Bitter with the sweet

A little over three years ago, the Iowa Supreme Court broke down the barriers on same-sex marriage, yesterday it made a mockery of gender discrimination.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled today that employers can fire employees towards whom they have an "irresistible attraction," irrespective of the latter's workplace conduct.

The 7-0 decision, handed down by the all-male court, came about as a result of a lawsuit filed by married dental assistant Melissa Nelson, 32, against her boss of ten years, Dr. James Knight, D.D.S., alleging gender discrimination.

She claimed Knight fired her at the behest of his wife, who became jealous of their out-of-office relationship, which included the exchange of personal, yet innocuous texts. Knight readily admits that he fired Nelson, whom he said was the best dental assistant he'd ever had, after consulting with his pastor, because he found her tight-fitting clothes distracting and he felt his marriage was in jeopardy.

According to court documents, Knight — described by his lawyer as "a very religious and moral individual" — once told Nelson the bulge in his pants was an indication that her clothes were too revealing. He also informed Nelson's husband that he had to fire Nelson out of fear that he might try and sleep with her.

Yet somehow that bonar and fear of his own moral weakness to want to try to seduce his female subordinate causing discharge was NOT motivated by gender. Uh...yeah, right.

It should be noted that for a variety of reasons this was not a sex harassment claim, just a straight up gender claim, making the liability theories a bit more difficult (but the facts demanded it, the plaintiff claimed she did not feel pressured to sleep with the defendant nor did she believe there to be a hostile work environment).

But still, there's no doubt the Defendant's "boner law" is pretty clear evidence that gender played a role.

I fully expect defendant's in Iowa and elsewhere will now try to use their wives...and boners...as cat's paws in both hiring and firing decisions (to be fair the "spouse made me do it" has been used successfully before, just not so embarrassingly and often not successfully because it is, well so often clearly lame), I think that will ultimately not work so well...but it will be a pain in the ass for a while.

As usual

Mr. Pierce sums up the whole NRA diatribe succinctly:

The National Rifle Association today held a press conference today at which it was determined that there would be no questions asked or answered, but the organization made it quite clear that they would be open to media questions next week, between Christmas and New Year's. Then they trotted out Wayne LaPierre, who had bats flying out of both ears.

Much like what happened in their pants when they bought them

Holy Crap!

The presser (no questions) of LaPierre had the sheer nuttery turned way past 11.

 The only thing that would have added to the flabbergasted tone-deafness would be if David Vitter's wife was up there in a leopard-skin dress with an AK-15 over her shoulder.

Al Qaeda videos have a more rational message.

Thank goodness for Capitalism!

Following our foot of "not news" yesterday there's nothing quite like getting up the next day to the parking spot you shoveled out yesterday to find needs to be shoveled out again...warm up your car a half hour early after a bad night's sleep because your "shoveling muscles" are out of shape.  Oh and after a blizzard passes by it is ALWAYS super cold.

Then you take the dog out while the car's warming up and you have to convince her repeatedly that now would be a good time to relieve herself out of as many orifices as possible because you won't be back for several hours...THEN having accomplished her primary outdoor task because she's old and has snow caught in her paws she hobbles along until you carry her the last 20 yards to warmth and the biscuit well-earned...mostly by you.

Then you get in your warmed up, but still ice and snow laden car, and head off into the frozen landscape of the not very well cleared roads...in a very Lake Ladoga 1941-42ish drive through the hellscape with a bunch of other crazed actors that went through the same routine.

But at least I made it to work and can let my car defrost underneath my office building.

And every person living in the northeast and midwest knows what I'm writing about.

No wonder you want to retire somewhere else.

Money well spent...

Good plan all around:

One of the less scintillating milestones of the 2012 election was marked by the General Services Administration, when Mitt Romney became the first candidate to take advantage of the Presidential Transition Act of 2010...

... The GSA says final costs are still being tabulated, but the initial estimated cost for Romney’s pre-transition phase is around $8.9 million.

Could have used that money for car elevators.

Rife with almost facts!

Fox & Friends interviewed Santa Claus yesterday.

That's right...Santa Claus.

(Nobody let Brian Kilmeade read further...oh that's right, he can't read)

Up next other fictional characters like Bigfoot and moderate Republicans.

* BTW, here is what Fox & Friends' Santa does in the off season...seriously.  Again, nobody tell Kilmeade as he is on Team Jacob.

Tears of an Orange Clown

Good job Mr. Tangerine Man, just peachy (if only I could get in a nectarine reference...):

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) failed to muscle a controversial fiscal cliff fallback through the House Thursday night, suddenly pulling the bill after spending almost week on a plan that Democrats called a waste of time.

Which...of course...it was.


Somewhere the Spirit of Sam Rayburn is pointing and laughing his ass off.

Less an ideology than something that should be in the DSM-V

Ladies and Gentlemen, the FoxNews demographic:

Randolph Linn, 52, accepted a plea deal in which he pled guilty to all charges in connection to setting a fire in the prayer room at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo on Sept. 30. Under the deal, Linn is expected to serve 20 years in prison instead of 40... “

And I was more sad when Judge [Jack] Zouhary asked him that, ‘Do you know any Muslims or do you know what Islam is?’” one mosque member who attended the hearing recalled to WNWO. “And he said, ‘No, I only know what I hear on Fox News and what I hear on radio.’”

Mission Accomplished Roger Ailes, I'm sure you're proud.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Nasty blizzard

Here in America's methland.

But don't worry, it's not news.

Just a blood sacrifice to reading the last half of an Amendment

Clearly no problem at all:

Mass killers target Americans once every two weeks on average, in attacks that range from robberies to horrific public shooting sprees like the massacre Friday of 27 people in Newtown, Conn., a USA TODAY examination found.

