Random Picture of The Day

To the city mayors, the corporatists, the thieves on Wall Street and the wingnut yahoos on the comments sections of any news site... those famous words of Bush II.

Merry Christmas to All (Except Newt Gingrich Who Can Go F*ck Himself With a Rusty Tenon Saw)

The joyousness of my Christmas morning has been compromised, nay, blighted by the sad news that Newton Leroy Gingrich has failed to get enough signatures to run in Virginia's Republican presidential primary. Virginia is where Gingrich calls home. Think how it must sting for Gingrich that even his own neighbors don't want his fat, ridiculous ass running for prez. I could laugh... but this is sad news for any liberal who was looking forward to watching the GOP crash in flames over the next year with Gingrich at the helm.

Aside from the signature SNAFU, it's been a bad week for baby-face Satan all round. First he gets "Occupied" by angry 99%ers in Des Moines and is "chased down the stairwell of the state capitol and into his car" while trying to give a speech. Then his campaign website gets hacked. Then that camo-clad dude comes up to him at a grocery store in Iowa, shakes his hand and calls him a "a f*cking a**hole" to his face.

Oh my. It ain't easy being an investor class hero these days.

Random Picture of The Day

Lest we forget... the man who began his white-wing-pandering campaign with an Amos 'n' Andy style "Awww shucky ducky, I feel good today!" before imploding in a maelstrom of sexual harassment allegations. Herman Cain will be missed.

Stories That Write Themselves... Mississippi Family Values Mayor Bills Taxpayer For Gay Porn

Daddy's got some 'xplainin' to do...

Receipts show Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008 on a family-values platform, charged the city $67 for a purchase at a gay sex shop in Canada. (Canada no less...)

In The Land of The Blind, The One-Eyed Man is King

As Ron Paul flies high in the runnings, it's bizarre that all his white power newsletters and Nazi endorsements do not automatically disqualify him... even as a GOPer.

Really?

Paul made hundreds of thousands of dollars peddling racist crap with his name on and now gets mad when anyone mentions it. His name is all over Stormfront.org as the American Nazi's candidate of choice and no-one raises an eyebrow (fake or otherwise)... WTF?

The mental midgets might think Ron Paul's the greatest thing since sliced bread. That's because they're bewildered turds who'd follow any far-right contrarian who pushed their buttons in the right order. But if we're to have small/no government, why not go straight Anarchist and throw in our lot with Pierre Proudhon instead of some pseudo-intellectual redneck like Paul who's pushing "freedom" as a Trojan horse for the corporate/fascist dictatorship?

If you know any Ron Paul supporters, please take some time out to punch a little sense into them this Christmas.

Random Picture of The Day

What could be more American than a plus-size Jesus/Zack Galifianakis costume? Enjoy...

Just Plain Weird...

"Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 of 30 top al Qaeda leaders that I’ve taken off the playing field whether I have engaged in appeasement... Or whoever is left out there."

Given Obama's factual assessment of his own record above, it wasn't just offensive and disingenuous of Mittens Romney to accuse this president of indulging in "appeasement". It was plain weird.

But weirder was to come...

With a disregard for truth and honesty that was literally breathtaking, Sean Hannity then takes to the air to claim Osama bin Laden is dead "thanks to George Bush". Correction: several thousand Americans died on 9-11, have died in Iraq and are dying in Afghanistan thanks to George Bush. Al Qaeda leaders killed during Bush's reign of error? Zero. Then of course, there's Bush's infamous admission back in 2006:

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

Look up cognitive dissonance in the dictionary... there's probably a picture of Sean Hannity in a Che Guevara t-shirt being blown by Richard Simmons.

Random Picture of The Day

Perry oops... Let's make a homophobic political ad while wearing the exact same jacket the gay cowboy dude on Brokeback Mountain wore...

American Christians: Embarrassing God Since 1620

The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church racist crackers in Pike County, Kentucky have just voted to ban interracial couples from becoming church members or to worship under their roof. So... these sh*theads are claiming 501c3 tax-exempt status as a church to push white supremacism? How does this work again?

Of course, it's unfair to label all American Christians as an embarrassment to God. Or at least it would be if American Baptist Churches USA and US Christians in general would take a break from criticizing Muslims and publicly disown extremist "churches" like Gulnare Freewill and Westboro.

Cheese?

Latest highlight in the GOP presidential midget race: First time I've ever agreed with Ricky Santorum:

“My record isn’t Swiss cheese. I mean it’s solid, it’s a solid block of cheese.”

I'm not sure what referring to your record as 'solid block of cheese' is supposed to mean. But, hey, who could argue?

The Devil's Advocate

For Frank Luntz, 'devil's advocate' isn't a figure of speech. It's probably what it says on his business card. This malignant greaseball is what the media call a spin doctor - the guy who invents rhetorical cattle prods to point the mooing public in his clients' preferred direction.

Luntz came up with 'climate change' instead of 'global warming' to make the public give less of a sh*t. He also advised wingnuts to excise the term 'public option' and go with the more scary 'government option' at the height of the healthcare reform debate.

Now Luntz admits he's "frightened to death" of OWS and its effects on the public's perception of capitalism. To help out the "capitalists", he's advising new spin terms. From now on, 'taxing the rich' will be called 'taking from hardworking Americans' and the fat bonuses the greedy pr*cks on Wall Street award themselves will be known as 'pay for performance'.

If Luntz gets his way and his retooled terms enter the mainstream, public sympathy for OWS may decline because we really aren't that smart. But are we really dumb enough to fall for this? really..?

