Must Reads

Bob Cesca: The Health Insurance Mafia Deserves a Good Screwing

Andrew Sullivan: A Marine and the T-Word

Paul Krugman: The Big Hate

Halimah Abdullah, McClatchy: Senators who opposed tobacco bill received top dollar from industry

Lars Thorwald: Obama on DOMA: He IS Keeping A Promise

Armadillo Joe recommends...

Joan Walsh: Why I went on "The O'Reilly Factor"

The Daily Howler: It Happened Last Time! Yesterday’s killing made us think about what happened the last time

D. Aristophanes, Sadly, No!: The Usual Gang of Idiots

Tom Leonard: US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

Outrage, Please.

First it was the Stimulus Bill/Monkey shooting editorial cartoon and now comes word that South Carolina Republican party activist Rusty DePass felt the need to insult Michelle Obama with an ape characterization.

A prominent S.C. Republican Party activist is in hot water after describing an escaped gorilla at a South Carolina zoo as an “ancestor” of First Lady Michelle Obama.

The exchange occurred after Trey Walker, an advisor to S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, posted an innocuous Facebook update about this morning’s escape of a Western Lowlands Gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo.

Walker’s harmless update, however was followed by a highly-questionable comment from longtime SCGOP activist and former State Senate candidate, Rusty DePass.

These people are just crawling out from under their rocks lately. Daily Kos has more.

Adding... I wonder if this story will get as much play as David Letteman's "slutty flight attendant" joke?

President Obama's Weekly Address - June 13, 2009

Health Care Reform as the Key to Our Fiscal Future

There Goes The Neighborhood

Picture the really annoying family that lives on the block that ruins what would otherwise be a fun neighborhood to live in. You know the ones. Everyone has those types of neighbors driving down property values. They are the reason, "There goes the neighborhood" became a catchphrase. They have regular shouting matches in the driveway. They leave garbage in their backyard after a barbecue that attracts rodents which soon infest your own yard. They have the police pulling up to their house once every couple of weeks in the middle of the night to settle a domestic dispute. You don't want your children playing with their children for fear of them being a bad influence on your kids, be it disrespect... or drugs... or lice. Or scabies.

Meet the Palins. The Wasilla Hillbillies. There goes the neighborhood.

This past week, Late Night host David Letterman made a couple of crude jokes at the expense of the Palins. Specifically the joke in question was, "Sarah Palin went to a Yankees game yesterday. There was one awkward moment. During the 7th inning stretch, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodgriguez."

In response, Todd Palin released a statement: “Any 'jokes' about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.”

Raping my 14-year-old daughter? A bit over the top, eh Todd?

Letterman discussed the whole situation at length in what I view as a half-hearted apology. I say half-hearted because the Palins made the joke something which it wasn't, and although he called the jokes "ugly," Letterman wasn't so much apologizing as explaining the truth of the matter. 14-year-old Willow Palin was not the subject of the joke. Something the Palins seem to skirt around.



They could have taken the high road, accepted the apology and left it alone. But no, they decided to make this an issue that it wasn't about, while insinuating that Letterman can't be trusted with underage girls. It's pathetic. The Palins' continuation of this fiasco with their idiotic press releases and Sarah Palin's appearance on the Today Show further exemplifies the opportunists that they are.

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Enough of the feigned outrage. Anyone who has any sense of humor at all knows that this joke, although in poor taste, was not meant for Willow. Did everyone forget about Bristol Palin? Apparently her own mother, Sarah Palin did.

"I would say that you and anybody else are extremely naive to believe that very convenient excuse of David Letterman's the other day - it took a couple of days for him to think of that excuse that - uh, no he wasn't talking about my daughter who was there with me at the game, the 14-year-old, he was talking about some other daughter. Well I think it's a weak excuse."

Yes, Sarah, the "other daughter." Remember the one named Bristol that you exploited during your campaign? Bristol, your "other daughter" that actually did get "knocked up" and is now laughably pushed out into the spotlight as an advocate for ABSTINENCE?! Your "other daughter," Bristol, that you were forcing to marry off to Levi Johnston and trotted them out as Margaret Carlson said, "like the Charles and Diana of the Klondike" until you lost the election. Where's Levi now? Discarded. Conveniently out of the family portrait.

