Saturday, March 31, 2012

Three mysteries -- Why always me?

How anyone can be surprised by this time that Olbermann and management having problems?

How can anyone be surprised that Toure and Piers Morgan have a pointless battle of assholery?

Okay, I am surprised, I am watching the English Premier League Man City hosting Sunderland and just saw Mario Balotelli calming down a teammate while pointing to his own head in signalling for the teammate to "think" before acting.

The latter is certainly the only thing that is surprising.

Hey,

Look who might be hiring...
How awesome, a chance to be a shill for Rush Limbaugh.

 Here's the kind of race-baiting you'll be expected to engage in.

Friday, March 30, 2012

10,000 Men of Harvard, but just one piece of Mitt

Shorter Williard:

"Barack Obama is an elitist, my goodness the man went to Harvard!" 
- Williard Mitt Romney, JD & MBA Harvard University 1975
He should be em-va-ri-tas.

NO LICORICE ONES! THEY ARE FORBIDDEN!

Ladies and Gentlemen, something so lame it makes Mitt Romney look like he has a soul:

Rick Santorum's campaign is raising eyebrows after announcing he plans to make a major foreign policy speech at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA, on Thursday.
And he did. He's a serious candidate.

Next, he's going to kill a bunny bare-handed (as opposed to how his wife leaves it up to others) just to show Jimmy Carter how it is done.

Shocking I know

Conservatives hero Jurist, known for intemperate obscene foreign gestures while condemning foreigners...now claims things are in a bill that are not there and he's too damn busy with his lifetime tenure to read the bill to make sure.

What a truly insipid self-proclaimed intellectual titan.  Good thing I've made a career of respecting the law...saves Scalia from having to do so.

No wonder the right loves Nino Scalia.

Mr. Pink

But...of...course:

The founder of Beef Products, known for its production of "pink slime," is a major donor to Mitt Romney.

Businessman Eldon Roth held a Sioux Falls fundraiser for Romney last year and donated $190,000 to the Romney campaign in 2010, Politico reports. Roth has also donated to Romney's 2008 campaign, as well as other Republican candidates.

In Romney's 2010 book, "No Apology," Roth is cited as a success story.
I'm guessing Mitt has never had the blessing of eating up a big ol' pile of of carcass remains that don't even earn the name offal delightfully enriched with a heavy dose of ammonium hydroxide -- if only Whizzo had thought of this.

You won't see a gypsy-themed Padma pretend to eat this crap on Top Chef, not to mention come within a quarter-mile of the various Romney-family lairs.

It should be said that such Republican science-wiz's as Rick Perry tell us that pink slime, if just fine and the fact it's manufacturers donate to scientifically-balanced Repubican politicians shouldn't worry you at all. The GOP and science have a great relationship...just not nearly as good as their relationship with money.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Ruining the lives of the proles: A bonding experience

When we last read of Mitt Romney he was attempting to explain away why he needed a car elevator and giant underground lair [if his minions are wearing one-color jumpsuits alert MI-6].

But if the idea of Mitt Romney as Super Villain does not suit you, would you believe your lying ears and/or eyes when he says stuff like this?
At the outset of the call, Romney said he has some connections to Wisconsin.

“One of most humorous I think relates to my father. You may remember my father, George Romney, was president of an automobile company called American Motors … They had a factory in Michigan, and they had a factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and another one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” said Romney. “And as the president of the company he decided to close the factory in Michigan and move all the production to Wisconsin...
...Romney said he recalled a parade in which the school band marching with his father’s campaign only knew the Wisconsin fight song, not the Michigan song.
“So every time they would start playing ‘On, Wisconsin, On, Wisconsin,’ my dad’s political people would jump up and down and try to get them to stop, because they didn’t want people in Michigan to be reminded that my dad had moved production to Wisconsin,” said Romney, laughing.
Oh how those hundreds of unemployed people in Michigan must have laughed at their misfortune, just like Mitt and his dad. Because as knee-slapping as unemployment is, making unemployed people is good clean fun.


Hard to believe he isn't more popular.

What he says

Charles Pierce sums up the Justice from Koch Brothers perfectly:
It is plain now that Scalia simply doesn't like the Affordable Care Act on its face. It has nothing to do with "originalism," or the Commerce Clause, or anything else. He doesn't think that the people who would benefit from the law deserve to have a law that benefits them. On Tuesday, he pursued the absurd "broccoli" analogy to the point where he sounded like a micro-rated evening-drive talk-show host from a dust-clotted station in southern Oklahoma. And today, apparently, he ran through every twist and turn in the act's baroque political history in an attempt to discredit the law politically, rather than as a challenge to its constitutionality. (What in hell does the "Cornhusker Kickback" — yet another term of art that the Justice borrowed from the AM radio dial — have to do with the severability argument? Is Scalia seriously making the case that a banal political compromise within the negotiations from which bill eventually is produced can affect its ultimate constitutionality? Good luck ever getting anything passed if that's the standard.) He's really just a heckler at this point. If he can't do any better than that, he's right. Being on the court is a waste of his time.

Points for accuracy

You can say a few "choice" things about the anti-gay and lesbian group 'The National Organization for Marriage" (and please do) but as recently you cannot call them subtle.  Yesterday, it was a handy-dandy memo plotting how to turn African-Americans against Gays and Lesbians in a "helter-skelter manner" Charles Manson might admire.

But, to quote Dan Savage, it gets better.

The have a plan for infiltrating the cultural zeitgeist to turn us all against the idea of same-sexual marriage:
We are looking for a new set of messengers," one document declares. "Here's the bottom line: Hollywood with its cultural biases is far bigger than we can hope to be. We recognize this."
It goes on to note, "But we also recognize the opportunity -- the disproportionate potential impact of proactively seeking to gather and connect a community of artists, athletes, writers, beauty queens and other glamorous noncognitive elites across national boundaries."
So far their most famous "get" is Carrie Prejean. I'll leave it to you to decide whether they got "elite", "glamorous" or  "noncognitive" out of that acquisition.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Sully made a funny

Takes time away from defending Charles Murray:

Thanks for the entertainment

Newt Gingrich is laying off staff and winding up the book tour. Surely, this video dedication is most appropriate:

Bingo!

