Grand Old Police Blotter: Bass Fail Edition

A Very Important Person gets caught red-handed:

Prominent Washington PR agent David Bass is a suspect in the theft of two bottles of liquor from VIP hotspot Café Milano earlier this month, according to records obtained by the Washington Post.

D.C. police released a surveillance video which shows two men entering the Georgetown restaurant through the kitchen in the early morning hours of July 1 after it had closed for the night. One man is seen grabbing two bottles — one Grey Goose vodka, the other Campari — from behind the bar, while the other appears to act as the lookout.

At least a dozen acquaintances of Bass’s who have reviewed the footage say the second man is Bass, and records name him as a suspect.

A fixture on the Washington social scene, Bass, 49, is the president and CEO of communications firm Raptor Strategies and was deputy publisher of the Weekly Standard from 1997 to 2004.

The question is not whether Bass will sell Pruno to his fellow inmates, but whether he will be shunned after his release for the quality of his selections.

The Unflushable Mickey Kaus

The unemployable hack has been reduced to hat tipping Ace of Spades for links on how "leftists" don't work but just sit around and smoke dope.

It's not clear whether disability payments or trust funds are keeping Kaus alive at this point.  

Maybe he can send his clips to Donald Trump and offer his services as ambassador to white Los Angeles.

What's Going On

For only love can conquer hate.

Bill Kristol Starts "NotAllSlaveLabor" Hashtag

The Left's 21st century agenda: expunging every trace of respect, recognition or acknowledgment of Americans who fought for the Confederacy.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 23, 2015

Always Low Racists

WalMart may have sold off its stock of Confederate flags (except those appearing on the Mississippi state flag), but it still has plenty of pro-Confederacy p.r. The second result on a search of "confederate" at WalMart.com is a book entitled "Confederate South Carolina." You'll not be surprised to learn that the book does not portray Confederate South Carolina as a shithole of barbarity, but rather as a land of pale heroes. 

From the amazon.com page for the book (because WalMart doesn't provide a description):

The Civil War never left South Carolina, from its beginning at Fort Sumter in 1861 through the destructive, harrowing days of Sherman's march through the state in 1865. Included here are the stories of Confederate civilians and soldiers who remained true to their cause throughout the perilous struggle. An English aristocrat risked his life to run the blockade and become one of the defenders of Charleston. The Haskells of Abbeville sent seven sons into Confederate service. Many South Carolina women made heart-rending sacrifices, including a disabled woman from Laurens County whose heroic efforts preserved Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, from wartime ravages. Author Karen Stokes details the lives of men and women whose destinies intertwined with a tragic era in Palmetto State history.

No points for guessing what else these men and women have in common.

The author also writes Confederacy-era romance novels -- one involving a "shocking crime committed at [the hero's] plantation by enemy soldiers"  -- and a "non-fiction" book about how Sherman made life tough for certain Palmetto State civilians. She really doesn't like Sherman.

To be fair, WalMart.com also sells books about the Civil War that aren't crap, as well as a Confederate soldier's cap, a biography of Robert E. Lee for young readers which co-stars "Mammy, the Negro nurse," and a poster of Jefferson Davis' inaugural. 

WalMart -- and Amazon -- should continue to sell these books, even if most of their intended audience is illiterate, if only to document how delusional living neo-Confederates still are.

PoliticHo Hack Lacks Depth Perception, Brains

"AP photo shows a gun pointed at Ted Cruz’s head," screeches a PoliticHo hack.

Except for the facts that the photograph doesn't show a gun, and doesn't show anything pointed at Ted's head, that's exactly right.

PoliticHo's desperation for wingnut traffic continues apace.

Right now, Rick Santorum and Lindsey Graham are parsing Dylann Roof's online manifesto for anti-Christian sentiment.

Using their interpretation of Christianity, they won't find it.

Heritage OF Hate

Senator Lindsey Graham, whose parents ran a whites-only criminal establishment in the 1970s, says the Confederate flag is "who we are."

He is right about that, if nothing else.

Rand "Poodle" Paul Is A Honest As Your Average Wingnut Blogger

Buzzfeed lays out the not particularly shocking news that Rand Paul's ghostwriter exhaustively researched Paul's books in the comment sections of Free Republic and the e-mail forwards of your mentally unstable uncle.

One of many examples:

Then, Paul cites a fake Thomas Jefferson quote again to lead off the chapter “Living Everyday in Fear of Your Government.”

“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny,” Paul cites Jefferson as saying.

But again, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation notes they “have not found any evidence that Thomas Jefferson said or wrote” these remarks.

I suspect that Poodle Paul's books also didn't explore the contradictions between Tommy's rhetorical opposition to tyranny and his practices of enslavement and rape. Because of a little fact that Buzzfeed forgets to mention, namely, that Paul's literary collaborator, Jack Hunter, is a racist piece of shit.  For Paul and his pals, liberty is a whites-only proposition.

Wise Up, Crack Dealers

Read a few chapters of Ayn Rand, etch "Hayek" on your vials, and you too can become a libertarian martyr.

(Racial exceptions may apply.)

Be warned, though, you will not be considered as heroic as the scampish, teen-like and probably (for all we know, right?) ineffectual fanboys who innocently fantasize about the brutal deaths of public officials.  They're the real victims.

Rod Dreher Will Be Handling Snakes By The End of The Week. And It Won't Be A Euphemism This Time

Bad news for the Rodbotherer:

One of the strongest factors underlying views of same-sex marriage is religion, and the sense that homosexuality is in conflict with one’s religious beliefs. White evangelical Protestants stand out for their deep opposition to same-sex marriage: Just 27% favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry, while 70% oppose it (43% strongly oppose); by contrast, majorities of both Catholics (56%) and white mainline Protestants (62%) support same-sex marriage, along with an overwhelming majority (85%) of the religiously unaffiliated.

Rod's already practicing stigmata. 