And not that it matters but guess what? Not everyone knows exactly who attended the Yankees game despite the fact that Sarah Palin thinks we await her every move with bated breath. When I heard the joke, it was obvious that the daughter inferred was Bristol, the knocked up abstinence advocate, and that the real butt of the joke was Alex Rodriguez.

Sarah and Todd Palin are the ones who interjected 14-year-old Willow into this faux controversy, not Letterman. Why? Because they can't stand being ignored. During the campaign they felt the national spotlight, and it was good, and now they need the national spotlight, even though under that bright light, every ugly deed and deceitful lie uttered is more easily revealed for all to see than when sitting in seclusion in Alaska.

Is this the future of the Republican Party? Sarah Palin in 2012, with her run-on sentence rants and her penchant for playing Hatfield/McCoy on the national stage? I'm guessing the Democratic National Committee is dreaming of it. I actually think that her act will get old and tired pretty fast and that she'll burn herself out by then. At least I hope so, because if I have to listen to her jibberish for three more years, I'm going to contemplate putting a bullet in my brain.

A Very Serious News Organization

Fox News poll: ‘Do you think Obama is still sneaking cigarettes at the White House?’

Douche Quote of the Day

Talk about your right wing lunacy!

Gawker:

Andrew Breitbart: [Holocaust Museum shooter] James von Brunn was a "multiculturalist just like the black studies and the lesbian studies majors on college campuses."

Breitbart is angry that anyone would call a neo-Nazi a "right-wing extremist."

Here's a sample:

"It's such a fucking slander on people like me. This guy's political philosophy is more akin to the drivel that you hear on a college campuses that delineates us by group and not by individuality....
It's deeply offensive that you would use this for political gain."

What a fucking jokester this douchebag is. But please go to Gawker and listen to the whole seething, angry voicemail. How dare someone call Von Brunn a right wing extremist! Apparently it's an insult to real right wing extremisits like Breitbart.

Another Reason Why I Love President Obama

I saw this as it happened on TV. Glad someone has the video up already!

(H/T Paddy)

Update (6/12/09): Thanks, Paddy.

What Did Joe Scarborough Say About The Holocaust Museum Shooting?

From what I hear, not very much. I didn't watch the show today, but I understand that it was mentioned as a passing news item once. Maybe Scarborough didn't say much because of this (1:03 mark):



Laugh, clown. Laugh.

Adding... If I'm wrong about the Morning Joe coverage of the shooting, please let me know. Regardless, Scarborough is still a douchebag.

Racial Profiling

In yesterday's post, I mentioned Texas Congressman Lamar Smith's outrage over April's Department of Homeland Security report warning of right wing extremism and how he said it amounted to "political profiling," and that DHS is "using people's political views to assess an individual's susceptibility to terror recruitment."

Steve Benen turns the tables and asks, "What if they weren't white guys?" What if the shooting of Dr. Tiller and the Holocaust Museum shooting and the murder of three police officers in Pittsburgh and the Unitarian church shooting in Knoxville where two victims died were committed by... Muslims?

Imagine if James Von Brunn, Scott Roeder, Poplawski, and Adkisson were all Muslims.

What would the rhetoric be like? What kind of legislation might congressional Republicans offer? How many special reports about the "epidemic" of domestic Muslim violence would Sean Hannity host?

How willing would the public be to give up civil liberties to respond to the attacks? How loud would the laughter be from conservative leaders when liberals warned against racial profiling?

Douchebag of the Week: Frank Gaffney

I often wonder if MSNBC is supposed to be the Barack Obama network as wingnut conservatives claim, why they continue to give credence to douchebags like Frank Gaffney. Why is he a semi-regular on Hardball? What does he do other than malign, misinform and mislead in the guise of honest debate?

Here's part of Gaffney's latest column (and by "column," I mean the toilet paper he used that morning and handed in to his editors, as is most of his body of work, and by "work" I mean morning dumps, post coffee):

"...After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been made" -- in this case by him and his campaign handlers -- of the fact that he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright.

With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself."

