Hey, something else he had in common with Trump and/or Teabaggers

Bin Laden hated making buildings that were up to code and evaded paying his property taxes (and someone no one noticed...you try going 6 years without paying your property tax and see what happens):

The file also shows that the occupants never paid any property tax, and that the completed building breached several guidelines. The file says the house had a “flush system” and a drainage tank. The official address on file is: House No 3, Street No 8-A, Garga Road, Thanda Chowa, Hashmi Colony, Abbottabad.

via Balloon Juice

Still Dancing to their Crazy Tune

Until just recently, and maybe again someday soon, the majority of Republicans believed that the President was not born in the United States. Having been temporarily shamed forced into moving on to other topics, they have, like always turned their dementia on a dime.

In the best-case torturist scenario, Obama did little more than follow the Bush/Cheney mastermind plan. Ridiculous? A Washington Post/Pew Research poll found that 81 percent of Republicans believe that Bush deserves "some credit" for nabbing bin Laden, while only 61 percent say that Obama does

Thus, though this notion, like all these past delusions is, well delusional, it shall be believed nonetheless, and discussed as if a viable and important topic of conversation. Thus, yesterday, on the Sunday chat shows, there were few members of the Obama Administration or Democrats invited -- it was almost as if Bush was still President -- especially on Dancin' Dave.

If modern America's media existed in its current fashion at this time in 1945, FoxNews would be driving a narrative that people forget about the recently departed FDR and give full credit for defeating Hitler where it belonged, with Herbert Hoover.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Meanwhile, in the Village...

Voimitous -- when one wonders how conservative memes always seem to predominate, look no further than this:

...the ratio of Bush officials to Obama officials on the Sunday shows this morning is 6 – 1.

If it's Sunday, it's time to call for more torture.

But David Gregory cannot see them enough!!!

In a rational world, one might think some of these things would dawn on the Village when they kiss their ass repeatedly...but nooooooooo!

John McCain and Joe Lieberman have been intertwined a lot over the last few years and here's another place where they share company—they are two of the three least popular out of the 81 sitting Senators PPP has done approval polls on since the beginning of 2010. McCain's approval rating is only 34% with 53% of voters disapproving of him. That makes him the third least popular. Lieberman is the least popular and John Ensign is the second least popular.

Lieberman and McCain have the same problem—they're not very popular with their party base but no one else likes them either.

So the only thing keeping them from being joined at the bottom is the guy who paid for the right to be the bottom.

Aw, dammit, they always do

One of these days, the Plants or Protozoa will pull one out.

Hey everybody, it's a Mission Accomplished!

Andy Card has a hilariously stupid and ironic opinion again.

What does everybody think?



Yep, pretty much.

Whining stupidly about Obama is pretty much Andy Card's only idiom.

You've got to remember, the dude was getting pretty old

Seriously, the Pentagon released some video tapes of Osama bin Laden looking at outtakes and preps of his videos, without applying his Reaganesque black shoe-polish to his beard.

So in essence, bin Landen is preparing DVD extras and commentary.

I just hope they had time to do a gag reel.

But the real question is, where's the sex tape?

Putting the "boot" in "about intellectually bankrupt"

Amongst the many "lowlights" of Condi Rice's interview with Lawrence O'Donnell was her insistence the Canadhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifians were all on board with invading and occupying Iraq. Uh, no they weren't, and in fact, conservatives were quite pissed off and complaining about it at the time. It was in all the funny papers, I'm sure Glenn Reynolds got all hey and indeedy about it.

It's one of those amazing bits of the right-wing re-writing their own hilariously awful history of intellectual assholery.

Canada most certainly did not favor the invasion and occupation of Iraq, in fact, at the time the right-wing's most vociferous nuts were slandering the Canadians over it, by lying about another recent war.

Coulter: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"

McKeown interrupts: "Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter: "I don't think that's right."

McKeown: "Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter (looking desperate): "Indochina?"

McKeown: "Uh no. Canada ...second World War of course. Korea. Yes. Vietnam No."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

McKeown: "No, took a pass on Vietnam."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

McKeown: "No, Australia was there, not Canada."

Coulter: "I think Canada sent troops."

McKeown: "No."

Coulter: "Well. I'll get back to you on that."

McKeown tags out in script:

"Coulter never got back to us -- but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam."

Justifying your pathology

Of course torture is ineffective, and did not lead to bin Laden, but delayed it. But Dan Froomkin is too polite to put the "why" right-wingers are tossing it out there when he says this:

Torture apologists are reaching precisely the wrong conclusion from the back-story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, say experienced interrogators and intelligence professionals.

They are not reaching for a conclusion, they are doing one of two things. First, for those with a bit of conscience left, they are trying to overcome their their guilt. Second, for those without, they are trying to vindicate their sense of the jollies over physically abuse "the other".

Either way, it is pathological and ugly.

Dumber and Dumber

Author Neil Gaiman, attacked by (yet another) stupid Minnesota Republican from the suburbs, responds by making the man look like an imbecile to such an extent even the dumbass starts to realize it.

Why Pete Hamill is The Man

Because he says stuff like this:

Q: What was your response [when you heard the news about Osama bin Laden's death]?

