Wednesday, December 31, 2014

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."

Sunday, December 28, 2014

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.

Friday, December 26, 2014

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. 

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

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.

Monday, December 22, 2014

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.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

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.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

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.

Sunday, December 07, 2014

Now It Can Be Revealed

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


Thursday, December 04, 2014

Teabagging Lives

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

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Dear Mollie Hemmingway

This is why everyone thinks you're a moron.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Jesus Loves Me, Fuck You Hos

Last week, from GOP mouthpiece Elizabeth Lauten:



This week, Lauten decided to up her mentions by taking some teenagers to task for not loving pink, green and pearls. That casual shit don't fly in the Junior League and the D.A.R, you no class b****es.

Ms. Lauten, who is in her mid-30s, formerly worked for the Godly Joe Walsh (R-IL), and John McCain, under whose tutelage she perfected her technique. She now runs a p.r. shop called Audeamus (pronunced "Adumbass" in a Southern accent) and works for some peckerwood Congressman from Tennessee. But she's learned from her recent experience -- specifically, she learned to hide behind God's skirts and make her insults available on a "friends only" basis.


Update (12/1):  Lauten is out of her job, while John McCain remains employed.  FOX News Channel would have scooped her up already, but for the fact she fails (the other) Ailes' first test for a female job applicant. 

Update II (12/1):  Bonus fun from the Smoking Gun"Lauten, pictured above, was arrested in December 2000 for misdemeanor larceny, according to court records. Lauten, then 17, was collared for stealing from a Belk department store in her North Carolina hometown. Because Lauten was a first-time offender, her case was handled via the District Court’s deferred prosecution program, which resulted in the charge’s eventual dismissal after the future scold stayed out of trouble for a prescribed period."

Wingnut! Don't shoot!

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

An American Carol


Sunday, November 09, 2014

Chuckie's In Love

For his sake, I hope Nate Silver can -- and does -- demand a retraction for this:
Nate Silver even singled out Todd as one TV pundit who was elevating campaign coverage.
Meanwhile, from the same article, the least shocking sentence ever written:
On a range of issues, from the stimulus to healthcare reform to Syria, Todd weighs in on how the process looked, while devoting barely a second’s thought to the policy’s merits.
That's because weak-chin Chuck hasn't ever had a thought about a policy's merits. It's not that he's incapable of understanding ideas and their consequences.  It's that he doesn't give a shit about policy. Only losers need policy.  As long as Chuckles has skybox access, where he can chat up his paymasters and his fellow fat and pasty thought leaders about sports scores, the possibility that a policy might lead to a thousand deaths or the denial of fundamental rights for Todd's fellow citizens won't enter his misshapen little head. 

Objectivity demands ignorance. 

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The Mercury Lining

If only the hack Kaus had endorsed more Republicans.

Warning: Link goes to a hairless nut.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Confidential to Rand Paul

Domino's pizza still sucks.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Hackowe'en

Mickey Kaus, who is still alive, has snuck back into the e-pages of Slate.com, with this anonymous missive to "Dear Prudence:"
Dear Prudence,
I live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, but on one of the more “modest” streets—mostly doctors and lawyers and family business owners. (A few blocks away are billionaires, families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children. Obviously this makes me feel like a terrible person, because what’s the big deal about making less fortunate kids happy on a holiday? But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services. Should Halloween be a neighborhood activity, or is it legitimately a free-for-all in which people hunt down the best candy grounds for their kids?
-- Halloween for the 99 Percent
"Are there no sweatshops and child sex traffickers?" Kaus left unsaid. 

Kaus' query recalls his White Fright fantasy from nearly a decade ago:
There was a large gang fight on Halloween in the lush heart of L.A.'s affluent suburban West Side, I'm told. Dozens of teenagers, some wielding bats and chains, from rival black and Hispanic outfits battled each other around 26th Street and San Vicente, on the border between Santa Monica and Brentwood, the latter probably the most expensive neighborhood in Los Angeles. Police were called to the scene in force.
After blasting the L.A. Times for failing to report his delusions,
Kaus later weaseled, "just because the police don't respond doesn't mean nothing happened."

Urchins, if you stop by the Kaus condo this Oct. 31, be sure your toilet paper is recycled. And well-used.  

Thursday, October 09, 2014

Grand Old Police Blotter: Heavily Intoxicated and Angry Edition

Who among us has not ridden around in stretch limo with our parents, heavily intoxicated, crashing parties. punching people and flipping people off?

Especially on Dad's special day.



Phony and Phonier

It's unanimous.  On this morning's Drunken Joe, Mark Halperin and Drunken Joe confirmed what Ron Phonier has already told us -- All the Democrats who Ron, Mark and the Drunk speak to privately hate President Obama.  (Or, as Mark calls them, all of "the elite Democrats").

