The Liberal Doomsayer

Saturday Stuff

2012-01-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

Happy 100th birthday to Jackson Pollock (no, he didn’t live that long)...

...and it looks like Allen West is at it again here (you must be so proud, you Floridians dumb enough to actually help elect this sociopath; love Jim Manley's response - he'd better not apologize)...

...also, Martin Bashir is a guy I should pay more attention to, and I’ll try to do so; here is some spot-on commentary about the Repugs (Bashir also appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this week and looked knowledgeable and a bit funny when I saw him)...

…and yep, it’s time for “Retro Saturday Night” – enjoy.

Saturday Mashup (1/28/12)

2012-01-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

I give you BoBo in the New York Times yesterday (here, on the matter of President Obama’s State of the Union speech the other night)…

There was nothing big, like tax reform or entitlement reform. There was no comprehensive effort to restore trust in government by sweeping away the tax credits and special-interest schemes that entangle Washington. Ninety percent of American workers work in the service economy, but Obama spoke mostly about manufacturing.

Instead, there were a series of modest proposals that poll well. In that sense, it was the Democratic version of Newt Gingrich’s original “Contract With America” — a series of medium-size ideas with 80 percent approval ratings.

Of course, the esteemed David Brooks doesn’t provide sourcing for this claim (figures). However, I think the following should be noted from here…

The truth about the fabled Contract With America is much different than (the portrayal by Jeffrey Goldberg in the New Yorker) in fact, he is propping up a thoroughly discredited bit of revisionist history. Rather than being the catalyst for the Republican’s 1994 victory, as many reporters have since portrayed it, the Contract with America actually made its debut only six weeks before the 1994 election, which makes its effect on the outcome a debatable proposition.

What isn’t debatable is that, back in the days before the 1994 election, the Contract’s celebrated “drama and clarity” was lost on the majority of Americans. The fact is, according to an article that appeared in the December 1994/January 1995 issue of Campaigns & Elections, “very few voters were even aware of this contract during the election: just 31 percent had heard of the Contract in a late October [1994] NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

“Moreover, very few Republican candidates ran television ads promoting their signing of the contract, while scores of Democrats ran commercials attacking their opponents for supporting a proposal that would endanger Social Security and Medicare.”

Similarly, a poll taken by New Jersey’s Star-Ledger in Febraury1995 found that 55 percent of New Jersey residents polled “have not read or heard much about” the Contract. The poll also found that “Among those who voted Republican, 55 percent say that the Contract with America was not a reason why they selected their candidate.”

From what I read of these things, apparently Willard Mitt Romney is getting plenty of help from the Repug establishment in deflating the candidacy of Baby Newton Leroy (and some corporate media support too, including this shocking bit of actual reporting from Brooks’s co-worker Sheryl Gay Stolberg). So try as BoBo might, somehow I don’t think all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are going to put the disgraced former U.S. House speaker back together again.

Also (and keeping with the State of the Union), the Doughy Pantload is in high dudgeon (here)…

President Obama's State of the Union address was disgusting.

The president began with a moving tribute to the armed forces and their accomplishments. But as he has done many times now, he celebrated martial virtues not to rally support for the military, but to cover himself in glory -- he killed Osama bin Laden! -- and to convince the American people that they should fall in line and march in lockstep.

He said of the military: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They're not consumed with personal ambition. They don't obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach."

That is disgusting.

What Obama is saying, quite plainly, is that America would be better off if it wasn't America any longer. He's making the case not for American exceptionalism, but Spartan exceptionalism.

Umm…here is more context on what Obama actually said…

Think about the America within our reach: a country that leads the world in educating its people; an America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs; a future where we’re in control of our own energy; and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.

My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

The two of them shared the optimism of a nation that had triumphed over a depression and fascism. They understood they were part of something larger, that they were contributing to a story of success that every American had a chance to share: the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

Doesn’t sound so “disgusting” after all, does it?

