(Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, Part Five is here, and Part Six is here.)Do Gooders of the Year Nominees
Think Progress for breaking this story about the "U.S." Chamber of Commerce using overseas donations to run attack ads against Democrats (more here)
Dregs of the Year Nominees
Erik Opczynski and the Rutgers-Camden College Republicans get it for launching a campaign to remove the name of alum Paul Robeson from the school library because of Robeson’s communist sympathies; as Andrew Shankman, an associate professor of history at the campus (who earns a Do Gooder citation for drafting a rebuttal signed by a dozen faculty members) pointed out, Robeson “suffered greatly for his beliefs.”
We know that the Republican Party has no interest in practicing actual governance any more, but having to reach back through nearly 70 years of history in search of a “values” issue is lame even for them (and get a load of Opczynski’s smug pic in the Daily News story).
And speaking of self-satisfied New Jersey Republicans...
Dregs of the Year NomineeNJ Governor Chris (“Governor Bully”) Christie gets it for killing the $9 billion commuter tunnel project here (with a good analysis from Paul Krugman here – this would turn into a theme for Repug governors, by the way, as noted here in Wisconsin, here in Ohio, and here (?) in Florida…now watch PA Governor-elect Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett do the same thing; as Bob Herbert basically said recently, once we could fly a man to the moon, but now we can’t even build a tunnel into New York…and by the way, Christie would end up owing $271 million for the cancellation – more here...add this to the $400 million in education funding he ended up losing due to administrative incompetence).
Oh, and it looks like Christie had another temper tantrum here, telling us that nothing "short of suicide" would convince people he will not run for president in two years.
Funny how October's “unspeakable tragedy” (an entirely apt way to put it, noted here) is supposed to be November's clever turn of a phrase, or something.
It’s also kind of funny to me that, with an approval rating of just over 50 percent, our corporate media thinks that Christie is overwhelmingly popular, while, with an approval rating of just under 50 percent, Obama has to "regain his mojo," or something.
Update 12/31/10: And I'm sure he forgot all about clearing the snow while riding on Space Mountain (here).
Update 1/1/11: And in a related story, as they say, I wonder if it will ever occur to this big dummy that there are quite a few people in the Garden State who cannot take a vacation (here).
Zombie Lie Of The Year Nominee
That only the Obama Social Security Administration was responsible for sending out 89,000 benefit checks to deceased recipients (as noted here, it had been going on for the last three years, also under a certain Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, and in fact, the Obama people are currently trying to create a database full of the names of the recipients to correct the problem in the future…of course, our corporate media con-vee-niently neglected to mention that detail – h/t Atrios).
Craptacular Economic Hackery of the Year Nominee
N. Gregory Mankiw for trying to explain here why higher taxes make him lazy, or something (h/t Atrios)
Dregs of the Year Nominee (Almost-Never-Ending Election Season Division)
Repug U.S. Senate candidate (and eventual loser) John Raese from West Virginia, for hiring actors from Philadelphia to play “hicky blue collar” West Virginians here(remember this the next time you read a conservative screaming about how only liberals look down on them...a completely unsurprising update here)
Do Gooders of the Year Nominee
Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, PA gets a nomination for this (the company that made the drill that ended up freeing the Chilean miners)
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Pat Sajak, host of “Wheel of Fortune,” for “question(ing) whether public employees should be ‘able to vote in state elections on matters that would benefit them directly’," as noted here (yep, Pat, you “lose a turn” for this one...h/t Atrios).
Do Gooder of the Year Nominee
Jeff Ament of the band Pearl Jam gets credit here for building a $40,000 skate park in his hometown of Big Sandy, Montana; he also plans to buy a few skateboards, helmets and pads to keep on hand for kids who don’t have them. And next spring he said he plans to bring some friends who are professional skateboarders to town to put on a show – nice job.
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Virginia Thomas, wife of Silent Clarence on The High Court, who called up Prof. Anita Hill, who of course had a former association with her husband, and left a voice mail message asking her to apologize here – seriously, WTF?
And gee, ya’ think that maybe Ginny should have kept her mouth shut?
