Some might call it "Treason" but IOKIYAR

Former Bush Administration official gave advice to Gaddafi about how to lie to NATO and specifically America.

Just look at those "job creators"!!!!

They've done pretty well for themselves:







Self-described patriots one and all I'm sure.

I see she's twittering in tongues

Anything for some attention:

The ultimate Rupert Murdoch News Corp Clip

Having Bill Nye (the Science Guy) on and then accusing him of confusing their viewers with scientific evidence.



Evidence and fact is not how they roll.

"It would be irresponsible to speculate, it would be irresponsible not to"

Heavens to Peggy Noonan, Bill O'Reilly believes in falafel for me, but not for thee!

Bill O'Reilly came to believe that his wife was romantically involved with another man. Not just any man, but a police detective in the Long Island community they call home. So O'Reilly did what any concerned husband would do: He pulled strings to get the police department's internal affairs unit to investigate one of their own for messing with the wrong man's lady.

Apparently the Roger Ailes' Fox Security force was busy intimidating Ailes' neighbors.



So what the hell, let us start extrapolating, via Jeff Bercovici at Forbes, how this is related to other recent FoxNews scandals:

To build a case that News Corp. constitutes a corrupt organization under anti-racketeering statutes, prosecutors have to show that there exists a pattern of wrongdoing sanctioned at the highest levels of the company.

And what have we here?

the charges against O’Reilly make it that much less unlikely. As Gawker notes, his boss, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, has a habit of using local cops as though they’re his personal employees. Ailes has also been accused of instructing an employee, Judith Regan, to lie to federal investigators who were vetting former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik for the job of running the Homeland Security Department.

All a mere coincidence I'm sure.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Good material for her act

"They're not dead, they've done be raptured!"

38 people have died from Hurricane Irene and its fertile supply of Bachmann stand up material.

I'm still outraged

Michelle Bachmann, anti-dry bigot!



And yes I'm raising my hand because I'm SURE dammit!!!

Non-living space? OMG, he's building a holding pen for a zombie army!

Mitt Romney, just your average guy:

Last week, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney had filed a permit application to bulldoze his $12 million, 3,009 square-foot “oceanfront manse” in La Jolla, California and replace it with a two-story 11,062 square-foot structure...



Romney himself told the New Hampshire Union Leader’s Joe McQuaid that he was merely doubling the “living space” of the home and the rest of the additional square-footage to be added was “nonliving space, including a basement and garage.”

5,000 square feet of "non-living space?"



BRAINZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Apparently we are not getting a chance to say "Oh fuck, NO THANK YOU!"

CostCo unleashes...I kid you not...the "Guy Fieri Marinated Meat Variety Pack"

Tack Righter

I go out of my way to ignore FoxNews. But my father is visiting me and well, he's also suffering from a bad cold and watching hour after hour of FoxNews drones seems to be his cup of tea (as opposed to actually y'know drinking tea when you're sick, that's Republican logic for ya'). I spent most of the morning at my office working so it may not have been a continuous thing, but every time I passed by the TV yesterday afternoon there was some GOP talking head or Eric Cantor talking about Obama implementing "job destroying regulations". Why it is almost as if they decided on a theme together!



Why this sudden tactic?



Oh...

The White House appears to have achieved one of its primary goals following the debt ceiling deal, with congressional Republicans showing little interest in extending budget fights through the fall.

Somebody...not the White House...can read polling. Meanwhile, "leadership" to the Administration continues to mean only criticizing your base, not the ostensible opponent America wants you to confront.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

How shrill, how accurately shrill

Oh dear, there goes that damn Krugman being all accurate again on the GOP:

Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.

Heaven forbid we allow a good corporate political donor to be at all inconvenience

A year after a prominent Iowa Egg producer tried to use salmonella as a WMD, how's that reform going?



Ca-ching!

Iowa egg producers don't have to disclose salmonella test results to state or federal regulators, egg farms are told days in advance about inspections, federal regulators don't fine or close egg farms where violations are found and some egg farms refuse to tell government inspectors what brands their eggs are sold under.

Evidence

Well in additions to their patent crimes against spelling, the Gaddafi regime, or more the Gaddafi family running the regime is about as bad a collection of Fredos that could be imagined...without any redeeming qualities whatsoever.



I do worry about some level of "tossing babies from incubators" in these stories, but considering this case is documented with some actual journalism it seems pretty legit. One does wonder just what nightmares the House of Saud (our buddies) and the Assad family are hiding as well -- and one does wonder how such things will be exploited by our nation's caste of perpetual war whores to see something gets done about it...selectively (and expensively without any thought of blowback).





Video is disturbing

Well yes...and your various apologies are where exactly?

Oh, I see, George Will says Cheney should apologize.



Well, yes...and more than that also.



But where, I wonder, are the column millimeters of apologia from George Will? For example, why he shouldn't be placed on one of our planet's rapidly disappearing ice flows...the ones he has no understanding of?

Showing the kind of leader he'd be

Apparently Rick Perry figured now was the time to get out his dumbest statements. While much of the nation -- but most importantly the national media -- was obsessed with their own problems.



And this is Rick Perry and dumb on the Rick Perry scale is pretty impressive.

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie,” Perry said. “It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”

Put that together with his declaration that Social Security is unconstitutional and you have an idea of just how right the far right has become. Even touching the program used to the the third rail, now the arguments made by conservatives in the mid-1930s are STILL cutting edge conservative ideas.



