Suvivor: Frenso

Previewing this fall's election for CA Governor, Kneel Kashkardashian finds that nobody wants his services.  Let's take a peek:

So, last Monday morning I took a Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to Fresno. With only forty dollars in my pocket (and no credit cards), a backpack, a change of clothes, and a toothbrush, I planned to find a job and earn enough money to get by. I am an able-bodied 40-year old. Surely I could find some work?

Maybe the videographer and creative team following you around gave people the idea you weren't seriously searching for permanent employment.

Over the next seven days, I walked mile after mile in one hundred degree heat searching for a job. I offered to do anything: wash dishes, sweep floors, pack boxes, cook meals, anything. I went to dozens of businesses in search of work but wasn’t able to get any. In seven days, I didn’t see a single “help wanted” sign but I did see plenty of signs that fast food outlets now accept food stamps.

I suspect that I too could show up unannounced at a few dozen businesses where no one would have any reason to hire me, and no one would hire me.  I could even not find a job if I took time off from the search to film establishing shots of me staring wistfully at a passing freight train. (Sadly, the shot of Kneel pilfering an aromatic pie cooling on a farmhouse windowsill did not make the final cut.)   

I also suspect that if I employed a job strategy less half-assed than Kneel's campaign strategy, I might not have had as much luck avoiding a job offer. Did you try Macy's, Kneel? Surely a payday lender or a bailbondswoman wouldn't have said no to a man of your talents.

Kneel doesn't explain what his economic plan is. He confides that it's pro-pro-growth, and anti-food stamps, failing schools, welfare and increased minimum wage.  Beyond that, you'll just have to trust him. 

I'm always willing to help the truly needy.  Kneel once helped Hank Paulson write his autobiography.  So if you don't make it to Sacramento this November, Kneel, I'm happy to hire you as a ghostblogger.  We'll split the take 50/50.

Update (8/1):  Went through a fastfood drive-in this morning to get a bottled water.  Sign on the establishment said they were interviewing for "all positions/all shifts." (Wasn't in Fresno, of course.) Maybe these joints take the signs down when multi-millionaires pretending to be drifters stroll by.

Feck and Fecklessness

Girls and boys, once again we've let down The Daily Howler!

We don’t know what the press will do if Clinton enters the race. We do know this—the indolence of the liberal world concerning the press corps’ recent behavior ["beating up" on Hillary Clinton] is a major sign of our essential fecklessness.

Everyone, give me 1,000 words on the media's War on Gore anti-Hillary attitudes by Friday. Chop, chop.

The Howler also opines that

If a Republican front-runner was being beaten up this way, the screaming would have been heard from coast to coast by now. But on the One True Liberal Channel, the millionaire children have all been silent. At Salon, not a word has been said.

Not a word? Not so much.

You could look it up!

Now, some in the liberalverse might have concluded that there's plenty of other things going on in the nation, and the world, to occupy them, and that the Hillary Hate-On will still be around should the "front-runner" decide to declare sometime in the next 28 months. For my part, I can barely pinch out a post every third day, which limits my opportunities to call out Hillary haters. But apparently I haven't gotten my priorities straight.

What's more, some of us indolent feckers might not think that Clinton's the ideal candidate for 2016, regardless of whether she's the "front-runner." (Just as not every conservative is manning the barricades in response to perceived media criticism of "Republican front-runners" Rand Paul or Chris Christie.) Some might even conclude that Sec. Clinton's past or present positions or present activities do not make her the ideal vehicle to ensure their policy preferences are enacted and enforced.

Plus, didn't we all agree to farm this shit out to Media Matters?

Short answer: Liberalism =/= Defending Hillary Clinton.  (Insert low, mordant chuckles here.)

Unbagable

We've got a volunteer for the Paul/A Pony '16 campaign: 

Rand Paul is more forceful than any Democrat on privacy and the impulse to empire. The Tea Party rails loudest against big banks and corporate corruption.

