This story is either

A bit tragic, rather funny...or alternatively really weird.

Lazio have threatened legal action against those who have questioned the legitimacy of the age of their 17-year-old Cameroonian player Joseph Minala. 

The Italian side stated that his birth certificate is "absolutely legitimate". 

Lazio added:  "We reserve the right to take action against those responsible for the protection of the good name of the company and the footballer." 

The midfielder also issued a statement via the club's website denying he told an African website he was 41.

Either 17 .... OR FORTY-FRICKIN'-ONE?!

Here's his picture...and well...people age differently and sometimes a tough life gets reflected on one's face...and uh...well...I'm certainly no expert.

Well, this is a first

Good for him.

Although -- uh, what exactly are you doing in that Party?

American television

Where giant conglomerates can combine to make you wait "forever" for competition...and their installers.

And upon whose channels one can never be racist and obnoxious enough.

Laying down with a lot of mangy dogs

The majority of them are fleas by now.

Which member of Congress is (probably) emailing other members crazy threats? BuzzFeed’s John Stanton reports that a number of House Republicans received emails — sent to their internal congressional email addresses, addresses that are extremely difficult to find for non-members — in which an anonymous person threatened to politically ruin members who vote to raise the debt limit. The author first sent the cryptic threats to Speaker John Boehner and Rep. James Lankford, and then forwarded the emails to other members. ... Who could’ve sent these strange emails?

“It’s got to be another member. Probably one of the crazy ones,” said a Republican who had seen the email, which was sent from an anonymous email address, unrepresentative1@gmx.com.

One of the "crazy" Republicans? That narrows it down as much as if they had said, "Probably an overweight white guy".

This made me giggle just a little bit

As I am 48 going on 14, I do enjoy playing the normal card game with friends, and I have Netflix, so synergy can be funny.

Ahead of the highly anticipated Season 2 release of the original series, Chicago-based Cards Against Humanity has teamed up with the streaming site to release a “House of Cards Against Humanity” expansion pack.

Yeah, the oppression of the one percent is palpable

Look at those poor suffering investment bankers!

Britain's third-biggest bank said up to 9 percent of employees could go, including 7,000 in Britain, as it tries to lower costs. The cuts are not concentrated in any one business area. It said it paid 2.4 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in incentive awards last year, raising bonuses at the investment bank by 13 percent despite a slump in its profits. The average bonus for the investment bank's 26,200 staff was 60,100 pounds.

Productivity of our richest employees down...only one solution -- fire the more productive other employees and pay the rich people more. Thomas Perkins would approve, obviously. After all, to not pay the rich even more would be another "Cristal-nacht". [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Aw...

Poor privileged bigoted dumbass.

Donald Trump has lost a legal action against a major experimental windfarm being built close to his golf resort in Aberdeenshire.

The billionaire property developer had alleged that Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, had secretly interfered in the decision to approve the 11-turbine European offshore wind deployment centre site (EOWDC) in Aberdeen Bay – a claim rejected on Tuesday by a Scottish civil court judge, Lord Doherty.

Making clear he was expecting to appeal, Trump alleged there had been clear and illegal bias by the Scottish government – and that his rights under the European convention of human rights had been breached.

Doherty dismissed the claims that Salmond had interfered, stating he "was not persuaded that the fair-minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias on the part of the decision-maker; or that the decision not to have a public inquiry had been unreasonable or unlawful".

Trump is always amongst the first (in alternate days) to want to either  bomb somebody or the first (in the other day) to charge the people who bombed as being war criminals -- so for him to play the human rights card is as pathetic and hilarious as his faux-bangs.

Well, you're in a position to do something about it

This sounds all Atrios-y, but I'm glad somebody in some bit of charge is saying something.

Yellen took over from Bernanke just as the recovery in the jobs market appears to have stalled. In January, the US added just 113,000 new jobs, up from an even more disappointing 75,000 in December. Both figures were well below economists’ forecasts. Last year, the economy added an average of 194,000 jobs per month.

“I was surprised that the jobs reports in December and January, the pace of job creation, was running under what I had anticipated. But we have to be very careful not to jump to conclusions in interpreting what those reports mean,” she said. She said the extremely cold winter may have affected the numbers.

Oh sweet Jesus on the last part.

So, nevermind then.

Meet the 21st Century

It has a depressingly familiar look about it.

Hundreds of Eritrean refugees have been enslaved in torture camps in Sudan and Egypt in the past 10 years, enduring weeks or months of violence and rape and extorted by traffickers often in collusion with state security forces...

The report, I Wanted to Lie Down and Die: Trafficking and Torture of Eritreans in Sudan and Egypt, says state authorities have failed to identify and prosecute perpetrators, and have often colluded with them in the kidnap and abuse of refugees.

Golly, I wonder if there's a government we are familiar with that provided aid to Egypt the last decade without doing something about this...like even complaining? [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

But...of course

Having cheered for others to be rushed into wars...while personally rushing to defend Roman Polanski...Richard Cohen must have watched Doubt on Netflix or something because America's Concern Troll states...

The New York Times makes a rush to judgment on Woody Allen story

Because Richard Cohen knows humor AND sexual harassment (he really does, just ask him)...and apparently who is and isn't a pedophile...well really he just knows who isn't.

And really, how can you not trust a man so thoroughly sound in his judgment?

Naturally

They are after all the "creators"*

With Only $93 Billion in Profits, the Big Five Oil Companies Demand to Keep Tax Breaks

*of wars and ecological disasters

Live and never, ever, learn

Against all logic and evidence...and hardly for the first time, the GOP and its base seem determined to refight all the old battles they have lost before and in the most inappropriate way.

Because this time it will definitely work!

Priebus said Monday on MSNBC that the Monica Lewinsky scandal is fair game when it comes to evaluating Hillary Clinton's potential presidential bid. "I think everything's on the table," Priebus told Andrea Mitchell.

Because there is no more aspirational idea for the Republicans than the sanctity of the family unit...other than, of course, Bill Clinton's terrorist unit.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And I just watched "42" yesterday...

I always figured an already established NFL player would come out first, but props to prospective draft choice Michael Sam for having the guts to do so before he even has a career.  It's very big deal someone at that stage would have the guts to come out.

Good luck to him!

That's strange

That family is so very famous for its scrupulous honesty.