Cobb Gobblers

Over at the racist New York Post, failed movie critic Kyle Smith proves that Ty Cobb was "framed" of the charge of racism:

In 1908, among many other brawls Cobb participated in, he ignored an order from a black man laying asphalt in Detroit to stop walking, then after the two argued, Cobb started a vicious fistfight and was overheard to use the N-word against the road paver.

The Georgia Peach was framed - framed, I tell ya!

Let Kyle explain:

Today that behavior would certainly brand you as a racist, but racial slurs were commonplace then, even published in the papers.

Even published in the papers then?  You're far too modest, Kyle.

Not wanting to oversell his ironclad defense of the Peach, Kyle graciously omitted the facts that rap lyrics contain the N-word and that Bob Byrd was in the Klan.

Piyushback

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is using his official goobernutorial website like he's using every other perk of his office -- to run for President. Here, he takes on Randal "Ronsson" Paul:

Gov. Jindal: Senator Paul Unsuited to Be Commander-in-Chief

Today, Governor Jindal released the following statement after Senator Rand Paul commented this morning that ISIS exists because of hawkish foreign policy.

Governor Jindal said, "This is a perfect example of why Senator Paul is unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief. We have men and women in the military who are in the field trying to fight ISIS right now, and Senator Paul is taking the weakest, most liberal Democrat position.

It's one thing for Senator Paul to take an outlandish position as a Senator at Washington cocktail parties, but being Commander-in-Chief is an entirely different job. We should all be clear that evil and Radical Islam are at fault for the rise of ISIS, and people like President Obama and Hillary Clinton exacerbate it.

The "Washington cocktail parties" jab is a particularly nice, flop-sweaty touch. Jindal has even less of a chance at the G.O.P. nomination than Paul, albeit for the wrong reasons, and his latest appeal to cretins isn't going to increase his chances any.

This Just In: Mark Mayfield's Family Plans Lawsuit For Eleventh Straight Month

And oldie but a goodie:  Wingnut abets invasion of privacy, feels remorse about getting caught, kills himself; wingnut's survivors plan lawsuit.

Still no lawsuit.

Dulce et Decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

We're Only In It For The Money

The New York Times reports that John Scalzi has made a $3.4 million deal for his next thirteen books, while the guy who writes the "Diary of A Wimpy Kid" books earned $20 million last year.

Clearly I should have gone into publishing.

The Ends of the Natural Family

Truly I say unto you, before this night is over, Rod Dreher will deny Josh Duggar three times.

Rod and his pal Owen apparently believe that Josh Duggar is a victim of something, and want "to kick those who profited out of making this kid and his siblings into celebrities — starting with the Duggar parents." But the known abuse started well before the family were celebrities -- .or at least when their only celebrity was based on the father's status as a Republican state representative -- and when the children were homeschooled and their access to the corrupting media was controlled by the parents. In other words, the molestation started when the rapist not in any way famous and his worldview was the product of cultural influences (and only those influences) acceptable to Rod.

Rod may deny running "in the circles in which [Josh Duggar] is a star," but when he perceives danger to or doubt about his bigoted worldview, he screams and shouts exactly like Josh.

Sodom and Begorrah

Screamin' John Hawkins thinks they're stealing more than his Lucky Charms on the Emerald Isle.

From everything I’ve read going on in Ireland a lot of Irish politicians, those in a position of power were for same sex marriage. (sic) I doubt very highly this vote was as a result of Irish voters deciding out of the goodness of their hearts to be in favor of changing their constitution to allow same sex marriage.

I strongly assert an atmosphere of intimidation exists in Ireland to “get your mind right” on this issue if one wants to stay employed. People have lost their jobs in other countries in Europe for not supporting same sex marriage. That doesn’t sound like freedom of choice to me.

If you're looking for some confirmation of Hawkins' thesis, don't bother checking his blog, because he doesn't provide any. (No link to the gobshite.)

Apparently the 38 percent who voted "Nae" in today's election were on the dole, or independently wealthy, or self-employed, or just refused to drink the Shamrock Shake.  

Of course, since they have the secret ballot in Ireland, if the vote hadn't gone gay, everyone would have been out of a job on Monday.  Either that, or John Hawkins is just a twat.

Let He Who Has Not Slaughtered Dogs Cast The First Stone

Ted Nugent's wingman, Mike Huckabee, is now courting the right-wing pedophile vote:

Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins [sic] in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed—not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims.

Really, Huckleberry?  You've spoken to the victims about this?  

I have no doubt that the rapist wanted this hushed up, and that the victims didn't want to be raped (a word Huckleberry never uses) in the first instance, but Huckleberry never provides any evidence of what the victims actually want.  

(The concept of a judge ordering public record of a crime "destroyed" is also troubling, assuming Huckleberry knows what the fuck he's talking about.) 

More importantly, what about people who may not want their children in the vicinity of a rapist?  Do we keep them in the dark too, as the rapist's family did, just because the rapist assures us he's been forgiven?

This is even worse:

No one needs to defend Josh’s actions as a teenager, but the fact that he confessed his sins to those he harmed, sought help, and has gone forward to live a responsible and circumspect life as an adult is testament to his family’s authenticity and humility.

The rapist "confessed his sins to those he harmed?"  Presumably, those he harmed already knew his "sins" as soon as they were raped by him.  The rapist calling his rapes "sin" doesn't change a thing.

Duggar's victims were victimized by Duggar, and no one else.  If Duggar and Huckabee believe they're the victims of bloodthirsty critics, they need to take a long look in the mirror, break the mirror with a rock and then find some productive use for the resulting shards of broken glass.

Teddy and the Cruzers

Wingnuts are bent out of shape by the fact that one of their own, Mark "Drudge rocks my cock" Halperin, asked Rafael "Ted" "El Castor" Cruz to speak a few words in Spanish.

That's just not right.

He should've asked Ted to speak in tongues.