Ron Phonier started it off with yet another column about his free-lunch pals:
A senator. A House member. A former presidential campaign manager. An adviser to President Obama. All Democrats, these officials [sic] have made it a habit to call or email me almost every week of Obama's second term to share their concerns about the course of his presidency.
They ask only that I don't identify them. Some fear retribution; others don't want to compromise their financial or political standing inside their party. These Democrats speak admirably about the president's intellect, integrity, and intentions, but they question his leadership—an admittedly squishy term that can be unfairly deployed against people with the guts to lead. But their critiques are specific, consistent and credible—and they comport with what many other Democrats are telling other journalists, almost always, privately.
If there's anyone whose views on leadership I'd want to know more about, it's those stalwart fellows who whine weekly to a wingnut but won't allow themselves to be named because it might cost them something.  

Phonier now claims that Leon Panetta is the face of the cowering sexters who dictate Phonier's column.  But Panetta has spoken publicly, on the record, without hiding behind the extra-wide Dockers of Republicans posing as journalists. Of course, there's always the probability that Phonier is hiding behind the facade of imagined Dems, since he knows his own opinions are completely worthless to sane people. Perhaps another look into Phonier's e-mail box is in order, for real journalism's sake.

The National Journal, Bloomberg News and MSNBC are now the moral and intellectual equivalent of the slam book.  Keep up the good slap fight, boys!

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Wank and Wanker

Over at the Moonie Times (no link), this story was wrung out of a well-loved holy handkerchief and converted to pixels:
The producer of a new movie that criticizes Obamacare has reportedly become the latest prominent conservative slapped with an IRS audit.
Logan Clements, producer of “Sick and Sicker: ObamaCare Canadian Style,” announced via press release Tuesday that he is being audited for the first time ever. (Emphasis added.)
As the usual dolts, including Paul Tossingoff of Powerline and the Virgin Ben guzzle from the Moonie handerkerchief without question, informed individuals will note that the Dinesh D'D-bag wannabe actually released his magnum dopus in 2010, and wingnut websites were giving the video away in early 2012.  New it's not.

As for Clements' prominence, he Googles second to a U.Va. track athlete of the same name. Clements.  

It's as if these Powertools want to be lied to.

Note: Due to a publisher's error, this post was prepared on 10/8, but not published until 10/9.

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

The Assassination of the Truth By the Illiterate Mike Allen

So PoliticHo gladly paid WorldNutDaily hack Ron Kessler to write this:
Agents tell me it’s a miracle an assassination has not already occurred. Sadly, given Obama’s colossal lack of management judgment, that calamity may be the only catalyst that will reform the Secret Service.
Various people pointed out that this paragraph communicates the idea that Obama's lack of management judgment will be the cause of Obama's assassination, if it occurs. Having been caught in its own scumbaggery, PoliticHo rewrote Kessler to state:
Agents tell me it’s a miracle an assassination has not already occurred. In typical Washington fashion, nothing gets reformed until a disaster happens. If anything unites Republicans and Democrats, it is that nobody wants to see a tragedy: We all just want the Secret Service fixed.
The real offense here is not the PoliticHo/Kessler assassination fantasy, but PolitcHo's attempted cover up. After hiding the original statement, PoliticHo simpered:
Editor’s note: Some readers have misinterpreted the original last line of Kessler’s article as somehow suggesting that the president should be held responsible in the event of his own assassination. That couldn't be further from the truth, and we’re sorry if anyone interpreted Kessler’s meaning in any other way.
That note reflects everything wrong with PoliticHo -- dishonesty and subliteracy. Which "that" couldn't be further from the truth -- that readers misinterpreted the line or that the president would be responsible for his own killing? Unintentionally, this ass-covered editor is either agreed that the critics have it right or that Kessler has it wrong.  And why is PoliticHo sorry if anyone interpreted Kessler's meaning in any way other than "suggesting that the president should be held responsible" for his own killing?  Didn't they just deny that such was Kessler's meaning?

Surely if Kessler's meaning was other than that Obama deserved a fatal fate, PoliticHo wouldn't have replaced it with bipartisan mush entirely contrary to the original blame-laying sentence.

PoliticHo and Kessler are lying scumbags.  And it's a miracle PoliticHo's editor hasn't choked to death on his own drool.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Grand Old Police Blotter: Randian Hero 2014 Edition

Meet today's William Hickman/John Galt, the ubermensch who struck a blow for freedom in San Francisco:
An Uber driver is accused of seriously injuring a passenger by bashing him on the head with a hammer in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, authorities said Friday.