New official reports reveal that former Wyoming Senate candidate Liz Cheney (R) dramatically oversold how much money she raised during her insurgent primary challenge against Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY).

Naturally

As there are "officially" no gay people in Sochi, why not have fake-lesbians perform in the opening ceremonies, right?

In a provocative choice, Russian singers Tatu will perform before the 3,000 athletes march through a stadium on the shores of the Black Sea, one of the many newly built facilities in the most expensive Olympics in history.

The women in Tatu put on a lesbian act that is largely seen as an attention-getting gimmick. It contrasts with the very real anger over a Russian law banning gay "propaganda" aimed at minors that is being used to discriminate against gays.

But how are we expected to "eat fresh" without it?

Well, I've always thought their bread was poor in comparison to Jimmy John's or Quiznos for some reason...maybe this explains it...or not.

Subway announced this week that eventually it will stop using azodicarbonamide — a chemical used in yoga mats and shoe rubber — as an ingredient in its bread.

But representatives for Subway, which apparently does not use the chemical in its European or Australian markets, would not say when the company would actually effect the changes.

On the other hand, "Five dollar yoga mat" does not have the same ring, nor does it make teenagers giggle.

Carne Assuage-ada

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen would have been there with another pair of machine guns by Danny Montana's side if she could have, so the only surprise is these two are not Cuban.

Sen. Robert Menendez is under federal investigation for his advocacy on behalf of two Ecuadorian bankers convicted of embezzlement. Turns out he wasn’t the only prominent lawmaker accepting donations and doing favors for the brothers.

 

Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, while she was Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to federal agencies on behalf of two Ecuadorian bankers convicted of embezzlement who were seeking U.S. residency. She also advocated for their family members, who donated over $20,000 to her campaign.

Sochi may be a $50 Billion shithole still

But, hey, so much for things we were told were certainly not to be seen in Russia at present.*

And yes, I do feel about 13-years old right now.


(Russian is a language more full of irony than I expected)

*I realize there's something inherently off-putting about western journalists going somewhere and complaining about not being sufficiently feted.

Yeah, because somehow only he gets an exemption!

I mean, how dare the twitterati right?

Because Twitter is only good for judging all other things, but this one, obviously.

Hopefully, this is going to be about 20 days of mildly subversive hilarity

Touche!

Norway’s Minister of Health and Care Services, Bent Høie, has decided to comment on the Russian propaganda laws by taking his husband, advertising exec Dag Terje Solvang, to Sochi. Bent Høie, who holds a position in the Norwegian government comparable to our Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, waved his status like a red cape before a bull, daring the Russians to object. Minister Høie doubled down on his strategy, telling Norway’s Stavanger Aftenblad newspaper, that it is a normal for a cabinet minister to travel with a spouse on an official visit.

I hope somebody tells Anders Behring Breivik too. Because, as ever, fuck that guy.

It took a year...a year!

And the surprising thing is...there may be some sort of assignment of responsibility. Maybe.

Last year, in the immediate wake of the murder of three Los Angeles Officers by Christopher Dorner, this happened.

At some point, the officers received a report that a pickup truck resembling Dorner’s was seen in the area of the house they were guarding. Shortly after 5 a.m., a truck turned onto the street. As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the truck. When the shooting stopped, they realized their mistake. The truck was a different make and model. The color wasn't gray, as Dorner’s was, but blue. And it wasn't Dorner inside the truck, but a woman and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.

A tragic, but clearly foreseeable event. And those officers, the Chief of Police, Charley Beck,  decided after a year...violated Departmental policy.

Or to be tragically cynical, did they?

A panel of high-ranking police officials that reviewed the shooting urged Beck to clear the officers of wrongdoing

Yes, those two now dead (Ed: they lived, so, uh....whoops?!) people should have known not to drive a vehicle as uncommon in America as a pick up truck.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I know it's hard to believe

As this never happens, except pretty much every...single...time.

But "Beltway Wisdoms" true love, Robert Gates.

Awful human being -- almost always wrong...but always wrong in the "right" way...

On his book promotion tour, when fielding curiously softball questions from Jon Stewart, Gates assumed the admonitory tone of a statesman in saying that presidents are perhaps too quick to reach for military solutions to foreign policy problems. This from a defense secretary who lobbied for and administered the military escalations of two wars, one of which US troops are still fighting! One wonders whether this statement derived from his certainty that he could con Stewart, or from an autistic lack of self-awareness. In any case, Stewart did not follow up.

Another gift from the First World to the Third

Let's just add this to the top-five or so reasons the next time somebody asks "why do they hate us?"

The incidence of cancer globally has increased in just four years from 12.7m in 2008 to 14.1m new cases in 2012, when there were 8.2m deaths. Over the next 20 years, it is expected to hit 25m a year – a 70% increase.

The biggest burden will be in low- and middle-income countries. They are hit by two types of cancers – those triggered by infections, such as cervical cancers, which are still very prevalent in poorer countries that don't have screening, let alone the HPV vaccine, and increasingly cancers associated with more affluent lifestyles "with increasing use of tobacco, consumption of alcohol and highly processed foods and lack of physical activity", writes the World Health Organisation director general, Margaret Chan, in an introduction to the report.

And as tradition dictates in the West, we'll cash their checks and say "You're welcome".

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

As I watched the most entertaining part of THIS year's Super Bowl

The commercials, the big question is which commercial caused the angriest outrage amongst the morons?

The bi-racial Cheerios family?

Or the multilingual "America, the beautiful" Coke ad?


I'm guessing it is both a tie, and the rage tweeters had a large, large, overlap.

...Or maybe Missouri Officials are the worst?

What's the hurry? Afraid you won't get to flip the switch?

It is 2014, not 1964 or 1914, and yet on Wednesday night a black man in Missouri, a black man convicted by an all-white jury, was executed before his federal appeals had been exhausted. He was executed just moments after reportedly being hauled away by prison guards while he was in the middle of a telephone call discussing his appeals with one of his attorneys. He was executed even though state officials knew that the justices of the United States Supreme Court still were considering his request for relief.

Addiction is the worst...part infinity

What an amazing actor. You could spend a great deal of a day debating what Philip Seymour Hoffman's greatest performances were.