Chris Christie Denies Jesus Three Times

Big Pussy exits the Republican primary race: 

Global warming came up on Thursday, at the Cheshire County Republicans Lincoln Day dinner. There, the New Jersey governor took a strong stand on climate change that sets him apart from the other Republicans running or thinking of running for president. He said, "I think global warming is real. I don't think that's deniable. And I do think human activity contributes to it."

The RNC will throw Big P under the bus as soon as they can find one large enough to accommodate him.

Happy Mother's Day From Your Loving Son, Roger

Douche Diligence

Caught retelling lies about Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Time magazine Blogger of the Year John "Asshole" Hinderaker pleads willful ignorance:

Obviously if I had known this guy was a liar I would not have given him the forum to tell a story.

Hinderaker is an attorney. And his defense -- seriously -- for repeating lies is that he didn't have any reason to think the lies weren't true.  As in, "some guy I don't called me up and told me something which I "verified" by Googling the guy's fake name and talking to him on the phone some more, so why wouldn't I believe him? And I didn't say he was telling the truth, because who reads my sorry ass for that shit?"

Time for another blogger ethics panel.

Okay

"Inspector of the Dead," by David Morrell:

The year is 1855. The Crimean War is raging. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the English government. The Empire teeters.

Amid this crisis comes opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brilliant personalities of Victorian England. Along with his irrepressible daughter, Emily, and their Scotland Yard companions, Ryan and Becker, De Quincey finds himself confronted by an adversary who threatens the heart of the nation.

This killer targets members of the upper echelons of British society, leaving with each corpse the name of someone who previously attempted to kill Queen Victoria. The evidence indicates that the ultimate victim will be Victoria herself. As De Quincey and Emily race to protect the queen, they uncover long-buried secrets and the heartbreaking past of a man whose lust for revenge has destroyed his soul.

From the author of "William S. Boroughs, Lawrence, Kansas Private Dick."

MoDo Is Insipid, But Douthat Is Insidious

Ross Douthat becomes more loathsome by the day.

In his latest column, he argues that raped children (whom he refers to as "women") were privileged in respect to their rapists.  And that, therefore, privilege doesn't exist. But U.S. gays are extraordinarily privileged.

Reliable Soreasses

A couple of days ago, Dyldo Byers at PolitcHo was pimping his stable of right-wing hacks to replace Bob Schieffer as host of Face the Nation:

Network President David Rhodes is a long way from settling on a successor.,,,

But there is a shortlist, those sources said: Internally, Rhodes and his fellow executives are looking at Major Garrett, the network's chief White House correspondent, and Norah O'Donnell, the co-anchor of "CBS This Morning" and substitute host for Schieffer on "Face." One source also said that John Dickerson, the network's political director, is on the list of potential replacements.

But CBS brass are considering outside talent as well: Jake Tapper, the CNN host who previously substituted for George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Sunday show "This Week," is a top consideration. ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl is also under consideration. However, both men are believed to be under contract with their respective employers.

Approximately 72 hours later, Schieffer announced John Dickerson as his replacement. (I'm guessing the decision wasn't made over the weekend, and was probably done by the time Schieffer made his retirement public.) But the sources inside Dyldo's head had already tapped a wingnut for the vacancy.

I also enjoyed the "believed to be under contract with their respective employers." Can't be arsed to nail that one down, Dyldo? Do you believe Tappy and Jonny are independent contractors?

Swing and a Miss

All in all, the rollout of Ron Paul's victim of the media strategy didn't go as well as Scott Walker's.

When he announces, Marco Rubio's really going to have to step up his game to be half the media victim that Walker is. 

Grand Old Police Blotter: More On Todd's Family Values Edition

Sharper than a serpent's tooth and crazier than a nut hatch is former Executive Director of the South Carolina G.O.P., Todd Kincannon, if Todd's father is to be believed:

Just before midnight on April 13, 2013, according to one incident report, an officer with the Simpsonville Police Department responded to a call from Kincannon's father, who said he wished to report an incident but did not want to press charges. The father (whose name has been redacted from the report) said that he had been woken up at 11:55 p.m. by his dogs barking because Kincannon was banging on the front door. Kincannon reportedly said that he had spilled Coca-Cola on his hands and needed to wash them. When the father followed him into the kitchen, Kincannon allegedly pulled a out a revolver, pointed it at his father, and screamed, "Get back, motherfucker, or I'll kill you." 

The father said that he tried to retreat, but his son pushed him against the front door twice and said, "Now I'm going to kill you, motherfucker." The father ran shoeless to another house and said that "he could see the red laser sight from Todd's handgun bouncing around as he was running," according to the report. 

Speaking to police, Kincannon's father said he and his wife had given Kincannon "large amounts of money in the recent past (including $35,000) to help Todd pay off student loans and to help him catch up on payments to the rental house" and that tension had arisen recently over inheritance issues after a family member passed away. An officer wrote at the time, "He advised that he's seen the weapon plenty of times in the past, especially when Todd put his own gun to his head and threatened to kill himself." Kincannon's father also said there was "a lengthy history of Todd verbally and physically abusing he and his wife."

Todd makes Erick Erickson look sane.

Law-Abiding American for Rand

For those dimwitted enough to believe that Poodle Paul's position against recording the telephone calls of "law-abiding Americans" represents some sort of libertarian vestigial tail, suck(*) on this:

“I have never argued against any technology being used against having an imminent threat, [or] an act of crime going on,” Paul said, referring to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and 50 dollars in cash I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”

If you smoke weed, Pot Paul has a wiretap for you.  If he had his druthers, Big Brother would be recording every homosexualist, abortion provider and political "radical" in the land. And worse.

The Poodle is a social Darwinist, to be sure, but he doesn't give two shits about your privacy if you're not one of the people who would subscribe to his old man's newsletter or build a child molesting religious compound in Waco.

*  "Suck on this" is a registered trademark of Tom "Fellatio" Friedman.