If our national media was paying attention this weekend you could assume that would be it for this candidate, he'd be politically finished (not to mention he conveniently makes the Cat Food Commission look like the moderates they dream of themselves as being). But, of course, the national media paid no attention, so it might as well have never happened.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Give 'em hell Mike

This kind of principled obstruction I can tolerate, human rights instead of the usual purpose:

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal said he'll once again use the power of his position to block any debate over gay marriage when lawmakers convene next year.



Unless the Council Bluffs Democrat changes his mind or is removed from his position, his stand will prevent a statewide vote to ban gay marriage for at least several years. Most Republican legislators want to refer a proposed constitutional amendment to voters, but Gronstal says he thinks public sentiment on gay marriage is shifting.



Some Republicans said Gronstal's stand will hurt him in his re-election bid, but the Senate president says he's not worried.

Please show some backbone

Funny, but more Americans while unhappy with everybody, are particularly unhappy that nobody is taking the Republican Congress (as popular as a nasty chancre) to task. Including Obama.



Stand up to them, is the new mantra.



We'll see, though I have my doubts, whether Obama has the demeanor to do so.

Manna from Idiot Heaven

It's enough to make your nervous system secede from your cerebrum:

During a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa today, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) reaffirmed all the views expressed in his book Fed Up!, including that Social Security is unconstitutional, despite previous attempts by his campaign staff to walk back the candidate’s words.

These folks remain the best unintended friends of the Obama Administration.

Irene Prep Open Thread

Was very busy these past few days. In addition to navigating the usual insanity of work, attending this strange, record-breaking baseball game, and treating The GC to dinner at this vegan restaurant (it was good!), there was hurricane prep, i.e., making sure I had flashlight (check), portable radio (check), batteries for both (check), containers of water (check), and a full bathtub (well, the plan was to do that when things really get going here, i.e., later this evening). But then some friends got a mandatory evacuation courtesy of Mayor Bloomberg, and so I lent them my place for the weekend. They'll get the benefit of my prep, and I'll spend today at The GC's, bringing in outdoor potted plants, securing the screens, putting the outdoor furniture in the basement, and harvesting whatever can reasonably be harvested from what's left of my sad little veggie garden), and then it will be cooking, watching movies, reading, looking at the cat, and not a whole lot else.

What to read? Well, a number of people have recommended this John Tierney, article called Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? , so I'll check that out. I'll finish the Teju Cole and maybe start on Good Neighbors, which two friends have recommended. As for movies, there's the latest Mike Leigh -- Another Year -- as well as Queen To Play. The movies are contingent on the power supply, of course. As long as a tree doesn't fall on The GC's house, I think we'll be okay.

Some people here are fed up with the media hype and muscular government-mandated precautions (e.g., widespread, evacuation of low-lying areas, an unprecedented mass transit shut-down, and even casino closings (/eye roll) etc.), but this is my calculus: during a severe storm, maybe fifteen out 100 people do something ill-advised (e.g., drive through a puddle of indeterminate depth, go to the beach to watch the surf, walk across the George Washington Bridge), but with this degree of media and official anticipation, maybe only five will do so. That seems worth it to me. Or maybe I'm dreaming.

Stay safe and dry, everyone

Taint that something?

Puerto Rico's Republican Commonwealth Senator Roberto Arango is determined to "bear" down and surpass any candid Anthony Weiner junk show. He started posting pictures of himself on a gay dating cite. Now if he wasn't such a hypocrite and belong to the party of hypocrites, this would just be rather embarrassing, but whatever, live and let live -- But, he does. Meanwhile, he doesn't deny it really, but he has an innocent explanation:

You know I've been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I've been taking pictures. I don't remember taking this particular picture but I'm not gonna say I didn't take it. I'd tell you if I remembered taking the picture but I don't.

The picture that showed up posted of him?



Let's just say, he's ready to play catcher...oh, and thank goodness for pixilation.



So really, your classic weight loss photograph right, the one of how much weight you've lost in your taint?

Huh, imagine that

That Gaddafi guy spread false propaganda as fast as the Pentagon:

FOR DECADES her name was invoked by Muammar Gadafy and his apologists as proof of his personal suffering as a result of the US bombing of his Tripoli compound in 1986.



After US aircraft struck the Bab al-Azizia complex on April 14th that year, in revenge for the bombing of the La Belle nightclub in Berlin by Libyan agents, the regime announced that an adopted infant daughter of Col Gadafy, named Hana, had died in the raid...



I found an examination paper from a Libyan university medical faculty which was signed “Hana Muammar Gadafy” in Arabic. A photograph showed a woman who seemed to be Hana with a group of people, including Col Gadafy’s blood daughter Aisha.



A British Council certificate, dated July 19th, 2007, showed that a Hana Muammar Gadafy had completed an English language course at its Libyan centre, achieving an A grade.

Also, spelling alternative number 156 for Gaddafi.

I know I'll be fine

But I'm waiting for Chuck Todd to talk about how hurricanes on the east coasts aren't news.

The Virgin Suicides

Keep going Boehner, you can catch up to cancer if you keep trying (or tanning)!

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows Congress’ approval rating dropping to just 12%. It’s the lowest ever recorded in an AP poll.

Banned Words of 2012™: Another Update

New items in BOLD.



Because it's never too early to put the world on notice.

1. Foodie (When I was a single gal, if a date would describe himself this way, I would run in the other direction, not because I don't enjoy good food, but because such sorts were invariably boring moralizers and/or just big pains in the ass. They also tended to treat waitstaff like shit, and this is something that drives me nuts.) (See also, No. 9.)
2. Grand Bargain.
3. Social Networking
4. Tablet/eReader/iPad.
5. Facebook/LinkedIn/FourSquare/Twitter.
6. Tweet.
7. Sexting.
8. Smart Phone
9. Amazing (when used to describe food). (See also, No. 1.)
10. FAIL.
11. Too Big To Fail
12. This and this.