Patrick Karajah, 26, of Pacifica pleaded not guilty Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court to charges of assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury. He is free on $125,000 bail.
Karajah allegedly picked up the victim and his two friends from a bar at about 2 a.m. Tuesday. While driving the two men and one woman to their destination, he got into a dispute with the victim over the route he was taking, according to court documents.
Karajah, who was driving for the basic UberX service, stopped near the intersection of Ellsworth Street and Alemany Boulevard and forced the victim and his friends to get out, according to documents.
Once the victim was out of the vehicle, Karajah struck him on the side of his head with a hammer, and then drove away, authorities said.
When police arrived, they reportedly found the victim slipping in and out of consciousness on the sidewalk, suffering from severe fractures and trauma to the head. Karajah was later arrested at his home in Pacifica.
An Uber mouthpiece states that the company takes "reports like this very seriously," by which she means that Uber shysters are ready to shout "independent contractor, terms of service, user agreement" at the victim if he comes out of his coma. And to pay idiot bloggers to post most pro-Uber crap on their blogs.

Update (9/28): Fixed, as per comments.

#WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

Chuck E. Todd sucking up to a slander site won't improve his credibility, even if he had any. #WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

Friday, September 26, 2014

The Exact Moment Ross Douthat Lost the Pretense of the Fiction of Credibility

I’ve been mostly ignoring the various “Romney 2016!” trial balloons floated by various parties over the last six months or so (including by some of my dear friends, alas), but now that someone as sober and well-informed as Byron York
By the time he gets to citing Ben Domenech, he's just jerking the lily.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Grand Old Police Blotter: Dinesh D'Souza's America Edition

Megyn Kelly's pal Dinesh D'Souza got five years' probation and eight months in a halfway house for criminal violations of federal election laws. He also got exposed as a thug, according to his ex-wife, Dixie:
Contrary to the statement made in Mr. D'Souza's sentencing memorandum, it is my former husband who has an abusive nature. In one instance, it was my husband who physically abused me in April 2012 when he, using his purple belt karate skills, kicked me in the head and shoulder, knocking me to the ground and creating injuries that pain me to this day.
Mrs. D'Souza also charges her former husband with having their daughter submit a letter containing false statements to the court: 
Dinesh lied to me, he lied to the government, he encouraged others to lie for him, and now he has allowed our daughter to submit multiple false statements to a federal court in order to avoid punishment. Dinesh D'Souza is not a truthful person.
The only question that remains: Will the halfway house allow D'Souza to install a remote studio for his Fox News appearances?

Update:  The daughter's letter states that Dixie was "abusive" toward D'Bag and that Dixie "had an affair with multiple people [sic]."  She also claims that D'Bag "would die for me. In a way like Jesus did."  (No link because, although a public record, the Exhibits to the Sentencing Memorandum contains addresses and contact information for other persons.)

Monday, September 22, 2014

#WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

Chuck Todd is a miserable failure who didn't deserve a show on basic cable, let alone a network news program  #WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

This Is The NFL

If you thought NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell's Friday presser smelled faintly of dead squirrel, rubber cement and flop sweat, and that Rog himself had all the sincerity of Willard the Mitt making small talk with the help, this will not surprise you:
Roger Goodell was talking, but the words weren't his alone. "That speech was all Frank," says an associate of pollster Frank Luntz, lord of the dark arts of political messaging....  
As it happened, Luntz himself was watching the press conference, in his capacity as a Fox Sports 1 talking head (he moonlights as a Fox News commentator and analyst). Not long after the commissioner left the podium, Luntz gave his review.
"This," he puffered, "was language perfection."

...
And yet here was Luntz, wreathing Goodell's press conference in kudos and hosannas.  
"I'm supposed to be a professional," Luntz said on Fox Sports 1.  "I couldn't have done it as well as he did."
You are a professional, Frankie.  We're just haggling about the price.

Luntz is such conflicted whore that he and Howie Kurtz fight for the same street corner. 

Monday, September 15, 2014

Confidential to Ken Burns

George F. Will is not an expert on Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt or Eleanor Roosevelt.  He has nothing original or insightful to say about any of them.

Just becaue Will sucked up to you about your Civil War series doesn't mean you have to include him, or the deadwood from the Morning Joe/Meet the Press green room, in your doc.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Fifty Shades Of 9/11 Troof

At least they had the decency not to release Atlas Tugged III: Who The Fuck Is That Supposed to Be? Is That Billy Ray Cyrus? on September 11, 2014.  The only recognizable face in this jackknifed trailer is 9/11 Truther Ron Paul.


Red carpet infestivities here. Even Libertarian Fonzie can barely give a shit.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Thug Life

I'm beginning to sense a pattern:
George Zimmerman, who once shot dead an unarmed teen, threatened to kill another driver during a road rage incident in central Florida this week, police say.
“Do you know who I am?” the 30-year-old asked the unnamed complainant during the incident Tuesday in Lake Mary, Fla., the driver told cops.
The man called 911 again two days later to report that Zimmerman was waiting outside his work.
And this
The Palin family was asked to leave the party after Track Palin, 21, allegedly attacked another party guest who had previously dated his younger sister, Willow Palin, Thompson said. 
“I heard Sarah Palin yell do you know who I am?"
When will this thuggery end?