Of course, this is in keeping with the predictable right-wing bloviation on display here…

And does Jonah have a problem with the “within our reach” language? If so, here are more examples from another president (and I’m not checking on Number 43’s veracity here, it should be noted, only the wording)…

For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, my proposal would mean a substantial tax savings — $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach.

…

It is in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply — and the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power — by even greater use of clean coal technology ... solar and wind energy ... and clean, safe nuclear power. We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol — using everything from wood chips, to grasses, to agricultural wastes. We have made a lot of progress, thanks to good policies in Washington and the strong response of the market. Now even more dramatic advances are within reach.

And by the way, do you want to know how our pal Jonah rose to prominence to begin with? Check this out…

Goldberg's career as a pundit was launched following his mother Lucianne Goldberg's role in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, when he wrote about the "media siege" on his mother's apartment in The New Yorker.[2][3]

Goldberg has spoken of his mother and the Lewinsky scandal:

My mother was the one who advised Linda Tripp to record her conversations with Monica Lewinsky and to save the dress. I was privy to some of that stuff, and when the administration set about to destroy Lewinsky, Tripp, and my mom, I defended my mom and by extension Tripp... I have zero desire to have those arguments again. I did my bit in the trenches of Clinton's trousers.[4]

And Goldberg is the one telling us what is disgusting?

Finally (and I know I’m a little behind on this), I give you Nike CEO Phil Knight, saying the following during the funeral of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno (here)…

"If there is a villain in this tragedy, it lies in that investigation, and not in Joe Paterno's response."

And of course, the remark earned a standing ovation.

Oh, so the investigation is the villain? Not the alleged child-raping activities of Jerry Sandusky, one of Paterno’s coaches? Not “Joe Pa” himself either, of course, for turning the matter over to the trustees and not going public MUCH earlier when the trustees apparently sat on their hands?

Please read this about Nike from October 2009, particularly the following, to understand how Knight allowed those in his employment to be abused, perhaps in not quite as horrific a manner as some of those under Paterno’s charge were abused, but still bad all the same…

… because of the pressure that was placed on Nike by consumers, women workers no longer have to prove they are menstruating to get their legally guaranteed leave. Also, workers are no longer beaten with machetes or threatened at gunpoint for union organizing activity.

However, while we have seen the progress mentioned above, we still have no movement on the two most important issues - Nike workers are still being paid a poverty wage and Nike still refuses to bargain with their workers in good faith.

I’m not going to try and equate Nike’s business practices with the recruiting and coaching activities of Joe Paterno, since I believe there is no comparison. What I’m saying, though, is that, given all this, Phil Knight has no right whatsoever to try and claim the moral high ground here.

So, when it comes to demonizing the accusers of Penn State, including Joe Paterno, I have the following advice for Knight: Just (Don’t) Do It.

(Sorry – too easy).

Friday Stuff

2012-01-27T21:16:00.000-08:00

(I hope to get back to posting one of these days - couldn't quite make it happen today, though I have stuff in my "in" box.)

Gee, I wonder if Oklahoma State Sen. Ralph Shortey thought the following was a documentary (here)…

…and I keep asking about Baby Newton Leroy’s space-based air traffic control system because I just haven’t gotten an answer, and I don’t expect that I ever will (here – more “Nail. Hammer. Head.” stuff from Jon Stewart)…

…and speaking of space (and getting a lot more serious), today is the solemn 45th anniversary of this tragedy…

…and in another milestone, Brian Wilson played the first of four sold-out performances of "Smile" at The Royal Festival Hall, London ten years ago today; a clip follows (and by the way, concerning Wilson’s remarks at the end about The Beach Boys and The Beatles, it should be noted from the concert film that Sir Paul met Wilson backstage before one of the ’02 shows and wished him luck, which Wilson appreciated – a classy moment all around).

Thursday Stuff

2012-01-26T21:02:00.001-08:00

(I'll try to do that posting thing tomorrow, but I can't promise anything yet.)

