The Stakes

posted by Armadillo Joe

Right on cue, just as I'm continuing to plow my way through Pearlstein's book on Goldwater and writing vague & incoherent rants about an ongoing right-wing conspiracy dating back to the 1940's and early 50's and running right on up to today -- right now this very moment, even -- to undermine the America we all know and love, I go and read a blog post that sums the whole situation up better than I ever have or could.

He somewhat cheekily refers to his website as "Der Stiftung Leo Strauss" ("the Leo Strauss Foundation") as in Leo Strauss the "Jewish Nazi" -- a villain in American history you should know about, if you don't already. He also seems to be some kind of Washington insider, I think, because he refers to conversations he's had with members of Congress in their offices. His vision of America is rather dark, which naturally grabbed my attention, and he has little use for the majority of politicians and pundits who still treat this whole process we call "politics" as a mere parlor game with not the slightest clue as to the actual stakes. He persuasively argues that this thing called the GOP "Base" or sometimes "movement conservatism" is in fact an entity apart from the "conservative base" which is itself a separate entity from the GOP. His imagery is spot-on:

The Movement is the controlling parasite astride its enfeebled Republican host.

Our Ruling Class, though, whether pundits or politicians, either don't get the stakes or they do and don't care, because...

Seemingly bright ‘mainstream media’ still do not understand the dichotomy. Or its implications. They still treat ‘Republicans’ and Democrats as equivalent political actors playing the same game by the same rules for the same prizes. As long as relative neophytes view politics in this prism, the Movement wins.

One side thinks we're all playing a gentlemanly round of paintball on a paintball court while the other shells the whole damned town with live artillery. Or, if you will, one side keeps bringing a knife to a gun fight. Whether Emmitt Till or JFK or Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas, how many people have to get shot down before we realize the other side isn't fucking around, that they actually want us dead?

the Movement within the conservative base always plays a different game for a different prize. The Movement may speak in normal political talking points from ‘Republican’ institutions. Yet is is not committed to Dahl-esque pluralistic politics. It has has never sought compromise or ‘moderation’. That’s because for the Movement, politics is existential warfare. Compromise is defeat.

I have tried at this blog and elsewhere to paint the Big Picture by arguing against the D.C. Establishment's cherished notion of bi-partisan centrism -- a notion that seems to soothe the tortured souls of our nation's punditocracy, worshipping as they do the blessed and elusive "middle" where one finds both moderates and roadkill. Choosing sides between the different parties is manifestly not like selecting a red car or a blue car, as though each is essentially the same in purpose and function and the selection is one of mere aesthetics and personal taste -- country music versus jazz, Dallas & Atlanta versus New York & San Francisco, BBQ versus granola and yogurt, Dunkin' Donuts versus Starbucks, beer versus wine. It's a little bit of regionalism, it's a little bit of ethnicity, it's a little bit of class and socio-economic status, but in the end we're all Americans and we all want the same things even if we disagree about process, right?

Wrong:

For the Movement ... politics is existential. And when survival is on the line, pluralistic compromise is for chumps. Democrats still are playing for political advantage within the confines of traditional two party politics. ... When the other side’s world view is existential, then the stakes are higher than something so trite as the Constitution.

The idea that one group may laugh at Larry The Cable Guy jokes and the other at Woody Allen movies, yet both love America and want it to succeed for all Americans, is silly and laughably naive. Such pablum may make for pat and comforting answers to gullible people who think we're all in this together as Americans and we just have different ideas about how to get there, but it's useless when steeling yourself for attacks from the other side, attacks not merely intended to wound, but to mortally wound. Digby calls this vague sense of "our side/their side" American Tribalism and I think the embrace of those outward trappings is an important component of the divided American soul, but more as external signifiers to fellow tribe members than any instrinsic affinity for the actual things embraced.

They are more like prescursors to learning the secret handshake, to getting invited into the club:

This I share out of personal experience talking with the Movement crowd over the years. Many of the conversations are carefully masked and there is almost a secret handshake and a ‘feeling out’ to see if one is receptive to test, and then small conversational overtures. If the Stiftung has seen and heard this stuff from Capitol Hill to refined salons in the Imperial City so has everyone else. From fatuous Tweety to Howard — to all of them.

