2.28.2009

Louis C.K. on why everything is great and we're all miserable

Rachel Maddow takes on the Wingnut Revolution

Disturbing. Very.

Jindal lied

Hey, and he's the new face of the GOP.  He fits right in.

(Talking Points Memo)
...a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone "days later." The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

Obama: I am ready for a fight


"I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I."
President Barack Obama
It's about time.

Black day in Eagles Nation

Free agency has changed the face of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Brian Dawkins - the face of the franchise for 13 years - gone to Denver
Jon Runyan - gone, replaced by Stacy Andrews

Losing these two hurts. A lot. They're the spark plugs of the defense and offense, respectively. Dawkins since 1996, Runyan since 2000, and having never missed a game. Football is a business, but letting character guys go - guys who inspired, guys who led - is a stupid, stupid move.

2.26.2009

Matthews slams Issa's "Mickey Mouse fightin' words"



The Wingnut Revolution

Bob Cesca
The Wingnut Revolution

After nearly three decades of Reaganomics in which the wealthiest two percent have grown exponentially wealthier while middle class wages have remained stagnant, a growing faction of super rich Americans is seriously pissed off -- and their Wingnut Revolution is upon us.

Sure, the interests and influence of the wealthiest two percent make them more responsible than most for the free market policies that created this current economic crisis. But if there's one thing we've learned about those responsible for this recession, it's that the concept of accountability is about as foreign as their live-in au pairs. Instead, they're trying to pin this on Barney Frank and a legion of "losers" (read that: working class minorities) even though Ben Bernanke himself has debunked this myth.

But accountability (a "day of reckoning" as President Obama called it) is underway in the form of the president's housing proposal, his healthcare plan and, naturally, the recovery act. At the end of the day, ninety-five percent of Americans will benefit from what amounts to the largest tax cut in American history, along with increased access to affordable healthcare and millions of new jobs.

Though, alas, the super rich will have to pay slightly more in taxes.

Yeah, that's a shame.

continue

New Coen Bros: Clean Coal Air Freshener

2.25.2009

The next giant domino to fall, the one that might kill u: credit card debts

Arianna Huffington has penned an excellent piece regarding the coming storm - mirroring last fall's collapse of Lehman et al - as credit card defaults rise and the securities-backed markets that they prop up failing.
According to the Federal Reserve, the total outstanding credit card debt carried by Americans reached a record $951 billion in 2008 -- a number that will only climb higher as more and more people reach for the plastic to make ends meet. What's more, roughly a third of that is debt held by risky borrowers with low credit ratings.

And that's not the end of the economic downward spiral. As more and more Americans default on their credit card debt, banks will find themselves faced with a sickening instant replay of the toxic securities meltdown from the mortgage crisis. In another example of Wall Street "creativity," credit card debt is routinely bundled together into "credit-card receivables" and sold to investors -- often pension funds and hedge funds. Securities backed by credit card debt is a $365 billion market. This market motivated credit card companies to offer cards to risky borrowers and to allow greater and greater amounts of debt.

As these borrowers continue to default, banks and the investors who bought their packaged debt will take a serious hit. And how are the credit card companies trying to offset the rise in bad debts? By raising rates on the rest of their customers -- making it likely that more of them will end up defaulting, causing even more losses for the banks. And round and round and round we go.
Read the whole piece. You should be frightened.

Rush annoints Jindal as the best hope for conservatism

Rush Limbaugh said today that he didn't want to hear from anyone criticizing Bobby Jindal based on his style. "I love Bobby Jindal" said the Large Addict.

"Style won't take back our country." We need "solid conservative values, articulated in a way that inspires."

So THIS sing-song response, riddled with lies, half-truths and hypocrisy is conservative values articulated in a way that inspires?


AWESOME! I cannot wait to see Bobby The Page debate the President in 2012.

PROVEN: Sean Hannity is an out-and-out liar

In an interview with PA Congressman Dave Sestak, Sean Hannity persists in trying to create lies out of whole cloth.

In his favor: he can repeat talking points like no one else. Even Irish apes can be trained.



WAQB: The wrap-up

WAQB: Wednesday Afternoon Quarterbacking.  After Obama's speech last night, let's look at some of the threads.

First, Bobby Jindal tried to mock some of the Recovery Act spending by criticizing volcano monitoring. Really? The guy whose state got destroyed because the government did not have early monitoring for hurricanes now mocks natural disaster preparation.

Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman writes:
And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.
I suggest that Krugman not float that idea. Methinks the GOP would go for it.

On top of that, this is an old GOP ploy to criticize legitimate programs by citing them in an indignant voice. In 1932 it would have been: "The government thinks they're going to put asphalt and cement coast-to-coast? For cars to go all willy-nilly? Oh ha-ha-ha.  Next thing you know they'll be telling us we can skip the train and FLY to our destinations.  Silly pinkos."

Krugman writes:
The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.
Then Jindal decides to go after federal spending when his state has benefited from federal spending in hurricane recovery finds. Jindal was throwing red meat to the hard right while showing himself to be nothing more than a hypocrite.

This shows the total lack of ideas on the right. They trot out Jindal because he's not white. He's exotic. But he's no Obama. To the GOP, Jindal is their counter-punch to Obama simply because he looks "different".