Rude Pundit sums it up perfectly, in language that is naturally "rude":

We see this again and again. A black male who captures the imagination of the nation must be degraded by the right. He must be turned into something else, some Other. President Obama can't simply be an educated black man from a lower middle-class background with whom they disagree ideologically. No, he's got to be an enemy, a foreigner, a n****r. It's hard to denigrate someone who might be like you, conservatives. But it's easy to attack a n****r because he's just a n****r. Or a coon....


...Now, the niggering of Martin is in full swing as fake photos, school records, Facebook postings, and even his tweets are put under the microscope. A police report that portrays Martin as the initiator of violence has been leaked. And the news media is going along with the victim-blaming that is being spun out by authorities and the right, allowing that it's in any way relevant that Martin was suspended from school once, for instance.

The n****ring of Trayvon Martin works as every n****ring does. It gives conservatives cover for their belief in the innate goodness of guns and the innate badness of anyone non-white who just dresses vaguely gangsta. It gives racists, open and closeted, a reason not to care. It allows them to see him as deserving of some punishment in general: if Zimmerman hadn't killed him, this narrative goes, well, fuck, chances are Martin would have been a criminal and better to get it over with now than pay for his incarceration.
Soon we shall judge his parents by not by the content of their character, but the quality of their counter-tops.

Well, that makes sense

In Bizarro World.

Apparently Stephen Colbert's Zimmerman's Black Friend, Joe Oliver, has quit his job so as to have more time to appear on a wide-variety of News Programs to appear in that role full-time.

During which it becomes clear he doesn't actually know him all that well.  

FoxNews paid pundit slot to follow.

What can "Austerity" do for you?

Not much:

...the UK economy shrank by 0.3% in the last three months of 2011, not 0.2% as previously estimated...

The most startling fact in this morning's UK GDP data is that household disposable income fell by 1.2% during 2011. According to the Office for National Statistics, that's the biggest annual decline since 1977.
Oh how we "need" to do that here.

Gavel Gazing

As someone who has argued an appeal or two (never the Supreme Court, but a rung lower) anybody who is saying how the Justices will vote based on their questions at oral argument is doing just that.

Look at their prior decisions and you'll get a better handle on it.

Those folks saying Monday good, Tuesday bad/good, are just talking to be talking.

He's churning out talking points

From the Koch Brothers faster than he's helping to create jobs:

"In Walker's first year in office (ending last December), Wisconsin had the 49th worst record for private-sector job growth, losing 9,700 jobs. But preliminary January numbers ... were the best of any month so far of the Walker tenure: private-sector jobs rose by 15,700. That now puts the state in the positive column for net private job growth during the governor’s first 13 months, with 6,000 jobs added. Still, it’s a long way from the governor’s campaign promise of 250,000 new private-sector jobs during his first term.

In an interview with a local CBS affiliate in Wisconsin, Walker blamed the Affordable Care Act for the slow growth.

"From what I hear overwhelmingly across the state, from small business owners, is tremendous concern about the impact it's going to have on those small businesses," he said. "It's probably if not the top, it's one of the top, things I hear that has made small business owners hesitant to add more jobs, is their concern about what the true impact will be."
Which totally explains why your State is 49th...because even if that were true (which, of course, it isn't) Wisconsin was not affected any more than the other 50 states.

But fantasy is what you and your patrons Randolph & Mortimer do best.

Getting Clearer

The man has a large subterranean lair, a car elevator, his own lobbyist, and proclaims the Russkies our No. 1 enemy.

Give Mitt a lap cat and he's a Bond-Villain.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Mittbot 3000 of the people

He's just an ordinary-masculine composite of circuit boards and lithium batteries in a sacred underwear container.
At Mitt Romney’s proposed California beach house, the cars will have their own separate elevator.
It also comes with something else your home may not have (no, not an Orgasmatron -- although y'know maybe, but that's not the point)...a dedicated lobbyist.
To help facilitate the construction plans, Romney has paid San Diego attorney Matthew A. Peterson $21,500 since 2008 to lobby city officials for the renovation after dropping out of the 2008 GOP presidential primary.
If he's got guys hanging around the place in one-colored jumpsuits too, I suggest we call in James Bond, or at least Felix Leiter. It has all the traits of a supervillain's lair...or Gingrich's house (same thing?).

The Modus Operandi laid bare

How do right-wing groups operate?

Like this:

The leading opponents of same-sex marriage planned to defeat campaigns for gay marriage by "fanning the hostility" between black voters from gay voters and by casting President Obama as a radical foe of marriage, according to confidential documents made public in a Maine court today.

The documents, circulated by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, are marked "confidential" and detail the internal strategy of the National Organization for Marriage.
Ginning up a race war...only be a few degrees different than Charlie Manson.

But John McCain and Joe Lieberman haven't had a chance to bomb the shit out of them yet!

Oh look diplomacy and shit:
The Syrian government has accepted U.N. envoy Kofi Annan's plan to forge peace and end violence, Annan's spokesman said on Tuesday.

Annan has offered Syria a six-point plan - supported by the U.N. Security Council - as a way to halt the violence.

The proposal seeks to stop the violence and the killing, give access to humanitarian agencies, release detainees, and start an inclusive political dialogue to address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people, according to a U.N. statement.

As usual

The Boston Globe's pictorial section is fabulous. This week a look at daily life in Myanmar and the pending elections there, including the very brave Aung San Suu Kyi.
That is picture 19, compare it to the picture of Myanmar's parliament immediately preceding it.

Is this guy on vacation from being Stephen Colbert's black friend?

