But this may sum it up even better

From Alex Pereen at Gawker:

On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as "great" as Glenn Beck. They just felt like shit. They felt scared and confused and depressed. Many of them were drunk. And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like it was 9/12/01. And eight years later, normal people, with brains and souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.

So thank fucking christ that the Commander in Chief is no longer subjecting the nation to death porn.

No, this year it's limited to a nutty little cult leader on basic cable who is encouraging his radicalized band of fanatical followers to invade the cities where the tragedy actually happened in order to shock the populace back into fear.

Glenn Beck is an actual terrorist, and the people attending his rally in DC tomorrow are al-Qaeda in America.

I remember 9/12 thank you very much

Disgust, shock, revulsion, anger, etc. All while living no where near Manhattan, rural Pennsylvania or the Beltway.

It certainly wasn't about questioning who was President or labeling other Americans traitors, socialists, or bitching about my taxes.

This sums up the whole Beckian bullshit quite well:

I was at home in Brooklyn, holding my six-week-old baby on the couch, when I saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center on TV. I watched the smoking pit of the ruins from the roof of my apartment building as bits of memo paper and ash drifted on the winds to my neighborhood. I was there on 9/11, and 9/12, and 9/13. You'll excuse me if I don't feel warm nostalgia for the lingering smell of burnt airplane fuel, and metal, and bodies.

Nor, of course, does Beck. What he purportedly wants is to bring back our feeling of "unity." I remember that feeling. After 9/11, I remember hardcore liberal New Yorkers rallying behind Rudy Giuliani, saying nice things about President Bush when he spoke at the WTC ruins. I remember thousands of American flags being flown out of apartment and brownstone windows, not as political statements or in the you-better-prove-your-patriotism spirit of flag pins and Freedom Fries, but simply because we felt we Americans were all in this together.

So since March, what has Glenn Beck been doing to re-establish that sense of nonpartisan national brotherhood? Calling President Obama a racist, declaring that the government was bringing fascism upon us, asking his fans to dig up dirt on political figures he doesn't like, and predicting civil-war-like uprisings. Because that's how you bring people together.

None of us have a unique claim on the meaning of 9/11, or 9/12. The fact that I was in New York on 9/11 does not make my views about anything that's happened since more valid than anyone else's. (If you were in Montana on 9/11, your views are just as legitimate as mine.) Millions of us were here, and we drew millions of different lessons from that day...

You want to bring back the feeling of national unity and civility, Glenn Beck? You could start by not using this tragedy as your personal political platform.

A short history of exploitation

9/11 wasn't just used to invade countries with no relation to the event so we could kill several times more brown people over the 3,000 we lost that day. Because surely that would be an awesome memorial to innocent people -- to get even more innocent people killed in their name.

No, it was also a time to display the absolute BEST in American artisitic license and exploitative capitalism.

And thus, in memory of that day tonight, make sure you eat your nachos off your Commemorative Plate.

The Place for Crying Men, Jagoffs, and Perverts

Has now, along with Geraldo, become cable's home for the smarmy man with the "porn 'stache".

John Stossel finally lands on the appropriate mothership, FoxNews.

Get a Construction worker and Ron Christie and you'll have the Village People.

All I know is

If 9/11/01 never happened, but the same thing happened on 9/11/09, the GOP and blue dogs would try to have impeachment papers over to the Senate by the time Obama got back to DC.

Naw, forget that, they'd just insist the plane be diverted straight to GITMO.

Y'know I was thinking about buying the Beatles Guitar Hero for the PS3

But suddenly I don't.



On the other hand some Stay-Puft marshmallows sound tasty.

Whatever happened to that guy?

You know the one everyone blamed and needed to be punished for what happened all those years ago?

I sure miss that Al Gore.

Chuck Todd is obsessed with fetishes

Oh deary, when we liberals want just a little something for the poor and middleclass it's a fetish.

Yet the GOP wanting to invade nation after nation, and being for TORTURE is just a reasonable policy position.

Hey, Chuckles, if you are so into "fetishes" may I suggest you wear a ball-gag?

Shorter Michael Duvall

I'm not a sexual degenerate banging a one-eyed lobbyist and someone else while married.