This tool has confused with coverage for conviction. Poodle Paul has gotten more television time than any Democrat on privacy and the impulse to empire, because most of the media loves Poodle Paul and he loves most of the media. Is Poodle Paul actually doing more than, say, Ron Wyden on privacy and the impulse to empire? No. (And the Poodle's love of privacy extends only certain government violations thereof; the Poodle is thrilled to have your employer all up in your privacy. His impulse control also varies depending on his ambitions.)

The second sentence is completely absurd. The closest Teabags got to railing -- at any volume -- about big banks and corporate corruption was in connection with the bailouts, aka gubmint giveaways to persons other than racist ranchers, oil companies, pasty "faith-based" organizations and Medicare recipients. There never was a 'Bag who supported stronger enforcement of corporate crime laws or the use of government to break up big banks. The Tea Party rails not at all on these issues -- their hate is directed exclusively at the parts of government that don't pander to them. 

The Bags, like Rand Paul, for example, are against occupational regulations or clean water standards that make Big Coal the smallest bit smaller.  Bailouts of Big Coal, not so much.

Too many Democrats are no better than Republicans on these issues, it's true. But to imagine that common cause can be made with those who wish to drown the government (read: those protected by the government from the free market's natural outcomes) in a bathtub is pure Paul/A Pony '16.

Something Wingnut This Way Comes

Dave Weigel reports on the correct metaphor for libertarianism, one proposed by the Kochenkinder themselves: a low-rent carnival.

There is nothing more libertarian than a carnival. Dilapidated, rust-eaten rides, child-molesting clowns one step ahead of the law, crooked games of skill -- run by people who loathe intrusive government regulation and accountability!  Carnivals are like the staff of Reason, only with fewer freaks and morons on the payroll.

As Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch would say: You don't need to be this tall to ride David Koresh, but you must ride him, even if you don't want to.  

This Just In

Mark Mayfield's family still has not sued Jackson, MS over Mayfield's death.

Meanwhile, the McDaniel campaign has turned into the Southern Shysters Full Employment Act and the usual G,O.P. vote frauds have shown up to suck the suckers dry.

The courtrooms of MS will be lousy with Matthew Harrison Bradys for the next few months.

Google Screwball

Who says the Republican Party always protects large corporations that abuse the little, little man? Meet the GOP's Elizabeth Warren:

Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a frequent foe of Google, is demanding to know why the giant Internet company was fumbling the search results for Dinesh D'Souza's movie America for nearly three weeks.

Rohrabacher tellsThe Hollywood Reporter that he's so disturbed by Google's behavior he intends on discussing it Wednesday during the House Republican Conference, which is the party caucus for Republicans in the House of Representatives.

Shortly after the movie opened wide on July 2, the filmmakers complained to Google that Internet users looking for showtimes and locations were sometimes misdirected to the wrong movie. On other occasions, an image of the film's poster was incorrect or a description of the movie was wrong.

"This doesn't deserve to be ignored. We need to verify the statistics in some way, and I will be suggesting the appropriate committee or subcommittee have some kind of hearing on this," Rohrbacher said. "We know there were significant incidences, and that would suggest there was intent behind Google's nonperformance."

 .... 

 "I spoke to several people and some said they had problems with the search and some said they didn't. If there was an intent to confuse the public about this movie because of its ideological content, then we're going to find out about it," Rohrabacher said. "This charge has captured the attention of those of us who see that Google has acted arrogantly in a number of areas."

... 

"I'm not threatening to shut them down, but shining a spotlight on a corporation that is acting in an abusive way can have as great an impact as legislation or regulation," Rohrabacher said. "If Google isn't informing the public about movies they disagree with, then that needs to be exposed."

That ought to be worth a few straw donations for Dana.

Let's hope that Dana will be similiarly motivated to hold hearings on assaults in federal prison come September.

Cheeseburger 'N' Pair O' 'Wipes

G.W. Bush's pet goat blowers on style and substance.

James Garner, 1928-2014

More here.

Everything I know about Southern California I learned from The Rockford Files.