More Pretty Words

Obama gives a stirring speech in support of the beleaguered middle class:

"I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules ... Those aren’t Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values, and we have to reclaim them."

With OWS in full swing, more people than ever are becoming aware of America's grotesque economic inequalities and looking for solutions. But what's Obama's big plan? Where's the "in conclusion" part of the speech where he details ideas to tackle the crisis? As usual... nowhere. For progressives, Obama continues to be the presidential equivalent of a pr*ck tease: all rhetorical foreplay, no action. Ever.

I'll own the error just like any honest lefty... I backed a loser in '08 and have spent the last four years wishing I hadn't hated Hillary. We were suckered by candidate Obama's pretty words and we've been stuck with an inspirer-in-chief instead of a commander ever since. This wounded country doesn't need a motivational speaker to gin us up. It needs a f*cking leader to bully and corral Washington, push solutions and get something done.

Bye Bye "Hermain"

Rather hilariously, TV Newser misspells Cain's name one last time for old time's sake. But still not as funny as Cain's own campaign misspelling 'Herman' on their (now corrected and redundant) site...

Coulter Pwned By Liberal Media

"OK, Ann... tuck that wiener in a bit more and... smile."

Gotta almost feel bad for Ann Coulter. First, MSNBC bleeps him when he refers to John McCain as a douchebag (really MSNBC? The word 'douchebag' could almost have been invented for John McCain... why the bleep?). Then Big Keith refers to Coulter himself as an "asshole" in full, un-bleeped glory on Countdown. That's gotta sting...

Cognitive Dissonance? Oops...

Got myself in a lot of trouble dropping that phrase into a comment thread about OWS the other day. Apparently, 'cognitive dissonance' is an annoying term to a wingnut because they have to Google it to find out what it means before denouncing it as a "trendy leftwing buzzword". Hmm... so that's how it works these days? We don't argue substance, we don't discuss the actual issues, we just denounce words? George Orwell's 1984 needs a re-write.

Let's see more of this crap in action...

So USA Today has a story about young entrepreneurs who've opted to start businesses instead of trying to get employed in today's non-hiring economy. Good for them, I said. But with one caveat:

It's great that more young people are starting up businesses, but the implication of the story - that this is what 'smart people' should be doing rather than trying to get jobs - is offensive and stupid. Working people are one half of the capitalist equation: they are the real wealth creators who make entrepreneurs wealthy by producing and buying the stuff they make.

I thought it was a reasonable point to make but... no. See, them RW folks now believe "no-one owes anyone a job" and that starting your own business is the only way to go. Wow. We've reached a point where the rather modest expectation that you can graduate from college and get yourself a job is now viewed as an "entitlement" with all the negative implications the word now carries for the RW?

You might think my argument might be pretty sound:

1) Businesses need employees to make stuff
2) Businesses need customers to buy the stuff
3) Employees and customers are the same damn people

But no. In our crazy Ayn Rand/Ron Paul world of high-fallutin', small-minded nonsense, businesses are supposed to somehow thrive without 'greedy employees' and without a market. I'm still waiting for a conservative to explain how their capitalist equivalent of the immaculate conception works... though I'll probably be waiting a long time.

Sadism Without Principles

Michelle Bachmann today maintained waterboarding is "not torture". But, when asked if she'd try it herself to prove her point, she declined saying that would be "absurd".

I guess it's no surprise that a conservative clueless, sadistic imbecile like Bachmann would defend waterboarding as a non-traumatic, yet mysteriously effective, means of coercion. And no surprise either that she'd call standing by the value of her own assertions "absurd".

I'll always give props to Christopher Hitchens and Eric "Mancow" Muller for actually doing what Bachmann won't: these conservatives ran their mouths about waterboarding not being torture. Then famously changed their minds once they tried it for a few seconds.

Random Picture of The Day

The face of "law and order" in action... Hulk-smashing hippie kids in Zuccotti Park.

A Bull Connor Moment?

I don't know whether this picture from today's attack on Oakland OWS will be remembered in years to come. But it should.

To me, it's memorable because of the incongruity of the cop, the face of the establishment, looking like the freak compared to some mellow dude who just happens to be practicing yoga in the midst of an OWS eviction. A little while ago, these OWS protesters were regarded as a wild fringe by the majority. Now their grievances are shared by the majority. Now this picture looks more like an unjustified attack by an aggressive minority rather than a restoration of civic order.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd react to this picture differently than I would have a few months back. Maybe we're now awakened to the fact that the establishment - the 1% and their bought-and-paid-for pols - are the toxic minority... they are the freaks, the troublemakers, the usurpers. This could be a game-changing moment. Like back in the 60s when Americans witnessed the extremism of segregationist Police Chief Eugene "Bull" Connor on TV news. After seeing Connor assert his authority on peaceful protesters via attack dogs and fire hoses in Alabama, the mainstream decided it was his 'order', not the protesters' disorder, that was untenable. Could we be getting there?

Random Headline of The Day

From Crooks & Liars:

Confirmed Serial Adulterer Passes Alleged Serial Harasser in GOP Race

Says it all really... How much longer will America's pathetically transparent fake "Christians" keep following these pathetically transparent fake "conservatives" before the sane majority declare enough is enough?

Random Picture of The Day

"You went full retard, man... Never go full retard."

I have nothing to say about Rick Perry today... only that Kirk Lazurus' advice in Tropic Thunder seems apropos.