Speculative Scoop

I'm guessing that Doug McKelway is the Daily Choler's Wankerman (this churlish dick). Or at least based on him.

You heard it here first.

p.s. Of course you've never heard of him. He writes for the Daily Choler.

Any Paladino Fucks a Palomino

In an effort to contrast their candidate with disgraced former Governor Elliot Spitzer, the New York Republican Party has nominated an animal enthusiast who will run under the slogan "Whores No; Horses -- Fuck Yeah!"

A Tea Party darling, Paladino reportedly sent an e-mail depicting a horse having sex with a woman and another that included a pornographic video and the headline "Miss France 2008 F[***]ing." He also reportedly sent out an e-mail depicting President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as a pimp and prostitute and one showing an airplane landing near black men with the caption "Holy Sh*t. run ni**ers, run!"

...

The Buffalo News reports that Paladino did not deny sending the e-mails at an event today. He called them "just another liberal Democrat blog smear."

There was an old man who swallowed a horse.

He's Republican candidate for Governor of New York — of course!

Update: Edited numerous times due to author's incompetency.

The Log Cabin Republicans Are About To Be Sued for Trademark Infringement

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay members of the military is unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled Thursday.

Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down the rule in an opinion issued late in the day. The policy was signed into law in 1993 as a compromise that would allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military.

The rule limits the military’s ability to ask about the sexual orientation of service members, and allows homosexuals to serve as long as they do not disclose their orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.

The plaintiffs, challenged the law under the Fifth and First Amendments to the Constitution, and Judge Phillips agreed.

“The don’t ask, don’t tell act infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members in many ways,” she wrote. “In order to justify the encroachment on these rights, defendants faced the burden at trial of showing the don’t ask, don’t tell act was necessary to significantly further the government’s important interests in military readiness and unit cohesion. Defendants failed to meet that burden.”

...

The suit was brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative gay organization. The group’s executive director, R. Clarke Cooper, pronounced himself “delighted” with the ruling, which he called “not just a win for Log Cabin Republican service members but all American service members.”

Naturally, B. Arthur Blatt has already enlisted in the military is attacking the ruling. And he'll keep on doing so unless and until Sarah Palin tells him to stand down.

Burn In The U.S.A.

Here's what we do. We get a carton of Bibles without the title on the book cover, stamp 'em "The Koran" in goldleaf on the front, and send 'em down to Reverend Jones and his flock.

Maybe a foreign language version, so they can't tell in case one of  the books is opened accidentally.

Will Jindal Endorse Vitter? Depends.

Jindal flip-flops on his support for prostitute enthusiast David Vitter:

UPDATE: Melissa Sellers, a spokeswoman for Jindal, tells CNN the governor meant to convey he has not weighed in on the race yet, but may do so in the future.

(CNN) - Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has finally answered a questioned asked of him for months: Will he endorse embattled Republican Sen. David Vitter's reelection bid?

The answer is no.

"Voters can make up their own minds," the Louisiana governor and fellow Republican told local television station WDSU.

Jindal added he doesn't like to get involved in federal races, though the station reports he has backed federal-office seekers in the past.

Ms. Sellers' explanation doesn't hold water. If Piyush had meant to say that he hadn't endorsed anyone yet, he would have said that. Don't piss on my leg and tell me that it's Senator Vitter, Bobby.

An Entire Career, Summarized

Christopher Ryan:

Wonderful as it would be if Ms. McArdle's opinion of our book were to change when/if she gets around to actually reading it, I'm not holding my breath because I don't think she's responding to the substance of the book at all; she's responding to what it makes her feel, which is something entirely different.

Yes. It's a paycheck.

Update: Ann Alchouse throws her morning wood onto Meeegan's bonfire of the inanities.

(Via Fire Meeegan via Sadly, Bonobo!)

How sleazy is Politico's Ben Smith?

Watch this:

A former aide to the McCain campaign got in touch with me this morning to cop to being the half-serious progenitor of a story which, embellished almost beyond recognition, appears in Vanity Fair's portrait today of Sarah Palin as monster.

Reports Vanity Fair:

Soon after her nomination, she brought up with McCain aides the subject of Bristol's out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Levi Johnston: "Would it be good for the campaign if they got married before the election?" she asked, and went on to wonder whether one weekend or another would be more advantageous for media coverage.

This anecdote first popped up in London's Sunday Times, a regular landing point for political anecdotes that the less credulous American press won't print without checking. From that story:

Inside John McCain's campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. "It would be fantastic," said a McCain insider. "You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week."

The fantastic quote — and perhaps the clue that this one hadn't quite risen to the levels of the principals — is the guarantee that Levi would show: "“It’s a shotgun wedding. She kills things,” the source joked.

Smith assumes that Vanity Fair's version is a mistelling -- an embellishment -- of the Times story. (Weigel makes the same bonehead mistake.) But the Vanity Fair story recounts a discussion in which Palin speaks to McCain aides, and the Times article quotes an "insider" speculating to the press, off the record. Smith offers no evidence that Vanity Fair account came from his anonymous source, or that the two articles were referring to the same event.

There's no reason both things couldn't have happened -- Sharia making her statement to McCain campaign staffers while an entirely different staffer (or the same staffer who didn't want to attribute the source of his or her idea) blabbed his or her insipid thoughts to the Times. It's not only possible, it's plausible.

I don't care whether either story is true. The significance of the matter is that it demonstrates that Smith is a Palin fluffer who's willing to make unwarranted assumptions and slime other reporters in support of a fellow right-wing Republican. As far as can be determined from Smith's article, Smith didn't contact Vanity Fair to determine its source(s); he didn't contact Palin; he didn't even confirm that his source was also the Vanity Fair source. He just assumed his ass off. Smith strapped on the half-term Gubernatorial knee-pads and phonied up a bullshit defense.

At Politicho, that's par for the course.

As Seen On A Milk Carton

Could someone in the Los Angeles area please check up on Mickey Kaus? We don't want another Yolanda Schlessinger scenario.

Update: The midget hack has been spotted on Twitter. So he's only Yolanda Schlessinger from the neck down.

The fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth finds a natural outlet for his abilities.

And the home of a lot of challengers for his title.

Finally someone speaks up for rightwing bloggers.

Elderly Teabagger Snark

When former Alaska governor Sarah Palin mentioned John McCain, Steve Richardson, 72, of Denver shouted, "John who?"

Richardson, who attended last year's 9/12 rally, said, "I just think McCain was a better airman than a politician."

Good one, Granddad!

el-Brent Bozell:

The pressure will only build for more and dirtier musical obscenity, just as almost every aspiring stand-up comedian finds it necessary to pepper his and her act with lots of curse words. Comedians can't just be funny as singers can't just sing.

What could be dirtier? Justin Bieber singing "Brent Bozell is a Syphilitic Cunt"?

I Are The Lord, Thou God

Not only is Beck's God not omniscient, It's illiterate:

Beck, who predicted that at least 100,000 people would show up, opened his comments with a joke: "I have just gotten word from the media that there is over 1,000 people here today."

Moron.

The B. Team

B. "Arthur" Blatt, your Freudian slip is showing:

In leading the War on Terror, W was the real enemies of gay people, those who threaten the lives of our fellows rather than those who attempt to block the state from granting us certain privileges.

Such as when W. threatened the lives of our fellows by blocking the state from granting patriotic men and women the right to serve in the military?

Read the post before Blatt does, changes it, and then denies changing it.

Of course, after he "corrects" it, it will still state that "those who attempt who attempt to block the state from granting us certain privileges" are not "the real enemies of gay people."

Wow. Ken Mehlman's gaydar is even worse than Arianna Huffington's.