This time, with even less feeling

Since it has gone down the memory-hole as other nation's civil wars and other more important news (Bieber!) have occurred, let us return to austerity's poster-country, Greece. For the last half-decade's worth of its citizens being brutalized by international bankers IS...NOT...ENOUGH!

Germany has signalled it is preparing a third rescue package for Greece – provided the debt-stricken country implements "rigorous"austerity measures blamed for record levels of unemployment and a dramatic drop in GDP.

Because making the national-sport/way-of-living dumpster diving is not enough austerity for those who exploited it into that position. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The GOP's super-duper Death Panels!

Better ignore this unfortunate finding David Gregory -- so you can talk more about Bieber.

As many as 17,000 Americans will die directly as a result of states deciding not to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, according to a new study. Researchers from Harvard University and City University of New York have estimated that between 7,115 and 17,104 deaths will be "attributable to the lack of Medicaid expansion in opt-out states" in a study published in Health Affairs.

"The results were sobering," Samuel Dickman, one of the authors, said, according to the Morning Call. "Political decisions have consequences, some of them lethal."

"A black man is President, so people are going to be sentenced to death. God Bless 'Murica!

Sincerely,

The GOP"

Shorter West Virginia Government

Citizens, sure there's poison in your water, but it isn't poison from you know where, it's just poison in your drinking water. No need for concern.

Early Wednesday evening, the state Department of Health and Human Resources issued a statement that called Simonton's comments regarding formaldehyde "totally unfounded" and said his testimony "does not speak to the health and safety of West Virginians." Dr. Letitia Tierney, commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health, said Wednesday evening that the chemists the state had consulted with all said the formaldehyde could not have come from the MCHM. "Our experts are all in agreement that it's unlikely that his findings are in any way related to the chemical spill," she said. "It's already in our environment."

This about sums it up

I suppose one could grow rich indeed on calling out other countries issues while ignoring one's own -- but then there would be so much less to write about. And besides, blatant legal physical intimidation of gays and lesbians in America is so six months ago.*

On the eve of the Sochi Winter Games, more than 50 current and former Olympians have called on the Russian authorities to reconsider recently introduced anti-gay laws that forbid "gay propaganda" aimed at under-18s and that have led to a wave of homophobic attacks. Some of the 52 Olympians, with dozens of medals between them and including 12 Sochi competitors, have also criticised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and multinational sponsors for not doing more to force Vladimir Putin's administration to scale back the legislation.

Of course, the IOC follows the money...and since Russia has the World Cup in 2018, FIFA hopes to hoover-up the rest -- without the messy details of human rights.

Meanwhile, Russia has its priorities right...it's illegal to be gay...but:

Russia continues to provide safe haven for the alleged Russian mafia boss accused of bribing judges at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, in one of the worst Olympic scandals ever. Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov lives a life of luxury in Moscow despite an Interpol arrest warrant, known as a red notice.

*Well, in 22 of the United States at least.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

It all comes together

It all makes so much sense.

Scott MacIntyre, the former common law husband of Rob Ford's sister, filed a statement of claim Wednesday alleging the Toronto mayor was behind his vicious, jailhouse beating in March, 2012.

And MacIntyre believes that infamous video showing Ford ranting about wanting to kill an unnamed man and "poke his eyes out" was all about him.

And we have the suspected enforcer.

TORONTO (AP) — A police official says Justin Bieber is expected to turn himself in to face an assault charge in Toronto.

America's Concern Troll

Richard Cohen, once again needs a movie to explain to him how the world works.

He's Reaganing.

Wait until he sees "Milk" or "Silkwood"

The GOP's newest star psychopath

Somebody to take up the Christie-mantle.

It started out like dozens of other interviews after Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. But when NY1 reporter Mike Scotto decided to press Rep. Michael Grimm on his personal campaign finances, the Republican congressman abruptly ended the interview. “This is only about the president’s speech, thank you,” Grimm says before walking off camera.

It’s certainly not the first time a politician has walked out during a live interview. But what happened next is shocking even to the most jaded observer. After Stotto returns to his report, Rep. Grimm, a former FBI agent and Marine, suddenly storms back into the camera frame, whispering a threat to the reporter. "I will break you in half," he says, reportedly threatening to throw the journalist over a balcony inside the U.S. Congress.

Although the audio is largely muted, NY1 employees say that Grimm said, "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this balcony.”

The GOP loves calling Barack Obama a thug...meanwhile, they actually LOVE thuggish behavior.  This guy is going to be their newest star.

No irony, or human being, too rich for the modern Republican.

Well, there's a headline you don't see every day

Well, this is…uh, discomforting

The last scandal of any note I recall in the Air Force (other than droning middle eastern weddings for which they are merely the tool) was the attempted evangelizing rampant at the Air Force Academy. Which leads me to wonder whether that played any precipitating role in this:

The cheating scandal inside the Air Force's nuclear missile corps is expanding, with the number of service members implicated by investigators now roughly double the 34 reported just a week ago, officials said Tuesday.

That sounds kind of bad. How bad?

The Air Force announced on Jan. 15 that while it was investigating possible criminal drug use by some airmen, it discovered that one missile officer at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., had shared test questions with 16 other officers. It said another 17 admitted to knowing about this cheating but did not report it.

Cheating on tests regarding the handling of nuclear missiles? Holy crap!

The Air Force has 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, on alert at all times, with a contingent of about 500 launch control officers, some number of which are unavailable on any given day due to illness or other reasons. So the number temporarily unavailable for duty because of the cheating scandal is substantial — about 14 percent of the total if the number of those who have been decertified is now double the original 34.

I'm going to go drink now. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

R.I.P. Pete Seeger

Dead after a long, eventful life. And a message for that rich asshole who compared his plight to Nazi-era Jews.

Riding the tiger...in a circle.

So all those rallies and courage taken on by many Egyptians, and supported by the West (for a while) have come full circle. A Pete Townshend lyric come to life (and it isn't Squeeze Box):

Egypt's top military body has given its approval for armed forces chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to run for the presidency. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) said: "The people's trust in Sisi is a call that must be heeded as the free choice of the people." Security sources say he will resign and announce his candidacy within days. Field Marshal Sisi led the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi in July, following mass protests against him.

Strongmen love a full-circle, and so, apparently, do western governments. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"Hey everybody, get with the Pogrom"

Yeah, right...and you also suck.

