Xenophobia, but the classy kind

Keepin' it classy on the right, pt.2

The right-wingnuts are using swine flu as an excuse for racism and xenophobia. as if they needed an excuse.

(MSNBC)
“No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!” conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. “And that starts in the restaurants" where he said, you “don’t know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!”

And Thursday, Boston talk radio host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants "criminalians" during a discussion of swine flu and saying that emergency rooms had become "essentially condos for Mexicans."

That’s tepid compared to some of the xenophobic reactions spreading like an emerging virus across the Internet. “This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!” an anonymous poster ranted on the “prison planet” forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones’ Web site. (more...)

Margaret Carlson joins Countdown to discuss wingnut Michelle Malkin's allegations (putting it charitably) that "uncontrolled immigration" is to blame for the swine flu.

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Secessionist Texas receives more federal aid than anyone

(Bob Cesca)
On Governor Perry's watch, Texas has received the most federal funds of any state for disaster relief -- quite literally redistributed wealth "from Nebraskans and Virginians and New Yorkers and Alaskans with their Eskimo poetry."

Further quoting President Bartlet: "Can we have it back, please?"

Bankers own Senate; Democrats screw homeowners

(Huff Post)
Legislation that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to renegotiate mortgages for homeowners was successfully filibustered yesterday.

So not only will mortgage bankers and neighborhoods (and the broader economy) have to deal with a new glut of foreclosed homes, but families will also be booted into the street while others will have to go through bankruptcy too, but still lose their homes.

Only 45 Senate Democrats voted Thursday to oppose the banking industry and pass legislation aimed at stemming foreclosures. The bill would have allowed bankruptcy judges to allow homeowners who met strict conditions to renegotiate mortgages -- a process known as cramdown. It would have only applied to mortgages entered into before 2009.

Earlier in the week, the measure's lead proponent, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), concluded that banks "frankly own the place."

Of course, the 11 Democrats who voted "no" have a more charitable view of their own motivations. So we asked them what their reasoning was. In their own words, here is how (those we could find) explained their vote:

Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.): "A number of things. I thought the 31 percent is an arbitrary number. I think there are a whole lot of folks, are likely folks, out there who have little debt outside their home who could -- I just thought it was an arbitrary number and I didn't like the way it was constructed."

Dorgan is referring to the percentage of a person's income that a judge could determine should be dedicated to paying the monthly mortgage. The figure is roughly in line with what financial analysts agree is appropriate.

Is Durbin right? Do banks own the Senate?

"I don't know who he's speaking about," said Dorgan. "He worked on this for a long, long time. And I wish they would have found a way to reach an agreement that would have allowed the legislation to get through...I don't know the context of which he said that."
(continue reading...)

Keep it classy, right wingers

RedState.org's Erick Erickson comments about the retirement of Justice Souter


BTW - shouldn't the words "goat" and "fucking" be hyphenated?

Goat-fucking.

Stewart commemerates Hannity's commemeration of Obama's marking of his first 100 days

Jon Stewart looked at the coverage of Obama's 100th day speech last night, showing Sean Hannity's terrifying opening montage and saying "apparently Fox is stocking up on holy water and garlic."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Obama 101
thedailyshow.com

Swine flu + 70's fashion = The Disco Flu

1970's Swine Flu PSAs

Really? Really?

The Florida Senate just approved this.

Where to even start?

Someone being tortured with the slogan underneath reading "Sunshine State"? Does this seem appropriate to anyone?

Nothing says Vacation Paradise like a dead guy. To be fair, it does seem to be a good invitation for the silvers though: "Florida, a great place to have your corpse shipped home to your family from". Maybe that could be a new slogan.

Or "Florida: God's Waiting Room".

In related news: (CNN) The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

At least they'll put it on their license plates.

Apt description

(Elvis Dingeldein)
Being a Republican in the Age of Obama is kind of like riding a bicycle through Manhattan while drunk: You have no idea where you’re going, you tend to get passed at high speeds, and when you fall down you say unintelligible things and blame brown people. And then you get hit by a bus, huzzah!

Bachmann: History fail of epic proportions

Batshit-crazy Michele Bachmann pulled a history fail of epic proportions this week.

On Monday night Bachmann took to the House floor and paid tribute to the economic policies of Calvin Coolidge and the "Roaring 20s" (the era that ended with a massive monetary contraction and the Great Depression). One particular line really does stand out, though -- saying Franklin Roosevelt turned a recession into a depression through the "Hoot-Smalley" tariffs:


OUCH! Double fail!
First, when Franklin Roosevelt took office, unemployment was already about 25%. He didn't start the depression, he inherited it from Hoover, a Republican.

Second, the tariff referred to here was actually the Smoot-Hawley bill, co-authored by Republicans Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover.