Put your suggestions in comments. We'll update this list as 2011 progresses.



Banned Words of 2011™

Banned Words of 2010™

Banned Words of 2009™

Banned Words of 2008™

Space Diamond

There's a planet a mere 4,000 light years away that appears to be made out of diamonds.



People are wondering what Newt Gingrich would tweet?



Well, hell that's easy:



Newt Gingrich is going to tweet any minute that we send a spaceship full of poor African men to go mine it.

Aw, dammit all to hell

The bond between people and their animal companions is truly special, and often heartbreaking.

Just wondering

In addition to having joint custody of Condi's portfolio, do you think Bush and Gaddafi shared notes over the best late night Cinemax movies?



I'm pretty sure Gaddafi didn't give up those WMD's and come away empty-handed...alone perhaps, but not empty-handed.

There was class warfare

And we lost, to those who were saying "you are engaging in class warfare"

$2 of every $3 in income growth from 2002–2007 went to the upper 1%

Thanks Bush Tax Cuts, good thing you gave us the deficit that means the middle class and poor have to have their governmental services reduced.

The "I got mine, screw you files" continue

A recent report found that one of the most important and least noted public programs is coming under massive funding pressure:

New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts.

To say that SSDI is the thing that millions of unemployable Americans rely upon to live is an understatement.



But the future of SSDI and its funding is in the hands of people like Republican Representative Chip Cravaack of Minnesota. Last seen quivering in fear and spewing out blatant falsehoods about funding Pell Grants. Representative Cravaack is a full-on TeaParty baby, who thinks things like government assistance to the needy has already taken this country to Marco Rubio's land of ruination.



So just who is he who will judge those who are in need of disability assistance?

Cravaack's earned income for fiscal year 2010 topped out at $92,273; the cash comes in the form of disability payments for sleep apnea, which ended his flying career with Northwest Airlines, now Delta Airlines, in 2007.

Oh he's well positioned to be a hypocrite -- how completely unexpected. I bet he's anti-Union too, guess who got him his disability?



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hey just like Dubya's secret porn stash!

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

Yep, the Washington Post runs the place

Will the last competent writer left at Slate please turn off the lights so William Saleton can have some private masturbation time?



I'm guessing that will be you Dahlia Lithwick.

Just realized the proper FoxNews headline

He's going out like you would figure

Dick Cheney's book is coming out next week, I excerpted it some time ago, but there you go...

“There are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington,’’ Cheney told NBC’s Jamie Gangel in an exclusive interview that will air on NBC’s “Dateline”

Dick knows how to make heads AND hearts explose...and where to apply the electrodes to your package.

Excerpts from the forthcoming Dick Cheney bio

Written with the incredibly inaccurate and syncophantic Stephen Hayes, the Laurie Mylroie of ink.



Chapter 1:



Dick was born in the house his father built. Dick's father was a sort of a little man, common man. He was a streetcar motorman first, then a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California Wyoming. He sold it before they found oil on it. And then he was a grocer Lion-Tamer. He was a great man, because he did his job, and every job counts up to the hilt, regardless of what happens.



Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about Dick's mother. Dick's mother was a saint. A saint with eight teats and a dewclaw.



Chapter 2:



When Cheney was just a year and a half, he intercepted Japanese codes that stated they were preparing to attack Midway Island. He promptly sketched a crayola-gram to Admiral Chester Nimitz and changed the course of the war in the Pacific. For his heroism, Nimitz recommended Cheney for the medal of Freedom, but he was denied the award by Fascist-apologist Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Dick got his revenge at the age of four, when on a trip to Warm Springs, Georgia he introduced the resting Roosevelt to his pillow. [Sorry, classified]



Chapter 3:



1948, seven year old Dick Cheney tries to volunteer for the United States Air Force to participate in the Berlin Airlift, the attempt to keep West Berliners fed is known to young Dick as "Germany's second chance to get National Socialism right!". But just before he can bicycle down to the recruitment office he stubs his toe on the coffee table, suffering a nasty hangnail that would likely compromise his flight status. Darn the luck. Fortunately, Dick is able to turn to other priorities and engage in the war at home with incessent red-baiting of fellow second grader milk monitors and playing in Whittaker Chambers' pumpkin patch.



Chapter 4:



Dick hits puberty:

Chapter 5: The College Years



1960: Dick attends Yale, having won a scholarship for his High School Senior thesis in late 1958 "Castro's 26th of July Movement, an insurgency in its Last Throes". However, Dick has to leave school early after participating in the 'Kill a Commie for Nixon' program. Neverthless, it is determined by a council of Skull & Bones that Cheney will not be prosecuted because, after all, his victim was a liberal and from a mere middle class family. Dick drinks from Geronimo's skull and departs for Wyoming in 1962.



Dick takes time off from school, working for an electrical company as a lineman. However, in reality, Dick is listening in on phone conversations involving the Kennedy Administration. Later that Year, Dick visits Hollywood and gets a job as Marilyn Monroe's housekeeper going by the name "Eunice".



Dick and his High School Sweetheart Lynne begin sending each other letters and gifts. Lynne sends Dick the heart of a local farmhand, Dick sends Lynne the pelvic bone of a vagrant whose flesh he had boiled away. Their co-dependency grows stronger. On Valentine's Day 1963 Dick sends Lynne a letter that reveals the poet in Dick Cheney's soul:

Miss Vincent,



My regards to you on this February 14, 1963. Without you, my will to power would have stopped when I assumed hall monitor duties in junior high after Tim Wilson's 'little accident'. You have given me the drive to attain the highest levels of executive authority as well as introduced me to the consumption of human flesh. I look forward to maintaining a respectful distance from you for years to come.



