Quote of the Day

Res Ipsa to the people of New Jersey:

I hope all you construction workers that voted Christie are happy.

Speaking of hypocrisy ...

Digby:

...

Just getting the rules straight. Big time GOP studs posing completely nude in a national magazine is perfectly acceptable. Female Democrats in naughty snapshots with husband fully clothed at college party is a scandal. Check.

The right is nothing if not filled with liars and hypocrites*

Kinda sorta maybe follow up on the boohooin' of rich people in Fixer's post, here's one of the worst hypocrite sonsabitches in the country.

Article in The Nation.

Note to Dobbsy: Dude, one less $million$ nag and you coulda hired American girls to take care of them. A lot of them love horses and woulda worked cheap. Oh, I forgot, they speak English and mighta bitched to their parents about being "imprisoned in a palace", maybe even (gasp!) talked back since they didn't have deportation hanging over them.

You fucking hypocritical lyin' bastard. I'm so glad it made you rich I could puke.

Illegal or not, I have tremendous respect for the work these immigrants are willing to do to try to get ahead given the often less-than-ideal conditions they are willing to do them under. I do my own yard work. Two or three hours at a time kicks my ass, and I see Mexicans (I presume. Latinos come from all over thataway [points vaguely towards Tierra del Fuego].) doing the same thing ten hours at a stretch and walk away. I wouldn't be able to.

Did I mention that I do my own yard work because I can't find a Meskin willing to work as cheap as I will?

Thanks to TheNationInstitute.

*From our own left sidebar.

One more reason not to use an online discount travel agent

Thanks to the LATimes.

Quote of the Day

Patricia A. Weller

Supporting Republicans is Like Putting Your Trust in a Man-eating Shark Who Promises to Carry You Safely Across the Waters

Knock, knock.

"Who's there?"

"Candygram..."

Headline of the Day

Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors' Prisons"

An explanation ...

Even Republicans can understand. Jill:

...

Gee, ya think? For nearly a decade since the 9/11 attacks, Republicans have been touting the greedy consumption of fossil fuels as some kind of national virtue. Solar is for hippies. Hybrid cars are for wusses. Renewable energy is bunk, drill baby drill -- that's what we hear from Republicans, even after the BP oil spill's befouling of the Gulf of Mexico. The military is not calling for increased domestic drilling, it's calling for renewable energy so that it doesn't have to lose soldiers to IEDs while transporting gasoline and other petroleum-based fuels across dangerous areas. But military leaders also seem to recognize what Republicans refuse to -- that oil [means] dependence on an increasingly hostile part of the world, and that anyone who doesn't advocate weaning ourselves off of oil is simply asking for more young American dead. [my em]

Thing is, I don't think the Rethugs give much of a shit how many of our boys and girls die in our wars.

Look! Up in the sky!

Christ:

Yesterday, Fox & Friends committed an embarrassing gaffe when it reported on a fake story that the Los Angeles Police Department was buying 10,000 of these jetpacks at a cost of $100,000 each. The “story” originated here. At least the jetpacks themselves are real.

...

For such a huge operation, they're as amateurish as the local public access station.

Tiny violins ...

My heart bleeds:

The nation's wealthy seem to be every bit as concerned about retirement as their middle-class counterparts.

In its recent study, The Age Illusion: How the Wealthy are Redefining Their Retirement, Barclays Wealth, the wealth management division of Barclays Bank(BCS), found anxiety levels running high among the affluent looking at retirement, as well as lingering doubt about financial preparedness for that phase of life.

...

As our pal Comrade Misfit says:

"But Muffy, When We Retire, We'll Have to Settle For a Smaller Yacht and Only Three Houses!"

They should worry. Keep fucking the proles and retirement will be the least of their concerns.

Three-way

Via YubaNet

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) October 6, 2010 – In a three-way swap that may be unprecedented in U.S. history, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to become Vice President of the United States, Vice President Joe Biden will become President of Afghanistan, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be traded to the Minnesota Vikings.

When asked if the complicated swap might confuse voters in advance of the midterm elections, the President said, “I certainly hope so.”

While many in official Washington were trying to make sense of the stunning announcement, former President Bill Clinton gave the three-way sway a thumbs-up: “Everything about the phrase ‘three-way swap’ appeals to me.”

Mr. Woodward said he had more inside information about the deal, “but I’m writing about it in a new book, which will be out later this week.”

Reached at the Vikings’ practice facility, Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre said he was “blown away” by the news: “I actually retired this morning, but this changes everything.”

There is nothing I could possibly add to that.

Republican Cocksuckers for New York

New York resident The Rude Pundit on his state's political devolution. Caution: barely work safe in an auto/motorcycle repair shop.