Oops, too late.Do Gooder of the Year Nominee
Christian Cutler, who, until recently, was the art gallery director at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA); as noted here by Think Progress, he was forced out because he decided that he didn’t want anything to do with the high school art show he had been asked to judge by Repug U.S. House Rep Louie Gohmert as a protest against the latter’s ridiculous “terror baby” claims (that women were coming to this country to give birth to these kids so they could be raised and indoctrinated to blow us up) – Gohmert leaned on the university to get Cutler to resign in response (and Dregs citations go out both to Gohmert and SFA…forcing somebody out of their job in this economic climate is so cruel that I can only imagine a Republican doing it)
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Stephen Broden, a “constitutionalist pastor” from Texas who won the Republican nomination for Texas’ 30th Congressional District and who also said that a violent overthrow of our government if the Repugs lose is “on the table” here (make an example out of this asshole and throw him in jail).
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Dale Woods, general manager of WHO-TV in Iowa, for refusing to air a campaign ad against Sen. Charles Grassley in October; Woods says he agreed with “95 percent” of the ad, except the part about Grassley saying that HCR would “pull the plug on grandma” – Woods said the proper context wasn’t included in the ad, though Think Progress explains here that the charge is utterly ridiculous (Grassley said it and the context is there – wrong for a Dem, but, as always, IOKIYAR)…
Do Gooder of the Year Nominee
Gene Epstein in these parts for this…
Do Gooder of the Year Nominee
Ed Rendell, for issuing an executive order halting drilling into the Marcellus Shale over the Repugs and their typically piggish obstinacy over a measly 1.5 percent tax on drilling here (I wish they wouldn’t drill at all; I don’t know how many of these jokers have seen “Gasland”…after the election, this issue should be the number one priority in our beloved commonwealth – h/t Atrios)
The “What Do You Expect, Since Saddam Hussein Was Hung Over A Relatively Trivial Charge That Didn’t Involve The U.S.?” Citation
As noted here, Pope Benny XVI condemned the death sentence of Tariq Aziz, one of the prior Iraqi ruling regime’s henchmen – I don’t know if it’s better to let Aziz languish in jail for the rest of his life or not instead; it’s just that it seemed like the Vatican uncharacteristically sprang to life quickly on this one...looks like Aziz will be spared, though, based on this.
Do Gooder of the Year Nominee
Dem Congressman Pete DeFazio of Oregon for investigating whether or not Hangin’ Judge JR can be impeached here (now THAT’s what I’m talking about!)
And in a related story, as they say...
Dregs of the Year Nominees
I could give top “honors” to the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR most years, and they might even qualify for this in a normal year (as noted earlier, though, about Citizens United, this year wasn’t “normal” in terms of disasters, IMHO - at the very least, though, they should get a mention for this)...
Dregs of the Year Nominee ("Not Lovin' It" Citation)
A McDonald’s in Ohio told its employees to vote Republican (here).
Stupidest Media Idiocy of the Year Nominee (Big Field For This One)
As noted here…
Blame it on biologyHere’s my own theory as to why I don’t like Sarah Palin, and it has nothing to do with genetics – IT'S BECAUSE SHE’S A MORON!
Researchers at the University of California and Harvard University say there's a genetic reason why some people just can't stand former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Dregs of the Year Nominee
The “Dean of Beltway Journalism” for calling for war with Iran here to boost the economy (oh, but David Broder is a respectable monster – h/t Atrios...on Halloween, which is somewhat appropriate)
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Repug U.S. House Rep Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming gets a citation; she said the return of the estate tax “is leading her constituents to commit suicide” here…as K.O. noted at the time, wouldn’t doing everything possible to live longer be a more logical form of protest?
Worst Political Instincts of the Year
Beau Biden (I realize there’s no way anyone could have foreseen that Mike Castle would get the boot in favor of "Yes, Wiccan!" O'Donnell – but seriously, I wonder if he’s kicking himself for not getting into the DE Senate race now?)
Missed Opportunity of the Year
The Stewart/Colbert “Rally For Sanity And/Or Fear” or whatever it was called – it turned into a media-bashing episode at the end; no problem on my end with that, but it would have helped if it have been a bit more of a civics lesson too...I respect the fact that Stewart tries hard not to cross the line into advocacy, but all he and Colbert had to do was utter two simple words: "Go Vote!"
All You Need To Know About The Electoral Disaster Of 2010
Right here...
Dregs of the Year Nominees
Preston Elliot and Steve Morrison of the WMMR morning radio show in these parts – I’ll need a minute or two to explain this, so please bear with me.