Grand Old Police Blotter: Punch Drunk Repugs Edition

Saturday night's all right for fightin'.
Sarah Palin and her family were at the center of a lively party last weekend that erupted into a fight, with daughter Bristol Palin allegedly throwing a right hook, a man who says he was a guest at the party told ABC News.
“She was punching him [another man] in the face like six times; it was an assault if I’ve ever seen one,” Eric Thompson said, adding that he was among 70 guests at the birthday party in Anchorage Saturday.
“It wasn’t a light punch either. She was really hitting him. I’m surprised he just sat there and took it.”
Political blogger Amanda Coyne reported that Sarah Palin, along with husband Todd and kids Bristol, Willow and Track, arrived in a stretch Hummer and that the fighting started as the beer started flowing.
The Sarah Palin Channel's first pay-per-view!

I look forward to the MRA outrage about this. Paging "Doctor" Helen. "Doctor" Helen Smith, white courtesy phone.
The Palin family was asked to leave the party after Track Palin, 21, allegedly attacked another party guest who had previously dated his younger sister, Willow Palin, Thompson said. 
“I heard Sarah Palin yell do you know who I am?"
"I coulda been somebody! Erick Erickson once gave me a mug!"

Anyone e-mailing the Anchorage Police Department incident report to your correspondent will receive a free lifetime subscription to this blog.

N.B. -- This blog has withheld snarky comment on these baked Alaskans pending an on the record statement from a percipient witness.  We aren't Jim Hoft.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

The Teacher (And English Graduate) Who Admits - I'm Illiterate And Therefore Well-Qualified to Write About Education Policy For The Daily Mail

This piece of happy horseshit is the most fraudulent thing the Daily Mail has published in hours.

And none of the commenters even question the premise of the article.

(An example: This twit expects us to believe that she and the other teachers at her primary school had to rely on the "head" to correct spelling errors in the end of term reports that were sent to parents. In and after 2005. Were these reports prepared on computers without spell-check?  Did the head re-type entire reports? Did the head happily proofread hundreds of reports for spelling errors, without consequence to the teachers who wasted her or his time?  Ms. Smith makes Michelle Rhee sound credible.)

As one subliterate wingnut at John Hawkins' website puts it: "This is a scorching indictment of Liberalism that not only applies across the pond but also her in America." (sic, baby!)

Monday, September 08, 2014

If It's A Lie, It's Meet The Chuck

Chuck Todd plays pocket pool on the JV team #WhatPeopleInWashingtonAreAfraidToSay

From the official Sept. 7 Chuck the Meat transcript:
PRES. OBAMA:
I'm preparing the country to make sure that we deal with a threat from ISIL. Keep in mind that this is something that we know how to do. We've been dealing with terrorist threats for quite some time. This administration has systematically dismantled Al Qaeda in the FATA.
ISIL poses a broader threat because of its territorial ambitions in Iraq and Syria. But the good news is coming back from the most recent NATO meeting is the entire international community understands that this is something that has to be dealt with.
....
CHUCK TODD:
You've not said the word, "Syria," so far in our conversation. Obviously, if you're going to defeat ISIS, you have used very much stronger language [sic]. It's gone through the week during your trip to Wales. You have got to go to Syria in some form or another.
Of course, that's the transcript of the edited interview. According to this site, in the unedited interview the President said the word "Syria" four times before Chuck said he hadn't.

The only rational conclusion is that Chuck had that scripted gotcha ready to roll in honor of the late Fathead Tim, and wasn't going to let the facts get in his way. Obviously Chuck's video editor failed him and let a presidential mention of Syria see the light of day, exposing the lie. I remember that heads rolled at NBC News when a misleadingly edited version of a 911 call was shown on Peacock TV. I doubt that a goateed head with male pattern baldness will be bouncing 'cross the floors of NBC as a result of Chuckie's failed stunt. 

It's not good optics.

(And no, Chuckie's simpering post-clip statement -- "He had mentioned it, but he hadn't said whether he was taking military action there" --doesn't cut it. He played his assertion, even though false, but deleted Obama's multiple mentions of Syria to bamboozle the viewers. Chuckles didn't ask Obama whether he was going to take military action in Syria. Chuckles couldn't be more dishonest if he tried.)

#WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

No one gives a shit about Joe Scarborough's idiot opinions #WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

#WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

"Big Russ and Me" was a steaming pile of horseshit #WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

#WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

Meet the Press is still weaker than Chuck Todd's chin  #WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

#WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

Tim Russert was a Cheney lickspittle #WhatEveryoneInWashingtonIsAfraidToSay

Sunday, September 07, 2014

Sunday In the Park with Optics

If anyone thought that Chuck the Roast with Chuck E. Todd was going to be any different than Meet Dancin' Dave or Meet Pumpkinhead, I pity that fool.  Todd is simply the latest on the conveyor belt of pasty fatheads whose love for the country Republican Party is exceeded only by his love for seats in the owner's skybox at FedEx Field.