Sincerely,



Richard B. Cheney

Dick returns to college this time at the University of Wyoming, to be closer to Lynne and available for late night sessions of passionless dry humping and random euthanizing of the pets of Wyoming Democrats. In the Fall of 1963, Dick who is double majoring in Unethical Behavior and Embezzlement, proposes to Lynne, saying the only thing he wants to do more than get in her pants is get the United States into a War it cannot win. Lynne chuckles, accepts and tells Dick he'll have at least two opportunities to do each. But first, she asks for a blood sacrifice to prove his devotion. Dick is puzzled as to what to do, but then just before Thanksgiving, he hops a train to Dallas.

To be continued...

Imagine the furor

If American senators tried to procure weapons for a vile dictator in the middle east?



Good thing that could never happen.



IOKIYAROJL

Dear Apple

Maybe you could rehire John Scully, or hey, Carly Fiorina is available.



Sincerely,



HP

Familiar Playbook

Hey, why don't I Mark Knoller make the most patently lazy and bullshit argument possible?



Good I idea Mark.



And before you impose any duty upon me to correct my silly and stupid errors, SUCK IT BIATCHES!







Make sure that lie spreads around the world a few times so you don't have to correct it.

Get your cheeto dust fingers ready Doughy Pantload

For the richest people of France think they should be taxed more, CLASS WAR EXPENSIVE CHEESE EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS that they are:

A group of 16 of the richest people in France has signed a petition asking the French government to increase their taxes. The group includes Liliane Bettencourt, the billionaire heiress of L’Oreal; Christophe de Margerie, the head of oil giant Total; Frederic Oudea of bank Société Générale; and Jean-Cyril Spinetta, president of Air France KLM SA...



The group says the government should create a “special contribution” that would target the rich.



“We are conscious of having benefited from a French system and a European environment that we are attached to and which we hope to help maintain,” the petition said.

Oh well, Jonah may still have support of the descendants of Coco Chanel.

It's just a flesh wound

If not for the bombing, the looting, the maiming, the pillaging, the raping, and of course, the killing, this whole thing would start to be relatively humorous.

...quasi-deposed, quasi-exiled former strongman Moammar Gaddafi addressed Libyans by radio this evening from an unknown location claiming his withdrawal was but a "tactical move" in the face of NATO aggression.

Hopefully he will be joined spiritually (from Hawaii) from Al Qaeda detecting quasi strong-man Newt Gingrich.

How will they be able to afford their sterling list of columnists?

The Washington Post Corporation's scam plan for maintaining a profit is not going to be so profitable anymore. Took a while, but people did have to rely primarily on word-of-mouth, instead of what they read in the paper.

For-profit colleges are facing a tough test: getting new students to enroll.



New-student enrollments have plunged—in some cases by more than 45%—in recent months, reflecting two factors: Companies have pulled back on aggressive recruiting practices amid criticism over their high student-loan default rates. And many would-be students are questioning the potential pay-off for degrees that can cost considerably more than what's available at local community colleges...



Some companies are feeling pain not only from students shying away but from their own tightened admissions standards. Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Higher Education, like Apollo, now requires certain students to participate in a trial program before enrolling and paying tuition. Kaplan reported a 47% decline in new-student enrollment for the June quarter. Even without the orientation program, new-student enrollment would have dropped 36% in the quarter.

That'll teach 'em to even pretend to have a conscience!f



But the important question is how will this affect the ability of the paper to continue paying Richard Cohen, Robert Samuelson or Fred Hiatt?



Oh, silly me, they'll just let go of more actual reporters.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Funny

I felt something.

Being on the twenty-fifth floor of a swaying, crappily constructed office tower (the fucking thing leaks when it rains even a little bit) is a tad disconcerting, but the borg-mates and I were all cracking jokes pretty quickly.

Speaking of which, I loves me some Alex Pareene, but PourMeCoffee is pretty damn funny, too.

Funny

I felt NOTHING!



But I'm old and bitter, so that's what I normally feel.



Alex Pereene won the quip contest.

He's leaving to spend more time "downgrading" his family

Rimshot!

Standard & Poor's President Deven Sharma is leaving the credit-rating firm at the end of the year, the company said Monday night...



The moves come as S&P faces questions about its controversial downgrade earlier this month of ...

Excuse me, but is there any real need to even contemplate reading this column?

Hasn't Bobo cranked this fucker out about 500 times already?

I did not know there was a debate

Questions you never thought about, answered.

No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist

Thanks New York Times, now demonstrate that Marcus Bachmann doesn't find his wife's touch icky, because most of us assume that one too.

Let me share "too much information" with you

Um, ew -- the ol' blacklight test was run on the five-star hotel Dominique Strauss-Kahn was at, and as part of the evidence leading to a dismissal of the charges was this:

Three of the other stains on the carpet contained the semen and DNA of three different unknown males, and one other stain contained amylase and a mixture of DNA from three additional unknown individuals. The stain on the wallpaper contained the semen and DNA of a fourth unknown male.

But I'm sure that Holiday Express you stayed at last night was completely spotless.

The situation may be fluid

But I don't remember that many "arrested" people showing up at a hotel to discuss their lack of being arrested. But then again, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is just the son of a ruthless dictator actively engaged in a shooting war, as opposed to a civil protester exercising their First Amendments right to protest governmental policies in the "Land of the Free", those people get locked up post-haste.