A cynic might associate Mehlman's belated self-knowledge with a recent lack of Republican gigs.

I suspect he's more concerned about his secret Muslim identity: "Mehlman recently moved to Chelsea, a gay mecca in New York City."

In From The Back Door

For a Breitbart site it's a relatively small inaccuracy, but rather telling. Over at Big Girl's Blouse, Kristinne Taylor and Andrea Shea King "report" on a protest of an August 21 Jerry Brown fundraiser in Venice:

Also observing the scene was Andrew Breitbart, who was wearing inline skates, as well as prominent blogger Mickey Kaus of Slate, who heard the disturbance from his house across the street. He came out and observed, but did not join the protest.

Sadly, no. Kaus is no longer employed by Slate; the site has even removed Kausfiles from its blogroll.

You'd have thought Kaus' pal, Breitbart, would have corrected the error as soon as he got back from the roller disco and started scanning his sites for mentions of his own name.

Taylor and King may even be mistaken about the Kaus sighting, as Kaus hasn't blogged about the incident at his own moribund website. Surely Kaus' mad reporting skillz would have kicked in if such a momentous event happened so close to home that he wouldn't have to change into a clean sweatsuit to cover it.

Without Kaus' unique take on the event, readers are left with only this word picture from Taylor and King to memorialize the goings on:

Jerry Brown sneaked into the house from the back door while Melanie Morgan threw her body onto the sidewalk shouting, “Code Pink supports terrorists!” When not laying on the sidewalk, Morgan stood outside the back gate, “yelling through a screen at [Evans] while she sipped her white wine as Brown’s security guard watched from inside his SUV with the engine running for two hours.”

I feel sorry for the sidewalk.

(No link to Big Girl's Blouse.)

Fair Trade

Jimena Navarette for Mickey Kaus, Mark Krikorian, Kate O'Beirne and Peter Brimelow.

And Fonthip Watcharatrakul for the entire right-wing blogosphere.

Get A Room, Dan and Don

Just gonna stand there and hear me cry.

Don, that's pathetic even for someone like you. Please document when and where I have been asking you for links? If I hadn't seen your post, I'd have forgotten you existed. Man, that's pretty pathetic, dude. If you were mashed up in some broadly CC'd email I responded to who knows when, I never saw your name. And I know I don't approach you for links. So I guess your paper is cool with having poseurs and bald-faced liars on its paid staff? Shame on you, man. Produce the emails you are apparently referring to. Or, consider yourself called out as a pathetic liar.

That's all right, because I love the way you lie.

I thought better of it and removed it. Why stir things? This happened in minutes. Now Dan Riehl wants to raise a stink. Let him. The fact is he blew up at me in an email last November and then had the gall to send me some stuff to link. If he denies it, so be it. Readers know who he is by what he posts.

Bonus co-dependent comedy from Don: "As reader know, I am an editorial writer and columnist for the Charleston Daily Mail."

More Lies From Reason

How do you know when a libertarian is lying to you? When she uses symbols, orally or in writing, to communicate an idea.

Over at Libertarian Fonzie's diner, Tim Cavanaugh jocksniffs that a Los Angeles Times reporter is kicking sand in the eyes of an elderly bodybuilder:

So it's not Shane Goldmacher's opinion, just straight news, that the lame-duck governor of California is sending a "gubernatorial ransom note" and "holding the state hostage" in his budget negotiations, thus repeating a "shameful chapter in California's history" and alienating cooperative Democrats with his "ultimatums." It is furthermore objectively true that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing this not just from an honest desire to fix Sacramento's chronic budgeting problems but out of personal pique, that he is trying to retrofit a "fiscal system that has bedeviled California -- and him -- for years."

So what does the article actually say:

Some have likened his wish list to a gubernatorial ransom note, being used to polish his tarnished fiscal legacy.

"This is a governor that holds the state hostage," said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa). "How irresponsible is that?"

The effects of the budget impasse are cascading across California.

State worker furloughs resumed Friday, forcing Department of Motor Vehicles branches to reschedule more than 15,600 appointments so they could close that day and again next Friday. An emergency fund to pay health clinics that serve the poor has run dry; the final payments go out Monday.

And state Controller John Chiang has warned that IOUs could be as little as two weeks away, repeating last year's "shameful chapter of California history."

Schwarzenegger says his final budget is a last chance to fix the state.

"I have two choices as governor, especially since this is my last year," Schwarzenegger told a group of Bay Area business leaders this month. "Do I want to go and just make everyone happy and … go along with them, or do I want to go and, you know, wage this battle?"

Two of the five quotes that Cavanaugh characterizes as the reporter's opinion are actually quotes from Arnie's critics, and they are clearly labelled as such. A third is the reporter's accurate characterization of the opponents' position. The fourth is an accurate characterization of Arnie's position, and the fifth isn't critical of Arnie. Arnie himself is quoted at least four times in the piece, and another Republican is quoted as well. Nothing in the article suggests Arnie's mindset or motives for his actions (except to quote Arnie's claim that his motivations were not personal). Cavanaugh identifies nothing in the article which is false.

With dishonesty like this, Cavanaugh could take his droolbucket over to NewsBusters and make a decent living. I can't imagine that Reason could make a competitive counteroffer, no matter how popular racist pornographic DVDs are.

Now This Is Ironic

Moldo: Even More Ignorant Than Usual

The elderly op-ed embarassment has gone from pushing igornant opinions to displaying more prominently her ignorance of the facts.

Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Perfectly Unclear President: You cannot take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when, lo and behold, Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack. What is so frightening about Fox News?

Leaving aside the issue of whether Obama took back his original statement (the answer is no), Moldo fucks up the timeline like it's Leon Wieseltier's septum:

August 16, 2010

President Obama's staunchest ally in the Senate broke with the president today over the controversial Islamic center planned for a site near Ground Zero, and said he is opposed to its construction.

The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement saying, "The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else."

Reid's comments came just days after Obama told a White House gathering that Muslims had a right to build the mosque, and Republicans vowed to make the president's stand an issue in the November elections.

...

The president's statement on Friday that Muslims have a right to build an Islamic center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attack immediately prompted outraged reactions. The next day, Obama appeared to soften his stance by saying that he questioned the wisdom of the building the center so close to Ground Zero.

Moldo surely is no stranger to the concept of the lost weekend, but voluntary incapacity doesn't entitle one to her own facts. The New York Times badly needs to rehabilitate its opinion pages, even if they have to hire Dr. Drew Pinsky as an editor.

Later in her column, Moldo refers to Mayor Mike as a Republican. Perhaps her blackout began in 2007.

...except for Marty Peretz. Him, they couldn't give away.

Crazy Cat Lady Video

Campbell's Thick and Chunky

Ross Douchehat says:

The interplay of fertility, reproductive impulses and gender differences in heterosexual relationships is, for want of a better word, “thick.”

Heterosexual relationships are like Chunky Reese Witherspoon's ass. So thick you can eat them with a fork.

The "better" word that Douchehat wants to use is phallocentric -- as in this marriage is only big enough for one cock, and I'm the Dick.

But, really, who gives a fuck what Douchehat thinks? His wife surely didn't buy Ross's definition of thick -- given all the evidence to the contrary -- and neither will anyone else.

My beef here is with Ezra Klein's characterization of Douchehat:

And Ross Douthat, as humane and thoughtful a supporter of traditional marriage as you'll find....

If, by humble and thoughtful, you mean pompous and illogical.... The idea that Douthat's opposition to marriage equality is "support of traditional marriage" is laughable. The point is so obvious that it hardly needs repeating -- thoughtful supporters of heterosexual marriage can, and by definition do, support the rights of gay men and lesbians.