To think that our problems in America are only about cowboy boots versus Gucci loafers is to manifestly not get to the heart of the matter where epic struggles over race and gender and class have been fought -- often to the death -- and will be fought again. One group of Americans wants the rest of their fellow Americans eliminated, in fact refuses to even acknowledge that they are fellow countrymen, and that spiteful, bitter group of people has the means, motive and opportunity, whether with guns or ropes or control over health-insurance policies, to make good on their secret wishes. That the talking heads on the Tee-Vee and in print don't, can't or won't incorporate this uglier, more existential threat to the health of American political discourse into their horse-race/game-day style analysis of the scene in D.C. reveals that they are morally vacant, willfully blind or just plain stupid.

The Krugman and Joan Walsh fantasy that some ‘Republicans’ are going to put a stop to the Movement is a joke. At one time there was a functioning Republican apparat apart from the Movement, capable of independent action. The Movement long ago slipped the leash.

[...]

Because Krugman et al. fail to grasp the fundamental difference between the Movement, the former Republican Party and the Democratic Party, talking heads refer to the Movement as the ‘Republican base’. As if somehow the Movement and its Manichean zero-sum nihilism is the same as the Democratic base.

[...]

It wasn’t always like this, of course. The Republican Party as an independent actor and entity was able to keep the Movement within bounds. But after Reagan, and especially the Bush debacle in ‘92, the Movement learned to seize power on its own within and without the Republican Party.

As Pearlstein depicts in his book, the transformation of Barry Goldwater from a stalwart political actor to the head of a full-fledged political movement represented the coagulation of a movement whose constituent parts -- once disparate and scattered between the two parties or even beyond them -- had been churning under the placid surface of a "Leave It To Beaver" 1950's America still basking in the glow of her glorious victory over fascism with FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy" -- tools and weapons built by mighty American industry -- before wheeling around to stare down another form of monolithic totalitarianism in the USSR, it too doomed to defeat by superior American ingenuity and culture.

America thought itself to be invincible.

Such an America imagined itself at the end of internal conflict and strife, that no problem was beyond the reach of Yankee grit and determination, even the "Negro" problem, hence the subtitle of Pearlstein's book "The Unmaking of the American Consensus," because a growing chorus of Americans throughout the 1950's simply no longer wanted to get along in the post-New Deal, pluralistic, ecumenical, multi-ethnic country that America had long purported to be and was finally en route to becoming.

Frankly, they never really had been down with that program and still aren't, to this very day:

In the case of racism, overt comments allow all quickly to depict a discovered outburst as ‘isolated, unacceptable incident’, etc. The nativism swirling around the immigration debates are an easy example. ‘You look different than me’ or the White trash psychology of another era trying to pick on someone below them socially is an ugly but known practice. The same argument on more upscale level is to mask it behind NAFTA, globalization and now economic free fall. Beyond the socio-economic critique, alleged health dangers, welfare freeloaders. Pat Buchanan long swam in those waters now plied by Lou Dobbs.

[...]

As a famous ‘Republican’ once told me, he’d rather live an American version of Franco than have to deal with multiculturalism. *That’s* how existentialism trumps liberal democracy.

Pearlstein's book just details how, over a couple of decades, the screeching, poo-flinging monkey hordes were driven or herded or bribed or otherwise willfully gathered under a single political banner for the simple reason that a large enough swath of the American public was finally demanding that this country live up to the high-falutin' rhetoric of its founding, but rather than man-up, admit that America's failures had done wrong by whole segments of her population and then work to make amends, enormous voting blocs got Pied Piper'd by sociopaths like Nixon and Saint Ronnie into the Republican fold, where their basest, ugliest, most anti-social impulses would never be condemned or even questioned. Then, like a virus, they multiplied and spread until the original Party of Lincoln no longer resembled itself. The Movement had triumphed. Our friend at the Stiftung continues:

All of the above are premised on loyalty to the Movement’s higher existential values rather than ‘mere process’ like democracy ... When you understand this dynamic, then the relative silence about Dr. Tiller’s murder, or the right wing extremism that led to Officer John's heroic courage makes sense.

[...]