The trifecta! An Hitler comparison, a Rev. Wright reference and the tried and true accusation that he is a Muslim. He continues the Manchurian Candidate inference. The Proof? Obama quoted the Koran four times! He "established first hand knowledge of Islam." He named Jesus in conjuction with Moses and Muhammed and said "peace be upon them" which is only used as a Muslim blessing upon dead prophets.

"According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God."

There's the proof, I tell you! It doesn't occur to Gaffney that maybe President Obama prepares for his speeches unlike his predecessor. Gaffney can't fathom that President Obama is smart enough to understand that when speaking to a group of 2,500 Muslims and millions more on television while you're in the Middle East, perhaps a little respect for their religion and culture goes a long way. But I don't think respect for religion and culture other than his own is Gaffney's forte.

Gaffney also took offense at President Obama's fight against religious intolerance.

"Even more troubling were the commitments the president made in Cairo to promote Islam in America. For instance, he declared: 'I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.' "

That's troubling? What's really troubling is that Frank Gaffney is just one of the growing number of television face time sloths inciting fear and hatred based on lies that is causing eruptions like the ones in Pittsburgh, Wichita, Laughlin, NV and Washington DC. And he doesn't even know it. Or maybe he does know, but he doesn't care.

Frank Gaffney: Douchebag of the Week.

My 30 Seconds of Morning Joke™

Thought I'd get the blood flowing and watch 30 seconds of Doucheborough. It worked.

Of course, the first thing I see is a split screen of Doucheborough and Doris Kearns Goodwin debating Joe's book (BOOK PLUG!) and after they broke, Mika wanted to make a clarification regarding something they misreported (big surprise there), and Joe was his typically douchey self.

Mika: I wanna do a little clarification on my news report on the money going to Palau. We just got an e-mail from the White House saying that we're misreporting it...

Douche: Really?!

Mika: ...and that there are conversations going on about past help and support that the United States has given the country and that there are conversations going on about future help, but no discussions about a detainee exchange of money. No linkage.

Douche: Oh, so there's no quid... pro.. quo. Thank you, White House. (douchey laugh)

Mika: No, this is the State Department.

Douche: Oh, thank you State Department.

Mika: I think what we ought to do is look into it more and have more tomorrow.

Douche: We're going to. (Douchey sarcasm) I feel badly for suggesting that there might be any linkage there.

What a dick.

Selling Shit To The Shitheads

posted by Armadillo Joe

Following up on Broadway Carl's post about the violence in Washington D.C. today, I want to highlight a quote from digby's rundown of the same situation:

It's pretty clear that the right wing has lost whatever restraint it had and that the ongoing paroxysms of violent, extreme rhetoric are having their effect. The crocodile tears of the anti-abortion forces after the Tiller assassination notwithstanding, it's also pretty clear that they know this violence is effective. If you want to paralyze a society and force people to capitulate out of fear of random violence, nothing beats terrorism.

And once the right gets everybody looking over their shoulders, they'll misdirect the citizenry and run to the rescue with calls for "law and order." (Recall that the violence of the 60s didn't originate with the left --- it originated with racist cops unleashing hell on non-violent protesters.)

This situation is nothing new in American history. Whenever the right loses political power, they start shooting people. Something ugly and thuggish and authoritarian in the wingnut mindset drives them to it every single time. They are stupid enough and mean enough to be as predictable as a trained seal.

Naturally, the same things would happen with the right-wings in other countries as well -- and they do so frequently in poorer countries, though such collections of thugs are called "armies" and are usually commanded by dictators who are propped up by some American intelligence service or other -- but we have a peculiar confluence of factors here in these fifty states that afflicts us with considerably more right-wing violence than any other civilized nation on earth. Those causes include, but are not limited to, first and foremost: guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns.

We also have a political culture which elevates the outward expression of supposedly simple and "homespun" values to the level of litmus test, which usually amounts in practice to elaborate kabuki ruses intended to get the votes of the racist yahoos and toothless goobers in the hinterlands, which in truth means validating their racist, jingoistic, nativist, xenophobic, bigoted impulses and soothing their deepest, most rancid and repulsively sociopathic urges.

All of which remains necessary even in the dawning of the 21st Century because of the Electoral College.