The mayor of Sochi, host of the Winter Olympics, has said there are no gay people in the city.

Anatoly Pakhomov said homosexuals were welcome at the Games - as long as they "respect Russian law" and "don't impose their habits on others".

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said there were several gay bars in Sochi.

Something tells me Mr. Nemtsov is more accurate.

Well, obviously this has all worked out well

The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has accomplished more than just corruption, oil-company options, opium money, and fiery death from the sky.

Nope, the hellscape that is, and has long been Afghanistan has managed to become even worse.

Huzzah!

Afghanistan is raising a stunted generation whose hobbled development could spell disaster for the country's feeble economy and undermine the impact of billions of dollars in aid poured into health, education and other areas. More than half of Afghan girls and boys suffer damage to their minds and bodies that cannot be undone because they are poorly nourished in the crucial first two years of life, doctors and other experts say. The finding raises serious questions about the legacy of more than 10 years of western involvement in Afghanistan.

Hey, maybe we can turn it up a couple notches and export all our lead-based paint their too?

You know, for "freedom's sake".

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"Not enough of that incredible Magic Wand technology"

Sorry, cannot get over the nature of Hitachi's diversified portfolio:

A subsidiary of General Electric has agreed to pay $2.7 million to resolve claims its employees made false statements to the U.S. Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission about a reactor component. The Justice Department announced the settlement Thursday with General Electric Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas, a provider of nuclear energy products and services based in Wilmington, N.C.

Of course, GE, unlike Hitachi, doesn't make vibrators...but they do employ Joe Scarborough.

Big week for outreach

I was momentarily outraged by Mike Huckabee saying Democrats assume women cannot control their libidos.

Then, being a Democrat, I remembered what it must be like to be Mike Huckabee and how his personal experiences have repeatedly demonstrated that women have no trouble refusing to have sex with him.

And he's not even on this list.

"You are getting so bombed in John Bolton's fan-fiction"

How dare Iran's government be reasonable and the like. Don't they know the career of three quarter of the nation's foreign policy talking heads and much of the Republican primaries depend on advocating making Tehran glow ironically...so as to avoid their getting nukes?

Iran's president has urged the rest of the world to stop treating his country as pariah state, and said a deal over its nuclear programme would pave the way for the oil-rich nation to become the next big emerging market. In an olive branch to the international community, Hassan Rouhani told a packed conference hall at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he wanted to end the standoff with the west along with the sanctions that have crippled the economy. "Come and visit Iran to see the investment opportunities," he said.

Oh dammit all...conveying money-making opportunities in a relatively untapped, yet unbombed market? That's moral and logical and naturally "dirty pool". [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Virginia is for lovers...of corruption

So much for "gay marriages" weakening other traditional marriages. It seems former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen were able to engage in the even more traditional institution of graft bringing them even closer together as a couple...AND co-conspirators.

Never have truer words been spoken...

In 1944, in South Carolina, a fourteen year old black child had his life ended in this manner.

The youngest person to be executed in the US since the 19th century, the black teenager was a little over five feet tall, weighed 95lbs, and had to put a bible on the seat beneath him so that he could fit into the electric chair. His feet dangled some way above the floor.

He was executed 84 days after his trial ended. A trial which convicted him after lasting all of three hours and after an all-white jury determined after ten minutes he had bludgeoned two young white girls to death.

After all these years the young man's case, the case of George Stinney may be reopened, the scab removed after a seventy-year old lingering wound.

And now we come to a family member of the victims, who opposes reopening the case, but sums up attitudes towards past injustice in this country vividly.

Frankie Bailey Dyches said she believed Stinney had “got what he deserved” and that “justice was served, according to the laws in 1944”.

And that, apparently, is justice enough. Meanwhile, things stay pretty awesome for wealthier white guys.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sic transit Holy Shit!

The never ending horrible behavior and embarrassment of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church continues unabated.

Among the documents are relatively recent letters from Cardinal George to Norbert Maday, who is in prison serving a 20 year sentence, after being found guilty in 1994 for child sex abuse and threatening witnesse. He was informed by George in a letter written two years later that he would not be dismissed from the clerical state. "You have suffered enough by your present deprivation of ministry and your incarceration," George wrote.

Sexually abuse a child, remain a priest.

Advocate individual choice in reproduction -- you are not allowed to take part in communion.

Sounds nice and proportionate right?

Branching out

I guess among the revelations in the Bob McDonnell indictments is that evangelical Republicans are diversifying their abuse portfolio's in the ol' Anti-Government campaign. In addition to kicking the poor because God has cursed them, you can use State employees as your donor's literal guinea pigs.

In August 2011, following an email from Bob McDonnell to Virginia's secretary of health, Maureen McDonnell met at the Executive Mansion with Williams and one of the secretary's senior policy advisors. At that meeting, according to the indictment, Williams discussed the idea of having Virginia government employees use Anatabloc, Star Scientific's anti-inflammatory dietary supplement, "as a control group for research studies."

This sort of thing can keep you from getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It's not a crime, if you are too wealthy and white to do any time

Justice, western style.

A former Halliburton manager was sentenced Tuesday to one year of probation for destroying evidence in the aftermath of BP's massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Anthony Badalamenti, of Katy, Texas, had faced a maximum of one year in prison at his sentencing by U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey. Badalamenti pleaded guilty in October to one misdemeanor count of destruction of evidence. The 62-year-old also has to perform 100 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine. Badalamenti was the cementing technology director for Halliburton Energy Services Inc., BP's cement contractor on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Prosecutors said he instructed two Halliburton employees to delete data during a post-spill review of the cement job on BP's blown-out Macondo well.

And good luck keeping your lunch down as you think about the poor black kid doing 5-years for selling pot.

The judge said that the sentence of probation is "very reasonable in this case." "I still feel that you're a very honorable man," he told Badalamenti. "I have no doubt that you've learned from this mistake."

Golly, it's almost as if people have a grasp on this

That David Gregory and his seven-figure salarydo not.  As reported yesterday:

Two out of three Americans are dissatisfied with the way income and wealth are currently distributed in the U.S. This includes three-fourths of Democrats and 54% of Republicans.

I wonder what possible evidence could support these opinions?