RIP, Politifact (and kudos to Rachel here – try “Totally, Unarguably, And Completely 100 Percent True” instead, morons)...

...and here’s a poppin’ little number, for no particular reason (maybe The Mittster has this at one of his palaces – ???...by the way, that’s all I have to say that is even remotely tangential to the 256,344,722nd Repug presidential candidates’ debate tonight).

Wednesday Stuff

2012-01-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

Godspeed, Gabby...

Tuesday Stuff

2012-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

Don’t look now, but here’s the latest anti-clean energy campaign from the Koch Brothers – yes, it’s another spot-on “Onion” parody, but is it really that far off?...

In The Know: Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit

…and yep, I admit that I like happy endings in videos, even though this doesn’t have one.

Monday Mashup (1/23/12)

2012-01-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

I’ll give you what I have time for, and it will have to be quick…

Good luck to Gabby Giffords – it’s more important that she does all she needs to do to heal as much as possible; politics are secondary to living your life (here).

In light of the passing of Joe Paterno, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit this New York Times column from last November by Penn State’s Michael Berube.

And sticking with sports, I give you the following (here, following the lead of "Orange Man" and NASCAR drivers before him)…

Washington (CNN) -- Opposed to what he called the "out of control" growth of the federal government, Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas declined an invitation to join his teammates at the White House on Monday.

The award-winning Thomas, who last year led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup championship emblematic of National Hockey League supremacy, was one of three players missing when President Barack Obama met with the team to offer congratulations.

According to a story on the team's website, www.bostonbruins.com, Thomas "opted out" of the White House visit. One of the other missing players was injured, and the third now plays for another team, according to the website story.

A statement by the 37-year-old Thomas posted Monday on the team website said he opposed the "out of control" growth of the federal government that threatened "the rights, liberties, and property of the people."

"This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the federal government," the statement said. "Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL."

The statement ended by saying: "This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic." It concluded with the initials "TT."

Yeah, well, that sounds oh so honorable, until you find out the following (here)…

While his politics aren't common knowledge among many hockey fans, Thomas hasn't hidden his political leanings. He's a fan of former Fox News channel host Glenn Beck, once saying he aspired to appear on Beck's talk show as a guest.

Big Government, a website founded by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, celebrated Thomas as a "true Tea Party patriot" for having "In God We Trust" and the Gadsden flag on his mask.

Gee, ya’ think Thomas is actually ashamed of being a teabagger and doesn’t want to admit it?

He may be an elite NHL goaltender, but I think he needs to realize that the White House is the people’s house, and when you refuse an invitation, you’re also insulting the people of this country. And while I know I once said that medal winners should return the hardware they received from Former President Numbskull, I never said that they should be personally disrespectful to him (deserved though that would have been).

And Thomas is being personally disrespectful to President Obama. And by extension, he’s being personally disrespectful to all of us, under the guise of this “both sides are at fault” crap.

And as an American citizen playing in the NHL (where he has a lot of company in that regard), he definitely should know better.

Finally (and timed a bit for the anniversary of Roe v. Wade yesterday), this Daily Tucker post from Repug U.S. House Rep Dave Schweikert tells us the story of how his mother, who was unwed while pregnant, was tempted to undergo an abortion but chose to carry him to term instead, turning him over to adoptive parents before Schweikert reunited with his birth mother later. It is truly touching stuff, and commendable on the part of all concerned.

And I’d love to “leave it there,” but I can’t.

This tells us how Schweikert claimed that jobs were the priority for him and his pals in the House upon the beginning of their term, though they flipped and then ended up passing the most draconian anti-abortion bill this country has ever seen.

And as for being “pro-life,” he accepted $10,000 from the Koch Brothers here (of course, the garbage the Kochs want to spew into the air unabated will end up increasing cases of asthma and premature births, as noted here).

And on top of that, Schweikert believes that the Department of Education is “unconstitutional” (here – so how exactly are our kids supposed to become educated?).

