Ham and Shadeggs

By Distributorcap

In the past two years, the Republicans have said and done so many outrageous and dumb things -- that it impossible to count them, keep track of them or remember them all. I would say the GOP has jumped the shark, but they did that back in 1980 when they nominated Reagan.

But today outgoing Arizona Representative John Shadegg may have actually jumped the Palin -- saying something so outrageous, so stupid, and so wrong it is hard to believe he hasn't been laughed out of Congress (or laughed out of the human race) a month early.

The Republicans are so smug and arrogant right now they actually think they can say ANYTHING can just get away with it. We are witnessing the modern day version of Pavlov's Dogs behavior -- if you are never punished or admonished for doing or saying the wrong things, then you will continue to do or say the wrong things. With no one in the media calling them out on their utterly ridiculous statements (e.g. "death panels") you end up with Pavlov's Elephants invoking Goebbel's big lie -- create a lie big enough and pound it in long enough AND not get called out on it -- and you end with a new reality.

From ThinkProgress:

BARNICLE: What about the fact that unemployment benefits pumped into the economy are an immediate benefit to the economy? Immediate...

SHADEGG: No, they're not! Unemployed people hire people? Really? I didn't know that.

BARNICLE: Unemployed people spend money Congressman, 'cause they have no money.

SHADEGG: Aha! So your answer is it's the spending of money that drives the economy and I don't think that's right. It's the creation of jobs that drives the economy... Actually, the truth is the unemployed will spend as little of that money as they possibly can. Job creators create jobs.

BARNICLE: Have you ever been unemployed? Have you ever been unemployed?

SHADEGG: Yes, I have.

BARNICLE: What did you do with the money? Save it?

It hard even to start on this one. Job creators create money as well as jobs and unemployed people hoard money!

I would think even an idiot like Shadegg would understand that someone who is unemployed will spend whatever they have (from savings or unemployment insurance) to keep their family fed and clothed. Shadegg seems to think that these people are headed to the craps table in Las Vegas or the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo -- or better -- stashing their newfound wealth in an offshore bank on the Cayman Islands.  How about the fact that many families are suffering greatly during this holiday season -- and would like to make sure their kids can find a little joy. Not John Shadegg -- these are leeches on society. 

Let's go to Shadegg's second corollary -- that the money the freeloaders will spend won't help the economy, but tax cuts for the idle rich job creators will boost economic output. If more and more people are out of work (some estimates say true un/under-employment is nearly 20%) and more and more of those people are losing their final safety net -- where is this great demand going to come from? 70-75% of the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending -- for groceries, gas, kid's toys etc. NO demand -- no need for goods and services. The trickled down money to the wealthy is not going to get invested in new businesses and increase production because the rich have an extra $50K in their checkbook. Corporations will create jobs if and when they have a need to -- MORE DEMAND.

Even fucking Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand would admit to that.

Tax cuts do NOT create jobs, because tax cuts do not create demand. Tax cuts create more cash for people -- they DO NOT make people spend. Giving the rich more money will not up their demand -- how many BMWs do they need? Do the beneficiaries of this tax cut largesse save that extra cash? Sure they do. Remember from basic economics 101 that savings = investment. Well, with the banks not lending to create growth, that theory is as good as a bad egg. When people and businesses have a need for something they spend -- not when they are given a free flow of cash.

Memo to Dodo Shadegg -- people living paycheck to paycheck and new businesses need to spend. The Koch brothers do not need to spend.

John Shadegg may be an evil and corrupt (hence typical) Republican, but even John Shadegg is not stupid enough to believe this (Palin and Bachmann yes, Shadegg no). Shadegg may be spewing the diarrhea (hate of the freeloading unemployed), but even he knows that unemployment benefits go directly back into the economy and that jobs are ONLY created when there is demand for products and services.

Oh, evil and corrupt and heartless John Shadegg wants to extend tax cuts for the rich -- but that was a given. After all the rich are job creators -- not freeloaders off the government dole.

You think the economy is bad now? Let's drop the final safety net for millions of unemployed Americans and watch small businesses -- businesses that cater to basic needs -- suffer. As an added bonus, property values will drop as even more homes get foreclosed.

Those people left without anything -- welcome to your Shadeggville.

This is only the tip of the teabag. When the Teabags really take control in January we are going to see even more "soak the poor" regulations. Remember -- there is a common pledge for all GOP members to abide by for the the next two years -- make things to get worse and blame the Kenyan Muslim socialist.

Why do people continue to fall for this crap?

Scarborough slams Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Far be it from me to heap any praise on Joe Scarborough -- I generally consider him a slimy creep -- but sometimes, you gotta admit, he's right:

Republicans have a problem. The most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected. And yet the same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012 are too scared to say in public what they all complain about in private.

Enough. It's time for the GOP to man up.

I hate the phrase "man up," but otherwise this is a solid assessment of the current state of the GOP. For all the anti-Obama obstructionism and right-wing ideology, it's basically the party of Sarah Palin (and "Sarah Palin"). She's become the de facto leader of the party, and, while I do think some of us (yes, I include myself) spend too much time on her, it's important not to give her, or her party, a free pass.

And, actually, I would prefer that she remain a prominent, if not the most prominent, Republican -- because I think Scarborough is right. She could very well "devastate" the party. I still don't think she'll run for president, but even being a prominent player -- a kingmaker, of sorts, the one will anoint the 2012 nominee -- could be enough to derail the party (as if its extremism isn't enough).

This is the woman, after all, who backed such utterly un-electable candidates this year as Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell, not to mention Joe Miller and John Raese. Some of her chosen candidates won, like Rand Paul, but they probably would have won anyway. Her record, simply, has been poor, largely because she gravitates towards those like her, bitter, resentful, extremist outsiders who resonate with the Tea Party but not so much with the GOP establishment, let alone with independents or conservative Democrats.