They trot out Michael Steele as head of the GOP. Now, Steele is qualified, but I'll eat my old socks if he wasn't elected partly because of his color. It's an "oooh, we need one of those" move.

And then Steele TRIES to act black, promising an "off the hook" approach to strategy. Really? Off the hook? You think using hip urban language is what will get you inner-city votes? Keep going. Nice work.

Jindal was a smarmy condescending joke.  He spoke to us like we're retarded.  Actually, no he didn't.  People don't talk to the retarded like that.  Referencing my post last night, someone posted the following on YouTube.


David Brooks - David F'ing Brooks - called Jindal's speech a disaster.
I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party.

Jindal's speech was panned from both sides of the aisle. From HuffPost: "he came up short. Both Democrats and Republicans alike panned Jindal's rebuttal in terms that were decidedly harsh: "amateurish," "laughable" and, most commonly, "a missed opportunity. "

Finally, HuffPost's Jason Linkins makes the comparison between Jindal and Kenneth the Page from NBC's 30 Rock.
They're both Southern, and they both have weird religious things going on what with Jindal's exorcisms and Kenneth's views that "choosing is a sin" and that hot is "the devil's temperature." They also both have the tendency to look like they're dressing up in their fathers' suits.

George Will is strangely uncomfortable with men hugging

"I don't know when men started to hug each other, but hug they do, and look at that,"
- George Will

Methinks this hits too close to some private thoughts George has chosen to hold inside. Perhaps he's strangely self-loathing when it comes to thinking about a good-looking black man wrapping his arms around another male.

Or not.

2.24.2009

Real Time: Is Bobby Jindal animatronic?

"As a CHIld I reMEMber MY dad telling me boBEE amERIcans can do ANYthing. LIIIKE the prESIdent, I ALSO came from a FARRRRRRRRRR off land."

Gosh gee wilikers, I'm going to talk you like you're a retarded 3rd grader visiting a 2nd rate national park.

I'll post video later.

MORE: Jindal just complained about federal spending. Check me if I'm wrong but didn't Louisiana make out pretty well in federal spending the last few years?

MOREMORE: Did Jindal just use the botched federal response to Katrina under Bush as a model for how the government SHOULD work? Maybe it's the meth kicking in, but I'm pretty sure he just did that.

Zero credibility

(from Bob Cesca)

Rick Santelli, new president of Spazzy White Guys, Inc., on September 2, just days before the initial financial collapse, Rick Santelli said, "I think the economy is healthy."



He fits right in with John McCain, who, if you'll remember, was the GOP hero 3 and a half months ago.


How about this: if the GOP wants to suddenly declare themselves the party of fiscal responsibility and smaller government, then how about admitting that all of the Bush programs they supported were fiscally irresponsible. You know, those programs they supported such as Homeland Security, invading and endlessly occupying Iraq (at $8 bil/m). They supported Bush's $1.2 trillion tax cut for, much of it targeted to the wealthiest one percent.

Because without that admission, they're just playing political football.

Badly.

Because in case you missed it, Obama's numbers are UP among non-Republicans.

Matt Yglesias at ThinkProgress

Republican desperation and lies

One of the new talking points for the GOP is to demonize the $8 billion in the Recovery Act to build high-speed rail lines. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal trots out the line on the Sunday talkers, criticizing the "Disneyland to Las Vegas" line.

Chris Matthews rightly dismisses it as "cartoon talk", "stupid talk".

MSNBC's David Schuster confronts Republican Congressman Darrell Issa when Issa tries to slip the lie in. Forward to 4:20 for the clip. Ironically.


As reported by Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:
...as negotiations on the package wrapped up, Rahm Emanuel secured an extra $8 billion for high-speed rail. The Maine and Pennsylvania Republican "centrists" approved, and the bill progressed. The $8 billion is not directed at any specific state or project.
Meanwhile, Newt Ginrich sees this bill as his party's ticket back to power in 2010.  He's been leading the cry against pork-barrel spending such as a project for marsh-mouse preservation.

Here's the problem: there is NO project. It's another lie. In some more great reporting, Benen notes:
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" has been repeating the marsh-mouse claim quite a bit lately, and to its credit, the show invited PolitiFact.com's Bill Adair on to the show this morning to scrutinize the story. Asked if MSNBC was "unfair" to go after this story, Adair said, "You were.... This one gets a 'false' on the Truth-o-Meter.... The reality is, the money is just not in the bill to do this the way that they said."

Joe Scarborough said he'd talked to a Republican House member about this, who defended the claim. Adair said the GOP lawmaker "lied to you."
Go to the :45 mark and watch how simply flabbergasted the crew is that they miht have *gasp* reported a lie as true.

How disingenuous. How awful.

Sully defines the middle class

This hero unfortunately demonstrates what is happening to America. Notice that the heads of the banks that got us into this mess are still fine.
"It is my personal experience that my decision to remain in the profession I love has come at a great financial cost to me and to my family. My pay has been cut 40 percent. My pension, like most airline pensions, has been terminated and replaced by a PBGC guarantee worth only pennies to the dollar."
—Captain Chesley Sullenberger to the House Aviation Subcommittee