The BBC and CNN quoted him as telling reporters that government forces had lured the rebels into a trap and “broken the back” of the opposition army and that pro-Gaddafi forces are back in control of the city.



The confusion made the assertion impossible to confirm, but with gunfire and explosions echoing ominously through the streets and Gaddafi’s whereabouts still unknown, it was clear that the capital was far from secure.

It's very had to determined right now how much of anyone's statement from any side of the Libya fight is accurate or a preposterous lie, but this seems like about 3 Baghdad Bob's out of 5.



This situation will undoubtedly get resolved relatively soon (give or take a decade) so our oil companies can commence a new round of exploitation for "freedom".



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Hmmmm, I wonder why?

Couldn't be because they're petty assholes now could it?

“We also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.”

Yes, as Benin says, forget the "blame America first" crowd, it's now "do not thank America at all" -- and naturally their major issue is WE DIDN'T BOMB MORE AND SOONER!.



Oh, well they'll still always have these fond memories:







And the camping trips.

Now that's a ringing endorsement

And the winner for psychological confliction is...

Muammar Gaddafi's former right hand man, Abdel-Salam Jalloud, who flew to Italy on Saturday after defecting, has said he doubts Gaddafi will surrender, but has claimed he "doesn't have the courage, like Hitler, to kill himself," writes Tom Kington in Rome.

So Libya's Goehring/Borman says Gaddafi worse than Hitler.



Charlie Sheen declares this the "Winning" quote of the day.

And now a word

From perpetually far more accurate that John Bolton (let alone Jonah Goldberg) middle east scholar Juan Cole -- the Krugman of international affairs (so you won't be seeing him on TV much):

I have taken a lot of heat for my support of the revolution and of the United Nations-authorized intervention by the Arab League and NATO that kept it from being crushed. I haven’t taken nearly as much heat as the youth of Misrata who fought off Qaddafi’s tank barrages, though, so it is OK. I hate war, having actually lived through one in Lebanon, and I hate the idea of people being killed. My critics who imagined me thrilling at NATO bombing raids were just being cruel. But here I agree with President Obama and his citation of Reinhold Niebuhr. You can’t protect all victims of mass murder everywhere all the time. But where you can do some good, you should do it, even if you cannot do all good. I mourn the deaths of all the people who died in this revolution, especially since many of the Qaddafi brigades were clearly coerced (they deserted in large numbers as soon as they felt it safe). But it was clear to me that Qaddafi was not a man to compromise, and that his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to.

I've been critical of this process for the same reason I've been critical of much of American military policy the last few years...I just don't find bombing things to be good policy, silly me, but it appears the multi-spelled man from determined to wear every outfit on the Sgt. Pepper album has lost power. And that's not too bad a thing to happen.



But now what?

To be settled at the negotiating table?

Qaddafi is apparently on the precipice of falling/fleeing/larping. Leaving only three questions.



1. What is the official spelling?



2. Will he get to keep all his wardrobe, or has the UK confiscated it for Elton John?



3. How much marginally better or worse will his successors be?

Never mind why...

The question of "why?" was not allowed be asked in Great Britain earlier this month when an instance of police violence eventually prompted widespread rioting across the country's largest cities.



For example:







Here's what was reported shortly thereafter, but not even "dared" to be considered in relationship to rioting:

The increase in unemployment appears to have been most concentrated among the young, with unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds increasing to 18% in Q2, from 17.7% in Q1

That's well more than double the unemployment rate in the UK as a whole (but not as high as the rate in this country USA! USA! USA!).



But like a good modern 'Villagers' everywhere the problem immediately became 'young people are not taught about respect or coddled' and other fascistic-sounding nonsense, leading to this:

The tough sentencing in the aftermath of the riots has led to outbreaks of unrest in prisons across the country, as new research for The Independent on Sunday reveals that the courts' approach to riot-related offences has piled millions of pounds on to the bill for running overcrowded prisons.

Ah yes, as ever the solution to government and societal problems is not to look for causes or ways to correct them, it is to SPEND MORE MONEY ON THE JAILS! (but not as much as this country USA! USA! USA!)



FREEDOM!!!



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

This young man can be described in one word

"HERO"



He hath now contributed more to the realm of media commentary, nay America, than Kim Kardasian.

He's bein' a "job provider"

Mitt Romney, THE COMMON MAN!

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who in June told voters that he was “also unemployed,” has applied for a permit to bulldoze his 3,000-square-foot, $12 million home in La Jolla, California, and replace it with one nearly four times its size. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the new home will be two stories and more than 11,000 square feet. Romney also owns a $10 million estate in New Hampshire. His campaign declined to comment on the renovation plans.

But I'm sure he can identify with your problems.

Awww

Time for some Oxy to ease the pain:

The just-released Arbitron report reveals that a lot less people are listening to right-wing talk radio.



With a lull in ratings since November, Rush Limbaugh had a 3.0 share of listeners for his radio time slot, which is a 33% slide from October and from last April, reports Crain's Business.



Meanwhile, The Sean Hannity Show was reported to be down 28% from its peak numbers in the fall.

I guess he'll have to start wearing white sheets and burning crosses to keep his remaining base.

Of course she is

Lost in the many stupidities of claiming Obama was born in Kenya is the fact that so many, uberconservative candidates are tied to violence against gays in neighboring Uganda.

The evangelical organizer who helped Michele Bachmann win the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa Saturday was previously charged with terrorism in Uganda after being arrested for possession of assault rifles and ammunition in February 2006, just days before Uganda's first multi-party elections in 20 years.