Jew for Rand

Said no one, ever.

Rand Paul '16: He Loved Big Brother

Sullivan To Readers: You Are All Mindless, Soulless Subhumans

Silly Sully comes out of hiding to talk about himself, one of many subjects of which he lacks any real knowledge.

"The truth is, I had to stop primarily because it was killing me," Sullivan said Sunday night at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.
...

"I spent a decade of my life, spending around seven hours a day in intimate conversation with around 70,000 to 100,000 people every day, " Sullivan said. "And inevitably, for those seven hours or more, I was not spending time with any actual human being, with a face and a body and a mind and a soul."

It apparently never occurred to Sully (or the non-human "small editorial staff" who actually wrote his posts) that he could work five days a week, or less than seven hours a day.

But it's nice to see Sully admit that the readers who he was intimately conversing with -- without actual interaction -- lack minds and souls.  At least they have that in common with Sully.

Update:  Confidential to A.S.:  Patient: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." Doctor: "Don't do that."

Grand Old Police Blotter: Todds and Monsters Edition

North Carolina G.O.P. leader and family man Todd Kincannon tries to get his Germanwings, and fails:

[Kincannon's wife, Ashely Suzanne Griffith] went on to tell the deputy that, while Kincannon was driving the car in a Chick-fil-A parking lot at about 5 mph, she attempted to get out of the vehicle, but “James grabbed Ashely’s arm, squeezing it tightly, thus preventing her from exiting the vehicle,” according to the report. She told the deputy that she hit Kincannon’s arm several times in an attempt to escape, but Kincannon accelerated and she was unable to get out.

From the report:

Ashley continued to tell me she called her mother for help and attempted to call 9-1-1 with an open line in order for the dispatcher to hear James. While driving, James saw a police vehicle and ‘freaked out.’ James threatened he would drive the car into a concrete barrier if the cops became involved. In addition, James also threatened to kill himself if Ashely left. Ashely continued to tell me James has made several threats in the past to kill himself, her, and her family. Furthermore, Ashely said she has past incidents of domestic violence and threats of homicide/suicide recorded. I saw no visible injuries to Ashely, she provided me with a written statement, and was issued a victim’s pamphlet. It should be noted Ashely was trembling as she wrote her statement.

Todd says he was all hopped up on cough medicine at the time. Which doesn't explain either his past domestic terrorism and/or his well-documented history of general assholery. 

Maybe he's a secret Muslim.

Full Disclosure

I've never been tapped by Harry Reid.

Hoosier Hysteria, Anti-Gay Edition

A Lie Becomes The Truth

Steve M. demonstrates how a Jim Hoft lie gets traction, not just among the loons who read Jim Hoft but supposed non-loons as Andy McCarthy of National Review Online.

Would morons believe these lies if Jim Hoft didn't exist?  Most would, because they'd find another blog that circulated such lies. But anyone who claims legitimacy and cites Hoft as a source should be disqualified from professional standing and polite society until Hell freezes over.

Abused Children Grow Up To Be....

Just imagine the kinds of language Tuck and Buck use to describe Mickey Kaus.

Jesus Wept

PoliticHo is impressed only by the hardest hitting of the hummers:

Megyn Kelly Presses Ted Cruz: Can You Win?

Teddy and the Cruzers

Fifty seven years ago, Senator Joseph McCarthy died of cirrhosis of the liver in the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. 

Or did he?

What's Worse Than a TED Talk?

Did Liberty University provide a safe space for those forced to attend Ted Cruz's announcement that he is running for President?

Kaus Inadvertently Speaks The Truth

"...Roger Ailes is the most handsome man in the world...." -- MKUltrahack, March 22, 2015.

Release The a1c

Sure, Scott Walker's fabrications about fingering Ronald Reagan's Bible are interesting, but they don't put anyone's health or life at risk.

Not so with Mike Huckabee's promotion of a diabetes cure in which he declares himself a "Former Diabetic."  Diabetics can suffer serious consequences if their blood sugar is not well-controlled. By, for example, forgoing insulin and relying on a quack cure.

Now, I'm no Bill Frist, but ... something ... tells me that if Huck was ever a Type II diabetic, he still is. Boy looks like he can glaze donuts with his piss.

This is serious stuff.  Huckabee is now selling snake oil without his usual freedom of religion get-out-of-jail card.  Some responsible outlet (with an actual audience) should be investigating this, and not just laughing at it.

Of course, Huck could prove he is a former diabetic with a single a1c test. But he won't.

More On Mickey Kaus

Mickey Kaus has now posted at Kausfails.com the posting that got him Tucker-canned from The Daily Caller.  It's even stupider that I imagined.

Kaus grouses that "immigration amnesty supporter" Rupert Murdoch won't incessantly bash immigrants on his property, the Fox News Channel.  (The slaphead's slim sampling for proof is limited to the one show he wakes up to watch key-word search transcripts of, The Kelly File.) Why, Megyn Kelly never made the evils of immigration the top story in the month and a half Kaus hate-watched the show.  It's almost as if Murdoch wasn't giving enough airtime to promote a view he doesn't agree with.  Who could have imagined?

Kaus can't suss why FNC would ignore immigrant-bashing when such bashing appeals to FNC's Obama-hating base.  It doesn't occur to him that FNC's viewers will tune in no matter the cause of the channel's Obama-bashing, so the channel has the incentive to promote a more telegenic and exciting cause to bash the Kenyan usurper. Perhaps Kaus could get some undocumented workers to dress him in orange and behead him on digital -- surely that would dominate the cycle!  But those selfish assholes are too busy working to make breaking news.

Kaus simpers that the insufficient level anti-amnesty coverage is "a proven pro-anmesty posture."  ("The absence of animus," &c...., apparently.)  So-called family values Obama-haters surely would like for FNC to program more anti-homo-themed Obama-bashing. (Kaus might enjoy that too, especially if the homos were immigrants.)  But Kelly's failure to lead with the President's LGBT-friendly rhetoric at Selma, or the beefs of a breeders-only baker, doesn't mean Kelly, or FNC, is pro-equality.