Uh-huh:
Oliver appeared on MSNBC on Monday and told Chris Matthews that even if Zimmerman did use the word, it was not a display of racism because the term is actually not negative at all:
That’s a term I listened to over and over on there and to me, it’s a matter of interpretation of whether he’s saying ‘coon’ or ‘goon.’ There are a lot of parts of this country where people proudly call themselves ‘coon asses,’ in Louisiana in particular.
(1) Either "goon" or "coon" is NOT complimentary.

(2) There is no way that was complimentary in context.

(3) Shut the fuck up.

Engaging in a little fantasy?

Burgundy-collared Louis Gohmert has a dream:

Arch-conservative Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) warned Monday that if the Supreme Court were to uphold the health care reform law, it could lead to a "redneck president" imposing a separate brand of mandates on Americans.
Yes, we all live in fear of being forced to watch NASCAR.

Always forget

As noted in a diary at the Huffington Post, it was half a century ago that Michael Harrington wrote "The Other America: Poverty in the United States which spurred and led to the 'Great Society' programs of the 1960s. The programs Republicans battled and immediately started to try to repeal.

Rarely in American History has an effort so successful to millions been more successfully maligned by its political opponents.
The policies adopted as part of Johnson' war-on-poverty (including Medicaid; subsidized housing; Head Start; legal services; raising the minimum wage; and, later, food stamps) -- in combination with a strong economy -- significantly reduced poverty. The nation's poverty rate was cut in half -- from 22.4 percent in 1959 to 11.1 percent in 1973. The decline in poverty was particularly dramatic among the elderly, thanks to Medicare and cost-of-living increases for Social Security.
And shortly thereafter we began our worship of the wealthy and the instead of the war on poverty, we had the still existent war on government via the weapon of loud-mouths making analogies.

How has it gone since?
In 2010, 46 million Americans -- over 15 percent of the population -- lived in poverty.
A policy that worked...well, we can't have that.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Monday, March 26, 2012

Movie Review

I watched "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" this weekend. It was pretty fascinating until Werner Herzog's Epilogue.  Those of you who have seen it know what I mean -- great moments in unintentional hilarity.

With James Cameron's trip to the Marianas Trench completed, I shudder to think what Werner Herzog's crocodiles would ponder -- according to Werner.

Lathered up

Ross Doubthat's problems with taking a tumble with Chunky Reese Witherspoon is one thing, but a chance to feel up Tebow's holy and oily pecs is quite another.
Tebow’s religion doesn’t just promise a path to personal transformation. It claims that every human life is actually a story with an Author, and that a genuinely Christian life should make that divine Authorship manifest.
Somebody's pages of Paul's Letter to the Romans are sticking together.

Whatever you think of him

James Cameron has guts, and put them to work in a spectacular endeavor.

Hollywood director James Cameron has returned to the surface after plunging nearly 11km (seven miles) down to the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.

He made the solo descent in a submarine called "Deepsea Challenger", taking over two hours to reach the bottom.

He spent more than three hours exploring the ocean floor, before a speedy ascent back to the surface.
It takes a long dive to surpass Newt Gingrich's approval ratings, a real step downwards.

Hey, that's mighty big of you

How awful nice of our 51st state:
Former defense minister Amir Peretz said on Saturday that a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities would be better if an outside actor such as the US carried it out instead of Israel.

"We should prefer an outside actor does it because Israel doesn't need to be confronted by the whole Muslim world," Peretz said. "We know that a minute after an attack, it will be comfortable for the Western countries to point a blaming finger at Israel.

If it's an American actor, the crisis will be smaller. We need to think about the day after."
I too have a plan.

How about neither do so?

It's Gingrich's fault people think he's a jackass

Although, unlike this it is reasonable:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich suggested on Friday that President Obama is to blame for perceptions among his detractors that he is Muslim.
And why?
But I think it is very bizarre that he is desperately concerned to apologize to Muslim religious fanatics while they are killing young Americans
He must have been called to prayers by the muezzin just like this guy:
President Bush has apologized to Iraq's prime minister for an American sniper's shooting of a Quran
Newt, on the other hand, is a very "Christian" guy who has a long history of providing ladies with a Christian prayer space in the front-seat of his Lincoln Towncar. He's just doing the work of the Lord.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sunday, March 25, 2012

I suppose it will be time

To move on from the Etch-a-sketch soon, so I expect Mitt and crew to move on to something else they stupidly say.

Maybe saying a Romney candidacy will win back the women's vote through the bold policy initiative of making up from banning contraceptives by providing free Rohypnol?

It's all over but the counter-factual, illogical, allegedly bible-based screaming

Mittard Romney 3000 lost in Louisiana last night as 12th Century Jesus beat 19th Century New World Jesus substantially. But the Robot is up substantially in Wisconsin and then it is on to the Northeast so... it's pretty much over. But yet it will carry on, and at least that is something as Gail Collins points out:
The primaries have been great for the economy. Dimwitted billionaires are dumping money they don’t need into the campaigns of people who can’t win, providing much-needed jobs for ad-writers, poll-takers and yard-sign manufacturers. Do you remember, at the depth of the recession, when Keynesians kept saying that we could jump-start the recovery by just paying a whole bunch of people to dig holes and fill them back in? This is exactly the same thing! Keep going, Republicans!

Is it going to be his platform?

Mitt Romney took Saturday off.  What did he do?  Preview his future policy initiative, "The Hunger Games".

Saturday, March 24, 2012

I'm guessing not in my lifetime

Pathetic really, but Charles Pierce asks the appropriate question.

When Will 9/11 Stop Being an Alibi for Injustice?

I expect we'll be hearing howls of outrage, and anguished cries for Liberty (!) from all the Republican contenders when word gets around that the NYPD apparently woke up one morning and decided it was the American Stasi.

It's Disturbing because it is true

Who didn't anticipate?

Older adults who say they've had a life-changing religious experience are more likely to have a greater decrease in size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain critical to learning and memory, new research finds.