Anyway, Jonathan Chait is right to note that some Republicans have already challenged/criticized Palin: Karl Rove, Peggy Noonan, Barbara Bush (for what that's worth), and The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash. The "manning up," in other words, has already begun. Other than Rep. Spencer Bachus, though, who blamed the Republicans not winning the Senate on Palin (which is a bit of a stretch, but not much), "elected Republicans, and especially Republican presidential candidates, have shied away from attacking Palin on the record." That presumably was part of Scarborough's point.

And as long as Palin remains so popular with Republicans, specifically with the two main components of the base -- social conservatives and teabaggers -- elected Republicans, particularly those in the House who may want her endorsement in 2012 (whether she runs or not) and those eyeing the presidency, won't dare come out against her in any significant way. Her wrath, channelled through Facebook and Fox News, is enough to scare any self-regarding Republican into submission.

And there, if you're a Republican who actually cares about the future of your party as something other than a repository of right-wing insanity, is the problem.

Juelz Ventura

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Sexxxxy_Angellll's Webcam Play

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Suck it in, folks

By Carl 

There are times I part company with both my leftist friends and my union buddies. This is one of them: 

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers as he sought to address concerns over high annual deficits and appealed to Republicans to find a common approach to restoring the nation’s economic and fiscal health. 

...The move would save $2 billion in the 2011 fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 and $5 billion by the end of two fiscal years. Over 10 years, it would save $60 billion, according to Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the government’s chief performance officer.

Now, I get the objections. Federal workers are, compared to the private sector, substantially underpaid already and they have not been exempt from some of the economic crisis.

There is one thing they ARE exempt from, and that has to be acknowledged by our side: federal employees are much much harder to fire or lay off.

And it doesn't save much, and so why are federal workers, mostly working and middle class family people, being forced to shoulder the burden of a wage freeze?

Again, in the private sector, jobs are being cut, so are wages and benefits, and hiring is seeing very slow progress. We have chronically unemployed people whose benefits run out in a few days. None of this is really affecting the federal bureaucracy.

Obama makes a symbolic gesture to Republicans. Since the lame-duck Congress has kicked deficit reduction forward, Obama took a step that was calculated to deflate a Republican negotiating chip, one that is very popular with the base.

Remember, these are innumerian idiots who think that 19% of them are in the top 1% of wage earners, among other really insane and wacky mathematics. Somehow, they think that $60 billion will balance the budget painlessly. 

Fareed Zakaria points out the underlying problem, the one that Republicans will have to settle with their base:

Americans have an appetite for government benefits that greatly exceeds their appetite for taxes. For more than a generation, we have squared this dishonest circle by borrowing vast amounts of money. As more people age, this gap between what we want the government to provide and what we are willing to pay for is going to widen to an unsustainable level. Over the next 75 years, benefits under entitlement programs will exceed government revenue by $40 trillion. The federal budget deficit, if unattended, will reach 24% of GDP in 2040 — well beyond Greek and Irish territory. At that point, the measures it would take to close the gap are so punitive — we're talking tax hikes of 70% or spending cuts of 50% — that it is inconceivable that we will make them. If by some chance we were to make them, they would put the economy in a death spiral.

In many ways, the GOP winning the House is a great thing for the nation as a whole. Now, they have no choice but to roll up their sleeves and get involved, as opposed to sitting back and criticising everything Pelosi and Reid did, and by retaining the Senate, Obama has political cover to avoid vetoes (altho you have to know he's itching to stamp a bill or two hard for all the shit he's been taking).

If the Republicans take this seriously, and that's a big -- no, huge grey area, then this next Congress could conceivably get much of the necessary heavy lifting done. If the Republicans decide to risk the House by trying to capture the Senate thru obstructionism and deferral of these issues, the Democrats will rightly point out that they had skin in the game, and did nothing, whereas the past Congress got more done for Americans than any Congress since LBJ.

And we'll be back to one-party rule for the forseeable future. The Republicans are on the clock too, now. Their base has become more rabid, and won't put up with much compromise, and yet, it will have to be compromise to get anything done. By taking a chip off the table, Obama has given them one less accomplishment to tout to these whining mewling babies.

This is why the Party of Children is such a fascinating topic to watch.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Veronique Vega Returns

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Beyond redemption

By Mustang Bobby

It's hard for a lot of people to remember a time when there were Republicans who were considered moderate and open to working with people who didn't march in lockstep with the far-right agenda, but there actually were members of the House and Senate who did just that. Most of them, though, have either retired or been marginalized. So it's a little poignant to hear one speak nowadays, especially when it's someone like former Sen. John Danforth, Republican of Missouri, when he's talking about the ones he left behind and the danger they face from within their own party.

"If Dick Lugar," said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, "having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption."

Mr. Danforth is considered an authority on redemption; before he was elected to the Senate, he was -- and remains -- a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Mr. Danforth's concern has real implications. Mr. Lugar is defending the Obama administration's attempt to ratify the New Start treaty with Russia, and it is running into opposition from the Republicans based on nothing other than the fact that the GOP does not want to hand the president any sort of accomplishment. The leader of the opposition to the treaty in the Senate is Jon Kyl of Arizona, who so far has been able to come up with no clear reason to oppose it on any other grounds. The new treaty has the support of conservatives ranging from Pat Buchanan to Henry Kissinger, but Mr. Kyl is adamant.

It's obvious that Mr. Kyl and the Senate leadership have decided that it is in their best interest to oppose the Obama administration on everything, regardless of the logic or the benefit to the country. It's not just the New Start treaty, either. On a variety of issues that at one point had their support -- or at least a lack of organized opposition -- the Republicans have either turned around completely or invented new reasons to block their passage: the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, warrantless wiretapping, the closing of Gitmo, the Bush tax cuts, cap and trade, Wall Street reform, TARP, and any number of other issues, they were for them before they were against them. They're doing it because they can, and also, perhaps, because they are afraid of being held hostage by the fringe elements of their party. After all, Mr. Kyl saw that several of his colleagues in the House were defeated in primaries, including Robert Bennett of Utah, as was John McCain. So they're putting their own political interests and futures first.

