Christ ...

The 2011 White House Christmas card features a content looking First Pup Bo Obama sitting by a roaring fireplace, flanked by Christmas presents and festive Christmasy ribbons and pine wreaths and bulbs. If you listen hard, you can almost hear sleigh bells.
...

You know what's coming, right?.

Any comment would be just wrong. Heh.

[A big welcome to Crooks and Liars readers; thanks Tengrain! - F]

Stolen from The Christian Left.

Iraq Bookends

Thanks to YubaNet.

Chasing the Dragon

Raw Story with video. Hint: puke before viewing.

On Monday, Imus told Mary Matalin, a former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, that she must be “smoking meth” if she thought Gingrich had shot a beating the current president.

“Can Newt Gingrich beat President Obama?” Imus asked Matalin.

“Yes, he can,” Matalin stated without hesitation.

“Oh, well you’re smoking meth or something,” Imus declared. “You’re insane.”

She musta been breathing extra deep in a cloud of smoke from a burning crank warehouse! Her teeth look brand new in the photo. Heh.

Oligarchic perversion of our legal system continues apace...

Expanding on Fixer's post about bought justices.

BradBlog

The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court.

Apparently not the "radical judicial activists" Neutie would have arrested. He would reserve that for judges who interpret the Constitution in favor of the people.

Last ¶ after a little history of the Federalist Society:

Unfortunately, Bork's views are not unique. They are the views held by the Federalist Society-funding billionaire oligarchs, like the Koch brothers, who would mask their authoritarian corporate capitalism under an Orwellian concept of "liberty" as the two-tiered system of "justice" entailing elite impunity is assured by a "bought-and-paid-for" judiciary.

They aren't even trying to hide it any more.

Headline of the Day

Party elite executed to clear path for Kim Jong-un

What the North Koreans call "election day". Heh.

8 crazy nights ...

We wish all our Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah!

Gaming the refs ...

Knowing the GOP like we do, does this surprise anybody?

Madison - State Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in two cases cast the deciding vote in favor of parties represented by a law firm that gave him tens of thousands of dollars of free legal services, a review of state records shows.

One of those was a high-stakes case this June that allowed Gov. Scott Walker to implement a law that all but eliminates collective bargaining for most public workers. Gableman was in the 4-3 majority that allowed Walker to prevail. Michael Best & Friedrich - the firm that defended Gableman for free in an ethics case - worked for the state and Walker's administration in the collective bargaining case.
...

Easier to win when the referee is in your pocket.

Great thanks to Scout Prime for the link.

The GOP way ...

Change the rules:

After a much-longer-than-anticipated caucus meeting Monday night, House Republican leaders announced a plan to vote Tuesday to nix a broadly bipartisan Senate stopgap bill to extend the current payroll tax cut for two months. But they won’t be doing this with a standard up or down vote.
...

What, they think people will forget all their bullshit by next November?  After 3 years of their obstructionist, protect the rich at all costs policies, people already take it as a given that the GOP is the Party of the Wealthy.  Since Obama was elected, they've given up caring whether they are obvious or not and I'm hoping even the most dense of us are finally getting it.

Shark Week at the SEC

Thanks to YubaNet.

Iraq War Timeline

Opinions You Should Have. Probably closer to the truth than the official one.

March 14, 2003 - Bush Makes Last Ditch Attempt to Avoid Diplomatic Solution.
...

May 2, 2003 - Cheney Suggests Bush Make Absurdly Dangerous Landing On Aircraft Carrier.

(Bush Takes Opportunity to Wear Largest-Ever Presidential Codpiece.)
...

June 11, 2003 - Claimed Iraqi Bioweapons Trailers Revealed To be Winnebagos.
...

April 18, 2004 - Bush To Return Iraq For Credit Or Refund.
...

July 9, 2004 - Sinking Bush Poll Numbers Increase Likelihood of Terrorist Attack, Says Ridge.

You get the idea. Much more.

Operation Iraqi Horror 2.0

CSM

As US troops exit Iraq, Maliki moves against Sunni rivals

Gee, thanks for the decent interval after our troops escaped came out. Wouldn't want them to think they were used for nothing. Yeesh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

PANETTA TELLS TROOPS WE'RE WINNING WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
Like we won in Iraq.

Last American Troops Leave Iraq
Last American contractors to leave in 2034.

Maybe earlier if they're in boxes.

NTSB Urges Nationwide Cellphone Ban for Drivers
Better call your congressman as soon as you pass this idiot driving the speed limit in the left lane.

Good News: Fewer Teenagers Getting Driver's Licenses
Bad news: more seniors hanging on to theirs.

Less whippersnappers to piss off by obeying the law!

One sentence ...

Sean Paul Kelley:

Army Spec. David E. Hickman is apparently the last American soldier to die for the mistake that was the Iraq War. He was thirteen years-old when the war began.

And you get coal ...

In your stocking. The Republicans give a big "fuck you" to working people at Christmas:

The Senate’s two-month payroll tax extension is dead on arrival in the House. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, made that perfectly clear Sunday morning as he said that Congress will have to negotiate a deal closer to the House-passed one-year extension before members leave for the holidays.

“Well, it’s pretty clear that I and our members oppose the Senate bill – it’s only for two months,” Boehner said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “If you talk to employers, they talk about the uncertainty. How can you do tax policy for two months?”

...

But the tax breaks for rich folks get to go on and on forever ...

No shit ...

Quote of the Day

Retiring Congressman Barney Frank:

...

"It's a great embarrassment to the conservatives," Frank pointed out. "They want to tell people who they can have sex with. Come on, all this is big government! Who can I have sex with? Who can I marry? What can I read? What can I smoke? You guys, on the whole -- not all of you -- but the conservatives are the ones who intrude on personal liberty there."

...

Remember, the conservatives only believe in small government when it comes to regulating shit they support.

See you in Hell ...

The insane midget in North Korea has died. Good. Unfortunately, it won't do much for the poor people of North Korea who still have to live in Earth's Asshole:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died of a heart attack at the age of 69, state media has announced.

Millions of North Koreans had been "engulfed in indescribable sadness", the KCNA news agency said. People were seen weeping in the capital Pyongyang.

His son Kim Jong-un was described by KCNA as the "great successor" who North Koreans should unite behind.

...

We'll see soon enough whether the military will want to continue with a figurehead in charge or if they want to come out of the shadows. The "Great Successor" will live only so long as the generals allow it.

It's official!

This is from 2 1/2 years ago:

DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"

Shorter: Actually use your 1st Amendment rights instead of just paying lip service to them and you risk indefinite detention without due process.

This is not the United States I swore to protect.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Making Believe
Hello Stranger

Thanks to mondoBLIND.