The combined wealth of the world's richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world's population – or 3.5 billion of the poorest people – according to a new report from Oxfam.

Oh people and their accurate presumptions -- nobody can outsmart the common wisdom of the beltway! [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

This agitprop sounds familiar

The Russian-arranged media interview with Vlad Putin probably could have ended with a pause and then laughs all around when he stated this:

On corruption, Putin insisted there had been no systemic graft during the preparations for the Games, and said all allegations to the contrary were not backed up by solid facts... Previously the official figure for spending on Sochi had been put at about $51bn (£31bn), four times the planned cost and more than either the London or Beijing summer Olympics. One critical report puts the corruption estimate at $30bn – a figure greater than the GDP of more than half the world's countries.

Or it could have ended in laughs when we learned the press corps' lazy handling of facts is universal:

The Chinese television reporter present told Putin he was very popular in China and suggested he should consider playing "tough guys" in action movies when he retired.

Or he could just move to Malibu and eventually run for governor of California. Cut out the middle-career. But the laughable is determined to become the tragic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered new assurances to gay athletes and fans attending the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics next month. Yet he defended Russia's anti-gay law by equating gays with pedophiles and said Russia needs to "cleanse" itself of homosexuality if it wants to increase its birth rate.

Vlad Putin, on his way to becoming a FoxNews talking head, after all he believes in the power of myth...maybe paired with his old neighbor/peeper Sarah Palin?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

So, you're Exhibit A then?

BTW, you are entering your mid-50s, you think the black cocktail dress and the knee-high boots might be just a tad...oh, I don't know, visual proof you are stupid?

It makes you look like the biggest moron in the room...and look at the three slack-jawed morons you are in that room with?

Nice of an IOC official to take time out from his current "bribe me" tour to take a stand

Class lot those Olympic Committee officials.

A senior Italian IOC member criticized the United States on Wednesday for including openly gay athletes in its official delegation for next month's Sochi Olympics. "It's absurd that a country like that sends four lesbians to Russia just to demonstrate that in their country gay rights have (been established)," Mario Pescante said at an Italian Olympic Committee meeting in Milan on Wednesday, in comments widely reported by Italian media. "The games should not be an occasion and a stage to promote rights that sports supports daily."

Yes, who ever heard of "politics" playing a role in the Olympics, standing up to bigotry?

And lord knows the Italians have done much in that area.

And in ghouishly predicted news

Earlier this week the State of Ohio's decision to "experiment with death for profit...and FUN!" was discussed. Well, today the full extent of the "fun" was unleashed to completely foreseeable and blithely ignored results.

A condemned Ohio inmate appeared to gasp several times and took more than 15 minutes to die Thursday as he was executed with a combination of drugs never before tried in the U.S. Death row inmate Dennis McGuire made several loud snorting or snoring sounds during one of the longest executions since Ohio resumed capital punishment in 1999.

Yes, Mr. McGuire was a convicted murderer and by general universal acclaim a horrible human being. But he was still a human being, and this pointless use of an untried method causing a prolonged and terrible death was even more pointless than usual.

On the other hand, for proponents of the death penalty it was a great form of erotica.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

"Yeah, get back to Benghazi already!!!!"

Yep...he actually said this with a straight, albeit tanned and pickled, face.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Thursday said that lawmakers and the media should move past the controversy surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge last year, noting that the governor has "held people accountable." "It's time to move on," he said during a Thursday press conference. "I think the governor made clear that mistakes were made."

"While we on the other hand, employ Piers Morgan and hired SE Cupp from them..."

Comedy, it writes itself, from the man who single-handedly had the NBC Network commit suicide.

CNN President Jeff Zucker on Monday said that the recent controversies involving MSNBC hosts Martin Bashir, Alec Baldwin and Melissa Harris-Perry hurt the network's brand. "I think all of those things combined affect the brand over time and the cumulative effect takes its toll," he said in an interview with TV Guide.

If Bill Keller and his wife had been around for Helen Keller

They would have written editorials to cut off her busy-bodied hands.

"Look, we're determined to be the West Virginia of the Midwest"

So stoop lower South Dakota!

After Michael Eisenga, a wealthy GOP donor and Wisconsin business owner, failed to convince several courts to lower his child support payments, he came up with an inventive plan B—he recruited a Republican state legislator to rewrite Wisconsin law in his favor. A set of documents unearthed Saturday by the Wisconsin State Journal shows Eisenga and his lawyer, William Smiley, supplying detailed instructions to Republican state Rep. Joel Kleefisch on how to word legislation capping child support payments from the wealthy. Kleefisch began work on the legislation last fall, weeks after an appeals court rejected Eisenga's attempts to lower his child support payments.

"Plans?! Those cost money...money we need to pay for tax breaks to coal companies!"

The Mountaineer State's image as caring more about corporations than people is really being bolstered this week.

West Virginia emergency planners never put together any strategy for dealing with spills of a toxic chemical from the Freedom Industries' tank farm, despite the facility's location just 1.5 miles upstream from a drinking water intake serving 300,000 people, officials acknowledged this morning. Local emergency official likewise didn't act to prepare for such an incident, even though they had been warned for years about storage of toxic chemicals so close to the West Virginia American Water plant serving the Kanawha Valley and surrounding region. "That's just something that's kind of fallen by the wayside," said Larry Zuspan, administrator of the Kanawha-Putnam Emergency Planning Committee.

They had other priorities than health and safety I guess.

Freedom Industries' tanks don't fall under an inspection program, and the chemicals stored at the facility weren't considered hazardous enough to require environmental permitting.

Just like most of the American media. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Our "civilized" society

Oh, good plan.

On Thursday, the state of Ohio is scheduled to inject Dennis McGuire, 53, with two drugs: first, the sedative midazolam; then, the painkiller hydromorphone. When it is over, McGuire, who was convicted of the 1989 rape and murder of Joy Stewart, will be dead – which is Ohio’s goal. But the procedure is untried and untested; the drugs that the state will employ have never been used in a death chamber. And experts have warned in legal proceedings that if the process goes wrong, McGuire will not just peacefully drift away, but will be awake, struggling and failing to pull enough air into his lungs, until the drug overdose that will kill him takes hold.