Thus, myriad apparatchiks, on behalf of the wealthy Ruling Elites who sign their paychecks, can mutter their paraphrased reiterations and reinterpretations and reinventions of the age-old "will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest" laments, all from the safety of their radio microphones and newspaper columns and wingnut-welfare magazines and TV "news" desks and then can pretend to be completely and totally surprised when someone goes ahead and, well, does it because no one could have predicted that calling for the (violent, if necessary) elimination of whole groups and classes of people might encourage some people to actually start killing with whatever is at hand.

Which in These'n Here Yew-Nawted Staytes means a fucking G-U-N.

And then the media whores get to pretend to be shocked! shocked! that someone out there in the world could be so callous and mean and could come up with such an idea all by themselves with no external input. They will all express their deep sadness at this completely isolated and totally unconnected to any external causes or larger narratives "event" at the hands of some lone nut, some completely random act by a disconnected freak who mysteriously lept, fully formed, into existence as a roiling cauldron of hate and violent retribution with no discernible precursors or legitimizing forces in the culture at large. Oooh look! Shiny blonde teenage girl gone missing!

And we'll all move on. Because the smiling news models on the Tee-Vee machine told us to do so. They told us that this particular form of very real, very personal violence has no predicates and thus is totally random and you may as well worry about meteors or lightning strikes because they all come from the same vast and unpredictable fog. 'Tis a pity we can't figure out where this stuff is coming from, now go buy a bigger television set.

But the seed of fear has been planted. One more thing to ensure a meek and pliant electorate of consumers whose survival instinct has been triggered so that they'll close up, turn inward and disengage from the public sphere out of worry and uncertainty and instead do as they are fucking told or else a uniformed cop will Taser'em like a 72 year-old grandma well before the evil, brown-skinned terr'st killers can come and murder all the little (white) children in their beds.

Because selling shit to the shitheads of the GOP has never, ever really been about getting votes. No sir. The Ruling Elites have never really been on-board with this whole "democracy" thing, anyway. Sure, they need votes to seize control of the machinery of governance (Rove's infamous "50%+1" strategy), but they really couldn't give two shits about any one person's actual vote, much less a whole group collected into a "party" like the Dems or the Rethugs.

No, selling shit to the shitheads isn't even about about opposing nigras and uppity wimmin-folk and spics and faggots and dirty fucking hippies, per se. It's about seeming to for long enough to attract the necessary fellow-travelers and mold them into a mongrel horde of poo-flinging monkeys frightful enough to dissuade do-gooders and mushy idealists from ever trying to CHANGE anything ever.

Because CHANGE costs them money.

Anyone who values things like progress and civic engagement and The Arts and beauty and the greater health of the public sphere just hasn't had a big-enough hole gnawed in their soul by Teh Fear to be a compliant consumer of hole-filling goodies like iPods and shoddily R&D'd pharmaceuticals and probably thinks that CHANGE is a good thing and might vote that way and, in fact, largely did in the last election. And CHANGE always means costing the plutocrats of the Ruling Elite more money.

And that means time to release the hounds, the flying monkeys, the goon squads, the un-recompensed adopters of the Faith of the Old Order who will bring down violence on the heads of all of Those Others.

On those people.

More violence is coming, folks, because these freaks are just the comets to circle 'round within sight of our unaided media eye. An entire Oort Cloud of Dirty Fucking Hippie haters stands ready and waiting and well-financed by an unholy alliance of industrial interests and Old Money pining for the days of monarchy to hurl as many of these dirty snowballs our way as necessary to get us to back the fuck off and shut the fuck up and do as we are fucking told.

They did it once before in recent memory, in the 1960's, and even though they started it, even though while the cameras rolled they beat the shit out of peaceful idealists who just wanted a better world (and brutally murdered them when those cameras were off), even though they gunned down our leaders like ducks in a shooting gallery throughout the decade, our collective memory is now that the "Turbulent 60's" were the fault of all those Dirty Fucking Hippies acting up and being disrespectful and shit. Then we got Nixon and then Reaganism and then Clintonian "third-way" capitulation and then President Cheney.

Scott Roeder and James Von Brunn are warning shots.

Editor's note (6/11 09 9:40am): I wanted to add this video I saw this morning on Bob Cesca's blog.