I caught the last 15 minutes of the program, in which our man Chuckles focused on the number one issue of nobody ever: optics.  Or, as it is more commonly known, Black Man Golfing. 

That was followed by a segment entitled "What Everyone In Washington Knows But Is Afraid to Say," in which the assembled courageous truthtellers spoke the unspeakable: Hillary Clinton is running for President.  If there is any fatuous blowhard in D.C. who hasn't said Clinton is running for President before Chuckie's program today, I'd like to know what she or he looks like, because she or he has never appeared on U.S. television. 

To be fair, perhaps the first 45 minutes of the program contained news and insightful analysis. To be fair, that would be contrary to everything in the last 10 years of Chuckie's career.  

Go Bills!

Saturday, September 06, 2014

Allen Abduction

Is anyone surprised that Mike "Slappy" Allen's avatar at PoliticHo is an imbecilie running with scissors?

Does anyone else see the irony in the lying son-of-a-Birch Allen commenting on plagiarism in journalism, given Slappy's documented propensity for re-transcribing right-wing press releases and calling it a column? Or are we just haggling about the price?

Via sans Dios.

Too Late, So Thad

Chris McDaniel was late once again, announcing his soon-to-be rejected appeal in a Friday dump rather than last Tuesday, as he promised.  But at least he did it was class!
As his lawyers appealed dismissal of his election lawsuit to the state Supreme Court on Friday, Chris McDaniel referenced Nazism on his Facebook page.
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil," McDaniel, who was reportedly out of state, posted Friday, quoting Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran reverend and anti-Nazi dissident in World War II Germany. "God will not hold us guiltless … Not to act is to act."
In your case, McDaniel, not to act was malpractice.

Don't worry, Teabags, MickeyD has vowed to fight on until your money runs out. God will not hold you guiltless if you don't bon hoeffer, open wide and pony up!

As noted at The Week, McDaniel misspelled Bonhoeffer's first name.  Not to be a spelling Nazi or anything.

Fuck Them If They Can't Take They're A Joke

Here's one for that ancient sot Peggy Nooners and the other wingnut fans of Joan Rivers:
Rivers said, “Sarah Palin, I think she’s not my all time favorite. You know how you have a car sign that says be careful handicap person. I think when they have a retarded person driving a car it should be a picture of Sarah Palin with a line through it.”
That was a month ago. And it wasn't new material.  

The Palinically-challenged, like John Nolte (no link to Hoft Jnr.) simper about "Speech Enforcers" in their eulogies of Rivers. But it was FNC who booted Rivers from an appearance after she stated the obvious about Sharia Plain.  (See the new material link.)

Nooners is surely relieved that she wasn't famous enough for Rivers to say of her, “Number one, the girl made it on her back fucking the president, we all know that....Whatever she is, she’s a drunk."1 (At least in public.) Nooners just laps it up because it's not directed at her, and because her d.t.s cause her to forget she often pretends she's above all that.

In honor of Ronnie Veagan, call it "The Return of Senility." 

1 Rivers speaking of Chelsea Handler, in another context, in two separate quotes.

Thursday, September 04, 2014

More News From The Federal Courts

"As we have been at pains to explain, the grounds advanced by Indiana and Wisconsin for their discriminatory policies are not only conjectural; they are totally implausible."

Also: "Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure."

Grand Old Police Blotter: Bob's Your Cellmate Edition

Two hours ago, according to this PoliticHo puffer, Gov. Bob McDonnell was "remarkably at peace." Now, Bob's unremarkably convicted. On 11 counts.

Somewhere in Hell, Eric Cantor laughs. Delayed gratification is everything.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Mississippi Malpractice

Teabagger Chris McDaniel's attempt to defeat incumbent Senator Thad Cochran in the Mississippi Republican primary has ended, not with a whimper but with a tort:
Judge Hollis McGehee on Friday approved Cochran's motion to dismiss McDaniel's lawsuit.
McGehee agreed with Cochran's lawyers that a 1959 state Supreme Court ruling imposed a 20-day deadline for McDaniel to file a challenge, first with the state Republican Party. McDaniel didn't file his challenge of the June 24 GOP runoff until 41 days after the election.
McDaniel's team had argued at a Thursday hearing in Laurel that election laws had been changed since the 1959 "Kellum" ruling that applied a deadline to filing district or statewide election challenges. They also pointed to now House Speaker Philip Gunn's successful challenge against former state Rep. Jep Barbour in 2003.
The state high court heard that case, which Gunn filed 34 days after the primary. There was at the time no argument from either side, or the court, about a deadline.
MgGehee on Friday ruled that the Kellum decision was still "good law." He said that changes to election laws in the interim were not substantial enough to change the court's ruling, as Cochran's lawyers had argued. He said that failure of the parties or court to address a deadline in Gunn's case doesn't dismiss the deadline created by the 1959 decision.
No shit, Matlock.

