Oh well...another year

Another failure to obtain a MacArthur Genius Grant.

Ladies and Gentlemen, YOUR REPUBLICAN INTELLECTUALS

Notice how the attempted Right-Wing meme for outrage wasn't going to be the accuracy of the claim, but that Obama has been given special "Twitter" privileges.

Oh the Wurlitzer.


Via Balloon Juice.

Because "Just like the Holocaust" was just a bit too much to analogize

Our wealthy gamers of the system, always the first to decry "victimology" unless, of course, you are their victim.

The uproar over bonuses “was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that-sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.

Other than lynchings ACTUALLY happening; and being a group of people deprived of political power and wealth it is so strikingly similar.

(pic via monkey_bob99x at flickr.com)

Huzzah!

America has now officially created more Islam espousing international terrorists than Saddam's Iraq, who we allegedly invaded for ties to international terrorism.

Saudi Arabia, having a giggle.

Just add this to the list

Of Tennessee's long tradition of assholery...from making teaching evolution to making particular religions illegal to Instacracker to just being assholes.

Married same-sex couples who live in Tennessee, where gay marriage is banned under the state constitution, are being denied name changes on their driver's licenses, the Tennessean reported Saturday.

But if Riley J. Cornpone wants to change his name to Asshole P. Loudly NO PROBLEM!

What can austerity do for you?

If you are in the country imposing it on others, it can help you get re-elected.

Chancellor Angela Merkel scored a stunning personal triumph in Sunday’s national elections in Germany, becoming the only major leader to be re-elected twice since the financial crisis of 2008 and winning strong popular endorsement for her mix of austerity and solidarity in managing troubled Europe.

But if you are in a country that had austerity imposed upon it...

Golden Dawn, which has seen its popularity soar on the back of debt-stricken Greece's worst crisis in modern times, has not only set up a military wing but is actively training its members in the art of combat. "In Golden Dawn we have an entire military structure with at least 3,000 people ready for everything," one member was quoted as saying by the Sunday Vima newspaper. Pictures of recruits in camouflage and balaclavas conducting night exercises in clandestine camps were published in another leading daily on Monday. The paper, Ethnos, claimed the men, some of who were armed with knives and wooden clubs, were being trained by members of Greece's elite special forces who sympathise with the ultra-nationalist party.

Short-term planning wins again.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

A brave, brave man

But...of course:

George Zimmerman is in hiding now to avoid being served with the divorce papers that Shellie filed -- which is hindering the proceedings and therefore putting a damper on her plans to end their marriage.

Maybe Wayne LaPierre should be the process server?