So, typical for a “pro lifer” in my experience, Schweikert and his pals claim to support life in the womb, but once that kid pops out, he or she is on their own.

Wonder what Schweikert’s birth mother thinks about that?

A Rotten Apple Tale Of A Trade Swindle

2012-01-23T09:30:00.000-08:00

As mad as I get at Ross Douthat, John Harwood, David Brooks et al from time to time, I don’t know any other paper except the New York Times that is capable of the type of reporting on display here, from yesterday (the topic is the gradual extinction of the manufacturing sector of this country, concerning both blue and white-collar jobs…well, the Inky is capable of something like this with Barlett and Steele, but their work hardly appears anymore, though I do link to it later here)…

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

I would ask that all of those people out there deifying Jobs and who were ready to risk injury to themselves upon the news of his death pay particular attention to that remark.

Also…

In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.

Mr. Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.

People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. “I won’t sell a product that gets scratched,” he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. “I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks.”

After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to Shenzhen, China. If Mr. Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere else to go.

And why is that, exactly? Well…

…a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

The Chinese plant got the job.

But wait, there’s more…

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

The last thing in the world I intend to do here is extol the supposed virtues of a country that houses its workers in dormitories (mentioned in the article), making them work in excess of 12 hours a day six days a week (also mentioned) and makes them sign agreements not to kill themselves when the workload gets too unmanageable (not mentioned in the Times story) and puts up nets around the outside of the dormitories to catch them if they try to kill themselves by jumping out a window (also not mentioned there, but here).

Also, it should be pointed out (and I don’t want to shock anybody) that, apparently, in China they don’t have these stupid arguments all over the place about what is the role of state government versus the federal government, the requisite conservative versus liberal hissy fit, etc. , so much so that nothing gets done anymore (at least here). Someone in authority pretty much tells a worker “do this for almost nothing or I’ll shoot you” and it gets done (again, not something I admire).

Still, you want to find out what Apple executives really think of the U.S. workforce?

Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.

…

“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”

Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if these nameless Apple executives actually had the guts to go “on the record” with these observations?

And speaking of the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch, how exactly have they fared? I think you know the answer…

As Apple’s overseas operations and sales have expanded, its top employees have thrived. Last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue topped $108 billion, a sum larger than the combined state budgets of Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Since 2005, when the company’s stock split, share prices have risen from about $45 to more than $427.

Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’s and pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.

The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. (Timothy D.) Cook, Apple’s chief, last year received stock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings.

But of course Cook and his pals don't think US unemployment is their problem. That makes Cook another economic sociopath as far as I’m concerned – continuing…

A person close to Apple argued that the compensation received by Apple’s employees was fair, in part because the company had brought so much value to the nation and world. As the company has grown, it has expanded its domestic work force, including manufacturing jobs. Last year, Apple’s American work force grew by 8,000 people.

So did Apple have any thoughts on how to generate more U.S. jobs?

…the executives had suggested that the government should reform visa programs to help companies hire foreign engineers. Some had urged the president to give companies a “tax holiday” so they could bring back overseas profits which, they argued, would be used to create work. Mr. Jobs even suggested it might be possible, someday, to locate some of Apple’s skilled manufacturing in the United States if the government helped train more American engineers.

Another “tax holiday” and more H1B visas - more non-answers…

So it appears that anyone with at least half a brain in this country knows that we need an emphasis on education at all levels to try and close this gap and create more jobs. And this comes at a time when at least one of the leading presidential contenders offered by one of our major political parties in this country want to abolish the Department of Education (here).

But not to worry; the story tells us at the end that Steve Jobs got his unscratchable glass surface for his phones that he could show off at the California dinner party with President Obama (in front of executives whose combined worth was $69 billion, the story notes).

The Times story fails to note, however, whether or not these corporate vampires could see their own reflections.