It also proves one certainty we learned in the War on Terror: when a prisoner is threatened with torture -- in this case by the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin -- they will say and do anything to avoid it.

 

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

In a stupid and cynically symbolic move, Obama freezes pay for federal employees

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Freezing the pay of government employees is like, in an American context, cutting federal funding for public broadcasting or the National Endowment for the Arts:

Big headlines, minimal actual impact on the budget.

But, of course, government is an easy target. People generally want government to do what they want -- and to be there when they need something (you know, like disaster relief or police protection) -- but don't want to pay for it.

And while even in this time of economic crisis companies are making huge profits and CEO are taking home huge salaries and bonuses, government employees can easily be scapegoated as the problem, or at least as a large part of the problem, even if they aren't.

It's not about reality, it's about public perception -- and conservatives have managed to convince much of the public that government employees are all a bunch of overpaid layabouts with their snouts in the public trough. So instead of cutting defence spending or setting taxes at reasonably progressive levels, even this Democratic president, however generally un-progressive, decides, out of cowardice and desperation, to take what seems to be the easy way out:

President Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers on Monday as he sought to address concerns over sky-high deficit spending and appeal to Republican leaders to find a common approach to restoring the nation’s economic and fiscal health.

The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice and that sacrifice must be shared by employees of the federal government," Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference.

"I did not reach this decision easily," he said. "This is not just a line item on a federal ledger. These are people's lives."

He called federal workers "patriots who love their country" but added that "I'm asking civil servants to do what they've always done" and sacrifice for the good of the nation. 

Well, it's great that he says nice things about government employees and claims to be sensitive to "people's lives." I'm sure those on the public payroll really appreciate his support.

But please. Who else is being asked to sacrifice for the good of the country? Millions of jobs have been lost and people without any clout in Washington or on Wall Street are having trouble putting food on the table for their families, unable to care properly for their children, many swamped by massive health-care bills, sinking ever further into debt, but the wealthy, including the very top of the plutocracy that continues to benefit from massive income inequality, haven't really been asked to sacrifice anything. But of course they count for more than those millionaires in the civil service, right?

Honestly, is it fair that the wealthy -- including especially the super-wealthy, those who finance the Republican Party -- object to any increases to their income tax rates, even back to sensible Clinton-era levels, while civil service pay is being frozen and, on an even more serious level, the poor and unemployed are being denied, by Republicans, unemployment insurance extensions?

The anti-government, pro-plutocracy Republicans ought to bear most of the blame, but it's President Obama who has backtracked on ending the deficit-exploding Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (repeatedly kowtowing to Republican demands), put together a right-leaning "bipartisan" deficit commission that, predictably, is targeting essential entitlement programs, and, now, targeted federal employees, many of whom are just trying to get by and hardly get paid the way many in the private sector do.

Democrats generally oppose the freeze, but of course Republicans love it:

The early reviews of President Obama's plan to freeze federal worker pay are in -- and it gets a resounding "F" from just about everybody outside of GOP leadership.

Michael Linden, a budget expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the plan is small potatoes that risks driving away valuable civil servants with little budgetary upside.

"Bluntly doing it this way, we risk cutting off our nose to spite our face," Linden said in a phone interview. "We risk not hiring good people, we risk not giving a raise to people who deserve a raise, and we miss not cutting the pay of those who deserve a pay cut."

*****

"The vast majority of federal employees are middle-class workers. That's who we're asking to take a hit," Linden explained. "Maybe we have to ask them to take a hit [but] certainly we shouldn't ask them to take the hit before the wealthiest two percent. Maybe down the line we'll ask middle class to take the hit. But I'd really prefer not asking them to take the hit at the start."

Larry Mishel, director of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, was equally blunt.

In a statement Mishel warned, "In the context of the deficit, Obama will get chump change from freezing federal pay, and will only enlarge the degree to which federal pay lags that of the private sector (a gap of 22%, according to the federal pay agent's report)." 

At FDL, Scarecrow calls the freeze "pointless." At TNR, Jonathan Chait calls it a "gimmick." And Chait is right, I think, that even the politics won't play well for Obama:

I'm just not sure the politics will actually work so neatly. A policy like that only works through the context in which it is communicated to the public. And the context will be that liberals and moderates dismiss because it's a stupid policy, and conservatives attack it because they're partisan Republicans. The end result will be Obama proposing a policy initiative that's mildly harmful and panned by all sides.

There's a certain class of moderate Democratic strategist that thinks symbolic moves like this brilliantly capture the center, but I'm not sure it really works like that. Instead, it will be reported on the evening news, with a complaining comment from a liberal, a sneering comment from a conservative, and a dismissive comment from a Centrist Budget Wonk who says you have to cut entitlement spending. 

But here's the president appealing to that "class of moderate Democratic strategist," hardly a major electoral demographic. Maybe a few self-styled centrists will like the freeze, but it won't accomplish anything in terms of meaningful deficit reduction and will just end up further alienating liberals and progressives to Obama's left. (And Republicans will oppose Obama no matter what in any event, so why even try to appease them at all?)

So what's the point? Or is it just that Obama needed to make a move, any move, even a symbolic one, even a stupid one?

He didn't, but he did, and that's just the sort of leadership, or lack thereof, we've come to expect from him. In a time of genuine crisis, we need better. Much, much better.

Sharing is Fun

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Budget Holes And A Shovel

By Carl

 

I spent a bit of time thinking this weekend about ways to fill the deficit, and I wanted to float a trial balloon.