No, I'm just an big ol' outrageous liar.

And I can just imagine how that went over with Mrs. Duvall.

Who is a liar now?

Joe Wilson, we've not learned that even his name is a lie.

Real name?

Addison Graves Wilson, Sr.

I bet he's all the shit at his restricted country club.

How do you get "Joe" out of that?

Well, you don't. You just make it up.

Looks like Broder is collecting honoraria again

From the insurance industry. Seems he can afford to gum quail with Karl & Darby Rove again:



The sexual tension will be so thick you can cut it with a knife. Darby's going to have to be ditched somehow.

Great News Everyone

Andy Card wants to run for Senator in Massachusetts.

Andy's very popular there:

Having a laugh

Well-healed tool Karl Rove seems to have thought it was HILARIOUS that Joe Wilson lashed out at the President.

Which is funny, because the last time a Joe Wilson lashed out at a President, Rove outed his wife as a CIA Operative, which truly was a knee-slapper.

Well this pretty much summarizes yesterday

Shorter Dana Milbank

HARRUMPH! (smirk) HARARUMPH!

The gentlemen needs to save his phoney baloney job.

Just wondering

Are the "morans" waving non-bills:


Comprised of some of the same idiots that did this?

Saved by a Dumbass

From Preston Brooks to Mark Sanford, South Carolina has a proud tradition of electing right-wing thugs. So Wilson, last seen floating away form Tom Hanks, has kept the tradition alive.

So, how many hours into the day will Harry Reid squander it?

UPDATE: More information on Wilson!

"I apologize if you were offended"

That's the take from the sports columnist in Orange County, California (and other than Florida or South Carolina where else?) who thought a kidnapped, raped, abused 29 year old woman should hear after 18 years in captivity. G-E-N-I-U-S!

This guy really should be a right-wing member of Congress with an apology like that.

Holy Crap!

Just...HOLY...CRAP!

Apparently it is not just National Review and George Will that cannot afford editors. This may be the most tasteless column idea I ever heard of. WOW!

A sports column reminiscing about all the sporting events a kidnapped (and raped and imprisoned and otherwise abused) child missed on the way to having their life completely fucked over.

WOW, why some editor didn't put his arm around this moron and suggest -- "maybe a different literary device than this one?"...


I knew Orange County, California was rather fucked up, but between this guy and Representative Eye-patch banger it has been a banner day.

Republican hypocrites

Fucking you while fucking others drawn together to fuck over their love of fucking you over.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most delightfully hypocritical "family values" Republican ever!

Explains so much...

TBogg visually demonstrates the requirement for getting a job at the National Review Online.

I think he underestimates it.

People in a coma are "nuetral" they don't detract from anything.

Folks like Andy McCarthy and Jonah Goldberg actually make all conservatives appear to be less than coma-patients in that they are in error, malicious, and yet, get paid for the honor.

At least if you are in a coma, someone isn't paying you.

But then again, I've never inspected K-Lo's w-2s.


On the other hand though he has branched into regularly twatting (textually) Jonah's alacrity with the written word remains unsullied by talent.



Turth? You cannot handle the Turth, Jonah.

But I'm sure the "turth" is out there somewhere. I'm sure you want to "beeleave".

Two of 50 reasons (or more) to despise Politico that don't involve Mike Allen

When not fellating Drudge by posting dog-whistles for links, they are more than happy to portray Washington, D.C. in exactly the right way to make the rest of us hate it.

Which only serves to further keep the villagers from knowing fuck-all.

9/9/9

Somewhere Roland Emmerich is inspired to write seven or eight lines of dialogue surrounding several explosions that almost destroy the earth.

...or more likely cutting and pasting his last script.

Staying Bought

When introducing his bill, Max should first thank his sponsors before saying anything like a NASCAR driver -- except for turning left of course.


In the David Broderian-sense, Max Baucus is the most honorable of politicians -- he and his staff are loyal to the "right" people. They've been bought and they're staying bought. The White House has not seen his plan, it is not clear how many senators have seen his plan, but he and his key staffer, a former Health Insurance executive have shown it to the groups that own him:

ROBERT GIBBS: I was told that — that K Street had a copy of the Baucus plan, meaning, not surprisingly, the special interests have gotten a copy of the plan

(pic via Meldroc2000)

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Barbara Bush sensitivity award goes to...