Mr. McGuire, of course, is obviously a horrible human being, so naturally few people will care -- who is cared for less in this country than people on death row? (sadly you could probably still make a list). "Experimenting" with ways to kill people has an awful Josef Mengele quality to it. If this doesn't work, maybe we'll next try the Kim Jong Un method. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

In case you were wondering

How sympathetic Brit Hume must have been to his son before he committed suicide years ago...(and you know you weren't wondering that):

Howard Kurtz: So what about this bully narrative?

Brit Hume: Well, I would have to say that in this sort of feminized atmosphere in which we exist today, guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct, kind of old fashion tough guys, run some risk.

Lauren Ashburn: Feminized?

Kurtz: Feminized. Hume: Atmosphere.

Kurtz: By which you mean? Hume: By which I mean that men today have learned the lesson the hard way that if you act like a kind of an old fashioned guy's guy, you're in constant danger of slipping out and saying something that's going to get you in trouble and make you look like a sexist or make you look like you seem thuggish or whatever. That's the atmosphere in which he operates. This guy is very much an old fashioned masculine, muscular guy, and there are political risks associated with that. Maybe it shouldn't be, but that's how it is.

Not to engage in easy fat jokes...(but to engage in easy fat jokes)...Chris Christie can be described many, many, many ways. But muscular is certainly not one of them.

I'm sure this archaic "man's man" and terror of the "feminized" society must have really helped with his late son's feelings of being loved by his dad, his huge prick of a dad.

"And also 9/11"

Yes, that was Rudy Giuliani calling Christ Christie a model of awesomeness compared to "America's Worst Disaster EVAH!", Benghazi...as compared to the awesome day that was 9/11.

Environmental laws...who needs 'em

Please enjoy your Randian lifestyle...while you can.

Residents of nine counties in West Virginia have been told not to use or drink their water after a chemical used by the coal industry spilled into the Elk River on Thursday. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency as more than 100,000 customers, or 300,000 people, are without safe drinking water. 

“Don’t make baby formula,” said West Virginia American Water Company president Jeff McIntyre. “Don’t brush your teeth. Don’t shower. Toilet flushing only.”

Of course...

Who could have anticipated?

Ads Telling Voters "Recall Is Not the Wisconsin Way" Funded by Out-of-State Koch Network

It just gets better and better

For Chris Christie and the brilliant idea of closing down a bridge, to get even with a Democrat, for the crime of not being a Republican.

First responders were delayed in responding to at least four medical emergencies due to the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in September that have been linked to one of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) political feuds. The delays were detailed in a letter from EMS coordinator Paul Favia to Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich. It was obtained by the Bergen Record and dated Sept. 10, the second day Fort Lee was consumed by gridlock due to the lane closures. In one instance, it took EMS workers seven minutes to get to a 91-year-old woman who was unconscious and eventually died of cardiac arrest at a hospital.

I know from first hand experience over the last twenty-plus years, it is very very hard to sue the government -- BUT I think we might have a good reason if you are the family of someone who needed an ambulance in this area on September 10th.

I'm relatively confident you'd have a shot at getting over the usual level of qualified immunities.

Of course...maybe manslaughter is a possibility here?

And further in unsurprising news, news

Roger Ailes is as disgusting a pig as you always figured he was anyway based on all his previous reprehensible words and deeds.

Book: Ailes Offered Female Employee Higher Salary If He Could Have Sex With Her Whenever He Wanted

"We better bomb 'em 'til the rubble bounces...just in case."

How could this have happened before we had a real chance to get involved with 'shock and awe'? Life -- and the ability of the United States to deal out arbitrary death is so unfair!

Syria has started moving chemical weapons materials out of the country in a crucial phase of an internationally backed disarmament program that has been delayed by war and technical problems. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Tuesday that "priority chemical materials" were transported to the port of Latakia and onto a Danish vessel which was now sailing towards international waters.

Well, if nothing else Liz Cheney's life will have renewed purpose, as other people must die to avenge her political career. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

In other non-news

Dennis Rodman is still kind of a dope.

Let me know, when other real news comes in like...Michael Jordan competitive, George Clooney suave, Miley Cyrus young, or Lindbergh still dead.

Republicans, now screwing you in multiple positions

From Talking Points Memo:

It's one thing to have a policy difference, it's another to literally convince people to make their lives worse (aka as "Modern Kansas"):

Keeping those priorities straight

The prolonged civil-war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands and been the source of surely valid claims of genocide.

Nevertheless, both sides have reached a consensus -- oh not that they'll stop killing each other, that's clearly too much to ask for -- rather, one that Dick Cheney could love with all his donated heart.

Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to consider setting up a joint force to protect vital oilfields during the ongoing crisis in the South, Sudan's foreign minister has said.

Well thank goodness they are considering that as a start, I mean at least they can still shoot at each other in so many other places than oil-fields. Like schools and hospitals and other lesser places.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Finally a real "Minnesota" winter-day in Iowa

Minus a dozen this morning.  The kind of morning that makes me remember when I was 7 and we moved to a Minnesota town and our first day in the new house was delayed because the movers needing to leave the garage door open ended up freezing the pipes.   It was merely January and it was merely -31 Fahrenheit...not windchill...straight air temperature.

It's a day so cold that we flip the script on our retired parents in Arizona and say, "Guess what it was less than 10 below today, but we're alive and all your friends are dying...WHOSE LIVIN' NOW?!"

The secret to really cold weather in the Midwest is that it is usually (not always) accompanied by little to no wind.  So while it is cold, it is survivable in small batches.

But when there is so much as a mild breeze IT IS HORRID.

BTW, the NFL got lucky, Green Bay was a cold 4 or 5 degrees above yesterday, presently it is 16 BELOW...straight temp.

One cretin leaves, another cretin eats that cretin and emerges

Konichiwhaaaaat?

Steven Seagal considering run for Arizona governor.

Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Marked for Death" actor told KNXV-TV (http://goo.gl/jNxPSd) that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140104_ap_b0911e3e756d40d7adc041bf9b94d8a5.html#uCfBXrJrrdLlgdS8.99

Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Marked for Death" actor told KNXV-TV (http://goo.gl/jNxPSd) that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140104_ap_b0911e3e756d40d7adc041bf9b94d8a5.html#uCfBXrJrrdLlgdS8.99

Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Marked for Death" actor told KNXV-TV (http://goo.gl/jNxPSd) that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140104_ap_b0911e3e756d40d7adc041bf9b94d8a5.html#uCfBXrJrrdLlgdS8.99

Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Marked for Death" actor told KNXV-TV (http://goo.gl/jNxPSd) that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140104_ap_b0911e3e756d40d7adc041bf9b94d8a5.html#uCfBXrJrrdLlgdS8.99

Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Marked for Death" actor told KNXV-TV (http://goo.gl/jNxPSd) that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140104_ap_b0911e3e756d40d7adc041bf9b94d8a5.html#uCfBXrJrrdLlgdS8.99

Action-movie star Steven Seagal says he is considering a run for Arizona governor.
The "Marked for Death" actor told KNXV-TV (http://goo.gl/jNxPSd) that he is considering a shot at the state's highest office and has had a talk about the bid with the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America.
The 61-year-old made the comments while talking about his newly released reality series "Steven Seagal - Lawman: Maricopa County."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140104_ap_b0911e3e756d40d7adc041bf9b94d8a5.html#uCfBXrJrrdLlgdS8.99

Even Sarah Palin thinks she's a quitter

Back to the think-tank and FoxNews panel shows fueled by the power of nepotism!

Dogged by bad polling, controversies with Wyoming Republicans and a public feud with her sister over the legitimacy of her sister's same-sex marriage, would-be Senator Liza Cheney has decided to drop her longshot primary challenge to Wyoming Sen. Rick Enzi, according to CNN.

My New Year's Resolutions

Are gonna be kind of boring this year.  After all, I don't need to lose weight anymore.

Now I just have to keep it off.

I am still walking...for those of you who still read this blog for the same reason I still write it (nothin' else to do...) after about 11 months (not quite) I've gone from surprisingly healthy but really fat dumbass to pretty healthy and surprisingly slim dumbass (as for amount let's just say I'm about half the man I used to be).

Perhaps the last descriptive remains the pertinent one, still a dumbass.

That may be a harder resolution to change...but I could be a complete dumbass and just make up right-wing bullshit, deny evolution, and just swallow FoxNews bullshit.

Nah, I'll just remain a straight-forward dumbass, rather than a tool.

Of all the stupid made up crap the right-wing has come up with...

...this is simply one of them.

We’ve heard people give lots of reasons for opposing Obamacare. But until a reader sent us some Internet links recently, we hadn’t realized that one of the fears being spawned by Obamacare was that it could usher in legal beheadings across America.

Such is the constant stream of bullshit, I cannot even claim this ranks high amongst the dumbest and most patently bullshit on the list.  After all, they still try to con their gullible sheep with the 'born in Kenya' story.

Slate's corrections department

Officially on suicide watch.

Slate is owned by the Washington Post, which for years has run Richard Cohen and George Will columns without correction.  It also pays Jennifer Rubin either succulent children and/or money.

Funny enough, my first thought was

They signed up Richard Cohen for an additional column every week.

Hypocrisy is bigger in Texas

Last year, despite the efforts of Wendy Davis to filibuster it away, Texas passed laws that with substantial medical requirements that made most clinics in the State providing abortion services close.

For example, the Whole Woman's Health in McAllen, Texas had to cease operations. But there is still a place claiming to cater to women's health issues in McAllen...

A McAllen Pregnancy Center counselor reached by phone told Al Jazeera that the center does not employ a doctor because the ultrasounds it conducts aren’t for diagnostic purposes but for “seeing the baby.” Medical experts, like the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and the ACOG, take a dim view of such practices. They warn that women could be falsely reassured about their health or that of their fetus, and if abnormalities are discovered, there’s no guarantee that pregnant women will receive the follow-up care they need.

Though it might not be obvious to Betsy that she isn’t receiving medical treatment, the McAllen Pregnancy Center isn’t behaving like a rogue operator. Unlike abortion clinics, sandwich shops and nail salons, crisis-pregnancy centers in Texas don’t have to comply with state or federal safety standards. The state health department does not inspect the clinics, not even the ones that offer ultrasounds and call themselves pregnancy medical clinics.

Sounds totally fair...in a Rick Perry fashion doesn't it?

Meanwhile, if you live in McAllen and still want to exercise your rights? Enjoy your "bonus" six-hour round trip drive.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Godless Commie

Prepare to have your American Bishops and the media ignore the bulk of this that did not refer to abortion.

Pope Francis made an impassioned New Year's peace address on Wednesday, saying the heart of humanity seemed to have gone astray and too many people were still indifferent to war, violence and injustice. The pontiff, who took his papal name from St Francis of Assisi, the saint most associated with peace, urged the world to listen to the "cry for peace" from suffering peoples. "What on earth is happening in the hearts of men? What on earth is happening in the heart of humanity?" he said to tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square on the day the Roman Catholic Church celebrates its World Day of Peace.

And then Cardinal Dolan promptly condemned gay marriage.

And our political leadership nodded their heads in contemplation and ordered a drone-strike.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Worst Neighborhood in America

Undoubtedly quite a competition, but still a winner seems clear.

More horrific news from the Cleveland neighborhood where Ariel Castro tortured three women for a decade: On Monday, Elias Acevedo Sr, Castro's neighbor, pleaded guilty to hundreds of charges, including two counts of murder and the rape of his three daughters and sister-in-law. Over the course of two decades, Acevedo repeatedly raped his three daughters. In 1993, he raped his sister-in-law, who, at the time, was 18 years old and 5-months pregnant with his brother's child.

ugh.

But it has been such an ethical operation thus far?

You have to credit the Japanese kleptocracy for at least being consistent.

(Reuters) - Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men. He isn't a social worker. He's a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan's nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a head. "This is how labor recruiters like me come in every day," Sasa says, as he strides past men sleeping on cardboard and clutching at their coats against the early winter cold. It's also how Japan finds people willing to accept minimum wage for one of the most undesirable jobs in the industrialized world: working on the $35 billion, taxpayer-funded effort to clean up radioactive fallout across an area of northern Japan larger than Hong Kong.

Killing two birds with one radioactive stone.

And yet, the shame lies only with the victims of homelessness, apparently.

Some of America's biggest jerks libertarians will read this story with their biggest 'free market boners'.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Fu...I mean, Ducked

Phil Robertson is really into making dumbass statements.