Two thirds of them with guns, running a distant second is arson.

Springsteen is Right Again

Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world

Indeed, and what is it worth without making a buck out of it?

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said yesterday that it would continue to sell guns, including rifles like the one used at Newtown, where 26 people, most of them children, were killed on Dec. 14. By contrast, Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS) suspended sales of similar guns at its more than 500 stores.

Obviously, this has to be done because "Freedom" demands the Walton family have not just most, but all of the money.

Searches of five kinds of semi-automatic rifles on Wal- Mart’s website showed them to be out of stock at stores in five states, including Pennsylvania, Kansas and Alabama.

Enjoy your freedom on pain of death.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Boy I was worried for a minute that

Bjork died.

Worthy of Song

Hey, I remember these people:

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently.

Their compensation from the U.S. government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour workdays, seven days a week and dangerous battlefield visits?

Zero dollars.

And undoubtedly worth every penny, yet still overpaid.

There's a Python Skit in there somewhere.

And, of course, a song.

But of course

The home of Ernest T. Bass, ESQ -- the place that has alternated between trying to ban "Sharia Law" while burning down mosques -- the home of the Scopes Trial -- is the place with this BRILLIANT idea:

Tennessee has emerged this week as a center of the “the answer is more guns in schools” sentiment following the Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting. A member of the Republican-controlled legislature plans during its upcoming session to introduce a bill that would allow the state to pay for secretly armed teachers in classrooms so, the sponsor told TPM, potential shooters don’t know who has a gun and who doesn’t.

He's the Cy Sperling of Sex

In a bit of word reversal it appears that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was not only a client, but also the "President" of a prostitution ring.

French judges decided Wednesday not to drop pimping charges against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, his lawyers said. They quickly vowed to appeal. ... Strauss-Kahn was hit in March with preliminary charges of "aggravated procurement in an organized gang" in an investigation into a hotel prostitution ring in nearby Lille that was said to involve prominent city figures and police.

The Big Dump

Oh hey, look the NRA has emerged to make a cryptic statement:

The nation's largest gun owners' organization has issued its first remarks since last week's elementary school shooting, saying it is "heartbroken" by the "horrific and senseless murders" and prepared to offer "meaningful contributions" to prevent a repeat. It says it plans a press conference on Friday.

Oh, I'm sure that as a news dump on the last Friday before Christmas it will be real constructive. Feel free to make your predictions below, but I imagine it will go something like this:

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) became the latest anti-gun control figure to embrace the notion that the best way to protect against future tragedies like Newtown, Connecticut, is to put more guns in public schools.

More guns...what could possibly go wrong?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Truly blessed by intellectual titans

Is the conservative pundicracy -- your cunning plan Megan McArdle?

...if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea

Yes, teaching children the "CANNON FODDER" strategy...good plan. Gets 'em ready for the next war McArdle's folks dream up. From the comments:

Fair and Balanced of course...

Well, surprise -- surprise -- surprise:

According to sources, David Clark, the executive producer in charge of Fox’s weekend coverage, gave producers instructions not to talk about gun-control policy on air. "This network is not going there,” Clark wrote one producer on Saturday night, according to a source with knowledge of the exchange.

A place the NRA would love

Sounds like the kind of government they'd love:

An independent MP has called for a crackdown on firearms in Greece amid allegations that a growing number of politicians are carrying weapons. Reports of pistol-carrying deputies entering parliament have added to the febrile mood in a 300-member chamber in which hardcore Marxists sit with fascists, eurocommunists, rightwing populists, conservatives, socialists and an array of independent dissidents. The MP, Nikos Nikolopoulos, told the Guardian he was "deeply worried" by the dramatic rise in requests for weapons licenses by parliamentarians. "I have real concerns that MPs are entering the house with weapons and because of that I asked how, in our temple of democracy, it was possible for deputies to carry guns?"

Who knew austerity would go so well with gunplay...other than everyone ever?

Inouye

Daniel Inouye died yesterday after 50 years in the United States Senate.  Never exactly the most loquacious politician he was well-regarded and powerful within the Senate.  But no story will ever demonstrate why Inouye was a Democrat and a voice for Civil Rights more than this:

He grew up planning to become a doctor until 1942, when as a teenager barely out of high school, he joined what would become a revered Army regiment of Japanese Americans.

On an Italian battlefield two years later, he destroyed three enemy machine gun nests even as bullets tore through his stomach and legs. A grenade nearly ripped off his right arm, and it was later amputated in an Army hospital. 

Back in the United States, the young lieutenant was wearing his empty right sleeve pinned to his officer’s uniform when he stepped into a San Francisco barbershop for a haircut. “We don’t serve Japs here,” the barber told him.

Memories of such encounters remained vivid to Sen. Inouye, who in his political career spoke eloquently in support of civil rights and social welfare programs.

God bless the United States of Derp (a continuing series...or disasters)

I'm sure it will now be no problem at all to discuss serious policy matters with all those teapartiers and libertarian cranks now that the "fever" has broken. Why just look at yesterday as the Electoral College members gathered in their State's respective capitols to vote:

... three Romney electors in Arizona tried one more time to convince everyone that Obama wasn't born in the United States:

Elector Don Ascoli said the fact Obama got more popular votes is irrelevant to the truth. "The majority of the people had no dream that Bill Clinton did what he did until a young lady had a blue dress and proved he did," Ascoli said. "And he had to come out and apologize to the world because he lied to you and me."

Thereby proving...uh...something, I guess.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The United States of Herp and Derp

Behold the wisdom of Michael Goldfarb, so dumb even conservatives mock him:

The World the NRA has wrought

The depths of the tragedy continue:
 

A brave six-year-old became the sole survivor of her first grade class at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. because she played dead as shooter Adam Lanza went on his rampage.