How Michele is able to get her underwear on without strangling herself is amazing. Bob Stack and Unsolved Mysteries should investigate.

But she takes it one step further. She's blaming swine flu on Democrats. "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter," said Bachmann. "And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."



Fail number three: The swine flu epidemic hit in 1976. Jimmy Carter didn't take office until January 1977. The president in 1976 was Republican Gerald Ford.

YOWCH!
(TPM)

Specter redux

I've had some time to digest the Arlen Specter defection to the Democratic Party, and I'm of 2 minds.

On one hand, one should always be happy when someone else comes to their senses after a quarter century in the wilderness.

On the other hand, it is necessary to be aware that this switch will not mean that much. Specter has often been independent and there is no reason to believe that will change. Specter holds views that are contrary to the "basic" views of most Democrats: he's a hawk who unapologetically supported Iraq, his behavior towards Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation was unconscionable, to name just two.

Bear in mind as well that Specter did this out of political expediency, not ideological transformation.  This is not a "Saul getting knocked from his horse" moment. Specter wants to get re-elected and apparently he'll prostitute himself to whomever or whatever will help him keep what he ultimately is interested in: power.

We'll see how the voters of Pennsylvania react to what is tantamount to treason. Even those who loathe what the purified GOP has become will have a bad taste in their mouth over this. Unless Arlen comes clean with a repudiation of some of his former beliefs, I'll be forced to hold my nose as I reluctantly cast my vote for him.  Because, let's face it, there is no other choice.  Pat Toomey is crazy. Dangerously crazy.

Hopefully, this moment will serve as a shock to the wingnut arm of the Republican party. It's a direct statement: you're bleeding moderates. You're becoming a regional party. The Whigs. The Federalists just before they disappeared forever after the election of John Quincy Adams.  you have no (none, zilch, zero, bupkus) congressmen left in New England.  Look at this map of the 110th Senate.... now look at the 2008 electroal map.  The implication is, not an implication.  It's obvious.  The GOP is cutting off it's nose to spite it's face.

So while I am happy that this event may make it easier for President Obama to pursue his agenda, it feels kind of like the joy of being 19 and getting laid - but knowing it's with the skankiest chick in town.

Specter defects to Democrats; expect wingnut vilification to start

(HuffPost)
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) is becoming a Democrat.

"I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

"On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania."

(Huff Post)
White House aides said on Tuesday that they had no advanced knowledge that Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter would be switching party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. Once told, however, the president reached Specter to express his thrill at having him in the party and to offer his full support.

According to a White House aide, the president found out about the switch at 10:25 AM while in the Oval Office receiving his Economic Daily Briefing.

The president was handed a note, the aide said, that read: "Specter is announcing he is changing parties."

Seven minutes later, President Obama reached Specter to tell him, according to the aide, "You have my full support" and that we are "thrilled to have you."

(MSNBC)
However, there is no guarantee that the Pennsylvania senator will vote with the Democrats on every issue. With the presence of moderate Democrats and contested regional issues, the risk of a fractured caucus is a congressional reality.

"In our caucus we don't have any automatic votes for anything," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. "I expect him to be as just as independent as ever."

"Anyone who says the president's agenda can slide right through here is wrong," added New York Sen. Charles Schumer. "But the really good news for us is that the Republican sort of knee-jerk filibuster at every whim cannot happen."

Wingnuttery on parade

Memo #1 (to Cheney and Scarborough): 24 is a television show. Jack Bauer is not real.

The CIA's inspector general:

WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.

Memo #2: Just because you spent 8 years lying, deceiving, and acting in ways that should have embarassed you doesn't mean Obama is doing the same thing.

Cheaters are always the first to suspect someone else of cheating. Same with liars.

Along with Beck and Limbaugh, the wingnut-o-sphere is now suggesting that Obama has eiter invented or inflated the swine fu epidemic toget his Health and Human Services appointee approved.

"If there's even a hint that [Department of Homeland Security] is manipulating the health situation to push a political appointee through, well, it almost defies imagination that they'd be willing to that."

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

Ummmm.... wow. I can do that.

Chicago Bears draft pick, defensive end Jarron Gilbert of San Jose State can jump out of a pool. I'm not sure what it has to do with football, but it's pretty impressive.

OSU study: Conservatives don't realize Colbert is mocking them

(Huff Post)
Last week, Stephen Colbert revisited a segment he had done on Florida Representative Bill Posey, who sponsored a bill that "would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate," in order to put insane rumors of President Barack Obama's birthplace to bed.