I'm agnostic on marriage, but I'm a holy roller on discrimination.

P.S. Yes, World-O-Crap was there first.

Zero At The Bonehead

Meegan McArdle does battle with the strawpersons inside her otherwise vacant skull:

I am hoping that at least one person will attempt to explain why we should support the mosque near Ground Zero, but not the gay bar next to the mosque near Ground Zero.

This from someone who desecrates "Ground Zero" by putting it on her resume. Sorry, Meegan, but no one wants to play in your delusional hollow head.

Marty Peretz is right. The Ground Zero mosque controversy is not about freedom of religion. Peretz is not arguing that Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque in New York City, only that they not be allowed to build a mosque in locations where the structure might cause anger or grief to Christians or Jews. Certainly that is not too much to ask. Peretz recognizes the need to protect Muslims from the “dark places” of distraught Christians and Jews. Ideally, Muslims could live in special areas of our cities where they could freely assemble and worship together, thus avoiding any First Amendment concerns. These places could be identified by high ceremonial walls, with towering wide gates symbolizing the openness of Western culture. Of course, Muslims would remain free to visit any parts of the city they choose, within reason. And to avoid misunderstanding and conflict, the Muslims can keep the Christians and Jews locked out of their enclaves during Ramadan, and themselves safely locked inside during Christmas and Passover.

What do you have against compromise?

Mickey Kaus, blogger without visible means of support, comments on the Obama marriage and Democratic Party campaign tactics.

If anyone's qualified to give advice about successful marriages and political campaigns, that person is more qualified than Kaus.

Kausfiles Buries The Lede

From M.K. Ultrahack's Twitter feed:

@NickBaumann I hope to get paid soon, but right now I'm between sites. Nobody's paying what they used to pay, that's for sure. Cheers

6:31 PM Aug 3rd via web in reply to NickBaumann

We wish Mr. Kaus all the best. Maybe a nice union job. Or he could show those overpaid, pampered public school teachers how it's done. A bidding war between The Atlantic and Human Events. Andrew Breitbart's Big Forehead. Roger L. Simon's care attendant. A fence. I'm just spitballing here....

The Long Con

The Alaskan Travelers continue to play the tabloids like a delusional masseuse:

In an emotional phone interview with PEOPLE, Palin spoke through tears about feeling heartbroken, humiliated and trapped – while Johnston acted cool. "There's been no remorse," she says, adding that she's seen him only once in the past three weeks.

"The final straw was him flying to Hollywood for what he told me was to see some hunting show but come to find out it was that music video mocking my family," she says. "He's just obsessed with the limelight and I got played."

"That music video"? How many are there? I just hope that they gave the starring roles to Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.

In response to this shocking development, the Queen of the Grifters flips off Phyllis Schlafly while humping Ronnie Reagan's shoe:

"I wish for Bristol to be able to move forward in life with her same forgiving, gracious, optimistic spirit, but from henceforth she'll know to trust but verify. Bristol is strong, she is independent, and she knows what is right for her son."

"From henceforth." You can't make this up.

Singe Along With Mitch

Mitch Miller, American patriot, passes at age 99.

Years later, in 1993, when David Koresh and members of his Branch Davidian cult were holed up in their compound in Waco, Tex., F.B.I. agents tried to flush them out by blasting “Sing Along With Mitch” Christmas carols.

It's heartwarming to think that the last thing the Libertarian Messiah heard before he died in the gasoline fire he set was a medley of "Tavern in the Town/Show Me the Way to Go Home." Or perhaps "Bell Bottom Trousers/Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends."

Shorter Wan Juilliams

Martin Luther King Holiday Causes Unnecessary Pain and Suffering to Klansmen

The Hard Bigotry of Apologizing for Hard Bigotry

The woman who vouched for Mel Gibson's feminist bona fides shows that her ability to judge character hasn't changed:

Andrew Breitbart is a wonderful man and an American patriot, and both of those qualities are on display in this Newsweek interview. "If I could do it all over again," he says, "I should have waited for the full video to get to me."

Admitting that you purposefully published something false without knowing all the facts isn't the best defense to a defamation action, but it's better than using a dimwit as a character witness.

Dick Van Dyke Is In Charge of the Death Panels, And Angela Lansbury Will Run the FEMA Camps

1965 was the year the Andy Griffith Show was first broadcast in color, although Mayberry wasn't integrated until 1967.

(Via Washington Monthly)

Sharia Law - Bad; Special Treatment for Fundies Who Kill Their Kids - Good

Newt Gingrich's most recent bedwetting about Sharia law provides a nice background to this ugly story:

OREGON CITY – An Oregon City couple will face charges of second-degree manslaughter in the faith-healing death of their newborn son, the third such fatality involving the Followers of Christ church in the past two years.

...

Their infant son was born in September, 2009, about six weeks premature. He weighed 3 pounds, 5 ounces and lived nine hours.

No one with medical training attended the birth, and no one called a doctor or ambulance. An autopsy determined the infant died of staph pneumonia and complications from a premature birth, including underdeveloped lungs.

The medical examiner noted the presence of a bacterial infection, which could have caused the amniotic sac to rupture, or the water to break as the event is commonly called.

...

"Mr. and Mrs. Hickman are presumed innocent," defense attorney Mark Cogan said. "The government has the burden of proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. We have not seen the evidence yet."

...

In 1999, the Legislature passed a law that eliminated religious protections in cases of second-degree manslaughter and first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment. The law left religious immunity in place for some other crimes but gave prosecutors more options for charging parents in such cases.

Here's the law:

Friday, July 23, 1999 ... House Bill 2494 passed 24-2 and heads to the desk of Gov. John Kitzhaber, who is expected to sign it.

HB2494 eliminates the spiritual healing defense against charges of second-degree manslaughter, first- and second-degree criminal mistreatment and nonpayment of child support.

In a key compromise, the bill eliminates the mandatory minimum 75-month prison sentence for second-degree manslaughter in faith-healing cases. The bill largely leaves the sentence up to the judge.

"We have a constitutional right to die for our religious convictions," said Sen. Peter Courtney, D-Salem, who carried the bill on the Senate floor. "We don't have a constitutional right to make our children do so."

As the parents' attorney states, these are just charges, and have yet to be proven. The parents may argue that their child would have died with medical treatment, that the ME's observations were wrong, etc. However, if they're convicted, and claim that they've already suffered enough, 75 months shouldn't be the half of it.

The point of this post is that this law gives preferential treatment to Christian fundamentalists(*), and it was enacted with overwhelming support in the state Legislature. While Newt blathers about the non-existent threat of Sharia law, he and his ilk aren't bothered by existing laws which have real consequences.

* Obviously, most fundies don't rely on faith healing, particularly when it's their own asses on line, or even for their children. But the exception to the law was written for a particular brand of Christian fundies.

This surprises me not at all.

What would surprise me is honest wingnuts linking to the story, and admitting they knew it was all bullshit from the beginning.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Swift Boat Veterans For Life Sentences Edition

Couldn't happen to a bigger pair of pricks:

Sam and Charles Wyly, billionaire Texas brothers who gained prominence spending millions of dollars on conservative political causes, committed fraud by using secret overseas accounts to generate more than $550 million in profit through illegal stock trades, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Thursday.

...

According to the SEC, the brothers, who live in Dallas, created an elaborate and clandestine network of accounts and companies on the Isle of Man and in the Cayman Islands. The brothers then used these accounts and companies to trade more than $750 million of stock in four public companies on whose boards they served, not filing the disclosures required for corporate insiders, the SEC said.

...

The SEC says that by using offshore accounts to trade shares of these public companies, the Wylys were able to escape filing the regulatory disclosures required of board members when they buy or sell shares.

