Any volunteers? [crickets]

Female Fox News contributor says Michelle Malkin ‘needs to get laid’

There would have been more volunteers to go after Osama bin Laden armed with a handful of fairy dust rather than do that. Shudders at the thought.

Headline of the Day

Bachmann: Libya attack was effort to impose Sharia law on the U.S.

Batcrap crazy is alive and well. Sigh.

Shopping Day

Over the mountains and through the woods to Costco we must go. See yas later.

Willard on his money's foreign policy experience

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—One day after he was roundly criticized by both parties for his comments about Libya, Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney attempted to burnish his foreign-policy credentials today, telling reporters that “no one has spent more time overseas than my money has.”

“My money has served in banks from Switzerland to Bermuda, and from Bermuda to the Cayman Islands,” Mr. Romney said. “I challenge my opponent’s money to equal that record of service.”
...

Mr. Romney’s recent foray into foreign policy may have hurt him in a new poll, in which a majority of likely voters agreed with the statement, “Mitt Romney is starting to make his trip to the London Olympics look like the pinnacle of modern diplomacy.”

An official statement from the Romney campaign did not refer to his latest comments, but indicated that between now and the election Mr. Romney’s schedule would deëmphasize events where he might be called upon to open his mouth.

Nah, let 'er buck. :-)

Note to President Obama

So, Barry ... I heard you say that you're not sure if Egypt is our ally, new government and all. I also heard that the demonstrations at our embassy were fomented by a radical right-wing fundamentalist element that wants President Morsi to fail. I think you and he have more in common than you might think. Call him.

Headlines of the Day

Romney's Incendiary Response to US Embassy Deaths in Libya Proves Him Incapable of Being Commander in Chief

We knew that.

Romney Hooks Himself Off the Stage

In every campaign, there's a moment you know it's all over. [...]

When You Learn They’re Not Ready

“Bungle… utter disaster…not ready for prime time… not presidential… Lehman moment.” And that's just the Republicans.

This shit's all over TV and the interwebs. Rmoney done waffle-stomped his pecker for fair this time. Good. Folks might start to see what an insufferable arrogant prick he really is.

Related Update:

‘It Makes Me Sick’: Actress in Muhammed Movie Says She Was Deceived, Had No Idea It Was About Islam

God the insufferable jerk

If it's Wednesday, it's Morford taking on the Repug invisible sky wizard.

I am delighted to report God still appears to be a bit of an unbearable twit.

Petulant. Uptight. Whiny as a third-grader with recurring lice. How do we know? Because, against all deeper understanding and without a single care that He’s not the slightest bit real in the literal sense, the Almighty still insists on keeping score, observing your every move, measuring your capacity to hate others who do not agree with your narrow view of life, or love, or America.

It’s true. If all reports for the past week – and the past handful of incoherent centuries – are to be believed, God does nothing but laze about the couch with a golden iPad, tracking how many times He’s mentioned on television, who won the Packers game, how often you watch porn or say something nice to a gay person, and who commits more acts of guilt-addled fear in his glorious name.

Oh, and love. There’s love in there somewhere. Maybe. Unless you’re a liberal. Or Muslim. Or gay. Then you’re on your own.

It’s a little tricky to unpack, but sometimes it must be acknowledged: There exists in the American mythos this fragile, long-abused idea that when you buy a gun, or a beer, or a Chinese-made pair of Levi’s using a piece of tattered green paper with the word “God” on it, that it actually means something, that underneath it all there’s this tiny, microscopic hint of divine glue holding it all together, somehow....

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s not all that sweet after all. Maybe it’s one of the sadder, more debilitating aspects of the modern American condition, given how it’s no secret that organized religion, conservative politicians, marketers and megacorps alike love nothing more than to prey upon the poor and the less educated, anyone desperate for structure and divine meaning, but not quite willing or able to figure it out for themselves.

Don't worry. Pat Robertson and his ilk will tell you what you need to know. God only talks to charlatans with radio shows and keep those checks coming, folks.

The "October Surprise"?

WaPo

Netanyahu: Without ultimatum, U.S. has no ‘moral right’ to stop Israel from attacking Iran

I think Secretary Clinton and President Obama have their work cut out for them to stop Bibi from attacking Iran in order to influence our election in an attempt to restore Romney's neocons to the seat of power.

If I were Emperor (EOTUS) I would support Israel. If they were the agressors, I would support them from afar, and verrrrry slowly in any military way. Slow enough, in fact, that they would do better if we sent FEMA instead of military assistance. If they start it, let them fight it.