DHS Right Wing Extremist Report Coming To Fruition

When the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning of possible violence from right wing extremists and extremist groups a few weeks ago, there was much outrage. Or fauxtrage as the case may be. For some strange reason, the Republican party took offense at the report.

Wingnuts like Michelle Malkin called the report "one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS", "piece of crap report" that serves as "a sweeping indictment of conservatives." Really, Michelle? A word search of the words, "conservative", "Conservatives" and "Republican" turns up no hits on the PDF of the report. An indictment of conservatives? Why would they equate themselves with extremist hate groups?

No matter to the Republicans/Conservatives who felt the vapors. This was a hit job on the GOP by the duplicitous Obama administration. The "Support the Troops - Buy a Car Magnet" groups were upset about the mention that returning Iraqi vets might be targeted for recruitment by these extremist groups in order to utilize their military talents. The immediate suggestion of course was that this insinuation vilified our soldiers. The bluster was so loud, that DHS Director Janet Napolitano felt the need to apologize to those who were "offended."

The kicker was that it was the Bush administration that ordered the assessments of both right wing and left wing extremist groups, but the reports weren't completed until after Obama took office. And I don't remember hearing any outrage of the left wing report which was released in January.

So here we stand a few weeks later, after the murder of Dr. George Tiller while in church by a pro-life "extremist" and today's shooting attack at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, by an 88-year old anti-Semitic, white supremacist with a previous record and you have to wonder, "What did DHS Director Napolitano apologize for?"

What will Michelle Malkin say now about that "shoddy piece of propaganda"? What will Texas Rep. Lamar Smith say now after categorizing the DHS report as "political* profiling" the pro-gun advocates, pro-life advocates and veterans? What will Joe Scarborough say now after accusing the DHS and Obama administration of targeting veterans instead of Al-Qaeda?

They'll say what they always say: a lone wolf. A nut who was acting alone. They won't see the big picture. They'll refuse to look back and see the rise in vitriol and violence since the election. And as is frequently becoming the case, they will be wrong.


UPDATE (6:45pm): It seems I had some kind of Spidey sense today.

Fox News Reporter: Scandalized DHS Report Needs Second Look

* Correction: My earlier post misquoted Smith as stating "racial" profiling and not "political" profiling.

Jon Stewart Getting Under Scarborough's Skin

Joe Scarborough loves to talk about civil discourse except when it is inconvenient for him:

[He] claims to be all about civil discourse -- not resorting to hyperbole or personal attacks. Except, of course, when he does it. All the time. This morning, for example, Joe thinks Jon Stewart is angry because he's short.

Maybe Jon Stewart should invite Scarborough on the Daily Show to "plug his book" and they can hash it all out. Of course, Scarborough would never do it because he's a fucking coward and will be afraid to be shown for the phony that he is, just like Jim Cramer was schooled.

What Does Joe Scarborough Stand For?

Here's Scarborough on Hardball last night. He can't seem to reconcile his own contradictory position while touting his book on being a self described libertarian.

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Joe's finally making some sense. You can't claim you're for smaller government and then want a nationwide ban on abortion and gay marriage. But when asked what side of the fence he's on, he says it doesn't matter what he thinks.

On one hand he is a pro-life and anti-gay marriage advocate but on the other hand, he thinks those are states rights issues and that it doesn't matter what he thinks personally. But it DOES matter because he has a vote. He doesn't seem to clue in on that fact. His vote counts. Especially when he was in office.

When Matthews presses him on it, he refuses to answer directly, jumping back and forth between states rights and federalism. The funny part is that he espouses some commom sense things regarding conservatism (small "c") but can't reconcile himself between the ideology of conservatism and political conservatism.

And by now, you'd think he would learn just to let the Stewart stuff roll off his back because Jon isn't going to let it go. But he can't because Scarborough reveals himself to be a short-fused, thin-skinned whiner whenever he gets into situations like this. Taking the high road is easier said than done.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

The People With the Cardboard Signs

Posted by Fraulein

My commute to and from work takes me through a variety of overcrowded metro Boston thoroughfares, and I actually have three distinct routes which I rotate based on what time I leave, the weather, and the Red Sox home game schedule (because my house is so close to Fenway Park). One route takes me along Memorial Drive in Cambridge, just a stone's throw from Harvard University. There is a particular interchange along this road where a rush hour driver has always been quite likely to see a homeless person or two, standing in the median and begging for change. It used to be, you'd see maybe one or two older guys out there in the morning, holding their signs. The message on the signs was usually something like: "Vietnam veteran. Out of work. Sober. Hungry."