Right-wing idiot poster boy, Jack Kingston:

Kingston Claims Health System Worked ‘Very Well’ For Bankrupt Cancer Survivor Without Insurance

Yes, it sure worked out very well for the guy with cancer and no insurance.

Arbys, Macht, Frei

Robert Stacy McCain, whose existence serves no higher purpose than not only making John McCain look good in comparison, but also his "911" dial-happy brother, has an idea why all those jews are so liberal and what should be done about it:

If Messrs. Podhorhetz, et al., wish to promote conservatism among American Jews, let them find some way to encourage Jewish families to move to small towns in the Heartland, where their kids can grow up hunting, fishing and hot-rodding the backroads.

Yes, get those jews to move into rural areas...where have I heard this before?

It's more than disheartening

It's a level-11 bit of infuriating when "villagers" start spouting right-wing bullshit out of ignorance and then top it off by saying "how dialed in" they are on the issue.



Brokaw's statement is absolute bullshit. The preliminary CBO estimate said the public option would save $150 billion. Meanwhile reality is, health care reform without a public option would be more expensive than health care reform with a public option.

Every village needs an idiot, but must the village be full of them?

It is amazing how punditry is a well-paid position where accuracy is not so important not rocking the boat of your fellow villagers.

Getting by in this world with things like health insurance, a retirement, and less than 2,000 square feet to raise your brood is for the little people, the silly people, the non-village mass known as the American People.

And if you're not a member of the village, well just too far beneath the elite to be dealt with in non-petty manner.

Do not criticize Jonathan Alter, or he'll bite -- or more realistically paddle his hands at you really fast. Remember you've been PWNED Glenn Greenwald:



Pat Buchanan's just a gruff-ol' Nazi apologist, but he's just peaches with Jonathan Alter compared to a dirty effing hippie and his blog.

Well, at least we know there's another person on earth that can be as sanctimonious as Joe Klein.

Allow me to interpret the indoctrination

The text of the speech is blah blah blah "stay in school" blah blah blah.

But as they say, and by they I mean she, and by she I mean only Michelle Malkin because, well...it's the subtext, the indecipherable actions and noises detectable only to feral hamsters, three-legged wombats, Glenn Beck and Malkin, that matters.

And here is the subtext of Barack Obama's speech to children to turn them into little Che Gueveras wearing eponymous t-shirts.

In Morse Code the President will repeatedly blink out "A-l-l-a-h-u-a-c-k-b-a-r".

So now you know. If you hadn't stayed in school, grad-gee-ated. and "done been learned" you would know these things.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tough day for John McCain & David Broder

The "WE" network and the "Hallmark" network are having competing "Golden Girls" marathons.

Your Democratic Minnesota Senator

Al Franken's gotten a lot of well-deserved praise with his ability to make the shouters take part in a respectful conversation. But as a Minnesotan entering his mid-40s this Al Franken story told by another Minnesota icon of my youth, Fran Tarkenton made me smile:

I did "Saturday Night Live" back in the days when John Belushi was there and Bill Murray was there and the guy who wrote all my scripts that night was your U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken. I gave Al my No. 10 jersey. About 10 years ago, I was in LaGuardia Airport and saw Franken. He had my No. 10 jersey on.

I'd say Happy Labor Day

But I'd be accused of being a socialist nazi communist athiest muslin trying to indoctrinate our youth and be forced to resign my position from this powerful blog.

Damn straight

Jon Taplin of TPM Cafe makes good use of a graphic. Maybe Obama should take a moment during his address to Congress and say, "Excuse me while I whip this out":

Two Americas

One Party has no shame, the other Party acts like it has something to be ashamed of.

Oh, by all means, no need for a public option

Since the health insurance industry is pretty much a bunch of regional monopolies:

In the past few days, 114,000 Michigan households have received bad-news letters from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, socking individual health insurance subscribers with premium increases averaging 22%, effective Oct. 1.

Blue Cross could have said, "Hey, things could have been worse. We asked for a 56% rate hike first and dialed it back to 22%" -- but that probably would have just made folks angrier.