 

As tax reform seems to be on the table and as the vast majority of our resources are now being spent to prop up business in this country, I thought it might be fun to drop a tax increase into the mix: five percent, off the top, on all revenues. Call it an emergency surcharge to protect American jobs.

 

Oh, right. I guess I should preface this tax increase. The President will announce a policy that any company that off-shores jobs or moves to a post office box or a physical building in another country will no longer enjoy American protection, including defense forces and/or copyright and patent protection, and that any country-- from Bermuda to Abu Dhabi to China-- will suffer a concomittant reduction in foreign aid to the tune of the lost tax revenue from the companies that move there.

 

What say you?

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Boiling the Tea kettle

By Capt. Fogg

"The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."

-US Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas-

Anyone in the US with more political awareness than a telephone pole knows that there's a whole lot of loosely related and sometimes contradictory stuff hidden under the camouflage blanket of "we're for smaller, less intrusive government," including the somewhat contrary and certainly not Libertarian opinion that that government may, at its own discretion, hide its actions, its statements and defend its deceptions and coverups, making the exercise of protected rights a crime. That so many who feel concern about paternalistic government can none the less defend it passionately and thus sanctify subterfuge is puzzling. That members of that government can ask that we treat the media and its sources as traitors and terrorists with all the extra-legal powers it possesses, is hardly puzzling at all. That the need to cover its ass supersedes any respect for the Constitution it pretends to worship: that government can be in terror of being exposed, hardly makes the case, in my opinion, for Terrorism. Perhaps the test of being a true and loyal Republican is not to think of Richard Nixon at this point.

So how do we feel about Wikileaks release of leaked State Department documents yesterday? Well at least one Republican congressman recommends that we move that organization under another one of those capacious and convenient camo blankets: the one we call terrorism, or 'terrism' in the dialect spoken by a great number of self-styled conservatives. So, by the gerrymandering of ill-defined symbols, we manage to expose -- or at least the horrifically hyperbolic Rep. Peter King (R-NY) hopes to expose Wikileaks and perhaps anyone revealing that which slithers through the wires to and from Washington, to the dire and drastic treatment we afford "foreign terrorist organizations." To expose embarrassing diplomatic cables showing many world leaders at their scurrilous antics, is "worse than a military attack" he said last night.

King, says CBS News, New York, has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder asking that Julian Assange of Wikileaks be prosecuted as a spy for publishing 'sensitive' information given him by a whistleblowing soldier, even though that's what the mainstream media does, is supposed to do and the Court has affirmed their constitutional right to do.

It will be interesting to see the Tea Party reaction to this -- if there is one. They'll be torn between maintaining support for the First Amendment and the role of a free press and the treasured myth of its untrustworthy liberal bias. I'd like to think that it might increase pressure to actually define what they mean by a smaller, less intrusive and more limited government, but as they say - a watched teapot never boils.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

No Sound, But He Pounds

An excited Black dude getting his dick frosted...Thanks to Noblow for the find, on xhamster.com

Cottage Cheese Pussy Cream

The cameraman says it looked like cottage cheese cumming out of her pussy...but cottage cheese is pretty gross to me, so I'd say more like banana yogurt or something...

Infinite Solstice found this one awhile ago, and it's nice and short...efukt.com

Mean Politicians

By Distributorcap

MEAN POLITICIANS

Raised in potato country by her centrist parents, Olympia Snowshoe thinks she knows about survival of the fittest. But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when she enters the US Congress for the first time and encounters psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that Senators and Congressmen face today.

She instantly makes friends with Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen, who, in the terms of the Congress, are now the "out crowd."  Soon Olympia meets the Teabags, three crude, spiteful, but popular girls.  The Teabags consist of Sarah, the unofficial leader, Kay-Bailey, Sarah's full-time follower, and Michele, "one of the dumbest people you will ever meet." They immediately let her into their group, but Sarah is unsure. Her old friends convince Olympia to keep her relationship with the Teabags, only so that they can know their dark secrets. However, events turn for the worse when Olympia falls for Sarah's ex-boyfriend, Aaron Schock. When Sarah finds out, she seeks revenge. However, as Olympia spends more time with the Teabags, she begins to become one.

Dialogue from Mean Politicians

Nancy: [reading list the major cliques in Congress] You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything, Desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks...

[a picture of herself and Chris come on screen]

Nancy: But we are greatest people you will ever meet. And then there are worst - beware of Teabags.

Nancy: That one there, that's Michele Bachman. She is one of the dumbest girls you will ever meet. Chris Von Hollen sat next to her in Financial Services last year.

Chris: She asked me how to spell orange. I told her B-O-E-H-N-E-R

Nancy: That little one, that's Kay-Bailey.

Chris: She's totally rich because her dad invented Jesus Kites.

Nancy: Kay-Bailey knows everybody's business, she knows everything about everyone.

Chris: That's why her hair is so big, it's full of secrets.

Nancy: And evil takes a human form in Sarah Palin. Don't be fooled because she may seem like your typical selfish, back-stabbing slut faced ho-bag, but in reality, she's so much more than that.

Chris: She's the queen bee - the star, those other two are just her little congressional aides.

Sarah: Oh my God, I love your skirt! Where did you get it?

Blanche Lincoln: It was my mom's in the '80s.

Sarah: Vintage, so adorable.

Blanche: Thanks.

Sarah: [after Blanche walks away] That is the ugliest fucking skirt I've ever seen.  What a hick.

Sarah: I gave him everything! I was half a virgin when I met him.

Kay-Bailey: Do you wanna do something fun? Wanna go to Taco Bell?

Sarah: I can't go to Taco Bell, I'm on an all-carb diet. GOD Kay-Bailey you're so stupid!

Michele: Wait, Sarah! Talk to me!

Sarah: No one understands me...

Olympia: You're not stupid, Kay-Bailey.