According to the study, people who said they were a "born-again" Protestant or Catholic, or conversely, those who had no religious affiliation, had more hippocampal shrinkage (or "atrophy") compared to people who identified themselves as Protestants, but not born-again.
Good luck teaching Tebow to throw.

Here's something I have never typed before...

Good for LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

LeBron James tweeted a picture on Friday afternoon that showed the two-time league MVP and his Miami Heat teammates clad in hooded sweatshirts, hoods up and eyes down. The photo, accompanied by the hashtags "#WeAreTrayvonMartin," "#Hoodies," "#Stereotyped" and "#WeWantJustice," followed a mass protest Thursday in which people all over the world donned hooded sweatshirts in solidarity with the family of Trayvon Martin
(Photo via LeBron James' Twitter account)

Friday, March 23, 2012

Good job media and educational networks

But most of all, good job Mr. and Ms. American Citizen:

From my ignorant non-east coast view of the whole matter

This strikes me as hilarious:

Jets officials are strongly encouraging new recruit Tim Tebow to live in New Jersey to keep him as far away as possible from the temptations of New York's nightlife, a source close to the team has said.
Well somebody has to replace 'The Situation' while he's drying out.

Nearly 2 million have seen this by now...

But I am nothing if not slightly behind the times.

As the sex-boat turns

Maybe the Mayans were just talking about the conservative media world in 2012?

* Pile of excrement in a 300 pound casing Rush Limbaugh suddenly has everyone notice he's Rush Limbaugh, and his world begins to unravel.

* Andrew Breitbart and his poor-mans Andy Kaufman routine ends with the most literal of homages.

* His successors push Breitbart's last great work of stupidity...OMG black men hugging!

* They follow this up by not knowing Bono from a Bonobo.

* And finally, well-known edited film auteur and Captain of the SS Dildo, James O'Keefe is facing a mutiny:

Nadia Naffe, self-described “accomplice” to conservative activist James O’Keefe , had begun publishing a multi-part tell-all series of posts to her blog. Thursday morning, Naffe published the second part ... includes documents related to a sexual harassment settlement between O’Keefe and “CNN Sex Boat Caper” whistleblower Izzy Santa. O’Keefe filed suit against Naffe on Wednesday to obtain an injunction against publication of those documents, and of emails that O’Keefe claims she stole from his computer.
Oh what could require an injunction?
...Plaintiffs statements on Twitter claim that the material is so provocative that it caused Andrew Breitbart to suffer a fatal heart attack.
Wait a minute, is James O'Keefe confessing he killed Breitbart?

In the billiard-room with a sex toy?  Or just from embarrassment?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Well, with a base made of idiots

Why not say anything?

Mitt Romney said Wednesday that former President George W. Bush deserves credit for averting total economic collapse, not President Obama.

Romney delivered a passionate defense of the 2008 bank bailouts at a town hall here, aligning himself with the still-unpopular former president in the process.
404 ERROR MITT-BOT

Oh Williard, sweet holy underwear wearing Williard, how low will thou go?

New Jobless claims:

Behold

The internet.

Here's a nice little story of a deaf man who encounters the President of the United States, uses sign language to say something nice and is pleasantly surprised the President uses sign language reply to say "thank you". 

How much did that little gesture mean to a deaf person?  A lot of course.  It was a nice little moment whether the deaf person or President are Republican, Democrat, or whatever. 

Naturally, in the comments this becomes a vast conspiracy about how the President is an asshole.

I have a feeling

That every (even bigger) idiot that inherited the cremains of the Breitbart Empire saw a half-hour of The Wire and assumed that Obama played both Omar and Stringer Bell.

Truly the Right is full of geniuses serving an audience even "geniuser".

It was a close run thing

But that Tebow trade came awful close to being aborted.

Now on to Santorum's ability to speak and Gingrich's fidelity.

I'm very confused by nature

But only half as confused as this classic Washington Post correction:

Romney may switch to the Etch-a-sketch

But if Santorum's the nominee he'll be consistent and keep playing "Operation" with just the naughty parts.

Isn’t there a record for “Jeopardy” futility

Wolf Blitzer would like to break before enabling Peter King's latest crazy "Scary Muslims" theory?



King said, "We have a duty to prepare for the worst," warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States

If Iran has agents, inadvertent or not, in the United States the last decade-plus they can probably be found in the list of Peter King's donors at Open Secrets.

Thanks for helping to take down Saddam and create a vacuum for Iran to fill in the land of its long-time enemy Pete!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Sports news

1. I can hardly wait for Tim Tebow to be taken to see Stonewall, Fire Island, or the mosque nearest the WTC.

 2. The best comment on the Goddell lowering the BOOM on New Orleans and inadvertently St. Louis is this comment at Deadspin.


Way to fuck it up

Maybe you should not have put your organization in the hands of a right-wing nutjob?

Two top executives at Susan G. Komen for the Cure have announced their resignation, amid reports that the breast cancer charity is struggling to raise money and repair its reputation after its decision to defund Planned Parenthood and subsequent reversal...

...
A Komen insider told HuffPost that "employee morale is in the toilet" since Komen leadership made the controversial decision to defund Planned Parenthood, one of the nation's most prominent women's health and family planning organizations. The move was led by anti-abortion executive Karen Handel, then Komen's senior vice president for public policy, who has since resigned.
"Brinker in complete meltdown," the source wrote to HuffPost. "People want her to resign but she won't."
Meanwhile, Karen Handel is making money hand over fist as her infamy has allowed her to cash in on the right-wing chicken circuit. Bulk-purchase from Regnery to follow and then another run for office. Nice job all around Komen.