The GOP Throws a Tampa Tantrum

Funny, in a Repugpathetic sorta way. Via BuzzFlash:

Notable quote:

"That Clinton - he talks to people like they're allowed to know something!"

Campaignful: Episode 2 - That Stupid DNC Is So Stupid

The Neocons and 9/11

Robert Parry with a "recommended read" that will piss you off. Again.

The emerging history of 9/11 reveals that President George W. Bush’s failure to protect the nation resulted from neocon insistence that Iraq was the real threat, not al-Qaeda. The political relevance today is that the neocons want back into power under a Mitt Romney presidency, writes Robert Parry.

So, when the Aug. 6 PDB arrived, it already had a troubling context, mounting evidence that al-Qaeda had placed a team of terrorists inside the United States with plans for a dramatic attack on American soil. Yet, Bush brushed aside the Aug. 6 warning while vacationing at his Texas ranch and literally went fishing. Why?

Eichenwald writes that Bush’s nonchalance could be traced to the success of neocon advisers in convincing the President that the warning was “just bluster.” The neocons have never been known to be humble in their assessment of their own intellectual prowess and that self-certainty apparently swayed Bush.

According to Eichenwald, “An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.

“Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day. In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.”

The Bush administration was soon on course to launch not only an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, but Iraq as well. The neocons also revived their dreams about using Iraq as a launching pad for additional “regime change” in Syria and Iran. In the short term, the 9/11 disaster worked out so well for the neocons that some cynics began to suspect that the neocons had secretly wished for the attack all along.

Here's a little "truther" version. Not my conspiracy theory, but I'll use it to illustrate Mr. Parry's point:

9/11 didn't quite turn out the way Dick Cheney and the PNACer's thought it would, did it?
...

The neocons got the new Pearl Harbor that they so longed for [...]

The silver lining:

To add insult to injury, the GOP will be out of power for decades to come.

The "insult" was the neocons getting power in the first place. "The GOP will be out of power for decades to come" sounds like a blessing to me. It was NOT "worth it".

9/11 changed this country forever and not in a good way. You know the details.

The smart neocon bet was soon placed on Mitt Romney, who like Bush was a relative neophyte on foreign policy. The smooth-talking neocons quickly earned a place of trust in the Romney camp. The former Massachusetts government largely delegated to the neocons the job of writing his foreign policy white paper, “An American Century.”

Neocons should be shot on sight in my opinion. I think the phrase applied to The Holocaust is appropriate: Never Again must they be allowed to take over the White House and the nation.

Dubya's Ghost

The Daily Beast

Why Dubya will decide the winner this fall.
...

The conventions are over, but the individual who will determine the 2012 election didn’t attend either of them. His name is George W. Bush.
...

One day, a Republican presidential candidate will exorcise Bush’s ghost. But most likely, he or she will do so by bluntly telling Americans where Bush’s presidency went wrong, and how their presidency will be different. Until that happens, George W. Bush will be present at every Republican and Democratic convention for years to come, whether anyone invites him or not.

Short of displaying Dim Son's head on a pike and giving back all the money they let Wall St. steal, which is all the money, the Repugs are toast for a while. Good. Maybe they'll come to their senses and get a viable candidate for '24 after Obama's second term and Hillary's two terms, but I doubt it.

Normally I don't care much for Peter Beinart, who wrote the piece, because he's a little too militantly pro-Israel, but I hope for once he's right.

Video Emerges of Biden Biker Bar Visit

Joe is apparently going after a different 1%. I hope he didn't get to hear that old biker saying, "Look out! It's another drunk broad with a gun!". Heh.

TPM

That Biden photo everyone is talking about was apparently an attempt to recreate this classic scene from movie history.

Actually if you haven’t seen this immortal movie, watch this longer clip for the full context of the scene …

I'm waiting to see Joe's new cut - "Sons of a Second Term". No fear - he'll go from prospect to patchholder in November.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

TORNADOS TOUCH DOWN IN NEW YORK CITY
Pat Robertson says God angry about ban on oversized soft drinks.

Report: U.S. Healthcare System Wastes $750 Billion a Year
Money that could be spent on advanced weapons systems.

Iran, North Korea Agree to Cooperate in Science, Technology
Israel, South Korea do lunch.

Campaign Ad Onslaught Begins
At least $500 million will be spent to sway a handful of airheads living in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire.