Kay-Bailey: No, I am actually. I'm failing almost everything!

Olympia: Well... there must be something you're good at.

Kay-Bailey: I can stick my whole fist in my mouth! Wanna see?

Olympia: No no no... Anything else?

Kay-Bailey: Well... I'm kinda psychic. I have a second amendment sense.

Olympia: What do you mean?

Kay-Bailey: It's like I have C-SPAN or something. My breasts can always tell when we should cut taxes.

Nancy: Explain how you forgot to invite us to your GOP party?

Olympia: You know I couldn't invite you. I had to pretend to be a Teabag.

Nancy: Hey, Limpie, you're not pretending anymore. You're a dunker on a string. Cold, shiny, full of shit.

Nancy: Did you have an awesome time? Did you drink awesome shooters, listen to awesome music, and then just sit around and soak up each others awesomeness?

Olympia: You know what? You're the one who made me like this so you could use me for your Congressional revenge!

Nancy: God! See, at least me and Sarah Palin know we're mean! You try to act so innocent like, "Oh, I use to live in Maine with all the little mooses and the little lobsters!"

Olympia: You know what! It's not my fault you're like, in love with me, or something!

Nancy: What?

Chris: Oh, no, she did not!

Nancy: See? That's the thing with you Teabags. You think everybody is in love with you when actually, everybody HATES you! Like, Aaron Schock, for example, he broke up with Sarah and guess what? He still doesn't want you! So why are you still messing with Sarah, Olympia? I'll tell you why, because you are a mean Congressperson! You're a bitch! Here. You can have this earmark. It is a bridge to nowhere.

Chris: And I want my pink shirt back! I want my pink shirt back!

Olympia: [about Sarah] I have this theory about Sarah, that if you cut off all her hair she'd would have 8 chins like Mitch McConnell

Nancy: Okay, yeah. I've got an apology. So, I have this friend who is a new Congressperson this year. And I convinced her that it would be fun to mess up Sarah Palin's life. So I had her pretend to be friends with Sarah, and then she would come to my house after and we would just laugh about all the dumb stuff Sarah said. And we gave these candy bar things that would make her gain weight, and then we turned her best friends against her. And then... Oh yeah, Olympia -- you know my friend Olympia? We gave Sarah foot cream instead of face wash. I am so sorry Sarah. Really, I don't know why I did this. I guess it's probably because I've got a big liberal crush on you!

Olympia: Hey Sarah!

Sarah: Why were you talking to Nancy Pelosi?

Olympia: I don't know, I mean, she's so weird, she just, you know, came up to me and started talking to me about Iraq.

Sarah: She's so pathetic. Let me tell you something about Nancy Pelosi. We were best friends when I was Governor for like 2 minutes. I know, right? It's so embarrassing. I don't even... Whatever. So then, I started going out with my first boyfriend Rand who was totally gorgeous with this poodle haircut but then he moved to Kentucky, and Nancy was like, weirdly jealous of him. Like, if I would blow her off to hang out with Rand, she'd be like, "Why didn't you call me back?" And I'd be like, "Why are you so obsessed with me?" So then, for my birthday party, which was an all-girls pool party, I was like, "Nancy, I can't invite you, because I think you're liberal." I mean I couldn't have a liberal at my party. There were gonna be girls there with their rosary beads. I mean, right? She was a LIBERAL. So then her mom called my mom and started yelling at her, it was so retarded. And then she dropped out of Congress because no one would talk to her, and she came back in the fall, all of her hair was cut off and she was totally weird, and now I guess she's a vegan.

Michele: [to Olympia] If only you knew how mean Sarah really is... You'd know that I'm not allowed to wear hoop earrings, right? Yeah! Two years ago Sarah told me hoops earrings were her thing and I wasn't allowed to wear them anymore. And then for my birthday my parents got this pair of really expensive white gold hoops and I had to pretend like I didn't even like them and... it was so sad. And you know she cheats on Aaron? Yes, every Thursday he thinks she's doing SAT prep but really she's hooking up with John Kyl in the projection room above the auditorium! I never told anybody that because I am such a good friend!

Olympia: [after humiliating Sarah] Wait Sarah, I didn't mean for this to happen!

Sarah: To find out that everyone hates me? I don't care!

Olympia: Wait Sarah, just listen!

Sarah: No! Do you know what everyone says about you behind your back? Hmm? They say that you're a five college potato freak, that's a less hot version of me! Yeah, so don't try to act so innocent!

Olympia: But your the one who went to five colleges.

Sarah: You can take that fake apology, and shove it right up your hairy ..

[Sarah gets hit by a moose]

Olympia: [after seeing Sarah in mirror] Sarah, wow, you look really beautiful.

Sarah: I'm wearing a spinal halo.

Olympia: Look, I'm really sorry about the moose. I feel like it's all my fault.

Sarah: Stopping making this about you, it's always about you. I'm the one that got hit by the moose

Olympia: I'm really sorry about all the other stuff too.

Sarah: Okay, I'm going to forgive you because I'm a very Zen person... and I'm on a lot of pain medication that Rush gave me right now.

[Olympia smiles]

Sarah: You know Aaron Schock really does like you. He's always talking about how unusual you are and it really pissed me off. Like this one time, I got this really expensive Matryoshka nesting doll from Russia, but I never played with it. So my mom wanted to give it to my cousin. But even though I didn't want it..

Olympia: You begged your mom to let you keep it?

Sarah: No. I threw it in the backyard. That is why I can see Russia from my backyard.

Let's start a conspiracy theory!

By Edward Copeland 

The first two times Wikileaks unloaded their document dumps, there seemed to be a clear motivation: Uncovering untold facts about what the U.S. did or still is doing during both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. There seemed to be an overriding public service in the publishing of the classified documents, not that it seemed as if many paid any attention. The part that bothered me about that was how piss-poor our nation's cybersecurity must be if, as they expect us to believe, a single Army intelligence officer was able to download hundreds of thousands of documents, if not millions, and pass them on to Wikileaks.