Ron Fournier Is Now Accepting Late September Lunch Invitations From Top Democrats

Ron Fournier gets a free lunch:

"Every political cause has a narrative. And every narrative has a plot." Over lunch in Georgetown last month, a top Democratic spokesman, somebody who works intimately with both the White House and Hillary Rodham Clinton's team, wanted me to understand his frustration with President Obama. He said every plot has a hero. And every hero leaps overwhelming obstacles to accomplish a goal.

Ron Fournier's cause is Republicanism. Ron Fournier's narrative is President Obama sucks. Ron Fournier's hero is Ron Fournier. Ron Fournier's hero's goal is to put his narrative into the mouths of "top Democrats."  Ron Fournier's overwhelming obstacle is he has no credibility.

Ron Fournier takes his work with him on vacation:

I thought of this exchange while vacationing the last two weeks in Michigan, a state still recovering from the 2008 recession, still limping out of the industrial era, and just now dealing with the decades-long decline of its largest city, Detroit.

Sadly, Rin Fournier just can't get top Democrats to pay for hia lunch when he'a on vacation.

Ron Fournier worries that, while on vacation, he won't be able to find a top Democrat to blame President Obama for the declining value of Ron Fournier's lakeside summer home:

Three topics dominate conversations in Michigan: jobs, the weather, and the Detroit Tigers. The dearth of quality jobs gnaws at everybody, especially in northern Michigan, where financially desperate families are selling second- and third-generation cottages—a tangible loss of 20th-century middle-class vibrancy.

So Ron Fournier grants anonymity to top Democratic plumber when he's on vacation:

The day after that speech, a Tawas City, Mich., plumber told me he was a lifelong Democrat who had voted twice for Obama but had grown disenchanted. He pointed to a local newspaper headline about the Minnesota address and said, "It's not about you, Mr. President."

It's about expensing the clearing of the clogged crapper at Ron Fournier's lakeside villa, Mr. President. And Ron Fournier's got the top Democratic plumber in Tawas City, Mich.'s receipt to prove it.

... I'd Hate to See The Second Nicest

Here's how Mark Mayfield, "one of the nicest men in Jackson [MS] political circles," acts, according to The New York Times:

The police were given access to Mr. ["Constitutional Clayton"] Kelly’s Facebook exchanges, which showed him discussing the plan with John Mary of Hattiesburg, once the co-host of a conservative talk-radio show that Mr. McDaniel previously hosted and regularly appeared on.

According to those exchanges, which were examined by The New York Times, as well as interviews with people briefed on the case, Mr. Mary and Mr. Kelly hoped to propel rumors about the state of Mr. Cochran’s marriage that had been circulated on social media by McDaniel supporters as a kind of subterranean campaign issue. Mr. Kelly and Mr. Mary planned to make a video, but were unsure how to get a current picture of Mr. Cochran’s wife [,who suffers from dementia,] in the nursing home.

Mr. Mayfield did not take part in these exchanges. But he was contacted at one point, apparently by Mr. Mary, and asked to take Ms. Cochran’s picture, since his own mother was in St. Catherine’s [Village, a gated nursing home]. He declined. Instead, according to the message traffic, he agreed to set Mr. Kelly up with someone else — a person who has not been named or charged — who could help Mr. Kelly carry out his plan.

To be fair, it appears Messrs. Kelly and Mary were the ones exchanging messages about Mayfield's involvement and that Mayfield didn't participate in that exchange.  They could have been lying about Mayfield, although there wouldn't be a rational reason to lie in those exchanges, which they presumably kept confidential until they were caught. And presumably they repeated the story to police. However, Mr. Mayfield was at a minimum accused by his fellow Tea Party stalwarts of knowingly facilitating a despicable act of abuse against a helpless invalid for political gain.

To the extent anyone other than Mr. Mayfield was responsible for Mayfield's demise, it was Messrs. Kelly and Mary, not the law enforcement authorities whose sworn duty is to protect and serve victims of crime.  If Mr. Mayfield was despondent over his embarassment and loss of business after his involvement was disclosed, he has no one to blame but himself and his co-conspirators.  