The Kind of People that know about things like birth control

Such a history of moral authority:
Shocking reports have surfaced that reveal at least ten teenage boys were castrated in the 1950s by the Dutch Roman Catholic Church as a "treatment" for homosexuality, the Telegraph reports... The reports also uncovered minutes of official meetings held in the 1950s, which revealed directors of the Catholic institutions deciding parents did not need to be involved in decisions -- even with minors, Dutch News reports. They also proved government officials were present in meetings where the castrations were discussed. The Deetman Commission, led by Wim Deetman, was founded by the Catholic church in 2010 following widespread reports of sexual abuse in the church. In their report, the commission found the number of victims who grew up in church institutions to be between 10,000 and 20,000.

Explains one thing...

More popular than ABBA:
Seventy-four percent of Swedes indicated they would vote for Obama whether the sitting Democratic president faced either of the top two Republican challengers, an online survey carried out by the YouGov polling firm shows.
But now something makes more sense. Karl Rove hates the Swedes.

Another turn of the screw (you)

Many have written on the illogical nature of the Supreme Court's 19th century definition of a corporation as a "person". A decision that trumped law in the name of convenience.
Well, that's not the only one, it is not even the most outrageous.

Ladies and Gentlemen the 11th Amendment as it was and still is written:
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
You may note that specifically missing are suits of a citizen against his own State. Using textual analysis you would logically assume that means the 11th Amendment does not bar a suit for money against a person's own State.
Your logic would be impeccable. And legally it would be wrong.
And who likes frustrating the civil rights of ordinary citizens more than the Roberts Court? Oh, I'm sure there are some, but none so able to do so.
The high court by a 5-4 vote ruled that lawsuits against states under the law were barred by state sovereign immunity, rejecting state worker claims for money damages for violations of a provision of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act.
Congratulations State employees, you have far fewer actual and practical rights in your job than your private counterparts. In fact, now that money damages are not on the table, States have a large practical incentive to fire employees who become ill, the best that employee can get is reinstatement and back pay (minus mitigation), after years and expenses involved in litigation.

That is usually not at all worth it.

Nice legal rights you got there, too bad they mean nothing.

Good luck with that.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

What I really want to know is...

First, interesting this is even asked:

Public Policy Polling (D) asked the following question of Americans nationally: "Mitt Romney once strapped his dog’s kennel to the roof of his car for a long car trip. Does this make you more or less likely to vote for him, or does it not make a difference?" ...

The results were not good for Romney -- 35 percent of Americans said they were less likely to vote for Romney based on the story, while seven percent said it made them more likely to vote Romney, and a majority of 55 percent said it didn't matter.


I can understand the 35 percent, I can also understand the 55 percent. But what kind of person would be MORE LIKELY to vote for Romney for abusing a dog?

 Oh, right.

Maybe Bobo Brooks should look a little more carefully

At the next Cato or Heritage meeting.
Serial killers are often charming, but have a high opinion of themselves that is not shared by the wider world. They are often extremely conscious of class and status and they develop venomous feelings toward people who do not pay them sufficient respect.
Like Atrios, one does have to wonder if this is a confession of some kind. Especially considering this:
...even people who contain reservoirs of compassion and neighborliness also possess a latent potential to commit murder.
I see Bobo got out his "Hobbes for Dummies" recently.

By the way, and perhaps related to Brooks barely suppressed desire to make a fine lampshade out of the skin of Frank Bruni, I cannot help but notice the pages of the NYTimes Editorial pages are often marked with this...
Roger Cohen is off today.
And while it may be metaphorically true for Bobo, it never seems to literally be.

He needs some time off to stalk and kill a hobo...or I have a feeling he's going to spree-kill it up all over the Sulzberger's new office carpet.

Ugh! It's like an internet version of "J.A.G."

This blog turned 8 years old on Sunday. It stopped being interesting seven years and ten months ago, at least (if ever).

But thanks to all of you for taking part in enabling my OCD.

So really, it is your fault.

But thanks anyway.

Makes you wonder

Battle stress, and this, are not exactly good grounds for maintaining sanity.
There is no excuse, but there are explanations.

Man of the People

Sheldon Adelson's money is well-spent:


They failed to consider Comandante Romney’s Plan

So no worries, if Romney's elected he and his command of the price of gas will all these war game scenarios will fall before the august presence of the Commander in Chiefs sacred undies.

A classified war simulation exercise held this month to assess the American military’s capabilities to respond to an Israeli attack on Iran forecast that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.
John Bolton demands to know what the downside is?
The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years.
And all this for only several tens of billions of dollars, thousands of dead and $7 a gallon gas.

What's not to love?

Shake your money-making sabre Mitt.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Monday, March 19, 2012

And even worse, they are paying Manning more than 30 pieces of silver -- inflation you know

Like what? Not buying skittles?

The Trayvon Martin case is getting more and more grotesque:
"We are taking a beating over this," said Lee, who defends the investigation. "This is all very unsettling. I'm sure if George Zimmerman had the opportunity to relive Sunday, Feb. 26, he'd probably do things differently. I'm sure Trayvon would, too."
Wow...just wow. What was Trayvon Martin supposed to do, not be a black kid? And speaking of different standards...
ABC News has learned police seemed to accept Zimmerman's account at face value that night and that he was not tested for drugs or alcohol on the night of the shooting, even though it is standard procedure in most homicide investigations.

Nice phrasing

Rick Santorum: Obama administration is soft on pornography
If you want a government "hard on" for pornography, it's all about Santorum.

Don't go Xenophobic with your shirt off

Puerto Ricans send a strong signal to Santorum to save that bullshit for Mississippi:


Shorter John McCain

That anti-woman legislation I voted for was totally fucked-up. 

Leadership.

Well, okey dokey then

Sounds like a plan -- we could use one of those:

“Afghanistan is ready right now,” Karzai said in a statement, “to take all security responsibilities completely.”
Amid yet another week...the 540th or so such week...of death; some malevolent, some accidental, all tragic, comes the above statement of Karzai.

It's not the first such statement he's made, and they are undoubtedly not ready, or likely to ever be so by whatever loose definition our government defines it. But what the hell, after all this time, why not just say "fuck it, let's declare victory* and get out"?

*Declare it, just don't try to define it.