By keeping their trading activity secret, the Wylys deprived outside investors of information they could use "to gauge the sentiment of public companies' insiders and large shareholders about the financial condition and prospects of those companies," the SEC said.

Wyly? Because we can get away with it when the Republicans are in charge.

The article mentions another fraud for which the Wylys were never prosecuted:

In 2004, the Wylys helped fund Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, another third-party organization that ran controversial television ads attacking the military record of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), Bush's Democratic opponent.

And the Wylys have a teabag connection:

Their biggest beneficiaries include three Texas Republicans, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions and former House Republican leader Richard K. Armey, according to the Center for Responsive Politics analysis. The Wylys also have given to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and many other members of the GOP.

The fake grassroots will be thinner than Dick Armey's real hair if the Wylys do time.

The Wylys deny all charges, saying they relied on the advice of attorneys. One of their attorneys is also charged in the scheme.

Refreshing

An admission against interest from Meegan McArdle:

I'm not a fan of tampering with large, complex systems that I don't really understand, which is why I tend not to support much direct government intervention in the economy....

Grand Old Police Blotter: BoBos in Solitary Confinement Edition

David Brooks used to wear a green Army jacket festooned with FDR buttons, albeit nowhere near an actual Army or war. He's since graduated to American flag finery.

DHB, which specialized in making body armor used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, paid for more than $6 million in personal expenses on behalf of Mr. [David] Brooks, covering items as expensive as luxury cars and as prosaic as party invitations, Ms. Schlegel testified.

Also included were university textbooks for his daughter, pornographic videos for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, a burial plot for his mother, prostitutes for his employees, and, for him, a $100,000 American-flag belt buckle encrusted with rubies, sapphires and diamonds.

The expense-account abuse, the prosecution has said, represented a pittance compared with the $190 million that Mr. Brooks and another top employee are accused of making through a stock fraud scheme in which he falsified information about his company’s performance — including significantly overstating the inventory of bulletproof vests — to inflate the price of the stock before selling his shares in 2004.

Okay, that's not really our BoBo. His interns have to pay for their own whores.

It's another neo-con man named David Brooks. And that David Brooks is a big supporter of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And that David Brooks isn't just a fraudulent scumbag and proud Republican, he's also an alleged war profiteer:

There have been questions about the vests produced by the company, similar to questions faced by others in the industry, regarding both the use of a material now known to become more permeable in high heat and the lack of protection provided to some vital areas. Those issues, however, are not related to the current case.

The good news?

Mr. Brooks, who his lawyers have said is in a "tenuous emotional state," has watched much of the proceedings with glassy eyes and a nervous demeanor.

Let's hope they confiscated that fancy belt.

Stuck in the 1980s

Slate's hiring of David Weigel demonstrates the e-zine's willingness to move into the present century. It's about time. Here's Hanna Rosin writing on Slate earlier this week, recalling some ancient history:

The abortion plot is another way in which this show [Friday Night Lights] is stuck in the 1980s or maybe the early 1990s. Those were the days when Christian conservatives used the school board bureaucracies to push their agenda, and Texas was ground zero.

Because nothing like that ever happens in the 2000s. Those Hollyweird screenwriters must be smoking crack.

Washington Post Co. Hires Fired Washington Post Co. Employee

A month ago, I wrote that

Now that WaPoCo has fired Wiegel, they can afford to pay Kaus again. Not that they should, but they surely will.

WaPoCo has now rehired Dave Weigel. Does this mean there's no money left for Kaus?

Meanwhile, we await with great anticipation the disclosure of Kaus' e-mail exchanges with Andrew Dimbart, Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge. Democracy! Transparency! Skeezy!

Kaus On Hand

Perhaps Mickey Kaus hasn't returned triumphantly to Slate because he's trying to pay off his campaign debt. On his blog, Kaus claims that, as of July 20, "the campaign still has a small (approx. $5,000) debt." And then nods his head in the direction of his begging bowl.

I'm sure those donations are rolling in.

According to the FEC website, the campaign reported on 6/30/10 a debt of $4,997, but cash on hand of $5,050. That was enough -- three weeks after the election -- for Kaus to retire his campaign debt and have two pizza parties with Meegan McArdle. Was the accounting incomplete, or did Kaus run up additional expenses after the primary? And what exactly were the $3,970 in office supplies that Kaus fronted the campaign? More transparency, please!

Referencing the spambots who are the last surviving visitors to kausfiles.com, one commentator quips, "Mickey, are you getting a cut of all knock-off Gucci bags sold via your site? That $5k debt will be finished in no time!"

Repair and Deduct

It seems like only yesterday tenants had all the rights, and landlords were only allowed to breathe air at their tenants' sufferance.

But yesterday's gone. Landlords now hold all the cards, and tenants can do nothing but twitter ineffectually about the unfairness of it all.

One would have thought that two economically savvy libertarians would have negotiated a lease that would have placed the risk of uninhabitability on the landlord. Maybe a nice liquidated damages clause, or a provision for payment of alternative living expenses in the event an indoor swimming pool is added without the tenants' consent. Something like that. I'd bet the landowner doesn't even have an MBA.

Except for the feelings of nostaligia, coming from family of intellectually intimidating academics doesn't help much when you're wading in sewage.

Tea Bag Trilogy

Over at Dan Abrams' pathetic Gawker knockoff, Mediaitie, Frances Martel writes that the filming of part one of a proposed Atlas Shrugged trilogy is bigger news than the firing of Shirley Sherrod following slanderous attacks on her by racist Andrew Dimbart. Martel implicitly posits that the fact that AS I is in production is more important than the production of any other movie, since the production of movies is never headline news.

Dig:

Whatever way we define Atlas Shrugged's place in the greater scheme of classic literature, its philosophy is at the cornerstone of the Tea Party movement, intentionally or not. Many of the ideas presented by the movement that seem a bit haphazard and arbitrary —- the initial calls for the return to the gold standard, the belief that extreme socialism could actually overtake the nation in ways similar to how it has previously abroad, the abhorrence of any government aid to the underprivileged -- align more coherently in the context of the book and the greater themes of Rand's philosophy.

Whatever that paragraph means, its incoherence is the cornerstone of Martel's shitty writing, intentionally or not.

But it gets worse:

Many who follow hard news were disillusioned with the fact that the media chose the Sherrod story over bigger national security and economic concerns, and while there is an argument to be made there, it is also unfair to ask the media not to cover, for lack of a better word, propaganda. Of more palpable, more specific concern here is that the media chose Breitbart's Sherrod propaganda story -- because race is a sexy thing to cover -- over Breitbart's story on the development of a sophisticated series of political films that can have a significant impact on the American right. Their eager participation in the Sherrod case does not fully exonerate Breitbart for his part in this fiasco, but it does emphasize how much the media and thus, the public, chooses to pass on interesting and potentially big stories to harp on issues that don't really matter.

As far as I can tell, Martel's beef is that the media covered something that did happen instead of something that might happen -- a film based on a right-wing novel might get made, it might be sophisticated, and if those things happen, the film could have a significant impact on teabaggers. Or maybe Martel is paying tribute to Ayn Rand by writing a long, incoherent and delusional fantasy.

More on Martel's background here, including an unconfirmed rumor that she attended college.

Guerra de los Mundos

The pants of some rightwing bloggers have passed the piss saturation point, as their prayers for a race war go unanswered:

Local law enforcement was bombarded with calls from across the country Saturday asking about a report that the Zetas had taken over two ranches off Mines Road.

But officials with the Laredo Police Department, Webb County Sheriff’s Department and Border Patrol said they knew nothing about such an incident, while Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, said the agency does not comment on rumors.