According to a pastor close to her family, the unnamed girl lay among the bodies of her 15 classmates until she thought it was safe to leave.

Pastor Jim Solomon told ABC News: "She ran out of the school building covered from head to toe with blood and the first thing she said to her mom was, 'Mommy, I'm OK but all my friends are dead."

A nation where stories straight out of the nightmare of someone living through Baba Yar become a regular occurrence.

Good job those who's manhood is defined by the number of clips you can fire.

Assholes.

We are sick

One of the lead stories locally on our news is that the day of the Newtown shooting and the short-time after set a new record in gun sales in one day.

There is a sickness in this country.

Things that make you hope the Mayans are on to something

The racist reaction of some Twits to Obama's speech being shown on NBC and moving the football game temporarily to widely available cable channels. Ugh!

Of course not

Their job is to take their NRA donations and shut the fuck up:

Oh, and how about we stop referring to them as "pro-gun rights"? What they are is "pro-gun fetishists".

The Han Solo fantasy

Of the Gun fetishist goes down -- "Oh if only so and so was armed this could have been prevented"

Well Adam Lanza's mother appears to have been a bit of a gun paranoid -- she was armed to the teeth.
And her son killed her...undoubtedly before she thought about shooting first.

No movie would have been so horrible

In its cruelly absurd violence than what Adam Lanza did.

The intense violence lasted about 10 minutes. Lanza fired at least three, 30-round magazines with deadly accuracy. Two of the people he shot survived. All of the victims were shot multiple times. "I did seven (autopsies) myself with three to 11 wounds apiece," Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver III said Saturday. "Only two were shot at close range. I believe everybody was hit (by bullets) more than once."

It is like a nightmare fantasy of the most stereotypical kind of violence that gun-control advocates would veto because it is too awful to be believed. Except it actually happened.

Give it 2 Emmys and a Peabody

Colbert and the men of Downton Abbey's Breaking Bad Parody wins all the internets:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Forget the rest of the stupidity

Of somone like Huckabee blaming lack of prayer leading to mass murder at schools:

We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools.

Why would anyone worship or revere Mike Huckabee's version of God?

A God that if nothing else is one gigantic evil asshole?

What damage can be done

Obviously both are tragedies but the irony of these two events happening the same day and the comparison of the damage done is quite clear.

Twenty-two primary school children were wounded in a knife attack Friday in central China, authorities said.

The attack took place at the entrance to the Chenpeng Village Primary School in Henan province, according to the public information department of Guangshan county, the area where the school is located. An adult was also wounded, it said.

Several of the children are in critical condition, the state-run website Chinanews.com said, citing local authorities.

This is horrible, of course, but one cannot help but not that while the carnage is great, it is also greatly less than the guy with a semi-automatic can do in a similar situation.

(From here)

Beyond sickening

I say this with bitter anger as well as sadness because you know this shortened made up statement is also depressingly accurate:

"This tragedy may have been prevented if those kindergarteners had been armed"
- Only Slightly fictional Wayne LaPierre

Apparently another 30 people, including 18 children must die to in the service of the fetishization of what the Second Amendment actually says.

And -- as always -- we are told we cannot discuss the elephant in the room.

Free-fucking-dom!

"Hey, lemme look all moderate for a minute"

While actually making things worse.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, called for oral contraceptives to be made available over the counter in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal published Thursday evening.

Sounds sort of rational right?

It also means you'll have to pay the full amount for birth control -- your insurance no longer has to provide it to you.

So actually -- it's a big ol' backdoored fuck you.

Well, this doesn't actually explain a lot

As it just seems depressingly predictable. 

Michael McGough in today’s LA Times reminds us that virulently anti-gay Republican Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has a son, Paul, who’s a priest, and works for an organization that pretends it can “pray away the gay.”

First, one son works for the Bush Camp in 2000 during the legal fight over the election and it's no problem for Scalia and now this.

Does he have another child that works for a lobbying group that advocates seal clubbing?

Virginia Foxx on the look out for "who dealt it" terrorism

*Note* Actual non-parody picture 

Apparently -- and not surprisingly -- Republican Crazy Person and gerrymandered into irreality -- Virginia Foxx has a very bizarre fetish.

ITK last week brought you one tipster’s claims of Foxx laying the verbal smackdown on a female staffer for taking a ride on a members-only elevator. The congresswoman’s office said the story — which involved Foxx questioning the staffer’s literacy vis-à-vis the “members-only” sign — was an “exaggeration” by “disrespectful junior staffers” who will go to great lengths “just to read about themselves in the paper.” Now more elevator horror stories are coming in.

I just pray we don't find out there's an Aerosmith song in there somewhere.

There's also no off switch on "crazy"

Matt Taibbi, who has been right about many things and at least entertaining on the rest, responded to Jim DeMint's resignation with this:

The Tea Party is about purity, and DeMint doesn't want to sully himself with the congress's probably-inevitable decision to raise taxes to avoid this budget collapse. So his highly-symbolic resignation is his wing of the party's Picking-Up-The-Ball-And-Going-Home moment. The message of the DeMint move is simple: We tried to work within the system, but the system turned out to be dirty, so we are leaving the system.

That, of course, would be a-w-e-s-o-m-e. Like Kos, I also think it will not happen. Delusional people don't suddenly because reasonable like any good cult they just believe more than ever. Maybe, just maybe, Jim DeMint is not crazy -- but rather just an opportunist who sees a chance of a seven-figure salary where he doesn't have to suck up to rich douchebags anymore -- because now he'll be the rich douchebag being sucked up to. The rest of Teabaggers will remain crazy, or at least vote that way until their slot opens -- to be replaced by the next aspirant. Unless there's a Red Adair for puke funnels, they'll still be more of them flowing out for a while. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

But their Congressman and Beltway Pundits do not give

A microscopic particle of a shit.