I don't know Mississippi law, but it's pretty stupid to assume that a case stands for a proposition it does not address.  My guess is that McDaniel's shysters never considered the limitations issue until it was too late, because no competent attorney would advise her client to ignore a clear statement of the law based on nothing more than the fact pattern in a later case.  Any prudent mouthpiece would advise the client in writing of 20 day deadline (and memorialize it six ways to Sunday if the client chose not to follow that advice). 

The good news for McDaniel's shysters is that to prevail in a malpractice case, McDaniel would have to show he would have prevailed on the merits of his challenge of the election but for the blown limitations period.  And that never would have happened.

McDaniel is currently weighing whether he can further fleece the Tea Party in order to finance an appeal, and will identify who he blames for that decision on Tuesday.  If McDaniel decides not to appeal, the most incompetent lawyers in the state will be freed up to represent Mark Mayfield's heirs and that still-threatened wrongful death suit. 

Update (9/2):  Stuck on loser has postponed his announcement until Wednesday.  Apparently the pennies of the brain-dead are still trickling in.

Update II (9/12):  Another Tea Party Thug for McDaniel is set to plead guilty of tampering with evidence in connection with the abuse of Thad Cochran's wife. 

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Putting Christ What A Load of Shit Back Into Christmas

Let Samuel Goldwyn Films tell you about the true meaning of Christmas.


Sure, A Madea Christmas had Lisa Whelchel and Larry the Cable Guy, but it didn't have a reenactment of the Council of NicaeaOr, as a main character, "a guy named Christian White who represents the typical white Christian male." 

Personally, I'd love to see Kirk team up with Kevin Sorbo, Chuck Norris and Mel Gibson for an "Expendables"-type Christian actioner.  Call it "The Excommunicables." 

P.S. Either the Christian Post is recycling old interviews or Kirk doesn't get out much. Noah was released five months ago.

Republican Family Values: Effingham Isn't Just An Act In Genesis Edition

A true story from the land of Newt Gingrich, Zell Miller and Erick Erickson:
A brother and sister were arrested this morning in Effingham County and accused of having sex with each other in a tractor trailer parked at a church.
Christopher Buckner, 20, of Guyton, and her brother, Timothy Savoy, 25, of Jackson, Ga., were arrested and charged with incest, aggravated sodomy and prowling, according to Sheriff’s Office spokesman David Ehsanipoor.
The spokesman said deputies answered a call at about 4:30 a.m. about a prowler in the area of Hester Road and Ga. 30.
As deputies were checking the area, they saw a man and woman walking down the road. The male said he was walking the female back to her house.
Deputies determined that the pair were brother and sister and that they had just had sex in a Kenworth tractor trailer, which was parked at Countryside Baptist Church ["the chruch for families!" - RA], Ehsanipoor said.
He said they admitted having sex three times after watching the movie, “The Notebook.”
I have no information that Chris and Tim have ever voted Republicans but since Republicans tell us that stereotypes are always true, these lovebirds are definitely Republicans. 

Plus, Focus on the Family says The Notebook "might also be seen as a timely reflection of the deep and lasting loved shared by Nancy and Ronald Reagan, whose love story has made a permanent cultural impression."  Apparently so.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Fuh-KHEW! Gesundheit

The Teabaggers are being played by a high school senior
Kendra Turner, a senior at Dyer County HighSchool, said bless you to her classmate who sneezed and the teacher told her that the term was for church.
“She said that we’re not going to have godly speaking in her class and that’s when I said we have a constitutional right,” Turner told WMC.
When she defended her actions, the teacher told Turner to see an administrator. The student said that she had to finish the class period in in-school suspension.
The girl’s parents were told by school leaders that their daughter shouted “bless you” across the room and that it was a classroom distraction.
The predictable nailing of selves to crosses by the usual martyr queens ensued.

These bedwetters have either never attended a high school outside of their parents' basement or have never passed an i.q. test.  Or both. This particular wheeze has been around at least as long as there have been spoiled punks with limited imaginations and no hope of accomplishing anything in their lives.  

Monday, August 18, 2014

Scarry Stupid

Over at right-wing media site Mediaidjit, they've replaced one doctrinaire dullard (Noah Rothman) with another (Eddie Scarry). Scarry screeches:
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Monday called for the arrest of Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown of Ferguson, Mo.
This of course gets the masterracebaters who frequent the site to toss their turds around their cages. As it was intended to do.

What Hayes wrote:

I think the security problem in Ferguson, is not solvable through policing. Until charges are brought against Wilson, this will go on.
Like most sane people, Hayes likely believes that an arrest is in order, and way overdue. But that's not what he said. And Hayes' belief may be incorrect, but he is not calling for anything in his Twitter statement. Is there anyone with an i.q. over Jim Hoft who doesn't understand the difference between "I call for X to happen" and "Unless X happens, Y will continue to happen."