When talking about New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino and Representative Peter King of NY-3, one of the whitest districts in America, one would do well to use the word "cocksuckers," because, at the end of the day, they just are. They are dudes who act all tough and butch but get down on their knees in the men's room at the presumptively straight tough guy bars, where the beer and whiskey are cheap, and they suck cock, as much cock as they can, the more cock, the better. And when they're done sucking cock, they come back out where all the tough guys whose cocks they just sucked are, and they down a cheap beer and a cheaper whiskey and say, "Yeah, fuck all those liberal queers" just before the bartender makes a gesture for them to wipe some stray jizz off the corner of their mouths. In other words, not "cocksucker" in the sense of someone who is giving oral pleasure to a lover, but "cocksucker" in the sense of someone who wants it as filthy as possible, with the smell of shit and vomit in his nose and a line waiting for the stall.

Nicely done, New York Republican Party. You guys used to run Nelson Rockefeller and other moderates. Giuliani lost his mind when he gave up his combover. Bloomberg bailed on you because you became a bunch of cocksuckers. Now, you've devolved in a way that just reflects your national party, dishonorable and delusional.

We've got some awful candidates out here, but nothing like New York. Fixer, we're comin' outta turn 4 headin' for the election and you guys have the lead! When it comes to despicable candidates, California's slipstreamin' ya!

You want the good news, or the bad news?

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford with good news/bad news and the yin and yang of the usual yingyangs.

Which will it be? How do you want to spin it? Can you even tell the difference? Let us ponder...

Bad news: But not here. Every single one of the tiny-brained Republicans on the mid-term election sheet this very year are full-blown, moron-grade climate change deniers, rejecting any notion that humble little man and his seven billion voracious frogspawn has had any real, lasting effect on planetary ecosystems.

Should these GOP lugnuts get into power, expect obscene amounts of push-back against any significant environmental legislation, much fellating of Big Energy and the intellectually constipated Tea Party, lots of new muttering about nuclear power, oil exploration and how the severity of the BP spill was way overblown by the "liberal media elite."

That gave me a disturbing yet heartwarming visual involving the words "fellating" and "constipated Tea Party". If the fellator was to reverse the direction of the air flow to the fellatee, or to misquote Lauren Bacall, "just pucker up and blow", there'd be so much shit fly out of the teabaggers they'd cease to exist!

But I digress...

Mark's next two paragraphs manage to tamp damn near every misconception/lie about weed into a nice neat brick. Kudos, me lad!

Good news! Support for Prop 19, which would legalize the cultivation, possession, taxation and general daily wanton sucking down of marijuana, has flipped right on over like a fine hash pancake, and now hovers around 52 percent positive, potentially set to become the first major shift of its kind in the nation, igniting debate, freaking out the squares, and potentially sending a great many teens into fits of murderous megafreakout madness.

Bad news: Everyone knows legal pot is a gateway drug to, say, more sluggish sperm, pastier skin and very poor hairstyle choices as millions of Californians will never go outside and will choose instead to sit on the couch all day eating Fruit Rollups and watching Oprah and The Cartoon Network and FunnyOrDie.com and not getting a goddamn job.

Half the fun of gettin' high is going places and doing things. That "Bad News" bit is more about right-wing bloggers. Heh.

Eternal factoid of human existence: The less you know, the more likely you are to be fearful, cling to God and gun and fantasy. Hey, it says so in the Bible.

Must be true, then. Much more.

"...every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish"

Sure is a lotta that "too many f**kin' Jews around" shit surfacing lately. Heh. Good article at Truthout about the War On Some Drugs.

The "Shafer" Commission conducted the most extensive and comprehensive examination of marijuana ever performed by the US government. More than 50 projects were funded, "ranging from a study of the effects of marihuana on man to a field survey of enforcement of the marihuana laws in six metropolitan jurisdictions . . ."
...

Among the Commissions findings were:

* "No significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities could be attributed solely to their marihuana smoking."

* "No verification is found of a causal relationship between marihuana use and subsequent heroin use."

* "In sum, the weight of the evidence is that marihuana does not cause violent or aggressive behavior; if anything marihuana serves to inhibit the expression of such behavior."

* "Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety."

* "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

The Commission concluded that, "Society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal [use] is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective… Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem."

President Nixon called Governor Shafer on the carpet and pressured him to change the Commission's conclusion saying, "You see, the thing that is so terribly important here is that it not appear that the Commission's frankly just a bunch of do-gooders." Governor Shafer declined to change his conclusions, and Nixon declined to appoint him to a pending federal judgeship.
...

White House tapes reveal that Nixon's opinions about marijuana were based on his personal prejudices rather than the evidence. He can be heard to make statements such as: "That's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists... By God, we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss..."

Oy. Thanks. Dick.