Fifty-nine percent of Republicans want GOP leaders in the House and Senate to compromise to reach a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Wednesday. In April, just 38 percent backed such a compromise.

It is the 1,000th of 1 percent that pay the bills for them -- and the Koch Brothers demand the rest of you .... suffer.

The Republican Solution is as always

Their solution to everything.

Boehner's counter-proposal is the same as the last one in which the special prescription for all ills (other than bombing a brown person in another hemisphere) can be summarized in one word.

MAGIC!

So, as a South Carolinian

You're gonna lose this one too, after years of needless conflict?

Lindsey Graham Compares Marriage Equality Debate To The Civil War

Lame Fucks

The Defeated Michigan Republicans truly want to fulfill all their fantasies...the ones that got them kicked out of office in their dying days (which is a rather morbid notion considering how many lives will end because of them).

Maybe he could fight it out with Farrakhan?

Herman Cain seems rather obsessed with the number 9 -- much like FarraKHAAAAAN once seemed obsessed with number 19. Maybe they could compromise on 14?

I want to be a footnote

There have been a handful of renowned Speakers of the House for good or ill. Henry Clay, Tom Reed, Joe Cannon, Champ Clark, Sam Rayburn and yes, Nancy Pelosi. And I'm sure it was with no shortage of pleasure that Pelosi was able to comment on the perpetually tearful orange-man who holds the position now:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) scolded Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in remarks to the press Wednesday for refusing to extend middle income tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. Her message? Being speaker is hard, but figure it out for the good of the country. “It’s tough. But you have to do it,” she told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday. “Figure it out.”

I'm sure that will spur him to do nothing more than tear up as usual. After all his latest "clever plan" was certainly neither of those terms. A couple generations from now the Orange Man is determined to be a well-remembered as Denny Hastert is right now. I know, who? [cross-posted at Firedoglake] (pic via mikenitro94 at flickr.com)

Too much good news

To deal with:

Arrested Development showrunner Mitch Hurwitz filmed too much for the show's Netflix revival, so now we probably have to deal with the crappy reality of twelve to fifteen new episodes rather than a nice clean ten.

And this can only mean...

Where's the entertainment?

Do something in 140 characters of less...you'd think your pipeline to the Almighty would give you better material, at least a killer "knock-knock joke"...something about not seeing lamb's blood on the door frame or something.

I have one question, why does your doodled Coat of Arms looks like a censored penis drawing (with a French Tickler no less) and how has Gawker missed that? Is it considered a Miracle -- or just an insight into an underlying condition?

You can thank the Christian Right

In reality of course:

"When you start looking at our older students, we see less improvement over time," said Jack Buckley, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which coordinated the U.S. portion of the international exam. 

Even where U.S. student scores have improved, many other nations have improved much faster, leaving American students far behind many of their peers — especially in Asia and Europe.

With an eye toward global competitiveness, U.S. education officials are sounding the alarm over what they describe as a recurring theme when American students are put to the test. Lamenting what he described as "sober cautionary notes," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said it was unacceptable that eighth-grade achievement in math and science are stagnant, with U.S. students far less likely than many Asian counterparts to reach advanced levels in science.

Maybe if our teachers were a bit better paid and could teach things like you know evolutionary science as y'know a science and all.

And hey, maybe if we let schools in poor areas have more money that might help too.

— Some U.S. states that were measured separately were clear standouts, performing on par with or better than some top-performing Asian countries. Eighth-graders in Massachusetts and Minnesota score far better in math and science than the U.S. average. But in California and Alabama, eighth-graders fell short of the national average. 

— Racial and class disparities are all too real. In eighth grade, Americans in the schools with the highest poverty — those with 75 percent or more of students on free or reduced-price lunch — performed below both the U.S. average and the lower international average. Students at schools with fewer poor kids performed better. In fourth-grade reading, all ethnic groups outperformed the international average, but white and Asian students did better than their black and Hispanic classmates.

The Legacy

As Florida's Republican governor and his co-horts dream of new ways to keep minorities from voting, the State's history on the subject of racial injustice has provided a morbid reminder:

Anthropologists have found evidence of 98 deaths and more graves than previously identified at a now-closed state reform school in the Panhandle, according to a report released Monday. An interim report released by the University of South Florida in Tampa says the researchers found at least 50 gravesites at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, about 60 miles west of Tallahassee.

It's the kind of nightmare you'd think would be the lead news throughout the country, but so far not all that much. Ritualistic beating, isolation, and clearly worse abuse of young black kids over a period of more than a half century form World War One into the early 1970s.

The anthropologists, led by Associate Professor Erin Kimmerle, used historical documents to verify the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children — ranging in age from 6 to 18 — from 1914 through 1973. “The cause and manner of death for the majority of cases are unknown,” the researchers wrote. In those cases where causes could be documented the most common were infectious disease, fires, physical trauma and drowning. Other mortality patterns showed trends of deaths occurring after escapes and within three months of arriving at the school.

The institution was a reformatory for black children, almost all of them sent there on minor offenses -- and given the nature of Jim Crow justice, for which this school is the eternal symbol, how many of those offenses were these kids even guilty of?

You know what might have prevented something like this in the past? Allowing African-Americans to vote in large numbers.

And Rick Scott and the Republicans want to make sure that isn't allowed to get out of hand.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Oh and speaking of the last post

For example, this:

Speaking at Princeton University, Scalia was asked by a gay student why he equates laws banning sodomy with those barring bestiality and murder.