As a fairly (former) longtime listener to the show, I can say with a good bit of certainty that Steve Morrison doesn’t like Democrats. That’s OK – I respect the fact that that’s his opinion. He has repeatedly made smart remarks about celebrities making political comments, particularly Al Gore, and when I’ve heard him say this, it has always been in response to those with a Democratic point of view speaking their minds. But he doesn’t like that. I get it.
So what happened recently when JFK biographer Ted Sorensen passed away in October? We’re treated to the requisite JFK impressions in the clipped Brookline, MA cadence that we all know so well (anyone out there old enough to remember Vaughn Meader – gulp – knows exactly what I’m talking about). And of course, the words were stuff like “that chick has a penis,” etc. (ha, ha). OK, those guys are entertainers, I think to myself. I’ll let that slide.
The capper, though, occurred on 11/3 when they interviewed Jon Runyan, who won the NJ-03 U.S. House seat on 11/2 formerly held by John Adler in the Repug wipeout of the U.S. House (hard for me to feel bad about Adler’s loss, I must say). After letting Runyan expound the obligatory talking points, the former Eagles’ offensive tackle ends with “we’re taking our country back,” to which Preston responds “Awesome!,” along with the rest of the crew, whooping it up of course.
Gee, I guess it’s OK for some celebrities to make political comments, as long as it’s the type of comments you prefer, huh guys?
Dregs of the Year Nominees
The voters of Florida: now I think it’s laughable that, say, Kentucky voted Rand Paul to the U.S. Senate, but at least Paul is somewhat of a “blank slate” politically. However, in the case of the Sunshine State, not only did they elect teabagger Marco Rubio to the Senate, whose plan to supposedly balance the budget specifies extending tax cuts for the rich but ending them for everyone else (here), but they also elected Rick Scott governor (Scott was forced to resign as Chief Executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid a scandal over the company's business and Medicare billing practices; the company ultimately admitted to fourteen felonies and agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million).
As noted here (in a story about new recent allegations of improper Medicare billing)…
Scott was never charged, or even interviewed by authorities. Columbia/HCA paid Scott about $10 million, along with roughly $300 million worth of stock, to leave the company. He has previously said he had no knowledge of the wrongdoing and would not have condoned it. But people familiar with the case, like John Schilling, a former Columbia/HCA employee who reported the abuses to the feds, have stated that Scott’s aggressive emphasis on profits and cost created the environment for the fraud to develop.And on top of that, they also voted out of office perhaps the highest profile progressive Democrat in Congress (Alan Grayson) and voted into office a guy who was on his way to getting court-martialed for threatening to kill an Iraqi when he was forced to resign his commission, to say nothing of telling his supporters to make his opponent (incumbent Dem Ron Klein) “scared to come out of his house” (and I’m referring to Allen West, whose chief of staff advocated hanging illegal immigrants who commit crimes here).
The voters in that state who elected these three frauds (Rubio, Scott and West) would do better spending a little less time worshipping the Mouse in Orlando and, instead, trying to find their own rear ends with both hands.
Update 12/25/10: And speaking of Scott, why am I not surprised by this?
Dregs of the Year Nominee
The Bucks County Courier Times gets it for its utterly "in the tank" "reporting" by Gary Weckselblatt on the Murphy-Fitzpatrick U.S. House race (and for other reasons noted as follows).
As noted by Op-Ed letter writer Max Roesler of Morrisville, PA, Weckselblatt used the GOP boilerplate term "death tax" to refer to the estate tax in what was essentially a factual news story about the debate between Murphy and Fitzpatrick at Shir Ami Synagogue in Newtown. The reporter also "devoted four paragraphs to reporting what he indicated were factual inaccuracies in candidate Murphy's presentation, without offering any indication whether or not candidate Fitzpatrick had overstated his facts, or whether he had presented any," according to Roesler.
Weckselblatt, in another article, justified the true accusation from Murphy that Fitzpatrick had given himself $20K in raises over 10 years as a Bucks County Commissioner by saying that Fitzpatrick had received cost-of-living adjustments of $2 grand per year, so that supposedly invalidated Murphy's charge. It didn't (and we're talking about a "public sector" job as a commissioner, of course).
