The New York Times reports, giddily:
Newt Gingrich's campaign manager and a half-dozen senior advisers resigned on Thursday, two aides said, dealing a significant setback to his bid to seek the Republican presidential nomination and severely complicating his plan to make a political comeback.
The campaign manager, Rob Johnson, along with advisers in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, joined together to step down after a period of deep internal disagreements about the direction of the campaign.
What direction? Unless you mean "straight down the tubes," there has never been any direction to this campaign. It has never been about anything beyond the insane delusions of Newt Gingrich, one of the worst people in the world. [NYT]
Rat Spotted Abandoning USS Newt Gingrich
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
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Leon Panetta told the Senate on Thursday that he doesn't think that our huge defense budget (over half of the money we take in goes to the defense budget) is contributing to the deficit. He did this with a straight face. What a fuckwit...
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The thrill of Governor Perry's call for a national day of fasting and prayer was written all over their faces.
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There's one thing about Weinergate that isn't getting covered enough: how are parents supposed to talk to their children about something so serious and troubling?
Remember how we actually heard this kind of talk during impeachment? I thought George Carlin had the perfect answer, you tell them "Sometimes adults like to have fun, you remember fun, it's what you used to have before we made you spend all your free time practicing the piano and playing soccer."
What I've never understood about "what will the children think" is that it is always applied to something trivial, usually to consensual sexual relations among adults. No one ever asks "what will the children think about genocide in the Sudan?" or "what will the children think about the government torturing people?".
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Paul Broun, a government employee who makes $174,000 a year as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives, says government employees need to go find 'real jobs'. OK, but you go first, Congressman!
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Via Lawyers, Guns and Money, here is Stephanie Mencimer on the actual economic damage caused by (as opposed to the opportunity cost of) the Bush Tax Cuts.
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I've been trying to explain for years how the repugs' denial of reality makes it impossible to deal with them on any human, much less adult, level.
Now Steve Weinstein at Crooks and Liars has a much simpler way to get the idea across: repugs simply don't speak the same language the rest of us do.
The GOP barely bothers to hide its desire to "refudiate" every civilizing advance of the 20th Century-everything from Medicare to Voting Rights to Civil Rights to Labor laws to universal education to clean air, water and food. But the made up "refudiate" itself has yet to be chiseled into Frank Luntz' tablets of holy doublespeak. Instead, again and again, the GOP reiterates the same magic mangled words and phrases to spit and polish its deconstructive aims:Job Killing, adj.: Used to modify anything proposed or enacted by the Democrats, it actually speaks the truth about the GOP's primary goal: Kill as many jobs as possible, thwart the economic recovery from the 2008 Bush collapse in order to mar President Obama's reelection hopes in 2012. See public sector layoffs in GOP controlled states like Florida, Wisconsin & Ohio as well as cuts in Washington spending on infrastructure, education and disaster relief. Synonyms: economic terrorism, treason.
Free Market, adj., sometimes n.: Two happy, cuddly words that actually translate to "unchecked corporate looting of the taxpayers' money." This phrase cheerleads corporations like Halliburton, Blackwater and perhaps Anthem Blue Cross as they feast on huge pots of public money for services the government should probably supply itself. The phrase also awards license to corporations to pollute, exploit, discriminate and serve up defective products without fear of oversight or repercussion.
Privatize, v.: Corporate looting of the public treasury, the political version of Willie Sutton's, I rob banks because "that's where the money is." See Free Market. See also Paul Ryan's Vouchercare aka Medikill. Synonym: Throw Grandma To the Wolves and then Under the Bus.
Patriot, n.: Almost always a white American who hates all Americans of a different race and probably, when pressed, pretty much every other white American too. Mostly patriots hate the idea of a black president, and they adopt this pose of bravado in an effort to deny that reality. Patriots generally believe foremost in the 2nd Amendment uber alles and/or a Jesus who doesn't tolerate universal health care, unemployment benefits, the interstate highway system or a black man in the White House. Ironic synonym: Confederate Flag bearer.