But the bitter baggers are having none of this personal responsibility bushwa. "Close friends and political colleagues of Mr. Mayfield, on the other hand, are infuriated by the treatment of him, which they call unjustifiably heavy-handed," the Times reports. "'They destroyed that man, and for what?' said Roy Nicholson, who along with Mr. Mayfield helped create the state Tea Party. 'There is a burning anger in the people that knew Mark Mayfield. And we will not let it go.'” Because, you see, the Mayor of Jackson is a Thad Cochran supporter, and "'there is a feeling among dozens and dozens of people that Mark was used for political purposes,' said Merrida Coxwell, Mr. Mayfield’s lawyer at the time of his arrest."  The nutjob narrative is not that Mayfield was not involved (that is, innocent), but that the response to his involvement was political.

In this telling, Mark Mayfield was not the sort of man who would or should feel remorse over victimizing a woman suffering from dementia and living in the same circumstances as his own mother, but only over his exposure as such a person.  And, as they righteously declare, they knew Mark Mayfield.  

How Could We Ever Know?

Our old pal Dyldo Biers gives away the game in his press release for "Clinton, Inc.":

Daniel Halper, the online editor at The Weekly Standard, spent more than a year working on a book about the Clintons that was set for release later this month.

Over the weekend, a man identifying himself as Robert Josef Wright sent out a blast email to media executives, editors and journalists (including yours truly) with PDFs of the entire 317-page book.

The leak, which Halper and his representatives have yet to comment on, apparently came as a shock to the publishers at Broadside, who told The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove they have "no idea" what happened.

The book, as you might expect, is critical of the Clintons. Grove summarizes it here: ....

"All the Clintons are described as obsessed with enriching themselves, using their charitable foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative not only to perform good works but also to help support an imperial lifestyle and provide Hillary’s presidential ambitions with a vast political infrastructure," Grove observes.

...

Clinton's defenders will likely try to push Halper's book to the margins, placing it in the company of Ed Klein's "Blood Feud" as a book too preposterous to even warrant attention. They won't get that far -- per Grove, Halper is already slated for an appearance on "The O’Reilly Factor." But whether the book actually has any effect on Hillary's "narrative" in the run-up to 2016 will depend on whether or not there are any groundbreaking revelations. And simply painting the Clintons as "calculating" won't cut it.

Hmmmmm.... How could we possibly know whether -- or not -- there any groundbreaking revelations in the book? It's not like someone e-mailed us a .pdf copy of the entire book over the weekend. If someone had e-mailed us a .pdf copy of the entire book, and it had some groundbreaking revelations in it -- and we were actually a journalist -- we could write a news article about those revelations, rather than retyping Lloyd Grove's columny. It's a crying shame that we didn't receive a .pdf copy of the entire book over the weekend.  A low down, dirty crying shame.

Does PoliticHo pay its employees to be this stupid, or does it just count on its readers to be even stupider?

I Believe That We Will Posture Ineffectually

Haven't seen any follow up on Mark Mayfield's survivors' promise to file suit this week against Madison, MS and all those responsible for Mr. Mayfield's demise.  The "first of [this] week" is now a distant memory.

Their crack shysters must be too busy putting the finishing touches on the complaint in Boehner v. Obama.

No Magic Dolphin? Then Piss Off!

Peggy Nooners on immigration.

Bonus Nooner:  Ronnie's ventriloquist hates optics!  These are the ploys of a pointless hack.

A Special Message Only For You, Dear Roger Reader

I love your poise
Of perfect thighs
When they hold me
in paradise...

I love the rose
Your garden grows
Love seashell pink
That over it glows

I love to suck
Your breath away
I love to cling —
There long to stay

I love you garb’d
But naked more
Love your beauty
To thus adore...

I love you when
You open eyes
And mouth and arms
And cradling thighs...