The case with the latest Wikileaks document dump though is murky. What purpose can be served by telling world leaders what our various diplomats and leaders in the State Department say about other world leaders behind their backs. What is this high school? Given what is being revealed in the lustiest batch of leaks, it is difficult to discern a political agenda other than to ruin our relations with various nations and leaders around the world, and not just the Obama Administration since some of the leaks date back to actions taken in previous administrations, with particular mention of actions taken by both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.

The part of the story that immediately makes me smell a rat is that they are again attributing this leak to Bradley Manning, the same 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst who was based in Iraq but who has been held in a prison cell in Quantico, Va., for the past few weeks. Was he able to find time to download what could have amounted to millions of documented without getting caught? Even if he did do the Iraq and Afghanistan ones, what possible interest would he have had in snooping into the State Department to find out what we were saying about world leaders and other things? Could this be another case as when they tried to say that Abu Ghraib was because of a couple of low-ranking "bad apples" and they didn't go higher up?

Now here comes my conspiracy theory. Who hates everybody, in this administration, most of the Bush administration and especially foreign leaders? Someone who would have had access to a lot of this older information and I'm sure could find his way in to find stuff since he left office.

Dick Cheney, that's who. Sure, I have no proof. I'm making pure speculation, but there has to be one for this latest document dump. Otherwise, the true story is that Wikileaks has no sense of what really matters and doesn't care about repercussions. The other leaks were important. These are mostly trivial and, more importantly, could prove hurtful to U.S. foreign policy for who knows how long just as Obama and his team were making strides to repair the damage that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang left.

GOP screws 9/11 responders, unemployed, and poor: Happy holidays to the rich and corporate elite!

By LindaBeth

I'm really struggling to prevent my head from exploding over the very revealing juxtaposition of bills, policies, and positions swirling around the end of the 2010 legislative session.

The economy is still bad. There is only one job opening* for every five people looking for work, which means that even if all jobs were filled and none were lost, unemployment would only decrease by 20%.

After spending over a trillion on our wars in the Middle East, the GOP is suddenly concerned with deficits.

So what's on the table right now?

Extending Unemployment Insurance: The clock is ticking on extending unemployment benefits; the bill must be passed next week or unemployed workers' benefits will begin to stop. The unemployed are accused of being lazy even though there are objectively not enough jobs for everyone looking. In fact, there usually aren't -- 100% employment is bad for capitalists because then the employees, not the owners, have the leverage. But typically there are 1-2 people looking for every job opening, not 5-6 as we've had in this recession, which makes the negative impact of unemployment on the rest of the economy that much greater. Unemployment benefits are needed not only to help the human beings in need, but to mitigate the negative economic impacts of mass unemployment.

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010: The Child Nutrition Act gets reauthorized every five years. The Senate version passed in August, only after paying for the $4.5 billion program with program cuts, most of which ($2.2 billion) came from the food stamps program (SNAP). The House version did not include those cuts, and has been stalled for that reason. The cuts in SNAP essential shift the locus of inadequate nutrition from the lunchroom to the dining room. If the bill isn't passed before the break, the process begins all over again.

The 9/11 Illness Payout Bill: A bill providing funds to cover the medical costs for 9/11 first responders. The bill passed the House (even surviving a Republicans threat to add an amendment that would bar undocumented workers from receiving the benefits, as if their suffering from helping our fellow citizens wasn't worth paying for), but the bill is now stuck in the Senate. I can't believe this is even an issue, but the GOP has made it one: the bill will be paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes, and Republican senators are framing it as a tax increase.

So let's sum this up:

• We have Republicans who have spent over $1 trillion on wars this decade wanting to cut the deficit, but refuse to fund the health care of those who risked their life in the events that were the so-called reason d'etre for those wars. They also refuse to cut military spending. 
• Republicans also want to increase the deficit by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, but refuse to allow more adequate child nutrition--that would lower health care costs and improve cognitive functioning of our poorest children, not to mention their basic quality of life--without robbing Peter to pay Paul.
• Republicans want the wealthiest in the United States to get tax cuts, and are holding middle class tax cuts hostage to do so, while the unemployed, who by definition cannot become employed, are stripped of their poverty-level average UI benefit of $290/week ($15,000/year). Tax cuts for the rich are heralded by the GOP as a economy booster and job creator, even though unemployment benefits and the aforementioned food stamp program provide more economic stimulus than tax cuts of any sort. Businesses do not hire out of the goodness of their heart or because people need jobs. They hire when there is a need for more labor. Giving them a tax break doesn't increase their need for more labor. Unemployment and food dollars being spent does. Those programs are not only right (or just), but they are effective.

What on earth is the logic here? The only one I can find is chilling: demanding to maintain military might by misunderstanding the source of terrorism and adherence to economic ideology despite the facts is worth more than helping those in need. Both GOP positions are self-serving. Especially at this holiday time of the year, this ought to be a stinging indictment of GOP policies and positions, if people would only see the forest, rather than the individual trees.

*The Cato Institute has criticized this number, saying that there are jobs available that aren't advertised, and therefore that that number is misleading. Even still, I highly doubt there are enough unadvertised jobs to even get close to filling the gap. further, these jobs are obtaining through personal networks, or what sociologists call social capital, something largely part of the privilege of one's upbringing, as opposed to human capital, such as one's education. This begs the questions, are these jobs really "available" to the millions of job seekers, or just those who are already well-connected?

(Cross-posted to Speak Truth to Power.)

Hopelessly devoted to Sarah Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Charles Krauthammer thinks that we liberals are obsessed with Sarah Palin and that we think "she is and will always be the only representative of conservatism of any importance."