The onslaught has begun in Northern Nevada as well. The Repugs are trying desperately to lock up the Basque sheepherder vote.

Now at Fixer & Gordon

Burning Man Rat Rod

Don't miss this one!

Headline of the Day

Obama jokes he should make Clinton ‘Secretary of Explaining Stuff’

Ohhhhhh yeah...

You tell 'em, Rasta mon!

Raw Story

Snoop on Obama’s reelection: ‘He cleaned half [Bush's] sh*t up in four years’

“They need to give Obama four more years, man,” he told reporters. He proceeded to get more specific about why he supports reelecting the President:

I mean, Bush fucked up for eight years, so you gotta at least give [Obama] eight years. He cleaned half the shit up in four years, realistically. It ain’t like y’all gave him a clean house. Y’all gave him a house where the TV didn’t work, the toilet was stuffed up — everything was wrong with the house. Then he went and knocked down the most hated, most wanted, the one who had our terror alert on Orange or Red, whatever color it was on. He went and found him, the one that Bush couldn’t seem to find, that seemed to fly away the day of 9/11. Remember all that? He went and found him and knocked him down, so don’t forget about that. Now everybody is peaceful and able to move and have a good time — it’s because he made that happen.

I have always thought it was unrealistic to expect Bush's mess to get cleaned up in one term, much less clean up politics, but then I've been watching.

If you stop to think about it, Bush's mess won't be cleaned up 'til the last Iraq war casualty dies in about a hundred years.

Poll: Race Close Among Voters with No Television

Via The New Yorker.

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—A new poll released today shows the Presidential race extremely tight among voters who had no access to a working television for the past two weeks.

On the campaign trail, Republican nominee Mitt Romney seemed buoyed by the news, urging his audience not to watch television, read newspapers, or log on to the Internet between now and Election Day.

Mr. Romney attempted to rebut Vice-President Joe Biden’s biggest applause line from last night by telling supporters, “On Day One of my Presidency I will kill General Motors and bring Osama bin Laden back to life.”

As for President Obama’s biggest applause line, “I am the President of the United States,” Fox News said they were fact-checking it.

With the fall campaign officially begun, both Obama and Romney must now spend hundreds of hours and millions of dollars to become President of Ohio.

Only sixty days remain until the election, or in Paul Ryan’s words, “Forty days.”

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris & Daniel Lanois cover Neil Young at the Greenbelt Harvest Festival in Dundas, Ontario, Canada September 1, 2012.

Thanks to iused2BAfireman.

Light Blogging Today

In a thankfully rare alignment of the planets in the Honey-Do and Stack-'em-up-and-do-'em-later universes, four-plus projects have come to a head on the same day and I gotta deal with 'em. This will free me up to continue with other projects. You'll enjoy retirement too! :-)

In the meantime, go read The Rude One on Obama's speech:

This shit is hard, our President told us, harder than he ever imagined. He more or less dismissed the entire Republican platform as unworthy of discussion by adults in a nation with genuine problems, and that it is instead the wish list of deranged plutocratic children. Indeed, what he was trying to convince us with all of his talk of the "choice" was that it was not between him and Romney. It was between him and apathy because, and every so-called pundit everywhere knows this, if the energy of the electorate is within spitting distance of 2008, Romney is finished. Romney wins only through apathy and outright voter suppression. [...]

Later.

Rush Limbaugh is losing his mind

Actually, he lost it a long time ago, but the Kool-Aid, or maybe the tertiary syphilis, has rotted his brain to where it shows pretty plainly now. Kos, with deranged-fatass-gasbagcam video.

It is really hard to tell smug, winning, not-losing-his-mind Rush Limbaugh from Rush Limbaugh who sees a trainwreck coming and is desperate to do something, anything about it. But, judging by Limbaugh yesterday, he knows his team is losing and it's putting him over the edge.
...

The, ahem, highlights: The decision was made yesterday or the day before to move the speech indoors because the knew they wouldn't be able to fill, get this, "Black Panther Stadium." (Carolina Panthers fans are going to be thrilled with that one.) Also, Clint Eastwood's RNC "empty chair" routine totally shows how America is laughing at Barack Obama.

Oh, totally! Heh. "Black Panther Stadium" is actually a little funny.

Republicans are losing and Limbaugh knows it. He's only going to be getting worse, more racist, and more desperate over the next two months.

It would give me the greatest pleasure to see that asshole melt down on air.