So Kaus is out of work, left to search for an immigrant-hater with deep pockets -- at least deep enough to pay some fraction of the pittance Carlson was paying him -- to keep him as he's accustomed.  Since the blogging thing isn't working out for him, maybe some sort of manual, non-union labor will suit.  Good luck, Mickey!

(No link to Slappy.)

Kaus Fails Again

Mickey Kaus, the slapheaded slug who leaves a trail of failure in his greasy wake, all while keeping up a patter of constipated, self-righteous drivel, was sacked yet again today. This time the hack was sacked for being too far right for the loons at the far right hate site The Daily Caller.

"It's pretty simple," Kaus said in an interview, "I wrote a piece attacking Fox for not being the opposition on immigration and amnesty -- for filling up the airwaves with reports on ISIS and terrorism, and not fulfilling their responsibility of being the opposition on amnesty and immigration.... I posted it at 6:30 in the morning. When I got up [they don't call him Kaus Hackula for nothing - ed] , Tucker had taken it down. He said, 'We can't trash Fox on the site. I work there.'"
....
Kaus says when he told Carlson he needed to be able to write about Fox, Carlson told him it was a hard-and-fast rule, and non-negotiable.  [Para.] "He said it was a rule, and he wouldn't be able to change that rule. So I told him I quit," Kaus explained.

Mickey's needs are simple.  He needs for FOX to broadcast his pet hates.

I don't know what's more disturbing, Kaus' pretense that he thought Tucker Carlson had ever any integrity, or his pretense that he, Kaus, ever had any integrity.  It's almost as if that Kaus doesn't understand that FOX and The Daily Caller are commercial enterprises designed to separate rubes from their money, not charity wards for the unwashed boobs who stop by Kausfiles for their daily hate.

Kaus is now blogging on cardboardsign.com, next to one of the 305's many metered off-ramps.

Me, I can't wait for Howard Kurtz to give Tucker Faye 15 minutes to defend himself against the wild-eyed radical Democrat, Kaus.  

Drunken Bigots In The Morning

On this morning's Drunken Joe, Republican tosspot Joe Scarborough sobered up long enough to condemn an anti-Semitic organization and demand that its leaders be held accountable.  In fact, the spluttering sot was so filled with righteous rage that he almost commited an act of elder abuse against the befuddled Mike Barnicle.  Then he demanded that this video (full text here) concerning the incident be shown:

Oh wait. No he didn't.  The sot and his fellow dolts, Barnicle, Heillman and Ratner, pretended not to know about GOP anti-semitism.  Drunken Joe was talking about a story in which some UCLA students on a student government board asked a Jewish potential nominee for another student government position whether she could be unbiased, the board appointed the nominee to the position, the questioning students apologized to the appointee and to the Jewish community for asking her the questions, and the chancellor of UCLA condemned the questions. 

Not exactly a anti-semitic whisper campaign which causes a suicide and no consequences for its perpetrators.  Which drunken bigots know of, but must pretend does not exist.

IOKIYADR.

Ron Phony-A Just Can't Quit Fake Top Dems

Ron Phony-A's e-mailbox is once again clogged with moist missives sent directly from the FOX News Channel green room. So "Many" senior Dems are hopping mad at Secretary Clinton for using a personal e-mail address as Secretary of State that Ron can't name them all. 

Or any of them.

They're so top-pissed that only the release valve of Ron's confidences prevents them from speaking publicly (or, possibly, buying sniper rifles).

Many senior Democrats are angry, though not yet mad enough to publicly confront the Clintons. "This story has legs as long as the election," said a Democrat who has worked on Capitol Hill and as a presidential campaign manager. "She will be tripping over this crap until the cows come home."

Another presidential campaign veteran who held a Cabinet-level post in Bill Clinton's White House fretted out loud about the fact that the former first lady is breezing toward the Democratic nomination.

"We can't have a coronation when she's handing Republicans an inquisition," the Democrat said.

Hmm... how many "Cabinet-level" Dems fret exactly like Maureen Dowd?

Answer: Not including Ron Phony-A? None.

Did G.O.P. Anti-Semitism Cause A Suicide?

I'm not understanding this story from Missouri:

Let’s set the table for what is destined to be an emotional, and highly impactful, week ahead for the Missouri GOP.

The centerpiece of the next seven days will be Tuesday’s funeral for former state Auditor Tom Schweich in his hometown of Clayton.

A Republican party leader starting a vile whispering campaign against an opponent in his own party? Dog bites man. A Republican anti-semitic whispering campaign? Dog eats dog food.

But why would that possibly cause someone to kill himself? Did Schweich want to be governor so much that the thought of losing was too much to bear? Of Missouri? Did he believe that the rumors would cost him his party's nomination? Would a man taught to fight anti-semitism by his grandfather fold in the face of an anti-semitic attack?

The connection between the two events is tenuous at best. This post-mortem article portrays Schweich as a little too intense for his own good, but not unstable. (It also has the instigator denying any improper motive or intent.)  Most likely Schweich either had other, more serious problems or. possibly, he shot himself accidentally.  Whatever the cause, it's very tragic for the man's family.

Posted Just So I Can Beat Everyone To The Most Obvious Tabloid Pun Ever

Two Girls, One Cop

Media Putz

Those -- if any -- who are still pretending that Howie Kurtz still retains any integrity haven't seen this morning's Media Putz.

This morning, CNN's Reliable Sources played audio of Bill O'Reilly which destroyed the sexual predator's credibility with his own words.  (Transcript not up yet; report on the O'Reilly audio here.) At the same time, the Putz was re-reading FNC's press releases (literally) and pretending that O'Reilly had addressed his lies on his own program.  