The American People, n.: Intoned repeatedly and with reverence to demonstrate that GOP leadership is absolutely committed to exercising the will of the common American billionaire. Synonyms: corporate lobbyists, enormous campaign donors, Koch brothers. Antonym: the actual American People.
Uncertainty, n.: Multipurpose excuse for all things, it implies that no matter what we do, everything will suck as long as there is a Democrat in power anywhere on the planet. Can be used to justify implementation of the Chamber of Commerce's wettest dream: tax cuts for the wealthy, tax subsidies for the biggest richest oil companies, the repeal of any and all corporate regulations, and even in defense of something called tort reform. Synonym: The rich don't have every damn red cent quite yet.
Constitution, n.: Some document easily conflated with the Declaration of Independence or Paul Revere's Bell Ringing that was written by wealthy white men to protect the rights of wealthy white corporations. Some contemporary Constitutionalists, like the Old Testament/New Testament folk before them, believe that the original has been superceded by a superior document published in 1957 by Ayn Rand.
Demagoguery, n.: A big word that resides in few American's vocabularies but sounds like a really bad thing no matter what it means. Translation: Hey you mean, socialist, Death Panelly, Muslim Democrats, quit telling the truth about how we are trying to destroy the humanizing social fabric of this country. Again see Paul Ryan's Vochercare aka Medikill.
Doing "The People's" Business, v.: Abortion bills, more abortion bills, bills decrying the evils of Big Bird and pap smears, more abortion bills and of course killing that Medicare thing that no "real American" likes anyway. See 112th Congress, January 2011 to June 2011.
Here's hoping for more additions to Steve's GOPese to English Dictionary. We're going to need them.
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Comedian and 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan is in hot water with LGBT activists after performing an anti-gay monologue during a Nashville concert.
Kevin Rogers, who was in attendance, posted a public note on Facebook detailing at length the hateful language used by Morgan. What did the comic say? After laying out the usual lines about homosexuality being a choice, he said "god don't make no mistakes" and said that "all this gay stuff is bullsh*t." What does he think about lesbians? "There is no way a woman could love and have sexual desire for another woman, that's just a woman pretending because she hates a [expletive] man." And then he got even more honest: "If my son were gay he better come home and talk to me like a man and not [like a homosexual--Morgan mimicked a feminine voice] or I'd pull out a knife and stab that little N***** to death."
The worst thing about the 30 Rock star's rant? It was greeted with cheers and applause from many in the audience.
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"You go back to the Founding Fathers, as far as they were concerned, they'd already had the entire debate on creation-evolution. And you get Thomas Paine, who was the least religious Founding Father, saying you've got to teach creation science in the public school classroom. The scientific method demands that. Now, we're opposite today." Glenn Beck's favorite bizarro-historian David Barton
Okay, so the theory of evolution didn't exist until nearly a hundred years later.
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The Midnight Ride of Sarah Palin
I might be wrong but I'm thinking that Andrew Sullivan over at the DailyDish does not hold a high opinion of Sarah Palin.
One of the most pernicious and dangerous features of Palin is her clinical refusal to understand reality, to accept error, to acknowledge when the facts she has cited are not actually facts, but delusions. And her vanity and pathologies are so deep she will insist that black is white until her minions actually find a source to prove it.
She's dangerous; she's shrewd; she's an exhibitionist. But she is also, we must keep reminding ourselves, a farce. What worries me about this political leader incapable of telling fantasy apart from fact is that, in a long and deep recession, someone who can lie that readily and manipulate religious and cultural resentment as well as she does is a danger. Not just to America, but to the world.
My thoughts concerning Palin have less to do with her and more to do with her followers. Palin is a grifter who lacks the awareness skills and intellect to understand that she's an idiot. I get that part, no problem. What is more troublesome, I think, is that there are literally millions of Americans who adore this cartoon character and who would go to no end to defend her against all criticism. What is wrong with these people? Can there be that many fools in the country?
I imagine so.
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I don't know about you guys but I hope this scandal never ends!
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Mario: Herman Cain – Bigot Extraordinaire
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