Peter E. Waldron spent 37 days in the Luriza Prison outside Kampala, where he says he was tortured, after being arrested along with six Congolese and Ugandan nationals for the weapons, which were described variously in news reports as having been found in his bedroom or a closet in his home. The charges, which could have led to life in prison, were dropped in March 2006 after a pressure campaign by Waldron's friends and colleagues and what Waldron says was the intervention of the Bush administration.

The Fox News audience

Hey, by this "logic" shouldn't we be arming against the rapture?

...more than six times as many respondents (19 percent to 3 percent) said we should focus on building weapons to kill aliens before curbing greenhouse gases. Watch a compilation

And we're not talking non-Citizen alien, we're talking E.T..

So why'd you say it then?

Just make your campaign "Gaffe 2012".

About her "fear the Soviet Union" comment on the radio, Bachmann says, "we all know that it is Russia, it's not the Soviet Union."

If everyone knows it, why don't you?

Hey, maybe he means he'll help him out

With evidence supporting evolutionary biology?







Or with suggestions for hotel room porn?

Watch much FoxNews?

Noted and reformed cocaine scholar and lottery winner Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson once said of Terry Bradshaw, "he couldn't spell "cat" if you spotted him the "c" and the "a"..."



This pithy observation goes hand-in-hand with the FoxNews-related basis by which Mr. Bradshaw appears to get his information.







Well, Cokie Roberts says it is VERY exotic.



(think he was probably joking...probably)

It's raining shoes!

This should be interesting.

Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of the News of the World phone hacking, has been ordered by a court to reveal who instructed him to access the voicemails of model Elle MacPherson and five other public figures including Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes.



Mulcaire is due to reveal these details by the end of next week in a move that will throw further light on the scale of phone hacking at the now defunct News International tabloid.



The Guardian has learned that Mulcaire has lost an attempt to appeal against a court order obliging him to identify who instructed him to hack the phones, something he has resisted since February.



Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to hacking the phones of members of the royal household for the News of the World, has been forced into making the disclosure following legal action by the comedian and actor Steve Coogan.

Damn blue states

Via the ACLU and Balloon Juice:

Yes, pretty much

The Daily Show - World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Money shot

Rick Perry, he really loved porn -- especially investing in a company that made it.



Like a good self-proclaimed fundy.

Time Capsule

I understand it is only behind her fear of Napoleon.

But what people recognize is that there's a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward.

This has got to be an elaborate joke

Or incredibly stupid (how 'bout both?)...I'm going with the latter regarding Sgt. "Moran" (that's right that's his name) though the name is why I'm thinking it's a really bad and foolish joke -- for that Moran.

The America Connection

Oh oh, phone hacking just got closer to Murdoch's most recent nation of claimed citizenship.

James Desborough, an award-winning reporter at the former News of the World newspaper, has been arrested by officers investigating the phone-hacking scandal...



His move to the US makes his arrest, the 13th made by Operation Weeting, particularly significant. If Desborough was involved in hacking while in Britain, as police appear to believe he was, it raises the question of whether he practised those techniques in the US – and if so, whether he was the first and only News of the World journalist in the US to do so.

And the likelihood he didn't and others also did not seems pretty low.



Odds somebody in the U.S. is arrested with the cell phone records of a 9/11 family are getting higher.

That was a pretty entertaining fixture yesterday

When Barcelona played the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers.







Morinho's eye gouge starting at 2:43 is particularly interesting, I don't remember Flyer's coach Fred Shero doing that.



And not quite Scottish Messi-induced-orgasm machine Ray Hudson's commentary adds to the entertainment value.



As for Morinho's score on the assault, we'll have to await the decision of the style referee seen in the background.

Exit Stage right!

Reformed Coven member Christine O'Donnell is not going to be badgered with your policy questions about her book about her policy positions, Pierce Morgan!



...and she stomps off the set in a huff -- undoubtedly to cast a spell, or punch a hippie, or maybe both.



Here's a suggestion, ask Morgan about phone hacking then you can both storm off the set, leaving it empty and giving CNN it's best rated program in years.

If I didn't just fall off the turnip truck (mmmm turips)

I'd swear that this Rupert Murdoch lying thing was becoming a pattern:

Rebekah Brooks remained on the payroll at News International despite the song and dance that she had made about “resigning”, belatedly, as chief executive. Now, I hear that she is enjoying a perk that has outraged fellow employees of Rupert Murdoch.



“Brooks has been allowed to keep her chauffeur-driven car for two years,” says one toiler at The Sunday Times.

What a pathetic sack of excrement

Darrell Issa is.

Has Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) turned the House Oversight Committee into a bank lobbying firm with the power to subpoena and pressure government regulators? ThinkProgress has found that a Goldman Sachs vice president changed his name, then quietly went to work for Issa to coordinate his effort to thwart regulations that affect Goldman Sachs’ bottom line.

But on the other hand some say Obama's a socialist so it's all even.

Putting the ass in best asset

Republicans really are Obama's secret weapon for re-election. Your current flavor of the month (vanilla edition) is Rick Perry. He likes threatening secession while sucking down federal money and pretending he found out Ben Bananke supplied salsa made in New York City. In the alternative he's a noted skeptic of science, thinking they play politics.



In a way this makes sense from Perry's point of view. As he got pretty much D's and C's in science, meaning the scientists were better at science than he was, which is not surprising. But he also got the same grades in political science, economics and history. So the scientists were better at that too. But hey, he's a moronic Republican Governor from Texas, so if he somehow malaprops his way into the White House he can use Bush's old lines about who the President is when he gets surrounded by "egg heads" and their 3.0 and better GPAs.