Instead, the Blue Cross letters simply stated, "We know every Michigan resident faces financial challenges, and we thank you for your business and loyalty to the Blues."

Like they had a fucking choice.

If I may say...

After seeing the commercial far too many times (which I believe would be once) if a Pizza Hut delivery driver happens to run his branded "Ford Focus" into Jim Brewer, I will loudly squeal in glee, JACKPOT!!!!

(BTW, Jim Brewer? Was Dane Cook too expensive?)

From Zoe Baird to Van Jones

There's just no right-wing jihad the press won't pick up and a Democratic Administration won't cave to. The nuttier and more loathsome the complainer, the better.

Van Jones was run out of office because this guy:

Yes, THAT GUY, had a fit.

A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Yep

Shorter Republicans:

We must ban Obama from indoctrinating students with his point of view...and while we're at it, we must bring back prayer in schools and teach creationism.

By 2012

The GOP will have daily shit fits over Obama indoctrinating people with his frequent campaign appearances.

How...dare...he!

Unforgiveable Blackness

Yeah, it's totally Obama's fault he wants to give a platitudinous talk to school children...how dear he indoctrinate them with his socialistic melanin. The nerve, the NOIVE!!!

Let the lead decrying Republican show you it how it's done:

There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

"Republicans get up and go to work," he would tell his son. "Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks."

This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.

That man is Jim Greer — the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama's "indoctrination."

One Seminole County mother, Barbara Wells, remembers the day Greer spoke to her son's sixth-grade class. "My son said he made some sort of Hillary Clinton joke," she recalled.

IOKIYAR & W.

(via Swampland)

Try to stay calm

Let's not panic too much or have any rioting here in the United States over the World Cup qualifier between Moldova and Luxembourg or Austria vs. the Faroe Islands (you cannot stop Frodi Benjaminsen you can only hope to find him on Wikipedia).

I slept late

Sorry,

Anything exciting happen while I was sleeping?

Did Boehner and Beck find a tenor and alto bass for their crying-shop quartet?

Skills

Okay, does Jonah Goldberg's older, more charismatic brother remind anyone of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite?

Taking Advantage

You know those people that used to get exposed for ripping off older people through aluminum siding scams and taking advantage of them during their syndicated half-hour of faith healing?

Well, they now reside in the GOP and they're called congresspersons.

Here's a REAL death panel

They're called insurance companies:

Researchers from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee analyzed data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six insurers rejected 45.7 million claims -- 22 percent of all claims.

For the first half of 2009, as the national debate over healthcare reform was escalating, the rejection rates are even more striking.

Claims denial rates by leading California insurers, first six months of 2009:

• PacifiCare -- 39.6 percent
• Cigna -- 32.7 percent
• HealthNet -- 30 percent
• Kaiser Permanente -- 28.3 percent
• Blue Cross -- 27.9 percent
• Aetna -- 6.4 percent

Of course, every dollar they don't have to pay is another dollar they can stuff into the pocket of a Congressperson against a public option.

As it was succintly put in the DKos post:

If the private insurers are not paying for care, why do we have private insurers?

Dear Mr. President

As I've said before: I know this is fucked up, you know this is fucked up. But in America fucked up is how we roll.

Seriously, what the hell is the moral justification for this?

"They want to kill us?"

Including the scores of civilians? Does presumed intent make explicitly wrongful acts psychologically justifiable? Do we just get to slop on immoral intent to carry out absolutely immoral acts and get a free pass because we're bigger and stronger and therefore more moral?

And could there be a more tragic symbolism than "they were stealing gas"?

Fucked up is how we roll.

Speakin' to school kids

Is a job for Republican Presidents only - based on past precedent.

Excellent Question

From a TPM reader:

How long did it take the right to go from: "if you criticize the President you are a traitor" to "School children should not trust the President."

(pic via Digby)

Slow learner

Yesterday we learned that NRO SENIOR EDITOR Jay Nordlinger doesn't really follow the news much before he pontificates about what ALWAYS happens.

And he "done got learned".