What this means as a social, cultural and political actor, the Movement is unable to accept loss of power or control through liberal democratic means. The Movement’s eschatology is to higher truths than liberal democratic government: race, security, nationalism, order, security. The Movement’s psychology compels the rage as its Counter-Enlightenment agenda is revealed, in power and then snatched away again.

I fear we may simply be in one of the inter-glacial thaws between periods of Rethugli-goon mis-rule. It seems to only take a few years for the voting public, helped along by a prostrate and compliant corporate media complex, to forget just how bad things tend to get during Republican regimes and to view past GOP administrations through a gauzy lens.

Take, for instance, the Republican beatification of a third-rate Hollywood meat-puppet as The Greatest President in the History of Human Civilization™. Saint Ronnie of the Ray-Gun is the only other Republican president -- going all the way back to Lincoln -- not to die in office, bolt the party in disgust, lose a bid for re-election, leave office amid widespread corruption or be hounded from office by scandal. Except of course for Eisenhower, but he was barely a Republican anyway. Many in his own party accused him of being a Communist sympathizer.

Thus, considering the weakness of the competitve field, Saint Ronnie being the Greatest Republican President since Lincoln is a pretty low bar to hurdle. Upon his death a few years ago, one would have thought Pericles himself had returned to earth just die all over again, to hear the corporate media tripping over each other to issue ever more thoroughly unquestioning paens to his great and glorious era of prosperity, strength and greatness. It made me sick to my stomach to hear all that "Morning in America" bull-pucky again, as though he had led us from the Dark Ages.

I can't wait to hear how Jimmy Carter will be spoken of upon his passing. I suspect the tone will be somewhat different.

The resurrection of Richard Milhouse Nixon's career as an elder statesman in the 1980's is the clearest indicator of The Movement's not-so-latent authoritarianism. For them, the problem was never that he did something wrong, just that he got caught. His re-emergence paved the way for all those unreconstructed Nixonites to weasle their way back into government throughout the 1980's and early 90's and eventually into the Bush43 White House.

Therefore, when I hear people on our side talk about how this or that move makes Republicans look dumb and boy howdy, they're just gonna keep acting all dumb and losing elections, I can only join in the schadenfreude to a point. These people aren't engaged in a merely political program. Politics is but one facet of their agenda and since violence and a willingness to kill is one of their primary and most effective tools, they have the power to de facto enact huge swaths of that agenda, even if they fail de jure.

From race-relations & immigration to the health-care showdown, these are the stakes.

The Pandemic of Stupid (Part One: Iran's Election)

I haven't blogged much over the last couple of days because I've been sitting in front of my television machine waiting for a CDC news conference to announce that about 30% of the US population has been infected with a Stupid Plague. But so far, nothing. No BREAKING NEWS or THIS JUST IN. No Alex Witt(less) and her hairsprayed mane on MSNBC to warn of the Stupid Plague. No Wolf Blitzer and his Beard of Doom™ interviewing a government official telling us to wrap our houses in plastic sheeting and duct tape to avoid losing your brain cells.

What gives? We've all been exposed to it. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck seem to be the "Typhoid Marys" of the Stupid Plague, the carriers of this disease but somehow remain immune to becoming so stupid that they continue to breathe involuntarily even though their brain matter has turned to goo. I sometimes wonder how they haven't stepped into an oncoming bus while crossing the street.

There has been an outbreak of the Stupid Plague and it's easy to detect those infected. For example:

Iran has its presidential elections and it looks like a tight race. Mahmoud "Holocaust Schmolocaust" Ahmadinejad was feeling the heat from Mir-Hossein "That's HOssein not HUssein" Mousavi. The vote counting went all through the night. The results? Ahmadinejad wins 63% of the vote. WHAAA?!?! This was "close"? There are riots in the streets, hundreds of thousands of protesters wanting their vote to count. It looks like they take their elections seriously in Iran; they don't take their vote for granted, like in.... nevermind.

So what is the general reaction?

President Obama: "The second thing I think’s important to recognize is that the easiest way for reactionary forces inside Iran to crush reformers is to say it’s the US that is encouraging those reformers. So what I’ve said is, `Look, it’s up to the Iranian people to make a decision. We are not meddling.’ And, you know, ultimately the question that the leadership in Iran has to answer is their own credibility in the eyes of the Iranian people."