Sunday Stuff

2012-01-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

Yep, looks like the Repugs are trying to bring the so-called “right to work” (as in, “right” to get utterly fleeced) to Hoosier-land, run by former Bushie Mitch Daniels (here)…

…and oh, to be such a put-upon rock star, fending off roadies while walking around with your shirt off and being fawned over by the media – nice tune anyway.

Saturday Stuff

2012-01-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

So South Carolina, a state that insists on electing Republican politicians who give them absolutely nothing (except maybe the back of the hand - more on that here) voted for Baby Newton Leroy (the "Not Romney" of the moment, apparently) decisively in their presidential primary. They must be so proud.

And while I’m hardly a fan of Dr. Paul, I have to admit that this is a first-class evisceration…

…and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich tells us once more why the catastrophic Citizens United ruling from The High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR (handed down two years ago today) matters here…

…and witness the jackbooted thugs carrying out the bidding of the corpocracy, doing what they do best, and that is to try and utterly erase free speech for all but the "one percent" (here and here)…

…and in addition to Etta James, Johnny Otis passed recently also (and he kept good company, as you can see).

Friday Stuff

2012-01-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

God, what a corporatist stooge, even for a Republican…

…“Worst Persons” (Kentucky Guv Steve Beshear gives Dems a bad name by submitting a budget with six figures worth of cuts primarily to education, but $43 million for a Bible-themed amusement park is apparently sacred, pun intended; Baby Newton Leroy – having himself an absolutely banner 24-hour news cycle, it should be noted – gets the runner-up for criticizing Obama for shutting down a portion of Mouse-Land in Florida, which has been done before by…oh, let’s just say THREE OF OUR FIVE MOST RECENT REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS; but Dr. Keith Ablow gets the top nod for some truly hilarious commentary on Gingrich’s…well, let’s just call it his alleged “charisma”…”hey, Sri Lanka, slide that pretty little booty o’ yours on over to the U.S., why dontcha”)…

...and sticking with K.O. (and in a lot more serious of a vein), tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the utterly scandalous Citizens United ruling authored by the truly wretched High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR; here is Keith’s Special Comment from two years ago on the subject, filled with all of the urgency that this subject deserves…

…and RIP Etta James (I went back and forth between this and “At Last” – I would have been covered either way).

Mikey's "TRAIN In Vain" And Other Follies, Part 2

2012-01-20T07:23:00.001-08:00

(Part One including the setup is here.)

Continuing with our PA-08 U.S. House Rep’s supposed legislative “achievements”…

Encouraging Entrepreneurship and Growth

HR 1070 – Small Company Capital Formation Act of 2011
HR 1965 – Community Bank Resource Improvement Act
HR 2930 – Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act

HR 1070 lets companies sell $50 million in securities in a public offering without having to register with the SEC, exempting “a certain class of securities.” HR 1965 increases the number of shareholders permitted to invest in a community bank before it must register with the SEC. Also, HR 2930 is intended to increase “access to capital” presumably for the purposes of job creation.

I’ll be honest – I checked these out and I can’t find anything wrong, though I am suspicious of course. The intention of all of these bills (apparently) is to speed up the process by which capital is acquired for startups and to encourage “crowd funding” as opposed to “angel investing,” getting around the SEC’s reporting requirements. I have a feeling that this is a recipe for trouble, but again, I don’t know enough to stand in the way on this (more on crowd funding is here).

Another piece of legislation Mikey touts is as follows…

HR 2940 – Access to Capital for Job Creators Act

This was sponsored by supposed GOP “young gun” Kevin McCarthy of California, again, intended to hasten access to capital on behalf of those “job creators” the GOP claims to love. However, I think the following should be noted about this from here…

Vote 4: Executive compensation: The House has rejected an amendment sponsored by Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., to the Access to Capital for Job Creators Act (H.R. 2940). The amendment would have required businesses soliciting capital from private, non-accredited investors to disclose their bonus compensation structures and any golden parachute severance packages for company officials. Miller said the requirement would protect investors from unwittingly having their investments increase executive compensation. An opponent, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said "the SEC has no authority to regulate the compensation of executives at private companies," and the requirement "would fail anyone's cost benefit analysis" of its economic impact. The vote, on Nov. 3, was 190 yeas to 234 nays.