Putz's self-clowning would be tragic except for the fact that Putz never had credibility to begin with.  

Howard Kurtz, Motherflacker

Let's see Howie the Putz spin this one:

In his 2012 best-selling non-fiction [sic] book Killing Kennedy, O'Reilly writes on page 300 that as a "reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian ... that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly."

O'Reilly repeated this lie on FNC, so he can't blame the dude who actually wrote the books.

Howie's greatest sit-n-spins: 

I've said O'Reilly dispute boils down to semantics. Christian Sci Monitor called '82 Argentine protest "battle zone"

The perils of professional flackery, indeed. Must be hard when you've hit rock bottom and there's nowhere left to go, Howie.

Rubbin' Update

Here's the rub parlor that Schock used for a fundraiser, according to reports.

It's no bondage-themed nightclub of Michael Steele infamy.  It's also in Baltimore, not in Peoria.  And since it has only three therapists, charging $130 per 90 minutes of rub, it must have been a long and boring fundraiser.

Schock and Massage

I'm schocked... schocked! to see that the G.O.P. is using rubbin' as a 'raiser:

The donor planes include an Italian-made Piaggio twin-engine turboprop owned by Todd Green of Springfield, Illinois, who runs car dealerships in [Representative Aaron] Schock's [(R-IL)] district with his brother, Jeff. Todd Green told a Springfield newspaper that Jeff - a pilot and campaign contributor - and Schock have been friends for a long time.

The AP found that Green's plane traveled to at least eight cities last October in the Midwest and East Coast, cities where Schock met with political candidates ahead of the midterm elections. His Instagram account's location data and information from the service FlightAware even pinpointed Schock's location on a stretch of road near one airport before Green's plane departed.

Campaign records show a $12,560 expense later that month to Jeff Green from a political action committee associated with Schock, called the "GOP Generation Y Fund." That same month, the PAC paid $1,440 to massage parlor [sic] for a fundraising event.

There are at least fifty rub joints in Peoria, according to Yelp. Prices generally range from $20 for a chair massage to $125 for a full hour's rubbin', tip not included. So anywhere from 10 to 72 constituents got the glad-hand treatment in exchange for raisin' green to fill Schock's coffers.

Whether this story has a happy ending is anyone's guess.

Dowd's Ghostwriter Rewrites History

Maureen Dowd's latest attack on Hillary Clinton is framed as an attack on JEB (not Jeb).  It takes her five paragraphs to bash Secretary of State Clinton

Like the Clintons, the Bushes drag the country through national traumas that spring from their convoluted family dynamic and then disingenuously wonder why we concern ourselves with their family dynamic.

Without their last names, Hillary and Jeb [sic] would not be front-runners, buoyed by networks of donors grateful for appointments or favors bestowed by the family.

In Dowd's mind, receiving blow jobs from an adult intern is as traumatic as illegal wars, hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, torture as national policy, war profiteering and the destruction of the economy. (That's not a joke; it's a statement of fact, confirmed endlessly in Dowd's drivel over the past decade.) And in Dowd's mind, Hillary was getting blown too.

Dowd correctly asserts that JEB is not responsible for his brother's crimes, but is responsible for seeking counsel from GWB's criminal co-conspirators. (Dowd gives an inexplicable pass to bin Laden family bag man and happy Jew-fucker James Baker.)  But then she inexplicably ejaculates:

If he wants to reclaim the Bush honor, Jeb [sic] should be holding accountable those who inflicted deep scars on America, not holding court with them.

How can there be any Bush honor to reclaim when it was the President Bushes who were -- as well as employed -- the war criminals in the first place?  How could citizen JEB hold accountable the war criminals in any event?  And when has Dowd ever demanded actual accountability from any Bush, ever? 

Dowd repeats the canard that GWB was merely stupid rather than both evil and stupid, arguing that cronies of Bush the Elder, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, "absconded" with GWB's presidency.  (GWB as the real victim of Iraq was the same tale Dowd told in 2012, and she's recycling that tale now.)  She also claims Paul Wolfowitz was merely a naif. None of these bogus beliefs could restore "Bush honor," even if it had ever existed.

Dowd excuses the Bushes' crimes by psychobabbling about dysfunction where greed, malice and corruption easily explain everything.  And she believes that suction and torture are equally evil.

A Greasy Kind of Love

Rudy Giuliani loves America in exactly the same way that Bernie Kerik and Judith Regan love America:  

Certainly, that is what happened in 2001, when Ms. Regan had a messy affair with Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner and aide to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City (then a future presidential hopeful).

At the time, Mr. Kerik was writing a memoir for ReganBooks, and he spent months hooking up with his mistress/publisher in an apartment near ground zero that had been reserved for use by 9/11 rescue workers.

All of which was revealed in hilarious detail during Mr. Kerik’s unsuccessful bid for Homeland Security chief in 2004. It didn’t exactly put Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News and a close friend of Mr. Giuliani’s, in a good position. (Mr. Kerik and Mr. Ailes declined requests to comment for this article.)

The kind of love that picks your pocket and leaves nothing but a greasy stain. 

Up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

In a blatant attempt to steal traffic from alicublog, Roger Ailes announces its predictions for the winners of the 2015 Academy Awards, aka the "Oscars."  To make this feat seem even more impressive, I have seen almost none of the films or performances nominated, and my predictions are based almost solely on my intimate knowledge of show business phonies and accounting fraud.

(By the way, Oscar, Oscars, and gold-plated vibrator are in the public domain and can be used by anyone for any purpose, at any time. For free. Legally.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)

Best Mot Picture:   Boyhood
Best Director:  Richard Linklater
Best Actress:   Julianne Moore
Best Actor:      Michael Keaton
Best Supp Actress:  Patricia Arquette
Best Supp Actor:  J.K. Simmons
Best Orig Screenplay:  The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Adapted Screenplay:  The Theory of Everything
Best Cinematography:  Birdman
Best Animated Feature:  Big Hero 6
Best Foreign Lang Film:   Leviathan
Best Documentary:   Last Days in Vietnam
Best Everything Else:  One of the nominees 

You could take these predictions to the bank, except the banks are closed on Sunday. 