The report, which spread like wildfire among blogs Saturday afternoon, appears to have initially been posted on a blog called Diggers Realm.

The blogger wrote that he got a tip from a San Diego, Calif., minuteman named Jeff Schwilk, who said that the Zetas, former enforcers of the Gulf Cartel, had crossed into the United States and taken over two ranches off Mines Road, about 10 miles northwest of Interstate 35.

...


But Investigator Jose E. Baeza, LPD spokesman, said he had not heard anything about the incident. Also, an LPD sergeant, who was on duty as a watch commander Saturday afternoon, said she had not heard anything about it either.

It should be interesting to see which wingnut blogger makes the biggest ass of him or herself swallowing this rumor.

A good reason to hate some of the media.

Has the Daily News always been such a cesspool?

Deep Thoughts From A Dick

Yesterday I asserted that Andrew had made a mistake and owed Shirley Sherrod an apology. Whether I am right or wrong about that, I also think he is right to withhold it under the circumstances.

...

With the hounds baying, Andrew deserves the support of conservatives in his struggle with the Democrat-Media complex.

Imagine having to deal with the author of these simperings in "real life." The author of these words has no moral conviction and no concept of integrity. And no spine.

Meet Your Conservative Media

From the man that Howard Kurtz bragged about bringing to television:

When it seemed that Sherrod was a racist who abused her power, exposing her and the NAACP's hypocrisy was perfectly fair game. But now that we have the benefit of knowing the facts, the equation is completely different.

(No link to the scumbag.)

Glenn Beck Fakes Eye Problems

Doctor, my eyes have seen for years
And they've faked a lot of tears
I was lying
Now you have to understand
I have done all that I can
To be pure evil
Smear the good
My fat face smiling
You must help me
I can pay

Doctor, my eyes
I realize I was wrong
It was unwise
To blow smoke assward for so long

'Cause I polluted this whole world
As each slander I unfurled
And I pimped some gold fraud schemes
People swallowing my swill
I never gave a shit until
I started squinting
Karma sucks
Or so it seems

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
"Not a blind man on teevee"

Doctor, my eyes
I cannot see
Or spell
Is this my prize
Or just ironic as all hell

Instacracker's Heroes

Here's a right-wing activist that Glenn Reynolds might hehndorse -- one who was "armed, both intellectually and especially with guns."

OAKLAND, Calif. – A California man known for his anger over left-leaning politics said after a freeway shootout with CHP officers that he had been planning an attack on the ACLU and another nonprofit group, police said Tuesday.

Byron Williams, 45, a parolee with two previous bank robbery convictions, wanted to "start a revolution" by killing people at the American Civil Liberties Union and Tides Foundation, both in San Francisco, Oakland police Sgt. Michael Weisenberg said in court documents.

The FBI joined the case after a binder entitled "California" was discovered in the truck driven by Williams and removed by a bomb squad robot, CHP spokesman Sam Morgan said.

...

Officer Jeff Thomason, an Oakland police spokesman, said the two nonprofit groups were targeted because of their political ideologies. The ACLU is a civil rights group, while the Tides Foundation says on its website that it works to advance progressive social change.

"It's an unbelievable incident," Thomason said, adding that authorities believe Williams was acting alone. "We're very fortunate in the Bay Area that the CHP was able to stop him."

...

Williams was wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with three guns, including a rifle, as he traveled to San Francisco late Saturday night in his mother's Toyota Tundra, police said. He is accused of opening fire on California Highway Patrol officers who approached his truck after pulling him over for speeding and weaving in traffic.

Williams surrendered and was arrested after a 12-minute gunbattle with 12 officers, most of whom responded as Williams reloaded several times, police said. Morgan said about 150 rounds were fired during shootout.

Williams had "made a decision that he would not be arrested and that he was willing to shoot and kill the officers," according to the probable cause statement filed in court.

Another website reports that "[i]n addition to his job woes, Byron was extremely upset over the U.S. political climate, often ranting at the TV about how his rights were being taken away by the government." I hate to inform you, By, but Fox and Friends aren't really your friends. It's just a marketing ploy.

Sack Vilsack

NAACP calls on Teabaggers to expel racists from their ranks; Teabaggers expel a racist from their ranks.

That's what I call success.

Now why is there a debate, again?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The All-Star Game

If CPAC or the Tea Party Express or the RedState FurriesFest could find just one blogger with the abilities of any member this panel, they'd still suck. These people are geniuses.

And Roy's Cher is pitch-perfect.

Shorter Barney Frank

"I knew prostitutes. Prostitutes were my friends. Senator, these women don't look like any prostutites I knew."

I'm Sure You Haven't, Mickey

Mickey the K is back from a well-deserved 10 day vacation, and he's stating the obvious:

I haven't heard of a lot of sympathy for low-wage illegals among lower-skilled or unemployed black workers. ...

I haven't heard much enthusiasm among Slate's editors for giving Kaus his old job back. Surely that means that Kaus' base isn't interested in publishing Kaus' insipid musings on Dick Morris' drippings, and not that I don't know any of Slate's editors, or how they think.

Goats Go To Hell

What happened to Mickey Kaus? He's still blogging at his fake campaign website blog, or he was nine days ago. His comments section infested with spammers and teabaggers.

Has the Washington Post Company made an economically and journalistically sound decision in deciding not to rehire Kaus? Is Kaus living off the largesse of his campaign supporters? If all else fails, I'm sure Andy Dimbart can find some sort of position for Mickey.

Shorter Nick Pistoff

"Let's you and him fight, by which I mean let's you let him beat your ass senseless."

And, in the Great White Tourist's fantasy, the "you" are all women.

MoDoin' Is Easy

His decision came after he consulted with his mom and formed a hoops cartel with his pals Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. It's usually women who get accused of needing to go places (restaurant bathrooms) together.

And before she passed out, she started to type:

The next thing you know, the three LeBronte sisters will have their periods together, even though a basketball game is divided into quarters and a hockey match has periods.

Markos Twain

Wingnuts have a new old reason to hate Mark Twain, beyond the unfairness of the fact that he can say nigger and they can't:

Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld.

“From the first, second, third and fourth editions all sound and sane expressions of opinion must be left out,” Twain instructed them in 1906. “There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and see.”

...

Twain’s opposition to incipient imperialism and American military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines, for example, were well known even in his own time. But the uncensored autobiography makes it clear that those feelings ran very deep and includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers.

In a passage removed by Paine, Twain excoriates “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and Gen. Leonard Wood’s “mephitic record” as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, Twain refers to American troops as “our uniformed assassins” and describes their killing of “six hundred helpless and weaponless savages” as “a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory.”

Of course, Twain's views on war and imperialism, if not these particular passages, were and are well known. And wingnuts happily and freely criticize wars they don't like, and American soliders who don't toe the wingnut line. (See, e.g., Northern Aggression, War of (1861-2010) and Kerry, John, war crimes of.) So the author of the article quoted above is giving wingnuts undeserved credit for intellectual consistency. They'll hate Twain because he's not the wordsmith Glenn Beck and Orson S. Card are.

Citizens United Meets McDonald v. Chicago

Headline from the msnbc.com front page:

Should BP nuke the leaking well?

Everybody Smokes In Hell

The wingnuts are pretending to wrestle with the moral dilemma of whether to pray for Chris Hitchens, their ally in conspicuous hatred of Islamic fundamentalists and Bill Clinton's dong. The 'nuts aren't specific as to whether they are praying for Chris' recovery from esophageal cancer or his willingness to accept the Lord Jesus as his personal saviour before he snuffs it.
Of course, Chris would say these people are fools.

Hitchens's next book, he says, will be about the Ten Commandments.