Makes sense doesn't it? If we're shouting democracy and freedom from the mountaintops, why in the hell would he interfere in another country's election if we don't happen to like the outcome?

John McCain: "I'm disappointed, it is an American principle ever since our founding that we are dedicated to the principle that all are created equal and the fact is they have the right to free elections and to select their leadership."

That's right, Johnny. An American principle. Last I checked, Iran was a Middle Eastern theocracy that we've had no diplomatic relations with for the last 30 years.

But you have to hand it to McCain being so concerned about the elections of a people he joked about bombing the shit out of not too long ago. And haven't we heard the nutty neocons like Joshua Muravchik, William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer advocating military action against Iran for what seems like forever? Now the same neocon establishment are the defenders of democracy in the Middle East? The bastions of liberty for Iran? Please, spare me.

Mike Pence (R-Doucheland): "I appreciate the fact that the president said the protesters have a right to be heard and represented, and I appreciate the fact that he said he is troubled... But I respectfully disagree with the administration's decision to essentially draw the line at not meddling and not interfering."

So Pence wants the United States government to meddle and interfere with Iran's elections? I wonder what Pence would have said if, oh I don't know, Germany or France or even Iran had "meddled or interfered" with our 2004 Presidential election because of the prospect of voter fraud in Ohio? I'm guessing he wouldn't have been thrilled about it.

Oh, and by the way, just because President Obama mentioned Iran and said we weren't going to meddle in their electoral affairs was enough to cause Iranian officials to accuse the US of meddling in their affairs. But, unlike the GOP using this as a political opportunity, and the neocons who have a penchant for being incredibly wrong on their warmonger ideas (see Iraq, Shock and Awe), I'd rather be accused of meddling in another sovereign nation's political process than actually meddling.

Clarifying Patterns

posted by Armadillo Joe

In re-reading my last post, wherein I went from reciting the particulars about some 1950's-era right-wing nutballs having a collective boner for Chinese General Chiang Kai-Shek to my usual rant about the enduring aristocracy we've inherited down through the ages and their political agency via the exploited membership of the Rethugli-goon coalition of slack-jawed goobers, race-warriors, patricians and Bible-thumpers then leading into a final denunciation of James von Brunn, I realized that the post just didn't make much sense.

I blame it on the fact that I am reading Pearlstein's book about Goldwater and thus was able to draw conclusions based on some facts not in evidence.

Here's what I meant:
From the late 1940's through Eisenhower's second term, the right-wing in America was in a state of flux and complete disarray for three reasons relevant to this blog post.

First, the largest and most geographically homogeneous horde of the most virulent and unrepentant "wingnuts" (as we now call them) -- just the kind of staunch, stalwart ideologues that are the life-blood of a political party -- were the racist southerners in the Democratic Party . However, being hidebound to Tradition, those same "Dixiecrats" hadn't been able to vote for the Party of Lincoln for more than a century, no matter how far to the left FDR pulled the Dems. It seemed the GOP had little hope in the 1950's of ever getting them to switch sides, en masse.

Second, because the President is the leader of his party, with Eisenhower the GOP found itself headed by a man of indeterminate political alignment, but definitely a centrist in the most bi-partisan, consensus-oriented way possible. After WW2, Ike had been courted by both parties but chose the GOP, who rewarded him with the 1952 nomination after a backroom deal ousted the fire-breathing wingnut Bob Taft of Ohio, who had the superior delegate count and the support of the hard-core Republican right-wing, the same jingoistic, iconoclastic and paranoid right-wing that had incubated and then supported the delusional Joe McCarthy and also founded the John Birch Society in the 1950's. Because the party was knocked on its heels after the breaking of the McCarthy-era fever, the iron-hard, coal-black heart of the American right-wing had no real home in the party of Eisenhower and FDR's New Deal coalition made the Democrats anathema, despite the presence of Dixiecrats.