Also, in the absentee ballot application controversy, the paper mentioned numerous times about how Dem applications apparently were funneled to something called the “Pennsylvania Voter Assistance Office,” which apparently was a ham-handed attempt by the Murphy campaign and the state Democratic Party to coordinate the ballot applications (and it has never been proven that that was a violation of election law), whereas the letter from Repug State House Rep candidate Rob Ciervo in which he said “Mike Fitzpatrick and I need your help” to engage in “voter caging” by having ballot applications completed with the addresses of college students from their college residence, not their voting district…well, that letter was mentioned once in the initial story on this controversy, but disappeared in subsequent stories.
And a dishonorable mention goes to the paper's editorial board for endorsing both Murphy and Fitzpatrick, essentially copping out on its duty to educate and inform while trying to appear "fair and balanced" (offering no endorsement would have been more honest). Also, the board gave Murphy a “Thumbs Down” on 11/5 for the PA Voter Assistance Office stuff without mentioning the Ciervo letter, as noted above.
In addition, can the paper prove conclusively that those full-page ads that they ran for Fitzpatrick every day for two weeks until the election (with blue banner front-page button graphics telling people where to go to find the ad, as if people aren’t able to find full-page ads in a newspaper) weren’t paid for at least in part by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (with the Chamber, in all probability, paying for those ads at least in part with foreign donations that they won’t disclose)? I know the answer, but I’m still inclined to ask the question.
Would Murphy have won without all of this? I don't see how. Would the race have been closer to the point where it would have been worthwhile to try recounting the 8,000 or so absentee ballots in question to see if it would have swayed the outcome? We'll never know.
Dregs of the Year Nominee
I don’t recall if Baby Newton Leroy Gingrich has been cited or not this year, but here, he imagined that the world was happy with the Repug rout in the House on Tuesday, when in fact, quite the opposite is true (and why exactly do our corporate media still take him seriously anyway?).
Do Gooders of the Year
Those zany teabaggers – and no, I’m not losing my mind; basically, as kos explains here, their antics probably cost the GOP control of the Senate (though the 2012 campaign, unfortunately, is already underway…here’s an unhappy thought, though – if “Yes Wiccan!” O’Donnell had been running in the Deep South instead of Delaware, she might have won)
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn, who said the following here…
President Clinton reconnected (after the Oklahoma City bombing). And the President right now he seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he really clicked with the American people. Obama needs a similar kind of, yeah...Sick bastard (Penn, I mean), to say nothing of being utterly clueless and out of touch if he seriously thinks that, in response to a wrecked economy with virtually no hope of a rebound in the face of upcoming congressional gridlock, a speech by the President will make everything just hunky dory again.
Do Gooders of the Year Nominees
The voters of California, who withstood a $5 million onslaught of negative ads from the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce against Dem Senator Barbara Boxer and returned her to office in November – well done.
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, for allowing those ridiculous Duck tour boats to invade the Schuylkill, disrupting the contemplative experience of doing just about anything else in the vicinity of Boathouse Row on East River Drive (here - moving these eyesores from the place where that awful accident occured won't make the problem go away)…
Dregs of the Year Nominee
Dem Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan who, by all appearances based on this (h/t Atrios), acted like he would cave on DADT to “Straight Talk” McCain (Levin needs to seriously grow a pair – I mean, the Defense Secretary has come out, so to speak, against DADT, for God’s sake…WHO ELSE DO YOU NEED???!!! And the White House, to its credit, opposed stripping DADT repeal from the defense authorization bill – about goddamn time...the repeal is actually getting closer and closer to being enacted as I type this)
Update 12/18/10: FINALLY! And let St. McCain's mega-hissy fit begin.
Oh, and here's a word or two about someone else who deserves credit for this moment.
Dregs of the Year Nominees
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (including the truly dreadful Priscilla Owen), which sanctioned a cheerleader at Silsbee High School in Texas (why am I not surprised?) because she refused to cheer for her alleged rapist when he got ready to shoot basketball free throws here – what country am I living in again?
Special “Teabaggers – Time To Recycle The ‘Crazy’” Citation
Having effectively prevented the Republicans from taking over the U.S. Senate along with the House, some of those moronic teabaggers are now protesting an Arizona trash recycling program here (yep, I would say that they are truly in their element with this one).
Dregs of the Year Nominees
So many reasons to nominate Sen.-Elect Rand Paul (ugh), but this goes out to the fools in Kentucky who believed his whole “small government, no spending” tea party rap only to see him flip to a typical corporatist Republican – BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
More later (getting there, slowly but surely)...
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