"There's a loophole in everything," Hitchens says. "You can always fool God. Many is the Muslim who says, 'We can't have wine. Would you like a glass of ]?' I think religion is theology with the questions left out."

Meanwhile, Hitch appears to be fooling himself on the question of whether he actually quit smoking. If only he had listened to Nanny Bloomberg.

Hitchens has managed to pack a lot of living into his time so far, as well he should, since he knows there's no pie in the sky by and by. And his diagnosis may allow him the opportunity to come out of his shell and tell us what he really thinks.

(Title stolen from John Ridley)

Howard Kurtz, Patient Zero

In the course of beating off charges by a Politico writer that Reliable Sources is the Hair Club for Beltway hacks, Howad Kurtz sing-songed that the greatest proof of his show's diversity is that

"No one else was putting Jonah Goldberg on the air when we started booking him years ago."

(See clip at 42 seconds in)

And now, years later, Fox News and the Fox Business Channel will point a camera at the 'Load when the bottom of the barrel has been sucked dry and inspected with a microscope to make sure no one else has been overlooked.

Kurtz is correct that Reliable Sources isn't limited to Beltway insiders -- it features hacks from both coasts of the United States who will suck up to Howad. The club is open to anyone willing to ignore Kurtz's glaring conflicts and pretend he is an honest broker. The fact that Kurtz thinks his crowning accomplishment is infecting the airwaves with a dissembling wingnut who owes his career to Beltway incest is only further proof that Kurtz isn't fit to line a birdcage.

Will Glenn Reynolds be the first American to apply for an Iranian sex tourist visa?

EXCLUSIVE: Moonie Times Prepares To Sack Hacks as Calls to Fire Illiterate Headline Writers Grow

EXCLUSIVE: GOP prepares as calls for Steele's resignation grows

More remedial English, less tossing off into the holy handkerchief, guys.

Know who would make a good RNC Chairman?

Erick Erickson.

B.U. Hoo

The main problem with Beck University is its zero tolerance alcohol policy.

The founder of B.U. is a drunk who can tolerate zero alcohol, and suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome because of his drinking.

And what's a university without drinking? Surely no one goes to Beck U. to get laid.

Tourist Season

K-Lo's pen pal takes a two-week tour of Old Europe, and runs into a bunch of his fellow Americans:

My friend and I went all over the place, exploring the greatest cities of Western Civilization, and while inspiring, I was also troubled by what I saw. The cathedrals, some of the most magnificent buildings I have ever seen and that I would be in awe to worship in every day, were largely empty, while the sex shops and government bureaucracy buildings were teeming with people.

You'd've thought sharia law had taken care of all that.

The Fourth of July

The world's most famous illiterate editor writes:

Independence Day [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

What is everyone doing (besides reading Rich's column)? Please e-mail — especially if you're in the military or otherwise serving, someone.

I hope you get to enjoy the weekend.

K-Lo is, of course, watching the 24-hour The Patriot marathon on TNT and FedEXing cans of lighter fluid to Mel Gibson.

The Invisible Plane Is Now A Shapeshifting Prius

I wonder what Warner Fred Flintstone will say about this:

Given the hope that the character will one day have her own international film franchise (a feature has long been gestating at Warner Entertainment, DC's parent company), one test of the design was to imagine how it would look standing next to, say, Batman’s politically neutral ensemble. "The original costume was the American flag brought to life," Mr. Lee said. "This one is a little more universal."

Warner went crazier when G.I. Joe refused to waterboard the Hadji Singh action figure, and when Captain America dissed the teabaggers. This might really set him off, though I doubt he plays much with female dolls.

And this might be a little too Biblical for the fundies:

In the reimagining of her story, Wonder Woman, instead of growing up on Paradise Island with her mother, Queen Hippolyta, and her Amazon sisters, is smuggled out as a baby when unknown forces destroy her home and slaughter its inhabitants.

No word on which way Ms. Prince's lariat swings this time.

Hey Hey

Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, participates in the Chicago Pride Parade.

Banks rode in a convertible with the Ricketts family, who bought the Cubs last fall and who made the team’s first official appearance in the parade.

Banks said he participated for the first time at the Ricketts’ behest and to thank the neighborhood Cubs fans.

"I know the area — Boystown — and they've all been very nice and friendly with me," Banks said. "I want to show that I have compassion for them.

"They know the game and have great respect for the players," he said.

The word compassion sounds a bit off in this context. But Ernie Banks was himself a victim of discrimination, having played the first part of his career in the Negro Leagues. And we all should be more compassionate.

Thoughts on The Weigel/Journolist Controversy

(My thoughts, in case you were wondering whose they were.)

1. Weigel shouldn't be surprised that statements he posted to the Journolist listserv were shared with non-members. In 2009, someone from the list shared postings with Mickey Fucking Kaus, for fuck's sake. It would be absurd to think that communications among the group would not reach the inboxes of bitter hacks such as Kaus, Tucker Faye Carlson and Jeffrey Goldberg.

2. Nothing Weigel wrote was particularly scathing or outrageous. Bryon York, Drudge, Big Pharma, etc. are deserving of far worse ribbing than anything Weigel wrote about them.

3. Nor was much of it particularly liberal. Weigel is a libertarian who didn't pretend that morons weren't morons for the sake of the team That job is already taken by Dr. and Mrs. Instracracker.

4. Now that WaPoCo has fired Wiegel, they can afford to pay Kaus again. Not that they should, but they surely will.

5. I don't know anything about the Journolist -- being neither a mover, a shaker or a midnight toker -- and don't much care. But how hard could it be to find out who the leaker(s) is/are? Eliminate everyone who doesn't think that leakees Kaus, Carlson and Goldberg are schmucks, and you've got a narrow field. I suppose the leaker could be someone who was silent on the schmuck question, or even someone who thinks they're schmucks but hates Klein/Weigel even more. But it's a good starting point.

6. Howard Kurtz is still a fucking right-wing hack. Writes Kurtz:

This is not the first time that washingtonpost.com has had problems covering the right. In 2006, conservative blogger Ben Domenech resigned three days after his debut, following a flurry of plagiarism allegations involving his previous work.

Allegations? Box Turtle Ben got caught redstate-handed, and lied about it. And Domenech wasn't "a problem covering the right," he was problem of the right.

7. Bottom line: WaPoCo is free to do whatever it likes with its dwindling resources and its dwindled credibility. Maybe they can clone Kurtz and Milbank and Gerson and Sally Quinn and Chas. Lane, who don't pretend (or succesfully pretend) to be reporters. Just makes my "job" easier.

Palin/McChrystal '12.

You will be reading that (somewhere other than here) in the next 24 minutes. It will be the leading wingnut wet dream by this time tomorrow.

What Is The Sound of One Hand Fapping?

im not listening to huey lewis and the news but i wouldnt mind if i were

Priests Are Fathers Too

K-Lo tweets twice: Priests are Fathers too

Why, yes, Kathryn, they are:

NEW YORK — A Mexican man said Monday he is the son of the founder of a once-influential Roman Catholic religious order, and accused his father of repeatedly molesting him.

In a lawsuit, Jose Raul Gonzalez, 30, accused the late Rev. Marcial Maciel of abuse beginning at age 7. Gonzalez said Maciel led a double life, explaining his long absences from the family by saying he was a CIA agent and oil executive.

Despite the power the Legionaries of Christ once held with Vatican officials, the Holy See recently concluded that Maciel, the order's founder, led a life that was "devoid of any scruples" and included molesting young boys.

Gonzalez said the abuse began when Maciel took him on trips in South America, England and elsewhere. Leaders of the Legion knew for decades that Maciel was a pedophile and did nothing to stop him, Gonzalez said in his legal claim against the group.