Obviously, that's not true. She may be the de facto leader of the Republican Party (move over, Dear Leader Rush), she may be the brightest Republican star (without necessarily being bright), and, with the Tea Party all around her, she may be the new mainstream of the GOP, but certainly there are other important conservatives out there. Like, um, well... Krazy Kristol and the neocons are still important, and then there's Rand Paul... uh, and James Inhofe... and...

No, she's it. For the right, she's The One.

And Americans should know that if they vote Republican and want conservatism to rule, she's what they're getting. Because she's bigger than McConnell, Cantor, and the rest of the Republicans on Capitol Hill, and she's bigger than Romney, Thune, Pawlenty, and the other wannabes for 2012.

So are we obsessed? No, just watching what's going on over on the right, often with great amusement. And I, for one, am hopelessly devoted.

This is a couple of years old, but it's still fresh, especially as we look ahead to a possible Palin presidential run. Enjoy, and have a lovely Sunday.

FBI arrests terror suspect in Oregon, Republicans rally behind President Obama in open display of bipartisan unity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Update: Glenn Greenwald is quite right that the FBI more or less thwarted its own plot -- and that there hasn't really been "an iota of questioning or skepticism," just unthinking celebration.)

The FBI "thwarted an attempted terrorist bombing in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square before the city's annual tree-lighting Friday night," The Oregonian is reporting:

A Corvallis man, thinking he was going to ignite a bomb, drove a van to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue and attempted to detonate it.

However, the supposed explosive was a dummy that FBI operatives supplied to him, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint signed Friday night by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a Somali-born U.S. citizen, was arrested at 5:42 p.m., 18 minutes before the tree lighting was to occur, on an accusation of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The arrest was the culmination of a long-term undercover operation, during which Mohamud had been monitored for months as his alleged bomb plot developed...

The investigation involved the FBI, Oregon State Police, Portland Police Bureau, Corvallis Police Department and Lincoln County Sheriff's Office...

"This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people -- even here in Oregon -- who are determined to kill Americans," said Oregon U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton. "The good work of law enforcement protected Oregonians in this case -- and we have no reason to believe there is any continuing threat arising from this case." 

In response, Republicans spent Saturday rallying behind President Obama and praising the efforts of law enforcement to keep Americans safe.

"The successful resolution of this very real threat in Oregon shows that the president's approach to fighting terrorism is working," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) in an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by several other Republican senators.

"Law enforcement is clearly the way to go," added Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "After years of getting it wrong with heavy-handed military operations under the previous regime, there is hope that we can actually do this right. And maybe we don't have to do it by decimating the Constitution and ignoring civil liberties."

"Who'd a thunk?" joked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), as his colleagues guffawed awkwardly.

Appearing on Fox News Saturday afternoon, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) simply said, "I'm impressed. We've been harshly critical of President Obama, but maybe he knows what he's doing. This is very encouraging, and maybe, just maybe, we'll have to admit we were wrong."

ABC News is reporting that Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has drafted a letter on behalf of his Republican colleagues expressing their unanimous and unwavering support for President Obama's leadership. He intends to deliver it to the White House personally on Monday. (ABC News is also reporting, citing an anonymous Inhofe aide, that the senator may even reconsider his long-standing global warming denialism. "If he's wrong about the war on terror," said the aide, "maybe he's wrong about everything.")

Meanwhile, Republican House leaders were similarly effusive in their praise. Appearing on CNN, incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Vir.) said that "there is no denying it, the president is on top of things, and we are on board."

"The American people demand leadership, and they have it in the Oval Office," remarked soon-to-be Speaker of the House John Boehner. "It's time to put partisan bickering behind us. The Party of No is no more. We get the message."

Even Vice President Cheney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani were positive.

"9/11," said Giuliani on MSNBC. "9/11. NYPD. 9/11. NYFD. Thumbs up!"

"I used to think you could beat terrorism by waging preemptive wars around the world and torturing without regard for even a shred of human decency," Cheney groaned, sitting alongside Giuliani. " I guess I was wrong. I still covet blood, and lots of it, to feed my impulse for destruction and degradation, but I've got to hand it to the president. The guy's smart," he sneered. "Not like that... that... pfwahhh... bldszorltrrr... grrrrrrrrrrrr..." (It is not known what he meant, as his speech descended into a series of prolonged grunts.)

"This makes me proud to be a Democrat," asserted Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to no one in particular. "I may have been McCain's flunky during the campaign, and I may really be a Republican, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to it, until I change my mind and stick it to my party again. I'm #1! I'm #1 I'm #1! Joe-mentum all the way!"

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has apparently holed up at one of his many residences around the country with his wife Cindy and best pal Sen. Lindsey Graham. It is suspected that, having spent the past two years selling out whatever principles he may once have had, if any, he is trying to recover an ounce of credibility so as to be able to comment publicly without looking like a shameless fool. CNN is reporting that he may appear on The Daily Show next week to beg Jon Stewart for forgiveness.

Ex-President George W. Bush, signing books all day at various undisclosed locations, was unavailable for comment.

And Sarah Palin? As of yet, she hasn't commented either on Facebook or Fox News. But it is known that she is busy working on her next TV show, Sarah Palin's Massachusetts, a six-part series for TLC in which she takes classes in English composition and Russian literature at Harvard, sings revisionist James Taylor tunes around a campfire in the Berkshires ("When you're down and troubled, and you need a helping hand, and nothing, oh, nothing is going right, just close your eyes and think of me, and soon I will be there, telling you to get off your lazy ass you good-for-nothing welfare loser"), goes yachting around Martha's Vineyard with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, and, of course, stages an all-too-real tea party in Boston Harbor, all while using her husband and kids as props for political gain. 