"I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's effective," Scalia said, adding that legislative bodies can ban what they believe to be immoral.

...

Some in the audience who had come to hear Scalia speak about his book applauded but more of those who attended the lecture clapped at freshman Duncan Hosie's question.

"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the `reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia told Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"

Scalia said he is not equating sodomy with murder but drawing a parallel between the bans on both.

Yes, and here's the thing you'd think a sentient human being would understand -- when YOU make arguments claimed to be reductio ad absurdum (look at all those law school loans paying off!) YOU are the one who gets to pick the comparison, no one else.  So if it is specious and offensive it is also on YOU.

And equating being gay to murder...that's offensive...and YOU are responsible for it.

How can you deny this?

As someone who had a family member come to my little ol' State from halfway across the world to marry the love of their life in a ceremony that would have been illegal a couple years before, these pictures from Seattle beg the question, how big an asshole do you have to be to deny the right of same sex couples to marry now?

The answer, of course, is a gigantic one.

(via Atrios)

Sure they were the really accurate in the 2012 Election

But I think Public Policy Polling (PPP) may be getting a little off track with its polling of late -- of course, I'm writing about it so...mission accomplished, I guess.

When asked if there was a War on Christmas, the majority of respondents believe there was 47/40.

Well, that will make Bill O'Reilly happy -- or angry about bullshit -- which of course is the thing that makes him happy. Of course, I have my concerns about those actually polled:

A majority of voters (52/45) said they believe in Santa Claus.

Um, yeah...about that, have you met these people?

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wargle Bargle

The three non-wisemen ladies and gentlemen -- Bill O'Reilly, Bernard McGuirk (the other half, and key contributor to Imus "Nappy Headed Ho's" fiasco, and Greg "Dennis Miller with less talent" Gutfield discuss who really is at war on Christmas:

MCGUIRK: The war on Christmas is very, very real, and if you ask me, in addition to some grouchy misanthropic heathen atheists it has to do — at the root of it — with two things — abortion and the gay rights agenda, because Christianity is against those things. It’s subtle but that’s why it’s so pronounced in recent years.

O’REILLY: Hundred percent agree. I absolutely agree 100 percent that the diminishment of Christianity is the target and Christmas is the vehicle because the secularists know the opposition to their agenda (legalized drugs is in that as well) comes primarily from the Judeo-Christian traditionalist people.

Really hitting the Myrrh this year boys.

Yeah...hard to believe their becoming less relevant every day isn't it?

But that is David Gregory's

Method:

Of course it's a Ponzi Scheme

Dick Morris really is the archetype of the age-old question, "Who is the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?" (that may have started with Obi Wan, but even so that was a long long time ago or so the scrolling credits tell me):

According to FEC data released December 6, Morris' Super PAC for America paid conservative news outlet Newsmax Media roughly $1.7 million for "fundraising" in October and November. A significant portion of the super PAC's money likely went to renting Morris' own email list, which is operated by Newsmax Media.

A Media Matters review found that in the month before the election, Morris sent at least 21 emails to his mailing list featuring fundraising pitches that were "paid for by Super PAC for America." Super PAC also "paid for" at least 25 emails to Newsmax.com's main email list during the same period.

How much money went in Morris' pockets?

A lot obviously.

High value considering Morris would sell what he has of a soul for much much less.

In a decade they'll act like it was all their doing...and their idea

It is truly amazing that with the groundwork laid down the push for marriage-equality began in earnest less than a decade ago -- and here we are after Califonia's false start and Iowa's Supreme Court ruling within three years the whole edifice of resistance is crumbling fast.

Washington Post columnist George Will, who appeared alongside Matalin, also dismissed the potency of the issue for Republicans. “There is something like an emerging consensus,” he said. “Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.”

Within thirty years of the passage of Title VII and the Voting Rights Act, there were Republicans talking as if they, and they alone, passed those bills -- while ignoring the Dixiecrats had long-since found a home in the GOP. I imagine within a couple years, the GOP will try to play the same game with same-sex marriage. Besides, they've already found their new target. Single parents:

Mary Matalin: 30 years from now, real people understand the consequences of so many babies being born out of wedlock to the economy and to the morality of the country.

One step forward, two steps back.

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

About the same number of people who approve of that chancre

On their privates.

Among the 1,000 individuals polled nationwide throughout September and October, just 9 percent approved of Congress’ current job performance. The margin of error for the public opinion survey conducted by YouGov/Polimetrix was 3.5 percent. That means Congress’ approval rating could be as high as 12.5 percent or as low as 5.5 percent.

Well at least the GOP got re-districting to be as fucked up as they are.

Weird

Mitt and Ann Romney did what you'd expect every defeated Presidential candidate to do...

They showed up at a boxing match (those still happen?)

Mitt was the guest of the guy who organized it and was a special fan of Filipino boxer (and social conservative politician) Manny Pacquiao with this greeting:

Romney also visited with Pacquiao in his dressing room before the fight, wishing him well in the bout.

"Hello Manny. I ran for president. I lost," Romney told the fighter, according to Pacquiao publicist Fred Sternburg.

And with Mitt's special greeting, by the sixth round, so did Manny Pacquiao.

Oh, the moment the knockout occurred...

I think he made about the same face last month when Ohio was called.

Not to act all smarter than their base

But, y'know, Science and all that:

Birmingham, Alabama (PRWEB) December 04, 2012 – The results of a 4 year study show that Americans who obtain their news from Fox News channel have an average IQ of 80, which represents a 20 point deficit when compared to the U.S. national average of 100. IQ, or intelligence quotient, is the international standard of assessing intelligence. Researchers at The Intelligence Institute, a conservative non-profit group, tested 5,000 people using a series of tests that measure everything from cognitive aptitude to common sense and found that people who identified themselves as Fox News viewers and ‘conservative’ had, on average, significantly lower intelligent quotients. Fox Viewers represented 2,650 members of the test group.