"He always said to us that he was an enemy of the lies, but he was the most liar, the biggest liar," said Gonzalez, at a news conference with his attorney, Jeff Anderson.

Jim Fair, a U.S. spokesman for the Legion, said he could not comment on the lawsuit, but Fair noted that the Legion has said that Gonzalez' paternity claim "apparently was true."

It would be a very good idea to keep minors off the National Review Cruise.

Nice Deep Sea Oil Platform You Have There, Miss. Be A Shame If Something Happened To It

I see your Native American genocide, Roy, and call you: Obama raped B.P. while shaking it down:

Let me be clear about something - BP must pay. They've created an environmental disaster (sorry, Mr. President, but it's probably not the biggest in American history - look up the dust bowl sometime) that will probably devastate economic and natural life in the Gulf of Mexico for years and years. I don't think $20 billion plus clean-up costs is too much to demand. It might in fact be too little. If BP cut corners on safety and if the cut corners greatly increased the probability of this disaster, it deserves every legal penalty we can throw at it. But let's not forget that a prostitute can be raped, church-going family men can commit rape, and you're more likely to get away with rape if everyone thinks the victim deserves it. A corporate vandal can be shaken down, our saintly president can probably manage a pretty good shakedown, and he's likely to get away with it if everyone thinks the victim deserves it.

Well played, James! You would make sweet, sweet love to BP while collecting its cash, whereas Obama is simply a cad and a brute who doesn't respect our Anglo cwhoreperations!

FOX News has just placed you into its speed dial. But you've got to add race hustler and poverty pimp to your repertoire if you want a spot on prime time.

Crazy Inspector General's Frivolous Lawsuit Tossed

Here's further proof that Gerald Walpin was unqualified to serve as Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service -- his frivolous lawsuit against the United States was tossed by a U.S. District Judge.

In due course, we will learn that a U.S. Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court are in on the conspiracy against Mr. Walpin, at least if we keep our subscriptions to Wingnut News Daily and the Moonie Times current.

What do you call an oil company executive with no arms and no legs floating in the Gulf of Mexico?

If you needed additional evidence that Ross "Chunky John Witherspoon" Douthat is a pompous smarmy git, behold:

Like most English-speaking scribes, I’ve spent the last few weeks dipping in and out of Christopher Hitchens’ memoir, “Hitch-22.”

Really, Ross? Most English-speaking scribes have spent the last few weeks dipping in and out of Hitch's book? A preponderance of Anglophonic scribes? You're "dipping in and out of" a book?

Try this: "I've been reading Christopher Hitchens' book ...." Your ideas are asinine enough; don't write like an ass too.

Blah Law Blog

Can you stand to watch Instacracker's bowl haircut and Mickey Kaus in the same video? If not, don't click here.

I watched a bit of this meeting of the mindless. In it, Kaus claims he's meeting with the poobahs who run Slate to see if he can get his old job back. (wink, wink) Of course, Slate directed readers to the Kausfiles site throughout the entire Kaus "campaign," so they're fooling nobody. Kaus also claims he's trying to negotiate a better deal, although he has admitted elsewhere that his traffic is down to a third of what it was before he "left" Slate. So if WaPoCo agrees to pay him anything more than 30K a year upon his "return," his status as a wingnut welfare queen is confirmed.

Kaus also muses about becoming a law professor, and he appears to be serious -- and unusually ambitious, since he couldn't even muster a single blog post most of the days of his campaign. But he did attend law school nearly 40 years ago and clerked for a California appellate judge. Perhaps Harvard can create an Anti-Labor Law class for him, or an advisory position at an Immigrants Have No Rights Clinic.

To be fair, Kaus probably figured the job requires no legal skills or intelligence, given the continued employment of Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, Hugh Hewitt, S. Bainbridge and that schmuck from Legal In-Erection. But it's hard to imagine a law school where Kaus' talents would be truly appreciated, apart from Regent University.

Flotillas We Wouldn't Mind Seeing Boarded by the IDF

This must be some kind of inside wingnut joke. NRO has a side banner ad titled "27 REASONS TO COME ON THE NR 2010 POST-ELECTION CRUISE." The ad then lists 28 names, the last of which is "Kaj Relwof." Kaj Relwof doesn't appear to be a person's name, or anything else, according to Google. So it makes no sense, as a joke or otherwise.

Kaj Relwof is an anagram of Jerk A Wolf, so maybe participants get to give W. Issac Blitzer a handjob.

The 24 of the other 27 guests of honor are men; the only women are Phyllis Schlafly, K-Lo and K-O'B. Not exactly a swingers' cruise, unless you, Bernard Lewis, Bernard Goldberg and Roger Kimball is your fantasy four-way.

Query

Does Instacracker tip Doctor Helen when she puts the colander on his head and whips out the Flowbee?

(Yes, this really is a comment but I always have trouble logging in at TBogg.)

BattereBay

What's the difference between Bob Etheridge and Meg Whitman? The alleged payoff, for one thing:

In June 2007, an eBay employee claimed that Ms. Whitman became angry and forcefully pushed her in an executive conference room at eBay’s headquarters, according to multiple former eBay employees with knowledge of the incident. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter was delicate and was deemed to be strictly confidential.

The employee, Young Mi Kim, was preparing Ms. Whitman for a news media interview that day. Ms. Kim, who was not injured in the incident, hired a lawyer and threatened a lawsuit, but the dispute was resolved under the supervision of a private mediator.

Two of the former employees said the company paid a six-figure financial settlement to Ms. Kim, which one of them characterized as "around $200,000."

In Ms. Hitman's defense, I'd be constantly pissed off if my business was selling people's used crap. I'd be even more pissed as a shareholder whose money was used to protect a lunatic CEO.

Meegan

But is there enough lithium in Afghanistan to cure the G.O.P.?

Kausmortem

Mickey Kaus still hasn't returned to Slate, perhaps to make it look it like that wasn't the plan all along.

On his campaign site, Kaus is trumpeting that he vote total has now increased to over 100,000, with late counted ballots added to the total (presumably provisional ballots). He neglects to mention that his percentage of the vote remained exactly the same.

Kaus also mentions that he was annoyed when asked if his campaign was fun, pecksniffing that his campaign was a noble cause and that he was trying to make a difference by pissing on the working class. One of Kaus' kommentors claims to be "in awe of your courage," which would be the courage to milk suckers and spend their money on house parties for his friends and vanity videos.

As Kaus says elsewhere on his site, he cannot now run as an independent, having lost the Dem primary. He could, however, run as a write-in, and I'm not sure he couldn't run as a TP candidate.

We're still waiting for Kaus to announce the winner of his You Tube Video Challenge, which I suspect had no entries because I didn't submit this.

I thought I'd caught World Cup fever, but it's just a kidney infection.

A Perfect 115

This could be really good as an audiobook with the main characters voiced by Beck and Sharia Plain soundalikes. I think I'll go to the library on June 15 and berate the librarian if she/he doesn't have my copy waiting for me.

Ass 'Leker

James Lileks, the "humorist" whose forehead resembles a human ass, only larger, tells a tall tale in which his daughter comes across the President using the word "ass." Lileks bemoans the fact that Obama said ass in public, whereas more statesmenlike solons only spoke ass in private. Lileks simpers that "[i]t will now be difficult to tell her not to use that word."

The problem with this fairy tale is that Lileks has used "ass" in the same context hundreds of times on his own shitty website. Apparently Lileks' frequent use of the word in a public forum doesn't make it difficult to instruct his offspring; it's only when Barry X uses the noun that Lileks struggles as a parent.