But he's definitely always been a Republican who seemed destined for the top:

John Sharp, an A&M classmate and now a former state comptroller and Texas legislator, had something else to say about college-aged Perry.



“When I first saw him, I thought he looked stupid,” Sharp said in a 1989 interview with the Abilene Reporter-News

And that guy is a personal friend.



Oh well, there's still the "Greater White Hope" that is Chris Christie, who just got his state's credit rating knocked down another notch because of his tax cuts to AA-.



Which is far too many A-grades to get himself the nomination.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Yes, but how do they do against Chlamydia?

Not that the broadcast media will ever notice:

...the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

Um, what?

Is this seriously a debate -- whether a relatively successful baseball reliever of sixty years ago, who pitched for a team no longer in New York, most famously against another team no longer in greater New York, was Jewish enough?



Thanks New York Times for your granting of column inches (and it's a long column) to the wisdom of Alan Dershowitz on the matter:

Dershowitz, in fact, theorized that Branca, to his eyes as a boy, did not pitch “Jewishly.”

What the fuck does that even mean? Is Mel Brooks supposed to write some awful sketch about this?



And it is accompanied by further commentary from the usual cast of 'who gives a shit what they think?' self-important history bores, like Doris (don't forget the Kearns) Goodwin and, oh for fuck's sake!, William Donohue.



Is this a transcript from the worst outtake in Ken Burn's 'Baseball'?

They'll have a strong case before a court of FoxNews appointees

Really?

Cigarette Warning Labels: Tobacco Companies Sue Federal Government Over Graphic Warnings

They might have a chance, after all they are "double plus good job creators" not only employing people, but killing other people and opening up other vacancies across the nation, nay, world.

What Digby said

Leon Panetta's cunning plan to make the Department of Defense sacrosanct from cuts -- but to screw over soldiers & sailors by dumping all their retirement benefits to favor our true lords and masters Wall Street.



Yeah, brilliant.

Call me Captain Renault

I for one, am again very, very, disappointed -- one might say "Shocked" at the behavior of Rupert Murdoch and the fruit of his loins.



It turns out that the very man at the heart of the hacking scandal, Clive Goodman, contrary to the testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch (and Rebekah Brooks) stated in his resignation letter of four years ago that phone hacking was long the talk of the editors.



But that's not all, Rupert and James hung their lawyers out to dry before Parliament last month, saying they had reviewed their operation to make sure it was behaving properly and given them a clean bill of health.



Uh, not quite, you aussie douchebag, not quite:

the parliamentary panel released a letter from Harbottle & Lewis, a law firm hired by the Murdochs, which they have repeatedly cited as having given the News of the World a “clean bill of health” in reviewing a cache of e-mails in 2007. The law firm’s letter contradicts that assertion and says that its own investigation had been limited strictly to advising the company in its employment dispute with Mr. Goodman.

Not that anybody of any wealth and power is going to go to jail...that sort of thing is so many Leona Helmsleys ago.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Truthiness in action

Via Digby:

Mitchell: So here she's saying to Lester Holt that raising the debt ceiling is to take care of future money not past money, which is not factual.



Cook: It's not true, but on the other hand she's not saying anything that a lot of Republican caucus attendees or primary voters would disagree with.



Mitchell: So, politically it's fine.



Cook: Yeah, politically I think it's fine ...

No wonder we have such a lofty opinion of politicians AND the media. If enough people believe in fairy tales, why IT IS AS GOOD AS TRUE!

Oh lord

Jesus' career stats:



41 completions, 82 attempts 50%, 5TDs 3 Interceptions, backing up Kyle Orton.



I shudder to think what this makes Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

Iowa's only defense mechanism

Against Right-Wing crazy.





photo from IowaPolitics at flickr.com

The Treasonator

Good to see secession advocate Rick Perry has hit the ground running on his Republican Hypocrisy Tour.

OREGON: Vegetarian Eats

Your favorites, please? Will be in Portland, Ashland, and Eugene, among other locales.

As always, thanks.

xxx...res

You should see his coming "Illustrated Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

Shorter, Mike Huckabee: "If you cannot make a misinformative cartoon about 9/11 for kids (and most importantly FOR PROFIT!) than this isn't 'Murica anymore."

Get your cameras ready

I understand today Marcus Bachmann will be engaged in a day of prayer and counseling of those who like corndogs.

The "Commie" Super Rich

Steve Doocy and the brown-haired non-Steve Doocy will not be amused with Warren Buffett:

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.



While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.



These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.



Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Why can't he be a selfish super-patriotic asshole like those nice Koch Brothers?

It couldn't be more depressing

Could it? Look at the way supreme Villager David Gregory equates the ideological divide:

David Gregory: You know, Perry talked about potentially seceding from the union. You think that's extreme. Well people on the other side think that introducing health care reform for the whole country is akin to European Socialism.

Secession now equals what the right says about health care reform?



But it can get worse, because the White House buys that argument. God forbid they lead, much better to cower.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Better acting please

Aw man, all that charisma is gone for the race now

At least he has more sense than Gingrich (faint praise indeed)

After finishing a distant third in the Ames straw poll, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) on Sunday told supporters on a conference call he's dropping out of the presidential race, the Associated Press reports.

I hope you'll survive

No McCain, Lieberman OR Graham on the Sunday Talk Shows.



Yet still Republican dominated.

Moove On...

Bachmann and Paul may have gotten the most votes, but there is an insurgent candidate.

...the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow reportedly received three write-in votes.