Third, the events immediately following WW2 through the early 1950's -- from the parceling out of Europe between the victorious allies leading to the ringing down of Stalin's Iron Curtain to the Rosenberg's espionage trial and the Soviet's H-Bomb to the People's Revolution in China to the firing of MacArthur (by a Democrat!) while he waged war against the Red Menace -- all convinced the right-wingers that commies and pinkos were everywhere in America, even the Oval Office, and the end of their vision of America was near. Then as now, they saw the world in starkly Manichean terms, thus whoever was not openly, loudly and unquestionably in their corner was probably a Communist sympathizer (or "ComSymp", in the lingo of the day). Whoever was openly battling commies was, no matter any expressed opinions to the contrary nor verifiable affiliation of the combatants, a hero. Hence, their lionization of Chiang Kai-Shek, who struggled against that dirty commie Mao with no support from the United States, which proved that the U.S. Government was infiltrated with communists from top to bottom.

In my fevered imagination, the treatment of Kai-Shek by a certain group of right-wing fruit-loops in the 1950's reminded me of how Ahmed Chalabi was feted and revered by the neo-cons throughout the 1990's and into the early Bush Administration -- nursing a grudge about Iraq and Saddam as enduring and nasty as the right-wingers sixty years ago did about China and Mao -- not because of anything related to the actual truth of actual facts on the ground, but the perceived alignment of appearances and declarations with a predetermined set of political and cultural orthodoxies. In turn, that willful mispercetion of reality warped our politics and led us into disaster in Korea and Vietnam -- the repercussions of which I need not explain to this audience -- the parallels of which should be obvious to our current predicament in the Middle East, with untold consequences for generations to come.

China = Iraq
Chairman Mao = Saddam
Kai-Shek = Chalabi
quagmire in Vietnam = quagmire in Iraq
right-wing violence in the 1950's & 1960's = right-wing violence in the 1990's and today

That's what I meant. You know, parallels.

Party of No to Vote Against War Supplemental

The same Republican party that likened voting against war spending bills as anti-American and against supporting the troops for the last six years is now planning to vote against the $106 billion spending bill.

...Republicans say this year is different. Democrats have included a $5 billion increase for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help aid nations affected by the global financial crisis. Republicans say that is reason enough to vote against the entire $106 billion spending bill and are certain voters will understand.

Sure, the voters will understand the amazing hypocrisy of the Republican party. It doesn't matter to the GOP that the global financial crisis was our doing. They're taking a stand, dammit, and troops in Afghanistan be damned. It doesn't matter that there were non-war additions when they voted for the funding during the Bush administration, like farm subsidies or an increase in the minimum wage, luckily advanced by Democrats.

In 2005, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) went so far as to say sending troops into battle and not paying for it would be an “immoral thing to do.”

But this is different, isn't it Rep. Cole? Because It's OK If You Are Republican.

UPDATE (2:25pm): John Boehner now makes it all clear. Voting for war supplemental bills pre-2009 supports the troops. But now, voting against war supplemental bills supports the troops. Another bourbon, please!

Boehner Says a ‘No’ Vote on War Spending Bill Protects the Troops

Letterman's Apology

It seems that after further reflection of his Palin joke, David Letterman is issuing a formal apology on tonight's Late Night broadcast. My only question is this: Will the Palins graciously accept the apology and let it drop? Or will they continue to beat a dead horse and milk the fauxtrage?


UPDATE (6/15/09 10:15am): Palin accepts:

"Of course it's accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who 'joke' about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve," the statement read.

"Letterman certainly has the right to 'joke' about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction. And this is all thanks to our U.S. military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America's right to free speech - in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect."

It's over, right? Not for opportunists like the slimy John Ziegler who is calling for Letterman's firing and started up a website campaign. I'll tell you what, John, when you start up a campaign to impeach Senator John McCain for his joke and go on national television to demand the firing of Rush Limbaugh for his joke , then we'll talk. Until then, shut the fuck up.

Adding... after reading and re-reading Palin's statement, I'm going to amend "Palin accepts" to "Palin accepts scornfully."