[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Bond-Villain seems much more like Newt Gingrich's future

Than Romney, but having a large subterranean lair is a good start:
The Wall Street Journal has interesting detail on Mitt Romney's application to double the size of his beach house in La Jolla, CA: It will have an additional 3,600 square feet "of finished underground space, according to public records." "Tony Crisafi, one of the project's architects, declined to comment on Mr. Romney's motivations but says that these days, most of his clients want to be discreet about the scale of their home, and one way to do that is 'by pushing things underground.'"

And I bet he was really angry about the contraception regulation too

Another Tea Party winner:
Lemon Grove resident Michael John Kobulnicky, 50, a leader in the San Diego Tea Party and former regional director of the Southern California Conservative Party, is under arrest for allegedly kidnapping and raping a local woman on Fiesta Island.

“He dragged her out of the car and sexually assaulted her pretty brutally,” San Diego Police Lt. Andra Brown told ECM news partner 10 News in late February, shortly after the February 25 assault occurred.

On his website, http://www.michaelkobulnickyusa.com, Kobulnicky lists his leadership roles as “currently the co-organizer and public relations representative for the San Diego Tea Party.”
And this is not the first time he's been accused of abusing women.

A real winner.

Another Day, another disaster

So...how can they govern (as if they want to) without being able to govern themselves:
A caucus at a school near St. Louis where roughly 2,500 Republicans had gathered was adjourned before a vote could take place because it got so rowdy that extra police were summoned and two people were arrested for trespassing. Elsewhere, political tensions and divisions led to recounts not only on votes over which candidates should be supported, but even which people should preside over the caucuses.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Good thing Pat Buchanan has some free time now

He can give the eulogy.

John Demjanjuk, who was found guilty for his role as a guard at a Nazi death camp in World War II, has died aged 91, German police say.

Exactly

What Charles Pierce said, that Shakespeare guy said something about it all too:
The difference is that Stevens could afford good lawyers. He could buy the time and the patience, and the research and the experts, and the continued investigation after his actual conviction. Thousands of people currently languishing in prison can't afford any of that and, I assure you, a shocking number of them are there because prosecutors barbered the Bill of Rights, either because they simply didn't care, or because of the pressure from their elected bosses -- and, therefore, from the public at large -- to put bad people away and the devil take the hindmost. Our criminal justice system is shredding its reputation for being fair because it is so hellbent on maintaining its reputation for being sincere.

How do I know? Because, the same day that the special investigator was roasting the Stevens prosecutors on a spit, the Department of Justice paid a guy named Nino Lyons $140,000 because the federal prosecutors in his case relied on witnesses so blatantly corrupt that they shouldn't have been trusted to wind their own watches. The difference? Nino Lyons did three years in jail. Why?

Because we wanted him to, that's why.

That's too bad

Along with Missouri reliving its glory years of basketball by losing in the first round to a much, much higher seed, there was nothing more satisfying than watching Duke lose.

Next year, I hope Dick Nixon's alma mater doesn't even make the NIT.

Would serve them right.

Not sure this is him without sweater-vest tanlines

Santorum, tired from a hard day of xenophobia in Puerto Rico goes topless. 

Oh, and this shot was taken by a passenger on a gay cruise ship.

Seriously.

At least it wasn't Gingrich.

So let me get this straight

It is okay to let Ugandans be abused and slaughtered now because a white guy got caught cranking it in San Diego?

Uh...that makes the kind of logical sense I would expect in an era where Rick Santorum is taken seriously.

Friday, March 16, 2012

All this bullshit

About liberal strawmen denying the Wright-Brothers invented flying (which is accurate I might ad, "flying" as a invention is something insects managed to accomplish before we did ... so credit natural selection, or maybe God) is yet another level of shooting-in-the-foot hilarity.

Not to mention if we're talking men flying well, the Montgolfier Brothers we're flying around when Jefferson and Adams were in Paris.

Plus, it led to this:


Mitt demands Siri call him "Rock God"

Okay then, I nominate Bob Mould -- or maybe the surviving drunkest member of the Replacements:





(I'm so contemporary and regionally broad in my alternative music knowledge)

I think I'd rather see the pope discuss how cute Hayley Joel Osment was...

Than know video exists of this...

Because who knows more about birth control

Than those who are supposed to be celibate?
As part of their intensely focused effort to repeal the Obama administration's new contraception coverage policy, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a manifesto of sorts on Wednesday, in which they assert that birth control is "ubiquitous and inexpensive."
It is?

Well, sure if you get it as part of the health insurance you pay premiums for it can usually be rather manageable...

oh, right...
"The Bishops have doubled-down on demands allowing employers to deny women coverage for contraception based on the employer's, not the woman's, personal beliefs," said ACLU policy counsel Sarah Lipton-Lubet.
Because what really denotes freedom more than having a decision about your life made by someone else, especially your boss?

U-S-A! or something.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Old, extra White and Stupid

Is no way to go through political life. Congrats Republicans.

No, actually the problem is we understand you quite well

Newt Gingrich thinks he's James Dean all of the sudden (wiki him):

Gingrich: No One Understands Me

Yeah, nobody gets you, you're the (breaking of) wind baby.

I don't know what the general rules of such things are

But I do think if you are going to ask someone to realize how awesome you are...

You might want to spell their name correctly.

 (Via the Great Orange Satan, or as it is known to The American League of Lobbyists...Daly Cos)

No more free meat for Nolte

This Luck show on HBO (never seen it, don't subscribe) getting cancelled over so many horse deaths is weird...or disturbing...actually both.