Of course, Hayes has spent days reporting from Ferguson, MO, while Scarry has been in his basement, trying to dial into the Ben Ferguson radio show on a Fisher-Price Chatter Phone. And Hayes can read.  So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.


Confidential to E.S.:  This tweet is not calling for worldwide socialist revolution.

Update: Scarry Stupid has changed the hed and lede, not because of this blog, but because Hayes called Scarry on his bullshit.  (See first link.)  Of course, Scarry Stupid lies and calls Hayes' ridicule a "clarification."  Such are wingut bloggers.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Bearded Gits Are The Real Heroes

For those who were planning on building statues in honor of Wesley Lowrey and Ryan Reilly, PoliticHo's wingnut blogger Dyldo Byers demands that you slow your roll:
Ferguson is not Falluja, and Wesley Lowery and Ryan Reilly aren't heroes. They're two reporters who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. The sooner this story returns to the death of Michael Brown, the standoff between the protesters and the police, and the issue of accountability and justice, the better.
But no one I've read has called the two reporters heroes; nor can I find such accolades via Google. The best Dyldo can do is find quotes from Lowery's WaPo colleagues praising his work, not calling him a hero. Nor has any outlet I'm aware of stopped covering the death of Brown to focus on the illegal arrests.

And "the" story isn't just about Mr. Brown's death. There's the story of Brown's alleged murder, and there's the separate story about the local police running roughshod over the rights of Ferguson's remaining citizens, including through the attempted silencing of reporters bearing witness to those actions.  Lack of accountability and injustice aen't limited to Mr. Brown, and holding Brown's killer(s) accountable won't end the injustice for Ferguson's citizens.  Given his political bent, it's no surprise that Dyldo wants to focus on a single event rather than a corrupt and bigoted system that can't be excused as the actions of one bad apple.

Messrs. Lowery and Reilly aren't in a war zone, but they exposed themselves to potentially lethal chemicals and a heavily-armed police department with blood on its hands in order to do their jobs.  And that's a far sight more heroic than blogging with one's pants around one's ankles while waiting to paraphrase Fox News's latest press release.  My guess is that had Dyldo ever done any real reporting in his career, he would've confessed to anything -- and evacuated his bowels -- the minute a police officer looked in his direction.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

1-900-SOT-MODO

Maureen Dowd "pays tribute" to Robin Williams in a column that cannot be called sober:
[Williams] was 42 then, wearing his Popeye outfit, a blue-striped T-shirt and black baggy jeans. Surrounded by kids, a rabbit and an iguana, we talked about everything from John Belushi to his father, a stern Ford Motor Company executive.

As our interview ended, I was telling him about my friend Michael Kelly’s idea for a 1-900 number, not one to call Asian beauties or Swedish babes, but where you’d have an amorous chat with a repressed Irish woman. Williams delightedly riffed on the caricature, playing the role of an older Irish woman answering the sex line in a brusque brogue, ordering a horny caller to go to the devil with his impure thoughts and disgusting desire.

I couldn’t wait to play the tape for Kelly, who doubled over in laughter.

So when I think of Williams, I think of Kelly. And when I think of Kelly, I think of Hillary, because Michael was the first American reporter to die in the Iraq invasion, and Hillary Clinton was one of the 29 Democratic senators who voted to authorize that baloney war.
Ms. Dowd appears to forget a couple of key points in her free hallucination association game.

Popeye didn't wear a blue striped shirt or black baggy jeans in that movie (nor in any other iteration), and Williams certainly wasn't sporting a costume from a movie filmed 13 years earlier.

More importantly, Dowd forgets that Michael Kelly was a cheerleader for the baloney war he died covering.  Witness "reporter" Kelly's writing on the invasion of Iraq:
We are in a position of triumph, and potentially much greater triumph. A few months ago, all was still in tatters. Hussein still defied with impunity, still ruled unchallenged over his torture state, still schemed to advance his dreams of himself as the atomic Saladin... The will of one man, George W. Bush, changed all this.
So Cheerleader Kelly didn't think of Senator Clinton when he thought of the baloney war.

MoDo continues:
It was obvious in real time that the Bush crew was arbitrarily switching countries, blaming 9/11 on Saddam so they’d get more vivid vengeance targets and a chance to shake up the Middle East chessboard, and that officials were shamelessly making up the threat as they went along.
Shame that MoDo didn't report on the obvious in real time, and left the field to the bloviating cheerleader. (Perhaps she demurred as a professional courtesy to Judy Fucking-Miller.) Equally a shame MoDo can't recall that Kelly was where he was when he died -- embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division -- precisely because his cheerleading was useful to the Administration and the Pentagon.