Patterns

posted by Armadillo Joe

Following up on my post from Wednesday about the neo-Nazi violence at the Holocaust Museum (Selling Shit to the Shitheads) and dove-tailing nicely with my current reading material (Rick Pearlstein's "Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus"), I read today over at Yglesias' place about the so-called "China Lobby" that held sway in D.C. throughout the 1950's and into the 1960's and their adulation of General Chiang Kai-Shek (Yglesias quotes Robert Farley here):

the influence of the Lobby in the executive branch and in Congress helped prevent a Sino-American dialogue over Vietnam, the final status of Korea, the role of the PRC at the UN, and the potential for collaboration with the Soviet Union. When any President hinted at acknowledging the PRC, the Lobby could arm Congressional opponents with money and righteous rhetoric about the dangers of appeasing Beijing. Nixon was able to break the cycle, in part because the most vocal China advocates came from within his own party

That situation sounds to me like how our Middle East policy has been conducted for the last 30 years (since the Iranian Revolution of 1979), with deep-pocketed lobbyists and myriad influence-peddlers from foreign governments twisting our national dialogue, whether the issue be Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, et al.. The difference between then and now, it seems to me, is that the ultimate triumph of a certain group of people in gradually taking over the levers of power in this country who were considered to be fringe-group fruit-loops in the 1950's -- a march to power that ran from Nixon's crime syndicate posing as a legitimate presidential administration from 1968 to '74 through Saint Ronnie's glorious 1980's through the tragedy the Cheney regime ending on January 20th of this year -- meant that during the run-up to the Iraq War, no grown-ups were left in the room to talk down the ruling clique of perpetual adolescents who have spent their lives being protected from the consequences of being wrong about everything all the time and who wanted to blow some shit up and torture some brown-skinned people real good to finally, in mid- to late-life, establish their macho bona fides, making up for not joining others of their generation who had those bona fides forced upon them in the jungles of South East Asia.

Once again, I was reminded that it is all of a piece, from the racist Dixieland sheriffs of the Civil Rights-era Deep South to the Glorious Reign of our Saint Ronnie of the Ray-Gun to our current military-industrial complex's deep and frightful warping of our nation's spending and foreign-policy priorities. Mark Twain once said that history doesn't exactly repeat itself, but it does rhyme and the deeper I get into Pearlstein's book, the more I realize just how much today's neo-cons are just a pathetic copy of a copy of a 100th Xerox'd copy of their political and intellectual ancestors in the 1950's, who themselves proved wholly and completely wrong about every single political and historical development since World War 2, but at least had gravitas and panache while being cowards and liars (looking at you, William F. Buckley).

The problem we encounter now is that so much of what has come to be defined as "conservative" over the last four or five decades subsumes a wide range of opinions, from monied business interests and wealthy cultural elites who resent the expulsion of monarchy from the realm of legitimate authority, southern race-warriors still bitter about losing the Civil War, a jingoistic military class who consider their political proclivities indistinguishable from the nation's security interests and a random assortment of slack-jawed, Bible-thumping hillbillies and other nattering, theocratic busy-bodies resentful of the tolerance expected in polite, civil society when living in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic country. Granted, many or even most of these groups overlap to some degree, but the outliers on the far edges of each group make for an uneasy alliance between them and, as I've said before, the only thing that truly unites all of them is a hatred for the Dirty Fucking Hippie.

Hatred is not a governing philosophy, which is why conservatives can't govern. They only know how to oppose and destroy things, which is why the porcine, drug-addled sex-tourist who leads their party will never step out from behind the microphone to actually take a run at public office. Inciting the screeching, poo-flinging monkeys of the Reich-wing to riot (and feigning surprise when they do) is a much more fun pastime for an opportunistic blow-hard with a black hole for a soul than the delicate job of compromise and problem-solving required by the idealism of a life in government service.

James von Brunn is a natural product of that putrid, seething cesspool and he won't be the last one to find his voice now that the poo-flingers have finally, for the first time since the 1970's (and probably not even then), been mostly driven from national office.

Gallows Politics - UPDATED

Boom! goes the dynamite!

"I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue. It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."

-- CIA Director Leon Panetta, in an interview with the New Yorker, on former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticisms of the Obama administration.

UPDATE (6/18/09): Since posting this on Sunday, Ed Schultz has had a run-in with Joe Scarborough regarding this issue. Schultz agrees with the assessment. Scarborough is shocked, shocked I tell you!, that anyone would think Cheney would want "Americans to die" (Scarborough's words, not Panetta's) so he could say he was right.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Scarborough tries to discredit Schultz by equating the support Schultz says he's receiving to the 9/11 Truthers, but Schultz isn't buying it. And then of course comes the obligatory book plug at the end of the segment.

Music Break! John Coltrane

Afro Blue

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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.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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)