Nixon's war has been expensive; it has been a failure; and it has caused great damage to the fabric of America society. The harm has been particularly felt by its young people who suffer up to 80% of the marijuana arrests and who are disproportionately African American and Latino.

Several times I had to fight for my life while enforcing the law, and three of my law enforcement friends were murdered in the line of duty. I am not naive. I have walked through too much blood and have seen too much pain and suffering during my career. Everything I have learned during almost 50 years in the justice system compels a conclusion that the criminalization of marijuana was a fraud on the American people from the very inception of the war on drugs.

A handy tool of oppression is what it is, first against Latinos, and then the youth in the '60s when they became a thorn in the establishment/Nixon's side. Its time has passed but there's too much inertia of power and profit to let it die.

The War On Marijuana will need to be stoned to death.

Oops, I was trying to make a play on words there but it was a bad choice of words - as an advocate of a reality-based view of marihuana (I've always loved that arcane misspelling!), besides just being a godless commie liberal socialist Nazi from California, I can now be usefully misconstrued as an advocate of imposing Sharia law. Heh.

Headline of the Day

The Washington Post Wants Your Social Security to Pay for the War

They can have my Social Security when they pry it from my cold, dead, cat food-smellin' hands...

How the fuck ...

Are you supposed to 'win'* a war if you can't get fuel for your vehicles to the battlefield?

Gunmen in Pakistan have torched at least 10 oil tankers carrying fuel for Nato vehicles in Afghanistan in the latest such attack in recent days.

A driver died in the ambush near the south-western city of Quetta.

The number of attacks on tankers has soared in the last week since one of the main routes into Afghanistan was shut by the Pakistani authorities.

...

Don't mean a shit how many troops you have on the ground. If you can't resuppply 'em easily, you might as well bring 'em home. This is what killed the Russians over there and it will be our downfall as well.

*The definition of the U.S. "winning" a war has changed dramatically since World War 2.

Thanks to Chris for the link.

If you've wondered ...

What makes Glenn Beck cry, this does:

Teary eyed rodeo clown Glenn Beck kicks off his "Restoring America" tour by selling 700 tickets for an 8,000 seat venue.

...

Contrary to published reports ...

Via Digby, the truth about Social Security:

In a new paper, I’ve tried to correct some of the misinformation that critics of Social Security have been spreading about the program.

Here are the facts. Social Security is a well-run, fiscally responsible program. People earn retirement, survivors, and disability benefits by making payroll tax contributions during their working years. Those taxes and other revenues are deposited in the Social Security trust funds, and all benefits and administrative expenses are paid out of the trust funds. The amount that Social Security can spend is limited by its payroll tax income plus the balance in the trust funds.

The Social Security trustees — the official body charged with evaluating the program’s long-term finances — project that Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits through 2037 and about three-quarters of scheduled benefits after that, even if Congress makes no changes in the program. Relatively modest changes would put the program on a sound financial footing for 75 years and beyond.

Nonetheless, some critics are attempting to undermine confidence in Social Security with wild and blatantly false accusations. They allege that the trust funds have been “raided” or disparage the trust funds as “funny money” or mere “IOUs.” Some even label Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” after the notorious 1920s swindler Charles Ponzi. All of these claims are nonsense.

...

As Digby sez: "Do yourself a favor and print this out. Or memorize it. Read it at least."

Queen Mary 2 update ...

Updating Gord's post, being she's my second home, a buddy of mine aboard directed me to The Daily Mail who got it mainly right. I'm still waiting for email answers from some of the bar staff I know.

...

An elderly British couple were ordered off luxury Cunard liner QM2 after an explosive row with fellow passengers during a black-tie dinner.

...

Other passengers gave a different side to the story.

They said Miss Sher had been cantankerous during the journey and that on another night on the cruise she flew into a rage because a piano lounge was closed.

...

The couple claim they should be given far more regal treatment because of their connections.

Miss Sher says her husband is the illegitimate son of the Duke of Windsor, the abdicated King Edward VIII, as well as a British knight.

Her ex-husband, Louis K Sher, owned an art house cinema chain and produced a porn film.

...

The plot thickens. Heh ...

Right Wing Radio Duck

Via Raw Story.

This is a re-imagined Donald Duck cartoon remix constructed using dozens of classic Walt Disney cartoons from the 1930s to 1960s. Donald's life is turned upside-down by the current economic crisis and he finds himself unemployed and falling behind on his house payments. As his frustration turns into despair Donald discovers a seemingly sympathetic voice coming from his radio named Glenn Beck.

Watch this! Trust me...

Thanks to rebelliouspixels.

Headline of the Day

Senior federal judge allegedly bought cocaine from stripper

A Reagan appointee. Ah, schadenfreude...