At a Sportsmen’s Ministry talk in 2009, Robertson had some advice for a young man. “Make sure that she can cook a meal, you need to eat some meals that she cooks, check that out,” he said. “Make sure she carries her Bible. That’ll save you a lot of trouble down the road. And if she picks your ducks, now, that’s a woman.” “They got to where they’re getting hard to find,” Robertson remarked. “Mainly because these boys are waiting until they get to be about 20 years old before they marry ‘em. Look, you wait until they get to be 20 years old, the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket.” The Duck Commander company founder added: “You got to marry these girls when they are about 15 or 16, they’ll pick your ducks.

There is only one viable war strategy...er, strategery

And clearly that is a perpetual one.

A new U.S. intelligence estimate predicts that gains the United States and allies have made in the Afghanistan war in the past three years will be significantly rolled back by 2017, even if some U.S. troops remain, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing officials familiar with the report.

And the people that will shriek loudest are the people who unleashed the original bad and "perpetual war" plan to begin with. It's been a GOP favorite since Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese government fell in the 1940s [had to get over the stigma of ignoring the Nazis by claiming everyone else were the appeasers].

The only real consistency of American foreign policy in the post-WWII era is the ability to always eventually make the same mistake the same way.

We're either staying in Afghanistan forever, or finding a new version of Afghanistan.

Oh, who am I kidding, we'll probably do both.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Father Chippendale

Apparently this is an annual thing...much like confidential settlements in an American District Court.

And FoxNews says "Lalalalalala - War on Christbenghazimas!"

Oh dear and after all this time on a repeating narrative.

Months of investigation by The New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault. The attack was led, instead, by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi. And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.

How dare the original version of events, turn out to be the actual original version of events?

You mean the nutjobs of America actually facilitated the extremists of Libya?

That's "unpossible!"

I've been out of town for a while...

Returning this weekend, normal poor service will resume soon.

Meanwhile, in pending mass tragedies

Last month, Senator James Imhofe's son died in a plane crash. Obviously, that is a personal family tragedy. But in discussing this, Inhofe had a rather disconcerting statement to make...I know he makes disconcerting statements all the time...but this was rather revealing.

"I probably shouldn't say this, but I seem to have gotten more, at least as many, maybe more, of communications from some of my Democrat friends. And I'm a pretty partisan Republican," Inhofe said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They realize that you've lost someone, and that brings us closer together." ... "

Something like this happens, and all of a sudden the old barriers that were there, the old differences, those things that keep us apart just disappear," he said. "Those defined positions, they don't change. But your attitude changes. And I can't help but think when I'm confronting someone on something on which we disagree, that I know how they responded to my loss."

Again, sorry for your loss...but did you really think people on the other side really were that much of a cartoon portrait that you believed them incapable of expressing actual humanity? That.is.pathetic. But no more so than the actual policy positions of James Inhofe.

Organizations that actively block efforts to address climate change are funded by a large network of conservative donors to the tune of nearly $1 billion a year, according to the first in-depth study into the dark money that fuels the denial effort.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

It's projection

One of the reasons Republicans want to pass voter frauds laws (well after the joy they get at keeping minorities from having any power) is that they think everyone else is the filthy moral assholes they are.

Liz Cheney's Senate campaign in Wyoming continues to be dogged with news about her family.

Politico reported Wednesday that Cheney's husband was registered to vote in both Virginia and Wyoming despite signing a document in the latter state saying he was not registered elsewhere.

Use stay classy pig-face

Another day ending in "y":

Rep. Steve Stockman's gross campaign office may turn out to just be the first in a series.

The OC Weekly on Thursday published a report on the "horrific pigsty" that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) left behind in a Costa Mesa, Calif. home he lived in from 2010 to 2012. And there are photographs.

According to the newspaper, Rohrabacher moved into the four-bedroom, four-bathroom, 6,300-square-foot home on April Fool's Day 2010. Rent was $3,350 a month. The carpets were new, and the backyard featured "thriving" flowers, plants, and grass. But when homeowner Robert Polyniak's longtime girlfriend, Darlene Whitsell, entered the home shortly after the Rohrabachers left the property, things looked different. 

"It was disgusting," Whitsell told the OC Weekly. "It was unbelievable. Who lives like that?"
Among the damage: the carpeting was covered in "massive black stains and muck;" appliances were damaged and rusted; the plants outside had dried up and died; there were holes in the walls; every toilet seat in the house was broken; light switches and doors had been cracked; an overflowing tub cracked a ceiling with water damage; phone lines were "strangely severed;" and more.

With enough urchins you can have a heckuva musical

Jack Kingston, a representative of Georgia, paid $170,000 annually to engage in the part-time job of legislating and the full-time job of fund-raising for Jack Kingston knows from moochers.

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) wants kids to learn early in life that there's no such thing as a free lunch. To make sure they absorb that lesson, he's proposing that low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals.

Will.Work.To.Live.

Because being born poor is there problem, just ask Bloomberg.

But you cannot have a new 'Gilded Age' if you don't offset kickin' the poor with some sweet gild.

Kingston co-sponsored a $6.3 million earmark in 2008 to replenish the beach on Tybee Island, where he owns a cottage about 900 feet from the beach. "It's absurd to suggest that this benefits me," he said.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Good!

I hope other nations follow suit.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced his delegates to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. And, in what may be a thumb in the eye to Russian President Vladimir Putin over his crackdown on gay rights, two of Obama's delegates are openly gay.

The Spirit of the Season

Being accused of the occasional murder of a teenager and a series of sexual assaults. In many instances that would make you socially anathema. But not in our modern FoxNews America!

George Zimmerman has a new hobby. He's auctioning his first hand painted artwork on eBay. The oil painting drew a bidding frenzy as soon as it was posted Monday on the auctioning site. As of Tuesday morning, there were 98 bids, with the leading bid standing at $99,966. In the description, Zimmerman says painting has been a way to express himself, his emotions, and the symbols that represent his experiences

I'd like to sell a painting I made expressing my opinion of George Zimmerman and his horrible enablers. But the late Mr. Cash long ago beat me to it.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

I guess in a round-about way he was close to being right.

Harold Camping Dead: Judgment Day 'Family Radio' Host Dies At 92 After Controversial Career