A. Nothing dramatic. I didn't jump for joy because after 50 years of being a newspaperman, I realize that if you think you know what it's all about at the moment, you're usually wrong. I was also hopeful that nobody would say, "This brings closure." [emphasis mine]

There are a good many people -- yours truly included -- who could learn a lot from those words.

More:

In Tabloid City, part of the story involves an Islamic terrorist. You describe this young man who goes around like an ordinary person—yet he has what you call a "secret script" in his mind. As a country, do we really understand people like him?

I hate to generalize about 310 million human beings. Any of us who've been newspapermen for a long time hate generalizations. When I hear a politician begin to say, "The American people want...," I know the sentence is horseshit. But I hope Americans do understand the enemy. [emphasis mine, again]

And if you haven't read Pete Hamill's A Drinking Life, I hereby order you to do so now.

/via Ta-Nehisi Coates

Should Have Disbarred Her, Anyway

Remember this little wingnut nitwit?

Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair

Hey, I saw Sleep No More last night. If you come to New York, you should check it out: totally unique and really a huge technical achievement. A lot of the reviews call it a "Hitchcock-Shakespeare mashup" and the like, but I'd add Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" as an influence, too.

Here are some slide shows to give you a taste: first one, second one, third one.

Enjoyed the banquet/orgy best, myself.

In fairness

If my home was raided there would be aspirational plans for me to join Hair Club for Men.

Who the fuck are you?

Sid Vicious?

It may have been the moment when former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson extended his riff about how his reality TV show would be different from Sarah Palin’s “crawling on her hands and knees up the ice flow in Alaska.”

Or perhaps it was when Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) explained why not everyone would use heroin if it were legalized.

Either way, the Libertarian-minded iconoclasts who bookended the stage here Thursday night at the first Republican presidential primary debate

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

How's the GOP House doing on prioritizing that?

The House of Representatives approved a measure on Wednesday to broaden a ban on federal funding of abortion and deny tax breaks for health plans that include abortion services.

Well, it does redefine rape, yes it's really offensive and disgusting to do so, but maybe there's jobs in that, at least in the dictionaries industry?

How about the Republican Presidential Candidates displaying themselves (like mandrills) last night?

The five men on the stage in Greenville: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, former Godfathers Pizza CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

So, four out of five are unemployed. That's inspiring.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Just Wondering

If Bernie Kerik is watching Obama and his best buddy Rudy Giuliani visit what fools and ghouls call "Ground Zero" from the dayroom of federal pen at Cumberland, Maryland.

I remember this from when I was a kid

I was only six at the time and this is the first car race I can recall seeing on TV (I think it was taped delayed, not live, but to a 6 year old it's the same thing)-- and it had this memorable event of the pace car nearly killing a bunch of people:



This formed the thought in my mind that the pace car was supposed to crash like this -- six year olds are impressionable and stupid (ed. and forty years later...?).

Still, it'll be interesting if Trump, for some bizarre reason the choice to drive the pace car in the Indy 500 this year, does the same thing. It would certainly be a metaphor of his candidacy.

(BTW, in that car in addition to the driver were Tony Hulman who owned the track, Chris Schenkel of ABC, and John freaking Glenn who undoubtedly thought about the irony of his life possibly ending this way considering all the other shit he'd gone through.)

An inspirational message

From Chuck Grassley and Wonkette's advertisers to our nation's sexually conflicted:



How could this not make all the single ladies...and men swoon?

I concur

I'm wrestling with the release of the image of Dead bin Laden, it's a close call. But ultimately I'm siding with the rationale put forth here:

The main argument for releasing a photograph of the punctured scalp of our enemy is that it will provide proof that bin Laden really is dead. In other words, seeing is believing. But does anyone really believe that any more? Believing is believing. People who want, or need, to believe that bin Laden wasn’t shot dead will have no difficulty believing that a picture of his cadaver is a fake, a simple propaganda trick. The release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate didn’t put an end to birtherism, so why would the release of bin Laden’s autopsy video put an end to deatherism? And why does the White House care to appease the holders of such delusions?

I've seen some people put forth the notion, if you favored the release of the Abu Ghraib pics how can you be against the release of the bin Laden pics?

Well, one -- people needed to see in order to believe that ultimately we as a nation allowed torture, without the pictures there would have been no reason to own it, to stop it. The same with the results of dead civilians we, or others have killed, the pictures are powerful BECAUSE of the damage, they humanize inhumanity. That is not a gift bin Laden deserves, any more than dead Hitler. Mussolini hanging dead, beaten, shot and otherwise abused and bloated at a Milan gas station made him more sympathetic when he did not deserve it, not less. Same with the Ceaușescus.

We don't need to see his corpse to own the notion that we killed the guy primarily responsible for a terrorist act to come to grips with the need for it.

Yes, we see gruesome images all the time -- but I for one, find it hard to picture Kennedy without the Zapruder film in my head; it's hard to picture Martin Luther King without him laying in a pool of blood on the walkway of the Lorraine Motel. Those are tragic images of great humans, or at least a hell of a lot closer than Osama -- I don't need another image seared into my brain to put bin Laden up with those two in my memory bank, he doesn't deserve it.

I suppose this seems somewhat naive to some -- the picture will almost certainly come up one way or another -- but fuck 'em I don't need it to affirm my feelings, justify shit, shock me about war, or masturbate to (see your average FoxNews viewer or host).