It is not clear how long this period of unity, and Republican humility, will last.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Sarah Palin’s own little Truman Show and the road to the White House

By R.K. Barry

I have no idea if Sarah Palin is gearing up to run for the presidency in 2012. What I think I know is that sometime shortly after (or before?) the 2008 election, it occurred to Ms. Palin that she was sitting on one of the most lucrative franchises ever granted a person who had no reason to expect such an opportunity would ever come her way.

Maybe someone a lot smarter came to lay it out for her or maybe she figured it out for herself. Maybe she had an inkling that things would work out the way they did or maybe it was dumb luck. In any case, no one can deny that her “success,” devoid of anything that could be described as political skill, is something to behold.

We all have unique abilities and qualities and sometimes events conspire to provide just the right environment to help us make the best of what we have to offer. Perfect storms happen and our Miss Sarah is a cork riding atop a wave in the middle of that storm.

The storm to which I refer is the confluence of her personal attributes, the events that made her famous initially and America’s obsession with reality TV.

As if constructed in some sort of Stepford laboratory, she is made for reality television. She is photogenic, she is quirky, she says the darndest things and she makes everybody feel like they, or people they actually know, could succeed on a similar scale. That’s the formula for this brand of media.

At the Republican National Convention in '08, I distinctly remember a delegate gushing on camera that Sarah Palin was just like her sister-in-law. To this women, Palin was accessible but now, under these circumstances, special.

It is the nexus between the common and the extraordinary. It is all about plucking people from the shadows and placing them on a stage that would, under normal circumstances, never be available to them.

How, in reality T.V., ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstanced is beside the point. The fact that they are ordinary but granted a degree of fame is the dynamic that keeps people watching. 

Survivor, American Idol, The Bachelor, and so many other shows: these are all about demystifying the world we see on television, which is a proxy for importance, wealth and fame – all the things we are taught to crave. It’s about connecting the ordinary to the extraordinary. And though it is a bit off the argument, it is the same reason that lotteries are so popular – a bridge to the other side. We want to believe it’s possible and we like things that remind us that it might be.

It is often remarked that the more we make fun of Sarah Palin’s intelligence the more popular she becomes with some people. These are the people who don’t want to see her voted off the island, who want to see where the story goes. It’s these people who are living vicariously through the Palin experience. And there are, I suspect, a lot of them.

Just because there is frequently no good reason for the casts of reality shows to be famous, doesn’t mean that people don’t root for them and it doesn’t mean that audiences will be any less resentful when so called elites point out that the anointed don’t deserve the fame. No one likes to have his or her fun spoiled.

Fame for the sake of fame is where we are these days. “Being famous for being famous” is one of the better lines of the age.

The Truman Show is a movie about a man who is initially unaware that he is living in a constructed reality television show, broadcast 24-hours-a-day to billions of people across the globe.

Sarah P. may be aware that the cameras are rolling, but I don’t know that she could have fully anticipated how things would develop, though she has clearly done everything possible to ensure that America keeps watching whether it’s her daughter dancing or her televised travels through Alaska. Whether she constructed the reality she inhabits or it was constructed by events is almost secondary. It’s good TV and it seems always to be on.

The possibility that ordinariness can succeed in grand fashion is what keeps us watching. She was, as I said, made for this.

I doubt that this by itself gets her to the White House, as it has a lot more to do with general popularity than political popularity and we shouldn’t confuse the two. But a lot of people will want to see how the story ends, and, if for no other reason, this will make her a phenomenon until the string plays itself out - whenever that is.

In the end, a presidential campaign may be just too seductive a story line for her, or her producers, to ignore.

Stay tuned.

Sarah Palin defends embarrassing North Korea gaffe by revising history, attacking Obama, and disrespecting America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Facing widespread ridicule (justifiable, given her history of ignorance, even if the what she said was understandable in context) over her North Korea gaffe, Sarah Palin has taken to Facebook -- it's either that or Fox News, the two places she can spin her lies and hurl her venom without being challenged -- to defend herself.

And she does that by revising history, claiming that she "corrected [herself] seconds after [her] slip-of-the-tongue" (she didn't) and attacking President Obama over his gaffes, as if somehow making fun of him lets her off the hook, as if he isn't a deep and serious thinker, which she most certainly is not.

Everyone makes mistakes. I said that in my post on Palin's gaffe. But that's not the issue. The issue is that Palin has proven to be, if I may be kind, an ignoramus. Time and time again, I wrote, what she reveals is that she doesn't think, let alone think seriously, about anything other than the marketing of the Palin brand. And her public utterances are nothing more than a string of shallow, self-aggrandizing talking points and ignorant assertions. She doesn't just make gaffes, she speaks without thinking, and without ever having thought about what she's talking about. She's a mouth without a brain, and she can't hide that with all the lipstick in the world.

Responding to her Facebook post, Andrew Sullivan hit the bull's-eye, as he usually does with Palin:

This may be a smart-ass retort; it may be useful inoculation against a potentially damaging gaffe; it may even be a well-researched blog-post, but what it isn't is anything approaching the kind of character we expect in a president. A simple respect for the office she seeks would not reflect itself in these increasingly callow, sarcastic, cheap jibes at a sitting president. But sadly, like so many now purporting to represent conservatism, there is, behind the faux awe before the constitution, a contempt for the restraint and dignity a polity's institutions require from its leaders.

There is no maturity here; no self-reflection; no capacity even to think how to appeal to the half of Americans who are already so appalled by her trashy behavior and cheap publicity stunts. There is a meanness, a disrespect, a vicious partisanship that, if allowed to gain more power, would split this country more deeply and more rancorously than at any time in recent years. And that's saying something.

America, simply, cannot afford Sarah Palin. Behind the smirky smile, behind the glittering winks, behind the phony all-American facade lurks an ugliness that is rotten to the core. She may try to keep it hidden and she may not even acknowledge its existence, but she just can't hide it. It's who she is.