Yeah, you and trump and your 8 marriages, real awesome dudes

You stay classy Jeff Christie:

Referring to "NAGs," Limbaugh Asks: "How Can I Be Anti-Woman? I Even Judged The Miss America Pageant"

Majority of Americans, soon to be called incredibly Un-American

Goddammit, John Bolton will not put up with this bullshit!
Only one in four Americans favor Israel conducting a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Seven in ten favor instead the US and other major powers continuing to pursue negotiations with Iran. Three in four say that the US should primarily act through the UN Security Council rather than acting by itself.
It's almost as if people have seen this bomb & pony show before. And there's more, apparently a blank check is not the favored foreign policy of Americans either.
If Israel goes ahead with a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program and Iran retaliates (but not against American targets), only one in four favors the US providing military support for Israel and only 4 in 10 favor the US providing even diplomatic support. Few would support open opposition. The most popular position is for the US to take a neutral stance.
Newt Gingrich may already be in the process of dumping us.

Of course, we've been trying to dump his sorry ass for nearly 20 years, one more push Illinois.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

This is why Mashups were invented

Mitt Romney lines uttered by Lucille Bluth:


Too soon?

When is Dealy Plaza going to start selling bobbleheads of Oswald holding his rifle
Bobblehead dolls of the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln have been pulled from sale at the Gettysburg National Military Park visitors' center bookstore. The dolls of John Wilkes Booth with a handgun were removed from shelves on Saturday, a day after a reporter for Hanover's The Evening Sun newspaper asked about them, officials said.
Of course, who doesn't want a Charles J. Guiteau action figure when they add a depot to their train set.

I bet Cheney when he took off that parka at Auschwitz looked around for an Arbeit Macht Frei neon light display.

So, how about a Donner Party Snowglobe?

(pic via Shane Dunlap/The Evening Sun via AP)

I always figured

There were a lot of criminals involved in handling votes, especially amongst Republicans in the South.  But I never dreamed they'd be so blatant about it.


Of course, this being the South, those are probably the only actually innocent people in the building.

So that makes them...and rabid Boston Bruins fans

When we think of Canada surely we think "world's most dangerous place" -- what with their low crime rate, virtually non-existent firearm deaths, and free health care.

What a fucking Tim Horton's populated, poutine infested, hell-hole!

The former vice president had planned to speak April 24 in Toronto. However, recovered memories of September protests convinced Cheney that "personal safety" was at stake in Canada, and both he and daughter Elizabeth will stay on the safer side of the border.
Dick Cheney has never met the remotest chance of personal danger he could not dodge, defer, or make up.

Nice job Supreme Court

It's pretty obvious that Gingrich is still in the race through a combination of his INCREDIBLY over-sized ego and the fact his one wealthy benefactor, Sheldon Adelson, is indirectly funding Romney's nomination.

You know, heh, it isn't my Party and Newt Gingrich is certainly fun to kick around, but still that does seem pretty fucked up.

Pounding the Pulpit

Last night's Republican Primary was a fundamentally uniform:
Around 8 in 10 Mississippians participating in Tuesday's contest were white evangelical or born-again Christians, the largest share measured in any state. Those same voters accounted for nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in Alabama, a proportion reached previously only in Tennessee and Oklahoma.
And then those voters in Mississippi in particular took part in their State's number one "educational activity", browsing and buying pornography.

Perhaps this should have been a bigger campaign issue:
Romney, Santorum and Gingrich promise to ban pornography
The issue even caused Mitt Romney to do something he's never done before, passed up a chance to make a buck, at least once he was caught.

Something many Mississippians hoped to accomplish last night as well.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Blowhard asshole needs better brain governor

Oh, my:
Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests]: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”
If they didn't need altar boys, they wouldn't need good lawyers.

Bill Donohue, asshole for the Lord.

To the hoosegow

It continues to get more interesting in the UK:
Police arrested Rebekah Brooks, the former News of the World editor and close associate to Rupert Murdoch, for a second time on Tuesday in a new round of detentions in Britain's phone-hacking scandal, Sky News reported. British police confirmed they had held five men and one woman in dawn raids across the country on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, with the woman described as 43-years-old and living in Oxford. Brooks, who has become a central figure in the phone hacking scandal, is 43-years-old and lives in Oxfordshire. Sky News, which is part owned by Murdoch's media group, said her husband Charlie Brooks had also been detained.
And possibly more interesting...
One of the descriptions of those arrested - police declined to name them - also fitted the description of James Murdoch, but two sources said he was currently in the United States.

How fitting

It's one thing to hunt and kill endangered animals and then claim they aren't endangered or that the kill was legal...until you realize the place that the Trump clan did the killing was Zimbabwe...i.e. until Syria started hogging the news, the world's No. 1 human rights violator.

Way to give support to Mugabe assholes.

Back to your family's "witty" tweets about whether Obama's born in Hawaii.

Jackasses.

All my best friends are swells

Cannot help himself.
Mitt Romney once again attempted to play up his everyman credentials. But once again, it may not have been the message he wanted to send. "I've got a lot of good friends - the owner of the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets - both owners are friends of mine," Romney said in an interview with an Alabama radio host Paul Finebaum on Monday.
Soon, Mitt will say how much he identifies with the price of gas because he has so many good friends who run Exxon-Mobil and BP.

He's breaking the 10 Commandments for the Lord

It's okay to lie if you're a Republican too:
Erik Mouthaan, the U.S. correspondent for the Dutch RTL Evening News, appeared on the show soon after, explaining that Santorum has no idea what he's talking about. But to update the story, Andrew Kaczynski reports that Mouthaan connected with Santorum press secretary Alice Stewart, asking to explain why the former senator made a series of claims that simply aren't true. Regrettably, Stewart didn't offer much of a defense. From Stewart's perspective, Santorum being " a strong pro-life person" apparently gives him license to make up nonsense about the Netherlands.

From the IOKIYAR files

The largest of the Republican White Hopes gets back in the news in his inimitable style:

Not only does Gov. Chris Christie not regret calling a Navy SEAL and one-time Democratic candidate for office an “idiot” at a town hall last week in Roebling, today he took the criticism further, labeling him a jerk, too.

“Just because he was a Navy SEAL doesn’t give him the right to be a jerk,”
No, that's what being a Republican governor is for. Let us all take a minute to honor Chris Christie's valiant service in the burger wars.