Secretary Clinton -- and Michael Kelly -- and many others share responsibility for the deaths of the American and allied soliders and the Iraqis who died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But Clinton bears no responsibility for the death of Cheerleader Kelly.

For the sake of Robin Williams' survivors, let's pray that MoDo's rememberance of Kelly doesn't lead her to show up shit-faced at Williams' funeral.

Update: Others have already made these points, including here and here (and, as to Kelly, back in 2013, on the 10th anniversary of Kelly's demise, as linked above).  Great minds think Dowd is a dishonest hack. 

As for Clinton's role, see tristero.

Monday, August 11, 2014

A Tea Party Champ Bears Arms

In March, I reported on self-identified Tea Party candidate Glenn Champ, who ran unsuccessfully for Governor of California.  The Champ for Governor website now welcomes visitors with this message:
And they thought they had Jesus nailed to the cross until the third day. He rose again. Now, it is apparent that California does not want any form of God.

So, please prepare yourself for the carnage that’s coming, from the wrath of Jesus the Christ.
Sometime after posting that message, Mr. Champ decided that Jesus the Christ was taking His own sweet time, and that would not do.
Champ and other property owners have been fighting over a paved road for the past few months. Witness Richard Norman says the ongoing fight escalated [last Thursday,] after Champ punctured the tires on a quad [all-terrain vehicle], sending the 13-year-old driver to call for his parents.
"The guy said, 'I'm (expletive) done with everything; I'm done with all the (expletive),' and ended up pulling out a gun and shooting John in the stomach," said Norman.
As they rushed to get the victim some help, witnesses say Champ continued to fire.
"I went to my car to hide behind the vehicles. I saw him shoot a few rounds into the pen," said Champ.
And those rounds struck and then killed a horse.
Authorities say Champ then took off. Tulare County Sheriff's deputies arrested him after a traffic stop near Goshen Friday morning.
Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims says the one-time gubernatorial candidate has an extensive criminal history dating back nearly 30 years. In 1998, Action News cameras were rolling when Champ pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
"The voluntary manslaughter charge resulted from a case in the Prather area where Champ ran over a competitor trash collector with his garbage truck," said Mims.
...
Deputies say because Champ is a registered felon, he should never have had a gun in his possession.
Champ faces a number of charges including attempted murder and animal cruelty. 
It goes without saying that the Godly Champ was also a registered sex offender.

It is possible that Mr. Champ may avoid justice. In the June gubernatorial primary, Champ got over 59,000 votes, "nearly 2 percent of the total votes."

ChiComs Invade Hollywood! Film at 10:40, 2:20, 6:00 and 9:40

I'm not a huge follower of wingnut film criticism, or other forms of drivel, so there may have been some spluttering about this I'm not aware of:
The White House is represented onscreen [in Transformers: Age of Extinction] by a sniveling fool, but where the last “Transformers” took a gratuitous swipe at Barack Obama, this time it’s the military-industrial complex that gets gashed. The bad guys are the CIA, who are killing the noble Autobots for the benefit of a corporation that wants to melt them down and turn them into commercial products, and the film’s major villain is a Dick Cheney-esque spymaster played by Kelsey Grammer, who is using the government to advance a secret corporate project that will earn him a fortune, cloaking his murderous agenda in appeals to national security.There’s nothing wrong with filmmakers either lionizing or lampooning U.S. institutions.
...

That’s what freedom of speech is all about. In “Age of Extinction,” though, satire ends at the water’s edge. As soon as the action shifts to Hong Kong, the outbreak of alien-engendered chaos is met by a sea captain ordering a call to “the central government” for help, and later China’s defense minister does a walk-and-talk, sternly and seriously vowing to defend Hong Kong. America’s government is portrayed either ridiculous or diabolical, but China’s is assured and effective.
Not coincidentally, “Age of Extinction” is considered an “officially assisted production,” made with help from Jiaflix Enterprises and official state broadcaster CCTV’s China Movie Channel, who ponied up for part of the budget and get a piece of the box office. No such deal gets struck in China without the consent and approval of the Beijing government and the Chinese Communist Party, and in this case, Paramount is in business with the Beijing regime directly, through CCTV.
Not surprisingly, the film is big in Beijing.

Generous soul that I am, I'd like to think that even wingnuts are smart enough to avoid a Michael Bay production. Or at least spent more of their formative years with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than with toy trucks.  Maybe they took pity on Kelsey Grammer, or gave it a pass based on Bay's history of wingnuttery and racism.  But I'm still amazed that the Keyboard Kommandos of Kulture have passed up such golden opportunity to fling their own feces at Steven Spielberg and Tinseltown.  

Wolverines my ass.

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Thanks, Frank!

Thanks to the Pontiff for filling in during my brief hiatus.  As always, his contributions are thoughtful, if not infallible.

You can catch Jorge Mario Bergoglio at his regular website and his Twitter feed.