I don't know about this study (sounds dubious), but at least it is a study, as opposed to a paranoid delusion, which in and of itself sounds at least 20 IQ points higher.

It's almost as if they are paid to say bullshit

If only there was some kind of asshole who would just ambush people and be incredibly obnoxious enough to confront someone over petty bullshit and dipshittery?

One week after the 2012 election, Fox News correspondent Jesse Watters told Bill O'Reilly that Obama voters were "zombies" who supported the president "as long as there was Obamacare, gay marriage and abortion on demand." Per the FEC filing above, Watters, who resides in Long Island, N.Y., contributed $500 to Obama Victory Fund 2012 in late September. You'll note "News Corp.," which owns Fox News, is listed under "name of employer."

The first political party to make into the DSM-V

Crazier and crazier:

The Republicans’ anti-tax Tea Party wing, which failed in its goal to defeat President Barack Obama and the Senate Democratic majority, is rising to leadership positions in policy and activist groups that have guided the party’s direction for years. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who helped insurgent candidates oust incumbent Republicans in primaries, announced yesterday that he will lead the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a group that has served as an incubator for the party’s policy and legislative ideas for decades.

If the Party was more pro-choice y'know these incubators wouldn't be such a problem.

I'd say Mitch McConnell really took one on the Chin

From his own fists after his hackneyed need to fillibuster himself over the debt limit.


But, Mitch McConnell can never take a punch on something that does not exist.

Yeah, clearly

The only thing funnier than Dick Morris always being wrong about predictions, is his blatantly wrong explanations of why he was so wrong.

We lost because whites stayed home! Particularly among the elderly, the voter turnout was disappointing with seniors casting only 16% of the vote, much less than had been anticipated. (Seniors were the only age group that Obama lost by a significant margin — 15 points).

Why didn’t whites vote and why didn’t we all spot it sooner?

Impact of Sandy.

Yeah, Dick, if only the whites in New York and New Jersey had turned out (oh, they did?) Romney would have won there.

Just like Republicans have not done the 1984 and 1988 respectively.

You bet, Jackass.

Too much bonding

I do think this may be one of the more off-putting statements I have read of late that did not involve a FoxNews pundit or Jerry Sandusky.   Ladies and gentlemen, mother and daughter porn team specializing in 3-ways...what's so special about it daughter?

"I enjoy the sex and I enjoy being with my mom," says Monica, who dropped out school in ninth grade and got her mom started in the porn biz before following suit.

AYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

How are the Lohans or Kardasians not involved in this? 

This Planet's dangerous, we should probably leave

As long as we take the dogs with us, the rest of the planets residents will probably be quite pleased.

A strong earthquake struck Friday off the coast of northeastern Japan in the same region that was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami last year. Tokyo high-rises swayed for several minutes, one city reported a small tsunami and at least two people were reported injured.

What can Austerity do for you -- human saganaki, OPA!

Oh by all means let's have more of this over here:

From holding 80th place in the 176 countries on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2011, Greece's global ranking, this year, fell to 94, the global watchdog announced on Wednesday. In terms of perceived levels of public corruption, Greece was on a par with Moldova and Mongolia. In the 27-strong EU, there was no other state that fared worse.

Even more corrupt, but why?

In a country not only mired in a fifth straight year of recession but enduring a third year of unprecedented austerity, where one in three now lives below the poverty line and a quarter of the population is unemployed, corruption is a means to an end. It is, say analysts, the flipside of austerity in an economy in freefall. "To survive in such a hostile situation, you have to bend the rules," said political commentator Giorgios Kyrtsos. "There is no other way when things are so hard – you are forced to resort to corruption to deal with the state mechanism."

Austerity has created a nation no longer on the road to ruin, but taking up residence there. The only solution forced upon the pople, of course, as Atrios has repeatedly stated, is more austerity. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

DeHilarious

Jim DeMint one of the Senate's most vociferously inclined members of Alternative Earth, is leaving the August body of skull-fuckery for the Heritage Foundation, America's premier think-tank for those who might as well be ocularly violated.

All together now...

Republicans...and Republican mouth-pieces really know how to reach out to the ladies by blaming them for getting physically abused...because you know, men are gonna be men which apparently is synonymous with the occasional punch or kick.

Which, speaking as a man, is news to me.

It's apparently a term of endearment in the household

Uh, what?

The word “lunatic” will be stricken from federal law under legislation that passed the House on Wednesday and is headed to President Obama for his signature... The Congressional action is the latest effort to remove language from federal law that has become outdated or is considered demeaning. Two years ago Congress took out references to “mental retardation.” “The term ‘lunatic’ holds a place in antiquity and should no longer have a prominent place in our U.S. code,” said Representative Robert C. Scott, Democrat of Virginia, shortly before the 398-to-1 vote in the House. The word, derived from the Latin word from moon, arises from ancient beliefs that people could become “moonstruck” by lunar movements. ... The lone “no” vote was cast by Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas

Instagram is pulling pictures from Twitter?!

This has to be because of the server space they anticipated the Pope using on Tweeting pictures of his newest red pair of Jimmy Choo loafers?

The MAN understands the Internet

I understand suddenly Rupert Murdoch is offering a hell of a deal to MySpace members on The Daily.

Money well spent

Love means never having to say you're sorry...as long as you love money. February 2009:

Citi vows to use bailout money correctly "Citi understands that (the bailout) is about helping the American people, and supporting U.S. businesses and our communities," Citi CEO Vikram Pandit said in the report. Citi has received $45 billion from taxpayers in the last four months.

