Credit Where Credit Isn't Due

This TPM headline is misleading:

Sean Hannity Wants Boehner Out As Speaker After Scalise Revelations

Hannity wanted Boehner out "before Scalise revelations," because he thinks Boehner isn't ideologically pure. This isn't ancient history, people. 

Cliven Bundy's pal Hannity would speak at David Duke's Klavern Khristmas Kavalcade if the price was right.  He certainly wouldn't criticize an ally for doing it.

Likewise, the fools saying "even Erick Erickson" is skeptical of Scalise's ignorance defense fail to realize that Tubby Blubberson cares only about purging the G.O.P. of imagined squishes like Boehner and replacing them with Full Mental Jackasses who hate women, gays and evolution with all their hearts.

#OverIt2014

Room Temperature responded "Steve Doocy's i.q."

The Other True Meaning of Christmas

The only thing that can stop a violent and allegedly cheap father with a gun is his 14-year-old son with his father's gun:

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said, “The young 16-year-old was very upset because he claimed that the rest of his friends, either got a car or a pickup for Christmas. All his father provided for him was a fishing rod.”

The father struck the boy on the head with a baseball bat. A 14-year-old brother got involved and went out to the family vehicle to retrieve a shotgun that was kept in the trunk.

“The young 14-year-old boy discharged the weapon. He discharged it twice. The second time he hit his father in part of the face and part of the shoulder.”

Apparently, the 14 year old is the only one being charged, despite daddy's braining the ungrateful older son with a Louisville Slugger. Given the demographics of Bayview, Texas, it seems that either the elder's son Christmas expectations were unrealistic or his friends lived in more affluent communities.  In any event, the 14 year deserves some sort of Eddie the Eagle Award for having dead-eye aim.

Update: In a conflicting account, the father was also charged with assault and both father and older son were treated for injuries.

The True Meaning of Christmas

Gov. Jerry Brown continued his practice of forgiveness on Christmas Eve by issuing 105 pardons, mostly for people who have been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses and burglary more than a decade ago.

The pardons issued Wednesday included a Stanislaus County man sentenced to three years’ probation in 1986 for taking expensive wine out of a wine cellar and drinking it.  Michael Joseph Moradian Jr. has since “lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen,” Brown wrote in his pardon.

God bless us, everyone. 

Hokiday News Dump

Tanned Teabag Darrell Issa (R - CA) plays an extended variation on the Friday afternoon news dump -- the afternoon before a five-day holiday weekend news dump:

WASHINGTON — An 18-month congressional investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s mistreatment of conservative political groups seeking tax exemptions has failed to show coordination between agency officials and political operatives in the White House, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Of course, Teabag True Believers won't let facts get in the way of a good spite fap. They'll keep lying to each other for decades to come. On this subject and many others.

Rudy Guiliani Is A Lying Sack of Shit

Longer.

From The Website of A Convicted Felon and Thought Leader

“One of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America”
-President of the United States GEORGE W. BUSH

(No link to the felon)

Grand Old Police Blotter: Grimm's Fairytale of New York Edition

Move over, Eric Garner.  The Libertarian movement has a new, more sympathetic victim of big government to champion:

Representative Michael G. Grimm, a Republican from Staten Island who was easily re-elected to his third term in Congress last month despite a pending federal indictment, has agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of tax fraud, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

A former Marine and agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who first ran for office as a law-and-order corruption fighter, Mr. Grimm, 44, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a plea hearing, according to the docket sheet in his case, which provides no further detail. His trial was scheduled to start Feb. 2.
...

The indictment against Mr. Grimm alleged that he essentially kept two sets of records and provided his accountant with doctored books, leading to inaccurate tax forms being filed with the government.

Prosecutors said Mr. Grimm concealed more than $1 million in gross receipts for the restaurant and failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee wages, thus fraudulently lowering his federal and state tax payments. 

If it wasn't for oppressive state and federal laws requiring the payment of income tax, Mr. Grimm would still be in Congress today.

Meet Your Liberal Media: Jackass In The Box Edition

There once was a wank from Nantucket:

Some were convinced Gregory was still distracted. In the spring, when NBC remodeled the Meet the Press offices, Gregory went on a shopping spree, according to a person familiar with the transaction. Just as the program was in chaos and his job was on the line, he redecorated with a new glass desk, an Hermès leather box, and other extravagant items totaling thousands of dollars, according to the source. A person close to Gregory denies he bought an Hermès box, “as good of a tale as that might be.”

And the gimp mask was a gift from Karl Rove.

Because Michael Medved and Ed Koch Were Otherwise Engaged

Chuckles Todd solidifies his reputation as a tool:

But not everyone is happy. I'll be joined by Florida Senator and possible Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio. I'm Chuck Todd, and joining me to provide insight and analysis this morning are MSNBC's Chris Matthews, former Bush White House political director Sara Fagen, former Democratic governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, and Breitbart news columnist John Nolte.

Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Bonus toolery from Sony's shyster:

DAVID BOIES: ... If the N.S.A. had invaded people's privacy like this, people would have been outraged.

3218.69 Kilometres

Even The Liberal The New Republic

As Leon Weiseltier starts his new job writing the "Maureen Dowd" column for The New York Times, here's a reminder about The New Republic whose checks he was happy to cash, or, at a minimum, roll into smaill paper tubes.

They Lost It At The Movies

I can't be bothered to run in circles, scream and/or shout about Sony's decision to pull Pineapple Express II: Bros Before Chos from the movie theaters that refused to show the stoner comedy in the first place.  It's not like we've been denied a Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill laff riot or The Hangover Part IX.  I'd wager there are already three major studio productions scheduled for release in 2015 which feature Asian stereotypes and loveable homophobe protagonists who face having to suck fast-acting poison from each others' dicks in order to survive but don't actually do it.

Why don't I care, you probably don't ask?  First, North Korea's denial of involvement in the matter is the first real evidence I've seen of North Korea's involvement. And even if North Korea was involved in the Sony hack -- a matter of no national security concern whatsoever regardless of the source -- that doesn't tie North Korea to the threat against moviegoers.  There is absolutely no rational reason to believe that North Korea -- a fascist state which brutalizes its own citizens -- would start targeting American movie patrons.  The threat is a matter of public concern and should be investigated.  But how Sony or movie theaters choose to react to that threat isn't a test of free speech or The Nation's Resolve, or anything other than one's ability to spout cliches misattributed to Voltaire at the jerk of a knee.

The incident has also given libertarian morons another chance to praise the creators of Team America: World Police, in which another Korean dictator was used as the excuse for racist dialect comedy.  Being an unfunny asshole doesn't make you a hero -- trust me.

Now It Can Be Revealed

Ross Douthat reveals the secret of The New York Times' decision to employ him:

Over a long enough time horizon, every publication falls into grave errors -- moral, intellectual, both.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) December 6, 2014

Teabagging Lives

In case you were wondering, Erick wore the old ones out chewing on them.

Dear Mollie Hemmingway

This is why everyone thinks you're a moron.