Or not:

Another pet theme, or pet peeve, of mine has to do with “safe zones” — my recent term for zones free of partisan politics. (These might include concerts, church, city tours . . .). A reader wrote me to say that he was sick of the intrusion of politics into the sports pages — hear, hear. Been singing this song forever. Those politics always — always — come from the left.

I guess Jay picked the wrong day not to listen to Rush Limbaugh:

CBS golf analyst David Feherty: "[I]f you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it ... there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death."

Yeah, always -- always -- come from the left alright.

Nobody can stop Pat Buchanan

You can only hope to keep his hands off your lebensraum.

The world according to Pat:

Poor Hitler, he didn't want war -- and then the British and French made him kill all those Jews, Gypsies, Socialists, Gays, and Slavs, invade Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and Norway.

Is Pat going to Berlin to play Franz Liebkin in The Producers?

Hitler... there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon! TWO coats!

On Reaping & Sowing

This is the funniest headline I've read all summer:

Conservatives See Need for Serious Health Debate

The roiling debate over health care this summer has included a host of accusations from opponents of the plan that have been so specious that many in the mainstream news media have flatly labeled them false.

Far from embracing the attacks, many leading conservative health care policy experts said in recent interviews that the dynamic was precluding a more robust real-world debate while making it nearly impossible for them to inject their studied, free-market solutions into the discussions.

And they said the focus on what they consider misleading or secondary issues was getting in the way of real questions about the plan they believed worthy of consideration.

To which I say, (a) "Good" and (b) "Too fucking bad".

Go whine to the people who bring guns to "Town Halls" in an attempt to intimidate members of congress. Go whine to Michelle Bachmann as she leads a phalanx of your Republican bretheren in a mass ritual wrist-slitting protest. Go whine to the "Christian" pastor who prays for the president's death from brain cancer. They're all Conservatives and Republicans and they are your base. These degenerates were useful to you once and so you embraced them. Now, you own them. And when the country hears the words "Republican" they imagine a face like this screaming about "Death Panels". Oh, you're "Conservative" and not "Republican". Sorry: they're one and the same. You're upset because the Larouchies are dominating the "debate" on your side? Get over it. Shrieking from your people about Obama wanting to kill granny makes you cringe? Tough.

Get your base under control and maybe someone, somewhere, someday will take you even remotely seriously. Until then, get yourself a razor blade and go pay Michelle Bachmann a visit.

P.S. The NYT reporters ought not flatter themselves with tales about having labeled conservatives health care claims false. From what I can see, that happened exactly once.

P.P.S. "Studied free-market solutions"? BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Moran v. Moran

The thing I know with certainty about Sarah Palin and Levi Johnson is that I really don't like either one of them, never did like her, learned to dislike her even more -- have grown from having no opinion other than some small sliver of sympathy, to not liking the latter. He's as a much a cipher as his near mother-in-law.

The only real battle is who I dislike more. Though I also know, Sarah Palin is the far more dangerous idiot.

The leveraged marketplace of ideas

BEHOLD! The Renaissance Personages of the Right.

In a typically thorough post by Glenn Greenwald (only a Joe Klein could disagree) takes on NRO Senior Editor Jay Nordlinger and others who went into histrionics over the notion of a few celebrities saying nice things about public service and its association with the President of the United States.

Well, we cannot have the current Chief Executive be part of any bromides without him being called a cult figure, or Hitler.

Greenwald gives chapter and verse over the hypocrisy of this notion. To his credit Nordlinger sort of backed down in light of the evidence. However, this statement of Nordlinger, as Glenn noted, really stood out:

Greenwald spends some time on two figures in particular: Angela Williamson and Monica Goodling, appointees at the Justice Department. I regret to say that I had never heard of either of them, or their doings. It’s not that my memory is “either very short or very selective.” It could be that I’m not always a very attentive reader of the newspapers.

Um, you are the Senior Editor of a conservative publication about POLITICS. Now, based only on observation, it is quite possible NRO hands out "Senior Editor" titles profligately but there is more media out there than FoxNews & Rush Limbaugh.

(pic from here)

UPDATE:

Nordlinger apparently doesn't read his own magazine or blog either.

MATLOCK!!!

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

Levi Johnston, Public Servant

Christ, Sarah Palin is even worse than previously thought.

Update: as usual, Gawker nails it.