A Clown, A Turd and 9-11

Rudy Guiliani.

Buh-Bye O'Reilly

This story will never go anywhere if O'Reilly is smart enough to keep his trap shut.  If O'Reilly says nothing, his silence will confirm the truth but he'll never be challenged.  If he's stupid enough to open his yap and repeat his lies today, he may actually hang himself.  

But he's not stupid. 

In the past, O'Reilly lied about his sexual predation, paid millions to silence his victim (and probably paid FOX's legal costs too) and FOX just rode it out.  

The predator will keep quiet, and his apologists will too, because they know O'Reilly won't back them up if they vouch for the scumbag. Howard Kurtz likely has already made an orange jumpsuited appearance in the fat man's office, on his knees, promising that he won't say shit.

Pre-Posting Update:  I'm completely wrong. O'Reilly really is that stupid.

Batman and Hawkins

There's a lot to ridicule in this post by John Hawkins, who "hired" one of his site's contributors, "Jay Batman," to research how much money given to "big name" wingnut PACs actually went to candidates or candidate advocacy. Apparently the Godamn Batman wrote "a 170 page report" that we don't get to read (perhaps because it's just screen printouts from OpenSecrets.org), but in which the GDBM concluded that many right-wing PACs are stone cold ripoffs.

In other words, dog bites man.

Bulbs dim and bright have picked up on the story.

Among the "big name" offenders Screamin' Jay Batman fingers are a draft Ben Carson PAC which has no affiliation with Carson and thus sucks $$$ away from Carson's own PAC (not investigated), Sarah Palin's SarahPAC, Madison Project, which attacks wingnut candidates from the right, the "Tea Party Army" (total expenditures, $25,000) and a couple of anti-immigration PACs that couldn't manage to scrape up $325,000. If you suspect Hawkins or his "partner" -- who had previously worked or "dealt" with three of the 17 studied PACs and reportedly is involved with her own (not investigated) PAC(s) -- might have a hate-on for some of the hand-picked PACs they criticize, I'm afraid I couldn't disabuse you of that notion.

Hawkins also negates his premise that he investigated "17 conseravative PACs" by asserting that one of the 17 -- the second most fiscally responsible one, per Hawkins' metric -- accepts money from unions, and is therefore "generally hostile to conservative Republicans."

The takeaways are (1) Hawkins is not to be trusted, even when he's telling some part of the truth and (2) don't flush your money down SarahPAC or any org with Tea Party in its name.

Update: At RedState (no link), Oly, Son of Olaf, says Hawkins' report is great, except for its criticism of the PACs upon whose teats Olafson suckles. For Olafson, a dollar spent on Olafson is never wasted.

Roger On The Road

Spent a night last week at a hotel that actually had a landline phone attached to the wall next to the toilet in the bathroom.  Whoever thought that that was a good idea?

I umderstand that this was not entirely uncommon twenty-five years ago, before cell phones, but whoever thought it was a good idea twenty-five years ago?

I wouldn't touch that thing if I was dying of a heart attack on the crapper.

Happy Valentine's Day

From Roger Ailes, your part-time lover.

Those of you who don't follow Roger Ailes on Facebook missed this romantic gem:

Russians are Red
Stalin is too
Let's Comintern
Me, and then you

It falls apart if you realize that Stalin was a Russian, so don't think about that. 

Republican Family Values: Three Tons of Some Edition

"But [Rep. Blake] Farenthold [(R-TX)] did admit that he was propositioned by a woman to be part of a 'threesome.'”

The proposed threesome involved Farenthold, the woman and a wafer-thin mint. Or, more realistically, the woman proposed a threesome between Farenthold, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee.

Representative Farenthold is being sued for gender discrimination in an action alleging sex sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Of course his response included a dubious attestation as to his sexual attractiveness.

Rods and Sods

Dim-bulb Rod Dreher sniffs:

Clarence Thomas tells the truth:  a majority of the US Supreme Court has probably made up its mind already on gay marriage, before they hear the first oral argument.

Leave aside the fact that in 95-plus percent of cases, federal appellate judges have made up their minds before hearing oral argument.  Ignore Roddy's grammatical incompetence. The fact is that the justices who have already made up their minds on marriage equality include Pubes Thomas, Fat Tony Scalia and Sammy "The Bullshit" Alito. 

What really chaps Roddy's ass, and not in the good way, like his daddy used to, is not prejudgment.  No, it's his belief that a majority of justices believe equal protection means equal protection. He's not bent out of shape that Scalia waived his "Constitution Hates Fags" placard twelve years ago.  He's just sore that his privilege might no longer be enshrined in law.

Rod's already got his hammer out so he can be the first to nail himself to his cross if the decision doesn't go his way.  

The More You Know

The real tragedy of the Brian Williams story is that MoDo had to preempt her planned column detailing her experimentation with S & M, tied to the theatrical release of 50 Shades of Grey, in order to rub out 500 words on the death of serious journalism.  

The Andrew Sullivan Decade and a Half, Part 2: Bush Lied, Sully Complied

Vile Sully, September 30, 2002:

So at a crucial juncture in American diplomacy, this Democrat [Congressman Jim McDerrmott] is saying that Bush is a liar and a cheat – and in Baghdad! The only word for this is vile.

Vile Sully's post is entitled "Whose Side They Are On." 

The truth:  Bush lied. 

Update 2/9:  Corrected date from 2012 to 2002. But technically I was right, because 9/11 changed everything.

The Nightly Schmoe

Regular readers of this blog -- both of them -- will know that my esteem of Brian Williams was never very high. I labelled him a talking wigstand long ago in the previous decade, back when Howie Kurtz was fawning over Williams and Bob Somerby was less "we -- as in you -- liberals suck" all the time.