And did they -- December 2012:

Citigroup announced on Wednesday that it will cut 11,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its workforce, in an effort to trim expenses. The moves comes one month after Citigroup paid out nearly $14 million to two former executives, CEO Vikram Pandit and Chief Operating Officer John Havens, who were ousted for poor management.

We better keep the CEO and COO's taxes low though, to do otherwise would be a crime against freedom. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Not unhinged, completely rational

Krugthulu drops a K-bomb of ultimate truth:

Armey received an $8 million buyout to step down as chairman of FreedomWorks at the end of last month, but the dispute between him and the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, is still straining the organization.

Remember, the tea party is a grass-roots movement, a spontaneous uprising of ordinary Americans against the snooty, coffee-drinking elite.

Brilliant and effing Scary

This Colbert takedown of FoxNews viewers demo and the horribly frightening product Androgel and Tefina...wow!

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Great comedy and perhaps the greatest Public Service Commercial of the Millennium.

Texas Justice

Truly the most just in the world:

A former death row inmate with intellectual disabilities has languished in the Texas prison system for over 30 years despite having no valid criminal conviction. Jerry Hartfield, an illiterate man with an IQ of 51, had his capital conviction overturned in 1980 because the jury at his trial had been improperly selected. A Texas appeals court ordered a new trial for Hartfield, but that trial has never happened. In 1983, then-Governor Mark White attempted to commute Hartfield's former death sentence to life without parole. However, a federal court has recently ruled that the commutation was irrelevant since Hartfield was not convicted of a crime. No action had been taken on the case until 2006, when another inmate helped Hartfield file a handwritten motion, asking that he be either retried or set free. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the petition, but a federal judge agreed with Hartfield, saying the decision overturning his conviction still stands. U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Hughes said, "Hartfield's position is as straightforward and subtle as a freight train....The court's mandate was never recalled, its decision never overturned, the conviction never reinstated; yet Hartfield never received the 'entirely new trial' ordered by the court." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit called the state's defense of Hartfield's incarceration "disturbingly unprofessional" and returned the case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for further action. Given the Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial, it is not clear that Hartfield could be re-tried.

Less a Political Party than something to be in the DSM-V

Fresh off the news that 25 percent of registered Republicans want their State to secede, comes this:

A new PPP survey released Tuesday finds that 49% of Republican voters nationally think that ACORN, a now long defunct community organizing group, stole the election for President Obama. That measure is down from 52% in 2008.

Of course, in 2008 ACORN's level of existence was 100%, in 2012 ACORN's level of existence is 0%.

Hearts as big as their grasp of reality

John Boehner may be able to purge some arch-conservatives from some committees, but he cannot purge the evangelical strain of faith before facts from the caucus he leads as a whole. Hell, the Republicans in the Senate do not even have any rationality or conscience.

Frail and in a wheelchair, former Sen. Bob Dole was a startling presence on the Senate floor as lawmakers voted on a treaty on disabilities. The 89-year-old Republican was in the well of the Senate on the GOP side of the chamber, his wife Elizabeth nearby. Dole recently had been hospitalized but came to the Senate to push for the treaty. Sen. John Kerry acknowledged Dole's presence said the former Kansas lawmaker and World War II veteran was in the Senate to advocate for the treaty and ensure that disabled American veterans are treated with dignity and respect.

The treaty (signed by George W. Bush AND then Barack Obama) failed to achieve the required 67 votes, obtaining only 61, all 38 nays were Republican -- as their former leader a decorated and disabled veteran sat before them in a wheelchair. At least they didn't push him down the stairs. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

So Bill O'Reilly says Christianity a Philosophy, huh?

I'd say interesting...if it was interesting.

But still one cannot help but wonder when Bill is going to start demanding his philosophy start paying taxes?

They can ALWAYS get more disturbing

Why the GOP should just rename itself the "FoxNewsParty" and challenge the Democrats traditional mascot by having THIS jackass as its symbol:

So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.

McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.

ALL HAIL FAIR AND BALANCED JOURNA-MAL-ISM!!!

(pic via allhatnocattle.net)

Ross Douthat was so excited

About Kate Middleton being pregnant...

...that last night he just laid back and thought of Chunky Wayne Rooney.

The Trump effect

No doubt he will soon respond with a video-blogged diatribe about haggis or something:

Now, far from home, Mr. Trump is a loser once more, if only because a man he had cruelly and publicly bullied has emerged as a surprise winner. 



A few days ago, a fellow named Michael Forbes was designated Scotsman of the year — “Top Scot,” to be precise — in a popular contest sponsored by the Glenfiddich whiskey company and The Scotsman, a leading newspaper in Scotland.

He was voted that by the general public because he refused to sell his home and small farm so Trump could build a golf course.

It's workin' fellas, it's workin'

Hey look it's the Republican plan finally...

House Republicans on Monday introduced a counter-offer to President Barack Obama's proposed solution to the so-called fiscal cliff, trumpeting that the proposal would not raise tax rates on personal income. The plan does, however, include a sizeable tax hike. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would allow the payroll tax cut to expire at the end of this year, an aide in his office told The Huffington Post.

Yeah, that's the ticket, raise taxes ONLY on employees. That is incredibly fair, and no doubt popular. No wonder Congress is so currently beloved:

But then Boehner does represent a constituency of true patriots (just ask them and their Lee Greenwood 8-tracks)

Twenty five percent of registered Republicans want their state to secede from the United States

(cross-posted at Firedoglake)

Today, on a very special episode of Maury

FoxNation's Person of the Millenium, no doubt

Orly Taitz is still around.  Yeah, I know, awesome.  And she has lost again, the Orange County California summed up Orly's lawyerin' skills quite succinctly in his opinion...and perhaps gave her an epitaph for her future tombstone:

“You should know that evidence is not stuff printed from the Internet,” Margines told Taitz, according to the Occidental Weekly.