Colbert thought a similar measure should be taken to end the whisperings that Posey was a human-alligator hybrid. Posey, in response to Colbert, said, "I expected there would be some civil debate about it, but it wasn't civil...There is no reason to say that I'm the illegitimate grandson of an alligator." And one wondered, "Does Posey not realize that Colbert is not speaking in earnest? His reaction seems uniquely stupid!"

Stupid, yes. But apparently it's not unique at all, according to a study from Ohio State University, which proves, with math and stuff, that lots of conservatives seem to not understand the intrinsic, underlying joke of The Colbert Report:

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

I think a lot of conservatives are going to pissed when they realize that Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner was not, in fact, an awkward and ineffective attempt to praise President George W. Bush, but actually a bitter and satiric criticism of his incompetence!

Texas douchebaggery

So Gov. Rick Perry of Texas asked the C.D.C. to send 37,430 doses of Tamiflu. This is the same Rick Perry who threatened to secede from the union less than 2 weeks ago. Perhaps we should send all of Texas' Tamiflu to states who are happy to be in our little union. Perhaps Texas can conjure up some Tamiflu by reading Ayn Rand? Wouldn't a real way to "Go Galt" be to turn away government attempts to save your ignorant lives interfere?

Perhaps Rick could buy some Tamiflu from.... oh wait, if you secede then all you have are LoneStar Bucks. Good luck buying medical supplies with your fairy dust of a currency.

Dipshits.

Taliban execution; frontier justice, just like in Texas

(Telegraph)
Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone.

In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt.

Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds.

Their "crime" was an alleged affair in their remote mountain village controlled by militants in an area that was only recently under the government's sway. It was the kind of barbarity that has become increasingly familiar across Pakistan as the Taliban tide has spread.

But this time, with black-turbaned gunmen almost at the gates of Islamabad, the rare footage has shown urban Pakistanis what could now await them.

(Read more)

WARNING: graphic footage

Al Gore returns to Senate, gets stupid question from Gingrich handmaiden

Al Gore, testifying before a Senate committee on climate was questioned by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) about his business interests. Blackburn, in a ham-handed attempt, tried to paint Gore, who was testifying just before former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich - who was to take the opposite position, arguing the environment was just fiiiiiine - as a robber baron, looking to get rich on all this Earth hooey.

(Huff Post)
An exasperated former vice president dealt with questioning from his home state Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

"Thank you for your patience today," Blackburn began, before asking him if he was familiar with a company that stood to profit in a green economy.

"Well yes, I'm a partner," said Gore, laughing.

Well then, said Blackburn, is it true that you're pushing all this climate change stuff because you're trying to get rich?

That was enough to bring out the first sigh. "If you believe the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don't know me," he said.

Blackburn replied that she was merely looking for "clarification."

"I understand exactly what you're doing, congresswoman. Everyone here does," said Gore.

Blackburn wondered if Gore would donate his profits to charity. Gore told her he already does. "I've been wiling to put my money where my mouth is. Do you think there's something wrong with being active in business in this country?" he asked.

Just asking, Blackburn said, this time eliciting an even more audible sigh, followed by a disbelieving head-shake.

Doing time in Catholic school

So I was 70's-80's, not 50's-60's, and I didn't have Latin Mass. BUT the rest of this is oddly funny/cringe-inducing/flashback-worthy. Only the vets of the Nun wars get this, but it's worth the read.

One thought: I've met people who went to Catholic school who never saw corporal punishment, but the exception doesn't disprove the thesis. Second thought: any chance that the laissez-faire oversight that the schools received from the 50's to the early-80's is also showing up in the scandals plaguing the church in the last decade?

A Catholic-School Veteran Tells All
(David Noonan - Newsweek)

Every once in a while I run into someone who, like me, attended Catholic school in the '50s and '60s. These encounters usually follow a pattern. We establish terms of service—I put in 13 years, including kindergarten—test our memories of the Baltimore Catechism and the Latin mass, and recall things like meatless Fridays, the scourge of "impure thoughts" and Limbo, the nice but God-free place where babies who died before baptism spent eternity (and which the church essentially did away with in 2007). There is an odd charm to much of this, a quaint and funny weirdness that only another Catholic from that era can truly appreciate.

But the conversations inevitably turn to a decidedly less charming subject—getting smacked by nuns. I have no idea whether slapping kids across the face was officially sanctioned by the church in those days. I only know it happened, to me and plenty of other kids. The nuns who smacked me and my friends at our small elementary school in New Jersey were Sisters of Charity, a cheap bit of irony that always draws a chuckle when I talk about being on the receiving end of those holy rights and lefts.

Full article

Carl Edwards crashes into fence, does a Ricky Bobby across finish line

8 people got hurt when his car shattered on the fencing (which, remarkably) held.

But the kicker is him running across the finish line. There are no reports if he was asking Oprah or Tom Cruise to intercede.

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