Lileks seems the kind of oblivious asshole who doesn't recognize when he engages in the kind of activities he criticizes others for. No doubt Lileks rages against Obama because he's popular and intelligent and has kicked the ass of many a terrorist who's caused Lileks to soil his own ass. And that kind of rage can make one stupider than one already is.

(Tip o' the ass to roy edroso.)

Hugh Hewitt Has Nothing to Worry About

Don't worry Noel. If anything, she charged them to the RNC.

(via S, N!)

Which Way, M.K.?

Mickey Kaus's next move?

a. Return to Slate job he never really left, to live off WaPo Wingnut Welfare until age 67.

b. Return to Slate job at one-third salary based on revelation as to how much traffic Kaus was actually generating for Slate.

c. Blog independently; move into debating partner after income fails to cover rent.

d. Run as Tea Party candidate, identified on ballot as Mickey "Mickey" "I SAID, MICKEY!" Kaus.

e. Become Republican after Democratic Party says, "Yes, we left you. Now get the fuck out!"

f. Lengthy hospitalization after mother sends union thugs to get her Volvo back.

How to Be A Libertarian Asshole

J. Bowen said...

I was at the library today to print something and there was some old guy at the counter yelling at the lady because the library didn't have a copy of  [The Road to Serfdom] even though Glenn Beck was advertising it. It was disturbing and hilarious at the same time.

3:32 PM, June 09, 2010

["Doctor"] Helen said...

J. Bowen,

It's a classic, they should have it in the library. Good for the guy for yelling. I bet they have all of Toni Morrison's books.

3:39 PM, June 09, 2010

The librarian probably belted the guy too, since she was a woman.

(Edited to include the punchline -- D'oh! -- the title of the book)

So who bankrolled the Kaus Kampaign? Looks like mainly white collar white folks with money burning holes in their pockets. Notable Kaus Kampaigners including Mike Kinsley, John Ellis (formerly of FOX), Heather McDonald and Mrs. Doughy Pantload. Not a lot of real Democrats in that crowd.

Gadfly vs. Gadfly

How significant is Kaus's vote total?

Kaus claims he garnered more than 100,000 votes, although the Secretary of State's website lists his total as 94,000.

Dr. Orly Taitz won 372,000 votes in the Republican primary race for Secretary of State. She also lost.

Kaus: 1/4th as popular as a birther.

Update (two minutes later): TS beat me to it. Damn! And Weigel and Alex Pareene too!

Kaus Fails

With 10.6 percent of precincts reporting, the Hairless Hack is managing to hold on to third place in the California Senate contest, garnering close to 1/3 of the votes of the second place candidate, Brian "Producer to the Stars" Quintana has captured.

Barbara Boxer 367,955 79.2%
Robert M. "Mickey" Kaus 24,381 5.2%
Brian Quintana 72,673 15.6%

Perhaps Kaus can get Mr. Quintana kicked out of the country -- or at least Barney's Beanery -- and claim victory.

We can assume from these results that three times as many California Democrats hate Jon Peters as hate unions and immigrants.

Don't Tell Arizona

The National Spelling Bee has foreigners in it!

p.s. -- I correctly spelled 25 on the sample test, including the incredibly dorktastic Round 2 and 3 words, which was not good enough to enter the semi-finals and constitute begging for a wedgie. At age 10, I probably would have scored a 3.

Blog Whoring

Los Angelenos are more fucked up than anyone ever imagined:

"FOR a solitary blogger, Mickey Kaus is astonishingly social and well connected: It's difficult to find a writer or politico in Los Angeles who hasn't knocked boots (or opinions) with Mr. Kaus at a party, or at the monthly mixers he hosts at Yamashiro restaurant and a supper club jokingly called Morons." (Link added)

After next Tuesday, the constant stream of undeserved puffers from the EMESSEM will end, and Kaus will stink up Slate.com (the job he never really quit) once again. Everyone will stop pretending that Kaus was "trying to reach a new audience" by holding house parties at his friends' fabulous homes and appearing on wingnut radio programs like the Depends Media Political Comedy Hour. No one will care that Kaus never tried to reach Democratic voters beyond those in his members-only swingers' club, and never sought to lower himself by engaging with, or speaking to, actual union members, teachers or immigrant rights supporters. It was all just a kabuki cocktail circle jerk for fat and self-satisfied elites, starting (sic) with the candidate himself, who never encountered a problem they couldn't blame on the help.

Polls open Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. and stay open until 8:00 p.m. Cast your vote. You may never enjoy an election more than this one.

Rock and Roll Will Never Die

As long as there are people with full-time jobs and social obligations (or medical appointments!) who are too lazy to figure out ad software and are content to publish lame gags with lots of swear words, there will always be an amateur blogosphere.

Catch the Spit

Aging hippies sic their shysters on a creepy racist:

Lawyers representing Canadian rockers Rush have ordered an American politician to stop using their music as part of his Senate campaign.

The musicians are said to have been left fuming after discovering Kentucky's Republican candidate Rand Paul had been using their tracks during public events and in online adverts as he seeks election to office.

Robert Farmer, an attorney for the band's Entertainment Group Inc. record label, has written to Paul's campaign officials claiming the use of Rush's music violates copyright laws, according to Courier-journal.com.

Rand Paul: rights for me, but not for African-Americans or Canadian hippies who can't even get their name spelled right in the fucking Toronto Sun!.

More on Rush and Rand here. (I see Chait linked to this in April, but I found it independently.)

Wankerman

Tucker Carlson's giant sinkhole, the Daily Choler, is running columns written under the nom de wingnut "Anchorman." These missives are written by someone pretending to be "a well-known news anchor from a top-10, big city station." The columns invariably involve Anchorman snivelling about how liberal the news business is, and how he would lose his job if secret wingnut identity was disclosed.

The Daily Choler promised Anchorman complete anonymity by agreeing to publish him on the Daily Choler website.

In publishing the most recent of these pieces, the Daily Choler forget they were pretending that the author was a local anchor and titled his column "Anchor accuses own network of 'embarrassing' bias in Israel coverage." But the premise of the column was that Wankerman was writing a memo to his own boss about what appeared on his local station's 5 p.m. newscast. (The headline duped some of the duller dullards.)

It's clear that Wankerman is a fictitious character. Because most of the time, his patrons forget to pretend they're keeping his "identity" secret.

For example, the Choler claims Wankerman is a well-known talking wigstand in a top ten teevee market. Wanker stated in a recent column that he drove home from the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Only four of the top ten markets are on the East Coast: New York, D.C., Boston and Philly. It's highly doubtful that even a Wanker would drive home from D.C. to New York or Boston, particularly if he had to anchor the Sunday morning station i.d.'s between Hair Club infomercials.

In another column, the Wanker shows a bigoted fascination with two D.C. murder cases. Doubt those got much play in NYC/Boston/Philly.

Wanker also claims he "anchored a No. 1 rated 10 p.m. newscast in the Midwest in the mid-1980's," meaning that the character would have had to been working in teevee for at least 25 years.

And so on. It wouldn't be hard to identify Wankerman if he was a real person, rather than one of Tucker Faye Carlson's unpaid interns pretending to be an elderly reactionary who cribs column ideas from Mallard Fillmore and Free Republic. Tucker should give up the gag and admit the closet case anchor is a fake.

Kaus Hires Ruth Shalit as Ad Director

From Kausfails:

We have our first TV ad, which you can see here. .... Press release here. ... It's based on a classic Paul Wellstone spot (done by North Woods Advertising). ...

Kaus still can't come up with an original idea. Maybe if he stole Wellstone's policies and not his advertisements he'd crack the .0001% voter support ceiling.

Bonus Kaus Komedy: "We're going to win on truth." So if you lose, it's because of your lies, Mickey?