You're doing it wrong

In her defense, it isn't like Marcus has been telling her what to do.



Although he may have been working with this guy.



If it wasn't for Food porn shots, the Iowa State fair would just be about the largest pig, the butter cow, and the best acts from the 70s comprised of at least 20 percent of its original lineup.

Tittie Twisters at one and a half-paces

Well, maybe since it involves Roger Ailes and Limbaugh three paces so they are not otherwise touching.

Rush Limbaugh Rails Against Fox News Over GOP Debate: 'They Want Approval From The Mainstream Media'

How about a 200-yard dash? That way we'll likely be rid of both of them.

Yeah, wake me

When the 11th Circuit en banc holds the health insurance mandate unconstitutional.

How'd this little slice of reality

Enter into the sacred Village newsletter, the Politico?

A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.

Why don't you just google it?

I imagine Fox & Friends will spend most of their day pretending other Presidents haven't had a Ramadan dinner -- only Obama. But for the hosts of that show the stupid goes on 24/7, For example Gretchen Carlson on the Republican Debate topics last night:

TV's Frank tweets for me

For those wondering

If anyone will ever be allowed to explain the underlying cause of the English riots, the answer is no.







Leading one to understand, if not necessarily excuse, rioting.

But, of course, there will be cameras

Something even more repulsive than deep-fried butter.

After a more than two-month hiatus, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is planning to crash the presidential party once again with a heartland-themed re-launch of her "One Nation" bus tour this week in Iowa

"Made a huuuuuuuuge mistake"

Funny my money was that he'd pass his son up for Lucille Bluth:



Rupert Murdoch chooses Rollie Fingers as his successor instead of his son.

Just in time for the Straw Poll

Iowa you CANNOT out disgust us in food, try as you may Texas!

"To honor the butter cow's 100th birthday," the Iowa State Fair is selling deep fried butter on a stick this year. It is a butter stick on a stick, dipped in batter, deep fried, and drizzled with more butter.

Please enjoy the risque image accompanying this story which involves an activity that probably tastes better than deep fried butter.

The people who report on economic matters

Surely have "no skin" in who gets taxed and how much:

According to TV Guide's upcoming salary issue, Matt Lauer's new contract with NBC earns him $17 million a year--a well-deserved figure, given the exotic bird hazards that Lauer has to face on the "Today" show set. Brian Williams, host of NBC's "Nightly News," earns $13 million annually--$1 million more than ABC's "World News" host Diane Sawyer.

Bill O'Reilly (and Olbermann to be fair) makes $10 million a year -- or the same amount his employer paid out to Andrea Mackris.

Refuse to believe this is not an Onion headline.

An offshoot of the South Florida Tea Party called "Tea Party In Space" is looking to break apart the government's socialist takeover of the final frontier.

You stay classy Boner

Well, well:

Politico reports that House Speaker John Boehner was smacking around golf balls decorated with a “not-so-flattering pic” of Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi‘s mug at a fundraiser Tuesday.

It should be said Boehner's office denies he did this.



But in any case, it's not too big a deal to me, I spend much of the late 70s and early 80s hitting golf balls that looked like Boehner.

I'm waiting for my first official UK proclaimation

Of "Who Could have Anticipated Rioting in London?"

The Trouble with Waukesha

So the Democrats come up one Senate seat short of turning the Wisconsin Senate (two knocked off in predominantly GOP districts still a rare feat in American politics, yeah another liberal "moral victory" -- HUZZAH ha ha ha!).



But once again, the reason for coming up short seems to be Waukesha County's Republican County Clerk's magical ability to hold several thousand votes until late in the hour.



If this was a Democrat, of course, she'd have been forced to resign long ago by 24/7 outrages on FoxNews and Brooks Brothers Rioters and quiet phone calls from Obama.



But since IOKIYAR is a law of metaphysics, no problem.

"I may be crazy, but it's my sociopathy that keeps me going"

The disturbances of London were somewhat quelled last night as police flooded into London -- and many other places in England burned perhaps as a result. If you have not yet read it, please read Kevin Gosztola's post providing an explanation of what is happening. It is the rare thing that is not allowed otherwise in the media.



Sounds like an ideal time for the usual suspects at a typical location to say something incredibly stupid. I just wish they'd make up their minds.

This morning in the National Review, Stanley Kurtz suggests that President Obama privately supports the violent protesters.

Yes, because if there's one thing that's been proven over the last two and a half years, it's Obama never failing to kick ass and take names for the dispossessed. He's a fierce advocate y'know.



Alternatively, National Review's John Derbyshire takes a different approach, the kind of fair-minded one we've come to expect:

Today Britain is merely a place, a bazaar. Let it burn!

So Derbyshire goes Kurtz's fictional Obama one better, and publicly supports burning a country to the ground because amongst other things he doesn't like chicken curry.



As you might imagine, he'll continue to collect a pay check.



[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Please Stop Now

For fuck's sake, can we please stop this We should have gone with Hillary bullshit? First of all, Hillary is quitting her job at the end of Obama's (first) term. If she can't handle Secretary of State for two terms, what makes you think she can handle POTUS for even one? Secondly, can you name one single major accomplishment she's had as Secretary of State? Seriously, she's ranked right up there with Condi Rice on the "List of U.S. Secretaries of State with the Most Accomplishments". Finally, I chose Obama because I thought if we elected Hillary it'd be, "We're gettin' the band back together", and that would mean Rahm Emmanuel, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin back in governm ... Oh, wait. Anyway, I'm still sick of the Clintons and Clintonistas, and that's not going to change, so let it go, for the love of God.