Meanwhile, in other regions of the country, the heart of Old Dixie does make one realize the value of anonymous internet postings.

[cross posted at Firedoglake]

Monday, March 12, 2012

Actually

At 18 they called you "Dumber than his Asshole father".

Now they call you "That Asshole who went bankrupt twice even when his asshole father left him a quarter of a billion dollars in the mid-70s". Or just "What a huge Asshole" for short.

Speaking of endorsements

Touring the ever-progressive and non-ignorant South (home of the bulk of America's "Reality" shows and contestants) the Santorum Campaign has matched Romney's curtains with carpet (ooh, offensive, I hope I don't lose all my sponsors!)

The Duggar family will take up the Santorum Bus and three other buses on the hustings. After she makes a short introduction, Ricky will pop out of Michelle's vagina thrilling the crowd to no end.

But what about the "giddy-up-a-whoom-poppa-mow-mow" guy?

Just gets worse

Afghanistan the anvil round the ankles of empire:
Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Aghanistan early Sunday, igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility, Afghan and American officials said. Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate houses. At the first, the man gathered 11 bodies, including those of four girls younger than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said.
"igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility?"

Golly, ya' think?

Can you blame them?

We're not exactly a society capable of distinguishing individual acts from broad-based assumptions ourselves. And how many individual acts of violence have we perpetuated against Afghans, whether in acts "WE" consider justified or not?
Another senior military official said the sergeant was 38 and married with two children. He had served three tours of duty in Iraq, this official said, and had been deployed to Afghanistan for the first time in December. Yet another military official said he has served in the Army for 11 years.
He may, or may not have acted alone.  But I'm sure this account shows that bombing and deploying (repeatedly) in other countries is a great idea.

Could you repeat that?

It sounds too idiotic to have been stated even by a flesh pile with a mouth hole:

You might be a rich asshole if...

As the four candidates of the apocalypse tour the South, they do start to make speeding up the end times seem a plausible option.
Comedian Jeff Foxworthy will campaign for Mitt Romney, the Romney campaign announced Sunday.
Mitt is at least wealthier than a fifth grader.

But seriously, who is Larry the Cable Guy endorsing?

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Not good, not good at all

Much worse than Koran burning:
Witnesses told Reuters they saw a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar's Panjwayi district at around 2 am, enter homes and open fire. An Afghan minister earlier told Reuters that a lone U.S. soldier had killed up to 16 people when he burst into homes in villages near his base in the middle of the night... NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it had detained one of its soldiers and that an investigation was under way. It said the soldier reportedly went to more than one village near his base. "I cannot explain the motivation behind such callous acts, but they were in no way part of authorized ISAF military activity," ISAF deputy commander Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw said in the statement.

Science!!!

Sure to be ignored by the Jesus-Horse crowd:

Teens who receive formal sex education wait longer to have sex, a new study finds — and when they do get around to doing the deed, they're more likely than teens who haven't had sex ed to use contraception.

The study couldn't fully tease out the differences between abstinence-only sex education and sex education that also includes discussion of birth control methods, but the researchers wrote that contrary to some critics' beliefs, there is no evidence that sex education encourages teens to have sex sooner or to take more sexual risks.
We are beholden to idiots.

Spinelessness is not the sole province of Romney

What Charles Pierce says.

Well, you knew it wouldn't be Newt

Ron Paul wins the US Virgin Islands (in a way).

Punchline unnecessary.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

You stay classy, Chris Christie

The fact is the guy gets to yell at whoever the hell he pleases, and this gets attention ONLY because of who he yelled at this time:
New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie is well known for his extroverted personality and outspoken nature. But his often confrontational approach that kept his name in presidential primary talks for months ended in a shouting match today with a student who is a also a former Navy Seal.. ..."I mean, damn man, I'm governor, could you shut up for a second?"
He's the "decider".

Song of the South

Mitt Romney is trying to act all southern.

When is he going to start singing "Born on the Bayou"?

"Glorious" Austerity

It's only making unemployment 0.6 percent higher. And especially hurts women.

 Huzzah!

Friday, March 09, 2012

Unleash the dog-whistles!

Who can imply the most racist views in the next 72-hours?
Three candidates are vying for the win in the Alabama Republican presidential primary according to a new poll from Rasmussen. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gets 30, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum sees 29, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is at 28 in the new poll

We have our winner

Of dumbest statement of year 2012.

All there can be now are ties.

And then they'll be appearing on the "School of Rock"

Most esoteric post ever!
President Barack Obama will be making his first visit Tuesday to Dayton as commander-in-chief. The White House announced Thursday that Obama will be bringing David Cameron, prime minister of the United Kingdom, with him to the University of Dayton Arena to take in a NCAA First Four basketball game, the first step to the Final Four of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
There's a strong possibility that the President may continue hug people, some of them black -- so that will keep Breitbart's heirs busy.

Stay classy lady haters

They just don't stop:

 The sweeping anti-abortion bill working its way through the Kansas Legislature would levy a sales tax on women seeking abortions, including rape victims.

There’s just a few problems

Well, this is all well, fine, true and good:
Former Israeli intelligence chief Meir Dagan, in his first U.S. television interview, says he believes that the Iran regime is rational and that now is not the time to attack Iran.
"The regime in Iran is a very rational one," the former top Israeli spymaster tells CBS' Leslie Stahl, according to excerpts of the interview released by 60 Minutes.
Not that this is actually ever reported much, but the above is an unreported historical fact. Even if Iran got a nuclear weapon, they are not going to drop it on Israel, they are not going to use it on Israel or the United States. No, they are going to use it as leverage to dictate policy in the region so certain unnamed global superpowers cannot just decide to start dropping bombs and occupying countries anymore.
Which may not always be the worst thing that could happen.

So yes, the Iranians are very rational, even if their government has other substantial problems.

Too bad many of our political leadership are not.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]