Now, there's more of them. A lot more. Some mornings lately, passing by this one spot, I've seen five different homeless people jockeying for position on this median. Men and women. Young and old. Lately, all of them white, although this hasn't always been the case.

"60 years old, lost job," reads the sign held by the harassed-looking woman standing a foot away from the traffic, a dirty wind rustling her hair.

"Clean and sober. Can't find job," says another sign held by a young man, maybe 30 years old, his back bent as if the weight of his problems is literally bearing him into the dirt.

"Kids at home, no work," says another one. The man holding this sign doesn't look as physically fragile as the bent-over guy. He wears brawny-looking work boots, the kind a construction worker might wear, as if in defiance of his present situation.

Then there's the guy who actually stands in the traffic, at another spot on the same road, a couple of miles from the group at the interchange. Sometimes I approach this area and there is an inexplicable backup, and then as I draw closer I realize it must be because of drivers dodging this particular guy, who seems to want to make sure as many drivers see him as possible. "Hungry," his cardboard sign says.

I'm not sure how we got to the point, as a nation, where we look past these people as if they were invisible, but this is surely where we are. Every once in a while someone does roll down their window to pass out a couple of dollars to the group in the interchange, but this is the exception. I try to do it when I can, even though I find it frustrating in the extreme that there isn't more I can do as an individual to effect change. I find myself wondering if this is the definition of "liberal guilt" -- a white woman who lives in an upscale suburb, with a full-time job and health insurance, rolls down the window of her brand-new car to hand out a few bucks to someone who's desperate. All the time despising myself for not being able to do more.

They're always so sincerely grateful, too.

And this is the part that fills me with rage about the Rush Limbaughs and Newt Gingrichs of the world--the people who would insinuate that the median dwellers beg for money because they're lazy. Because it's so much more fun to stand outside in the rain and the heat sucking down car exhaust than having an actual job.

You have to ask yourself whether the people who hold this view have ever even tried to imagine what it might be like to be so desperate for money that the best solution presenting itself is to take a sharpie pen to a piece of cardboard, scrawl the word "HUNGRY," and go stand in the goddamn traffic hoping someone hands you a couple of quarters.

Maybe if we weren't so short on empathy in this country, things would be a bit less grim for people like this. I know the problems are hideously complex and the answers are hard to come by. But a little empathy, even on its own, would go a long way I think.

Specter ♥s Sestak

Think Progress: Sen. Arlen Specter’s official Twitter page had a post up yesterday at 4:42pm ET using the heart symbol to express his affection for his Democratic primary challenger:

The Tweet was deleted after just a few minutes, but it can still be accessed via Tweleted. The next tweet from Sen. Specter simply noted that he, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Mike Doyle (R-PA) spoke at a labor rally in Pittsburgh.

I wonder if Arlen will vote for Joe?

Jon Stewart Eats Joe Scarborough's Head

Not much to say on this one. Morning Joe sold out. Starbucks is now a sponsor. Jon Stewart calls Joe out on his ass-kissing of Starbucks CEO and product placement. Joe Scarborough claims it was sarcasm... even though THEY ARE sponsored by Starbucks and THEY ARE placing product all over the set. Jon Stewart eats Joe for a snack.

Enjoy.





If you have a problem with this, you can write in to Starbucks and complain regarding their Corproate social responsibility efforts. Some are suggesting to boycott Starbucks and let them know why. I'll write in to say that their choice of sponsorship is suspect, but sorry, Carl can't gives up the Starbucks. If I boycotted every product because some asshole plugged it, I'd starve.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

The Main Reason I Don't Have An iPhone

As my wife will attest, I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to tech toys, not necessarily that I know how they work or want to know, but that they're fun to have. But the main reason I don't have an iPhone is because of their exclusive service contract with AT & T.

I'm very happy with my Verizon service. The area coverage is better than any other provider I've experienced. And until Verizon is included in a list of providers that Apple will sign on with, I'm sticking to whatever phone Verizon is willing to use. Currently, I'm on a Treo but planning on upgrading to a BlackBerrry with my next contract renewal.