But he can't possibly afford a little more in taxes

As rational as he is handsome:

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson vowed to spend as much as $100 million to defeat President Barack Obama and help the GOP take control of Congress. According to two GOP fundraisers with close ties to the Las Vegas billionaire, he made good on that promise -- and then some. Adelson ultimately upped the ante, spending closer to a previously unreported $150 million, the fundraisers said.

You know the gun-nuts will be coming after him

But thank you Bob Costas for summing up the tragedy in Kansas City this weekend (and so many other cities and towns every day) for the insane and inaccurate love of the gun above all else.

And now, a football comment

Not that the team I favor was blessed with terrific quarterback play (how do you squander a 200 yard day from the best back in football Vikings? -- well, you're the Vikings that's why) but I see that after lacks week's embarrassment and this week's benching Jet's QB Mark Sanchez has had his career summarized by a "fan".

Here is what that is based upon -- greatest.play.ever.

Shut...the...fuck...up

Once again, good job hiring the buffoon known as Ross Douthat, New York Times, he demands we...

BIRTH MORE BABIES!

Yes, no need to worry 'bout the consequences.  You must do what Ross could not, and have some sex with a series of 'Chunky Reese Witherspoons' (or for you ladies 'Tubby Ryan Gooslings').   There's only about 7 billion people on the planet now!

Oh and Ross' proposal to create more babies (other than "do it more") is curious considering he's a conservative:

America has no real family policy to speak of at the moment, and the evidence from countries like Sweden and France suggests that reducing the ever-rising cost of having kids can help fertility rates rebound.

More socialism! 

(But not more and less expensive medical care, that would be wrong)

The UK's George Osborne kind of admits "Austerity Blows"

So naturally, let's do it over here:

George Osborne admitted it was taking longer for Britain to recover from the financial crisis than he hoped today amid warnings that the Government would miss its key economic targets.

So far Osborne has managed to never fail to miss a key economic target, so at least his austerity policy has been consistent. Of course, there is one thing that Osborne has finally come around on that the GOP will also continue to ignore:

The Chancellor also warned the rich would pay more when he unveils his Autumn Statement on Wednesday

Osborne may have finally approached "half right".

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

He's not deluded at all

I suppose a comparison to Jesus is around the corner...maybe it already happened?

“And always remember, Abraham Lincoln only served one term in Congress, too,” [Allen]West said toward the end of the interview.

If Conservatives want to know

Why minorities and women will not vote for them, look no further than the continued wingnut funding of Charles Murray.

It is bad enough that this guy falsely posited that blacks are genetically intellectually inferior using hackneyed stats in the Bell Curve.   But he got a quarter-century of funded pseudo-intellectual babble out of it.

Think that might piss a black person off?

Well now he feels the need to take on the ladies.

Murray, however, appears to have set aside his retrograde views about race in order to tout equally backwards views about gender. In a short piece on AEI’s website, Murray recently suggested that “benevolent sexism” might be “healthy.” The only problem is that he appears not to have read the research on which he bases this extraordinary conclusion, which cited strong evidence that “benevolent sexism” was itself linked to discrimination against women and rape victims.

And he'll get another round of checks from right-wing think tanks.

Next up from Murray, "Latinos just don't work hard", "The Polish Rocket Scientist" and "Asian drivers, am I right?"

Rich...rich with stupid irony

A George Bush appointed Federal Judge in Nevada ruled the state can limit marriage to heterosexuals based on this logic:

it is conceivable that a meaningful percentage of heterosexual persons would cease to value the civil institution as highly as they previously had and hence enter into it less frequently, opting for purely private ceremonies, if any, whether religious or secular, but in any case without civil sanction, because they no longer wish to be associated with the civil institution as redefined,

Again, this is from a Judge in NEVADA home of world's most sanctified drunken spur of the moment weddings.  Truly the place where heterosexuals are famous for valuing the civil institution highly.

And what a choice too

And what a well-qualified Republican Candace Miller is -- she should fit in just fine:

During the 108th Congress, Miller was admonished by the House Ethics Committee for improperly attempting to influence the vote of fellow Michigan Congressman Nick Smith on a Medicare vote. "The subcommittee released a 62-page report... that admonished Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) for possibly breaking House rules by offering support for Smith's son in exchange for a vote and threatening retaliation if Smith did not vote for the Medicare bill.



The report... admonished Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-Mich.) for making comments about Brad Smith during the Nov. 22 roll call that appeared to be "a threat of retaliation" for Nick Smith's vote against the bill.

 ^And...

  Miller, R-Mt. Clemens, is one of a group of lawmakers participating in a ``war room'' that will provide information from the Bush administration to other Republican members, the news media and constituents. Miller and the others are on ``a short list to call'' to go on radio, talk shows and talk with reporters, said Melissa Mazzella, Miller's press secretary.

<sup>Loves starting illegal wars and bullying over ethics.


Yep, she'll fit in nicely.</sup> 

Subtle

John Boehner has finally figured out where to place a woman:

But if Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the House leadership thought choosing Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) to lead the House administration committee — making her the sole female committee chair in the House — would put the issue to bed, they appear to have been mistaken.

Democrats and advocates for women in politics say Miller’s appointment feels like “tokenism” — and say the gender makeup of the House’s committee chairs will follow the GOP to 2014.

“I’m not sure which was worse: House Republicans refusing to have any women Chair a Legislative Committee or only appointing a woman to Chair the Congressional Housekeeping Committee,” said one Democratic official.

You stay classy orange man.