So I couldn't care less what NBC does with Brian Williams, who got caught blowing his own horn. It's hilarious to see wingnuts portray the Limbaugh-loving cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq as a left-winger.  But whether NBC keeps Williams for profit's sake or cans him in response to demands by wingnuts who care nothing about the truth matters not to me.

The Andrew Sullivan Decade and a Half, Part I: Genocide Is Painless

As Andy Sully spends the next few months blogging about his retirement from blogging, let's review some of the deeply rational thoughts he'll be withholding from us:

From Time Magazine, August 2006:

There is something terribly sick within the Muslim mind at this moment in history. It is Nietzsche's ressentiment, but with God re-attached. We should indeed fear these people for the hideous carnage they can wreak for the sake of their God. But we should never let our fear overwhelm our contempt for them - their sickness, their evil, their petty insecurities, their inability to live meaningful lives and their attempt to assuage this by murdering others in God's name. Yes, they evil [sic]. But they are also pathetic, miserable excuses for human beings.

This is the mind of a man -- because each human being has her or his own mind -- who believes (whether he admits it or not) that the only thing wrong with ISIS is that its members don't kill themselves after they slaughter every Muslim living.

The Wonder Bread Years

Meeeegan McArdle waxes dishonest about having to live among the poors, in an article entitled "When Bread Bags Weren't Funny."  McBargle starts out talking about Joni Ernst's bags, but then switches to Noonan's bags.  She then writes, with her usual slight of dishonesty::

I am a few years younger than Noonan, but I grew up in a very different world -- one where a number of my grammar school classmates were living in public housing or on food stamps, but everyone had more than one pair of shoes.... 

Joni Ernst, who is just a few years older than me, had a much more affluent childhood than the generation that settled the prairies, and more affluent still than the generations before them. But in many ways, she was much poorer than the people making fun of her on Twitter, simply because so many goods have gotten so much more abundant.

A few, a few! ... Gesundheit.

A few seconds on Google will tell you that McBargle is actually 22 years younger than Peg, and only 2.5 years younger than Ernst, despite McBargle's construction to the contrary. One difference is more than 8 times the other.  The difference between Nooners and McBargle is the difference of a generation.

Also dishonest is McBargle's assertion that Ernst grew up poorer than the people making fun of Ernst on Twitter, who, for all McArdle knows, are Ernst's age or older and grew up without the annual farm subsidies that Ernst's family recieved.  McArdle is comparing the imagined wealth of Ernst's critics today to Ernst's financial condition as a child, as if Ernst died in her ninth year.

And let's not mention McBargle's pretense of attending school with children from the projects, except to note that McBargle attended the Riverdale Country Day School (current annual cost for K-12: $45,600). (Perhaps she'd claim that she was forced to attend class with charity cases  -- "I said 'a number," not how many" -- who had the nerve to take a free ride in first class even though they had two pair of shoes to their names.)

What McBargle really gets wrong, however, is why Ernst and Nooners spoke about bags. It wasn't, as McBargle insists, to remind us "how much poorer we used to be" or "the immense difference between [prior generations'] living standards and ours." Ernst told her story as preface to the claim that "These days though, many families feel like they're working harder and harder, with less and less to show for it," as if the olden days were Nirvana compared to now (or since Obama ruined the economy). Nooners likewise used the story to illustrate how America -- and Americans, by which she means Americans who lunch with millionaires -- suck now.  Ernst and Nooners weren't telling their constantly bitching wingnut audiences to quit bitching because things are so much better now.

Bottom line:  McArdle will always be a joke.

Bong Hits For Jeb-us

No one is surprised that Jeb Bush was a member of the Old Choom Network. And a small businessman to boot.

We know Rand smoked Paul Pot, and the munchies certainly would explain Chris Christie.

Mike Huckabee undoubtedly smoked corn tassels and drank from a jug marked "XXX," and Ben Carson could write his own prescriptions.

Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio were totally straight edge.

A Note To Andrew Sullivan's Readerss

Good news!  Your subscriptions to The Dish are fully transferable to Roger Ailes.  Just calculate the balance of your Dish subscription and send that amount to this blog. 

Roger Ailes members will have an exclusive first look at our forthcoming post, "The Andrew Sullivan Decade and a Half."

Subscribers can e-mail the proprietor for payment details.

Chait's Peach or, Hack vs. PC

Jon Chait's latest New York Magazine thumbsucker raises some serious questions.

His thesis is that it's illiberal to critique and criticize the speech of others from a liberal perspective. 

Did you know that there is no outlet from which Bill Maher can express his viewpoints freely?  What's more, it seems that Condoleezza Rice can no longer venture an opinion in polite society, as if she was no better than the many thousands of innocent Iraqis she personally helped to silence permanently.  

Have you heard? Christine Lagarde, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Bob Birgeneau have been forcibly relieved of their tongues and fingers and ability to blink in Morse Code, all by the infernal machinery of disagreement and protest. It's true! 

It's a shame that space limitations left Jon unable to recount the gruesome ends of George F. Will, Larry Summers and Bill Cosby, all of whom now lie silent as the grave.

After those preliminary reveals, Chait gets down to most insidious case of all. In the greatest detail, Chait reveals a private Facebook group in which a handful of writerly types got snippy with each other, feelings were hurt, and two victim-members of the group complained to their pal, Chait, who took it upon himself to manplead the victims' case to the world. Because if a members-only group of nameless elites cannot private message each other free from the crushing yoke of liberal piety, Western civilization itself cannot survive. 

A cynic might suggest that Chait wrote his piece less out of concern for the fate of modern discourse and more from a desire to experience the same kind of microaggressive hard-on Mickey Kaus experienced when he made public some juicy Journolist threads.  But such a critique would be politically -- as well as factually -- correct and therefore must never be spoken, in the name of free speech, amen.