Part of the Problem

TPM Reader FC hits the nail on the head.

Honest to God, this is why I've had to stay away from the blogs these past few weeks. Kneejerk reactions to anonymous sources, hysteria amped-up by rumors, five-minute manic/depressive gyrations arising out of the prognostications of the world's worst pundits. It's exhausting.

Labor Day starts now. Turn off MSNBC. Don't click that Politico link. Stop reading all manner of bullshit. Go outside and enjoy the unofficial last weekend of summer.

Well, well, well

Here's something that can be regulated and there's no 2nd Amendment restriction whatsoever:

A new report from UC Davis researchers finds that American gun shows are the leading source of guns used in crimes, not just in the United States, but Mexico and Canada as well.

The undercover study by UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program is called "What Goes On When Everybody Thinks Nobody Is Looking". The report includes hundreds of hidden-camera photographs and video taken from 78 gun shows in 19 states.

The report shows the two-thirds of gun sales at gun shows are through licensed vendors. The others are sold through unlicensed vendors or private gun show attendees, who do not have to do background checks or file any paperwork. The study state that 85% of recovered crime guns have gone through at least one private party transaction following their initial sale by a licensed retailer.

Other than the NRA's patented spaz attack there's no Second Amendment problem in requiring paperwork and background checks at gun shows. And if this study is verified there's no way public safety won't trump any argument the NRA wants to make.

But, sadly, nobody will have the guts to do such a thing.

Yeah, that's right...

Wingnuts (is Lou Dobbs on this one yet? He cannot resist Nancy Pelosi fiction) -- Nancy Pelosi banned patriotic music on Congressional phones while you're on hold all so she can mandate this replace it:




You tell me that doesn't rock!

Unexpected Tweets (I'll keep it clean)

Vol. 1:



But what are your opinions on the public option?

I'm posting this confident in what I'll find

I'm tired and for today at least my creativity is not being found in the coffee.

Let's just go to the ol' dependables and see what I can find (6:33 a.m. central time).


(6:35 a.m.) Meh, she's done unintentionally funnier.


(6:38 a.m.) Yeah, vodka vs. rum, no difference if you're an idiot. Still, seems more like a question for Jenna Bush, but all-in-all just rather sad, as opposed to humorous. Although it may explain Larry King's love life -- now I need to drink.

Man, I'm going to have to dig deep this morning. This voyeurism is becoming harder work than I anticipated:



(6:41 a.m.) Yeah, you never know when someone's out to get your Whitman's Samplers.


So in summary, things are lame all-around right now.

Things I'm pretty confident of

That years ago CNBC resident genius Maria Bartiromo was intimately familiar with the drinking-age restriction of her home state.

After that, nothing apparently.

Clearly a well-qualified business journalist for CNBC though:

In March, 2006, Bartiromo appeared as a contestant[1] on the game show Celebrity Jeopardy!. She was matched against CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper and Kweisi Mfume, President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. After two rounds Bartiromo finished with $0, having only attempted to answer two questions in the Double Jeopardy round, and answering only one correctly. Because her balance of $0 following the Double Jeopardy round would have made her ineligible for the Final Jeopardy round, Maria was 'gifted' $1,000 in order to keep playing. Maria answered the Final Jeopardy question incorrectly, and finished the game with $300 of the $1,000 she had been 'gifted'. Her charity was awarded $10,000, as per custom.

How it will all go down

Um, hooray?

President Obama is planning for “a new season” of more hands-on advocacy for his troubled domestic priority, an overhaul of the health care system, according to his advisers. Among the likely steps would be a nationally televised speech that close allies have urged, and a 10-year price tag for the overhaul below the $1 trillion mark.

At this point, unless he breaks a couple of beer bottles and says, "Alright, who wants some?!" I'll probably be underwhelmed...well, whelmed at best.

Here's the deal, he'll make a speech, he'll be all rational as he disappoints his base who has no real alternative, the right-wing will make up some new series of crazed bs that "nobody anticipates" the media treats it seriously and nobody wins except in the Pyrrhic sense.

Or not, as I need to end on an optimistic note for no particularly logical reason.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

No one could have anticipated

Truly the Brett Favre of uterus's.