I've been tempted by the iPhone before. Then I read this:

Subscribers with an iPhone 3G who are not eligible for an upgrade -- those not near the end of their two-year contracts -- can still upgrade to an iPhone 3G S, but must pay $200 more.

...AT&T will offer the new iPhone 3G S when it debuts later this month at a cost of $199 and $299 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively, to new customers and those who qualify for the discounted price.

AT&T subscribers with an iPhone 3G who are not eligible for an upgrade -- those not near the end of their two-year contracts -- can still upgrade to an iPhone 3G S, but must pay $200 more -- $399 for the 16GB model and $499 for the 32GB model.

Without a contract commitment or upgrade discount, the iPhone 3G S costs $599 for the 16GB model and $699 for the 32GB model.

Now granted, I'm not the kind of freak that needs the new and improved upgrade the day it's released, so I'm not really too concerned about all those Mac people (you know who you are) jonesing for the latest, greatest Apple toy, but for AT & T to bilk loyal customers who stick with their crappy service solely for the purpose of having an iPhone seems to me a low point for customer service. They may have one of the best ad campaigns out there, but their network and public relations suck.

Time To Up Shelby's Meds

Senator Richard Shelby (R-Douchelandia) apparently forgot the date of the last election and when President Obama took office.

"Well, obviously. So, [the Obama administration] intervene[s] last fall in the bank crisis. No one has ever done it on that scale before. Now the automobile crisis."

Gotta give Shelby credit for realizing how incredibly stupid he sounded when he realized that he placed a date on the bank bailout as "last fall" and tried to correct himself by mentioning that it started with Bush, but BZZZT!!! Nice try, Senator Shelby.

Also, hey Chris Wallace, "Government Motors"? Fuck you. Your father's turning over in his grave. Huh, what? Mike Wallace isn't dead yet? ... Nevermind. The Mike Wallace part, not the "Fuck you, Chris Wallace" part.

(H/T Political Wire)

Ling & Lee Sentenced by North Korea

NY Times: The United States government and Western rights groups protested Monday after North Korea’s highest court sentenced two American journalists [Laura Ling and Euna Lee] to 12 years of hard labor, a move that introduced another complicating factor into Washington’s stand-off with North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests and its broader nuclear ambitions.

...The human rights group Amnesty International sharply criticized the legal procedures behind the women’s sentence and called for their immediate release. “No access to lawyers, no due process, no transparency: the North Korean judicial and penal systems are more instruments of suppression than of justice,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific deputy director.

President Obama's plate just keeps getting piled higher and higher. And doesn't Amnesty International's criticism sound like they're talking about Gitmo?

Douchebag of the Week: Jennifer Fermino

From Jennifer Fermino of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, "Bling Time For Prez": President Obama was awarded Saudi Arabia's highest honor yesterday -- an elaborate gold necklace and medallion fit for a king or a rap mogul.

...He smiled and posed for pics in his new bling, but took it off after a few minutes for "safekeeping."

So President Obama represents the post racial divide has been crossed in these great United States and now African-Americans can't fall back on that tried and true racial discrimination excuse anymore, huh? Or at least that's what Whitey's been saying since the election.

November 4, 2008 truly was a turning point. While it brought to the forefront the incredible strides we've made as a nation, it simultaneously awakened dormant racism that's been laying just under the surface of this country's skin, causing ugly, racist boils to erupt through scars that almost fifty years of fighting for civil rights have not yet healed.

And the New York Post's Jennifer Fermino exemplifies how "tolerant" we've become as a nation equating King Abdullah's gift, the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, as bling fit for a rap mogul.

Bob Cesca: I don't recall any "bling" headlines or rap mogul jokes when this happened:



Jennifer Fermino: Douchebag of the Week

(H/T Bob Cesca)

Grassley "Not A Nail"

He's really working hard on that Twitter, isn't he? And that President of the United States has some nerve asking Congress for a viable public health care option instead of kowtowing to the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies and putting out the crappy legislation they are considering. Grassley may not be a nail but sometimes I'd still like to pound him.

(H/T Gottalaff)