Did I mention thighs
Those I adore
And suffocation...
But mostly thighs.

Yours,

Roger

Politico Magazine -- You Can't Even Wipe Your Ass With It

Witness a typical piece of excrement from PoliticHo Magazine -- a three-webpage article about RodBlag's appeal of his criminal conviction, asking whether RodBlag has a chance of reversal on appeal.  In between two pages of stale reminiscences (aka filler), there's a single section about the appellate oral argument, which occurred seven months ago. 

Regarding oral argument, the author simpers, "It was almost jarring to watch justices [sic] question the very essence of charges that had been under a public microscope for five years." Almost jarring? Either it was jarring or it wasn't.

The author reports that members of the appellate panel had tough questions for the prosecution, and quotes three of them. But she doesn't report what questions, if any, were asked of the defense, or what answers defense counsel gave. And there's no comment from legal experts about the merits of the assertions implicit in the judges' questions, even though the author asserts that "It [presumably meaning the questioning] was a stunning 180 from what those of us who had covered the legal case for so long had heard from jurists in that very same building." (God, that sentence blows on many different levels.)

The article not only fails to tell you what might happen with the appeal, it fails to give you any basis for reaching any intelligent conclusion.

So, not typical after all. This is garbage even by PoliticHo's low standards.

I Believe That We Will Whine

Small gubmint Teabags are about to go all frivolous lawsuit on Madison, MS's ass:

Mark Mayfield's family plans to sue or bring charges against the city of Madison, its police department or "anyone responsible" after Mayfield's apparent suicide Friday.

Mayfield's relatives, already angered over his arrest in May in the U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran photo scandal, say Madison police were trespassing when they showed up at his home in Ridgeland after he apparently shot himself. They say Mayfield's arrest was politically motivated by supporters of Cochran and drove him to suicide.

"The funeral is (Tuesday), but the first of next week, we will be suing the city of Madison," said Mayfield's nephew, Ridgeland Alderman Wesley Hamlin. "It's the highest degree of abuse of power."

Yeah, good luck with that Wes.

I defer to leading southern practitioners such as John Grisham and Ben Matlock when it comes to Mississippi law, but I'd suspect that the Southern Reporter is not filled with cases in which liability is affirmed for those claiming the local constabulory caused a sensitive soul, not in custody, to off himself. Perhaps in pharmaceutical cases or mental health professional negligence cases involving minors or those institutionalized, but in these circumstances, not bloody likely. 

I also 'spec' that nephew Wesley is not among those kin who 'kin make bank on uncle's demise, even when the immediate family could make a valid claim.  (Perhaps if Wes was both a nephew and a son, but there's no mention of that here.)  

But what do I know?  I'm sure some Teabag shyster is crapping out a complaint under the Civil Rights Act of 1965 even as I type.

Crime Doesn't Pay

In some uplifting legal news, acquitted racist murderer George Zimmerman is going to have to get a job at a Fox News Channel if he wants to make bank on his crimes:

A Florida judge Monday ruled against a libel lawsuit brought by George Zimmerman against NBC Universal, saying the network did not maliciously seek to portray him as a racist when it edited a phone call he made to police before shooting an unarmed black teenager.

Florida Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson said Zimmerman, acquitted of second-degree murder last year, has no right to money from NBC, according to court documents.

"Because Zimmerman is unable to demonstrate that the editing choices at issue resulted in a materially false change in the meaning of what he actually said, he cannot pursue his defamation claims," Nelson, who also presided over Zimmerman's murder trial last year, wrote in her summary judgment.

The moral is: You can't defame a racist piece of shit.  

(Well, unless the shit gets to the Roberts Court, but that's a long shot.)

Which is exactly right. The editing was indefensible, but so is Zimmerman's entire existence.

In other news, the Huffington Post reports that the murderer owes Mark O'Mara $2.5 million in legal fees.  Though O'M. will probably recoup it from the publicity if there are enough racist murders in Florida willing to pay up front.