The Duggars due to plop out 19th child from the Jesus Hatch, will have to move beyond golf course analogies to field full offensive and defensive football teams.

CEO of The Jerk Store, Inc. writes a memo

This may be the saddest most pathetic thing I've ever seen posted at a major news organization's blog. Unless you consider "Townhall" or "FoxNation" major news organizations.

Behold the trifecta of petulance, pomposity, and puerility of Joe Klein whining about Glenn Greenwald in all its pathetic form. Project much?

For the past several years, Greenwald has conducted a persistent, malicious campaign to distort who I am and where I stand. He is a mean-spirited, graceless bully.

And that's JUST before we get to the completely bullshit ad hominem non-sequiturs (a real literary accomplishment).

And the responses that must seem like batting practice from Greenwald and Aimai.

Klein is just as full of himself as ever, but it's easy to see there are probably some editors and employees of Time, Inc. that are truly embarrassed as all hell. It's like watching a drunken oaf peeing his pants for the third time the same evening.

Don't forget Poland

Teabagging protesters tell me Obama's planning on invading it any minute in "Operation Canned Muslins" on the 70th anniversary of his "Poster Loving" clearly Nigerian forebear.

Glenn Beck's going to cry

Boy, first you stop threatening them with electric drills or raping their wife and kids and then this happens:

In the evening, Obama is hosting a dinner celebrating Ramadan. The event in the State Dining Room will also highlight the contributions of American Muslims.

OMG, OMG, OMG! He must be as much of a "Muslin" as he is a Jew! Unlike America's greatest Preznit who never did such things la la la la la.

I've learned from people like John Boehner a few things: one is how to cry; one is how to abuse a tanning bed; and then I've learned the following --

America has to play to its strengths --

1. Using powertools inappropriately -- all hail the poultry companies of Spencer, Iowa for knowing this as innately as your average Michelle Malkin reader;

2. Being ignorant about all religions that are not our own -- and even our own -- especially when they do not show the proper respect for Jesus, be it Old World or New World, and the proper level of disrespect for women. It's a delicate balancing act, but we have a real talent for patting ourselves on the back about it;

3. Bombing random assortments of brown people -- a Hitman's Sampler if you will;

4. Letting Brett Favre do whatever the fuck he wants and paying good money for it.

Cheering for Death

The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Page has long been among the most intellectually bankrupt of places -- it makes the WaPo look both better and derivative at the same time. The leader of the immorality is James Taranto and today he exposes himself like a pervert with a new London Fog:

If the Bush administration's policies really did keep us safe for 7½ years, then it stands to reason that the Obama administrations' policies may be endangering us now. Certainly that is how the public would see it in the event of another terrorist attack.

So l'il Jimmy Taranto hopes for an attack and a chance to start removing brown areolas with his teeth -- in the name of Jesus and/or Cheney.

City on a Hill and all that shit.

USA! USA! USA!

America's Concern Troll

What can you say to such simple-minded nonsense other than, "Fred Hiatt give that man a bonus -- and an assistant to abuse!"

No one can possibly believe that America is now safer because of the new restrictions on enhanced interrogation and the subsequent appointment of a special prosecutor. The captured terrorist of my fertile imagination, assuming he had access to an Internet cafe, knows about the special prosecutor. He knows his interrogator is under scrutiny. What person under those circumstances is going to spill his beans?

Cohen then goes on to spew lying bullshit to support his bullshit claim -- and the product you get is exactly what you'd imagine.

Suck on this Grassley

Good ad, will more embarrass him than anything else...if that's possible, after all look at his tweets, he may be beyond embarrassment.

The means are the ends

Max Boot, would have his spirits crushed by being made to wear tighty-whities.




And so it continues, anonymous Bush aide to Ron Suskind in 2004:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Max Boot, prime fashioner of bizarro world:

It would be easy to conclude with a “high degree of confidence” that one of the most effective intelligence-gathering tactics in the war on terrorism — the aggressive interrogation of captured terrorists — has been eliminated and, along the way, the agency charged with being on the front lines of the war has been severely degraded in operational effectiveness.

Other than complete and utter falsity balanced only by sheer and grotesque depravity Boot has it exactly right.

(pic from here)

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake]

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.