Oh, I get it now – all of these bills are intended to allow executives at these startups that supposedly now will flourish to claim any degree of compensation that they want outside of any reporting requirements that may exist as stipulated in existing or future legislation. Clever.

Well, we’ll see about this, won’t we?

Continuing…

Controlling Government Spending and Deficit Reduction

Supported a House of Representatives ban on all earmarks, which had come to signify the permissive spending culture in Washington.

Yeah, Mikey and his pals like to ride the little earmark “hobby horse” in the name of supposed fiscal austerity, but as noted here, earmarks really aren’t all that big of a deal when it comes to federal spending. And as noted here, the teabagger caucus took in $1 bil in earmarks in 2010.

(By the way, in the matter of earmarks, even though this involves the Senate and not the House, I think it should be noted from here that the Senate Repugs blocked the 2010 Omnibus Spending Bill because it contained nearly $2 billion in earmarks that the Senate Repugs asked for themselves – too funny.)

H Res 22 – Voted to cut House budget by 5% (and Mikey voted for a 11% cut on top of that; that's a total of 16 percent for those of us playing along at home)

However, in the matter of supposed fiscal austerity, this tells us that the House Speaker scored a hefty raise in his expense account, and I can recall not a word of protest from Mikey The Beloved.

H Res 38 – Roll back current gov’t spending to 2008 or before

That sounds nice too, until you realize that it would give unprecedented authority to “flim-flam man” Paul Ryan (noted here in the second bullet).

HR 2 – To reduce new spending by $2.6 trillion over 10 years

As noted here, though, government spending has helped create jobs, not hinder job growth (of course, this is coming from the political party that continues to sit on President Obama’s jobs bill, so this doesn’t surprise me at all).

HR 1 – Continuing Appropriations Act for 2011, which eliminated $100 billion in federal spending for the remainder of FY 2011

It should be noted from here that that includes underfunding operation of the IRS, among other agencies of government (more here – another attempt to remove those supposedly pesky, “job-killing” regulations that would let the GOP’s “small business” constituency get away with more and more nonsense).

H. Con Res 34 – would reduce federal spending by $5.8 trillion in 10 years

As noted here…

H.Con.Res. 34 is yet another example of GOP magical thinking — cut federal government spending and the debts and deficits will go away! We also know that cutting government spending on education and infrastructure programs makes jobs go away too.

Uh, yep. And finally (for now)…

HR 2560 – Cut, “Crap” and Balance Act

(Mikey’s mailer, by the way, incorrectly notes the bill number as 2562, for what it’s worth).

As noted here…

The federal budget could very well be reduced to defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and national debt interest and absolutely (nothing) else - assuming that revenues actually reached 18% (and that's happened under two of President Bush's, and none of President Obama's budgets – note: the cuts would be enacted if revenues reached the 18% limit). If not, then even more cuts would be necessary. Based on FY 2010 revenue - and remember it would take a 2/3 vote to increase revenue under these Amendments - the budget would be operating closer to 14% of GDP, meaning that the budget would have faced a cut of about $1.5 trillion, or a 42% budget cut across every single program, including Medicare and Social Security.

Also, cutting $1 trillion yearly from the federal budget would have a devastating impact on the economy, which would likely reduce the GDP, both lowering the funding cap and reducing tax revenues, forcing further cuts, lowering the GDP further. Such an amendment could trigger a downward spiral that would almost certainly result in the gutting of most of the nation's entitlement programs.

This amendment would also largely trigger elections moot, and that's something that all but the hardest core Republicans should be opposed to, regardless of whether one agrees with current Democratic policies or not.

This amendment would enshrine in the Constitution right wing conservative economic doctrine, ensuring that conservatives could implement their agenda of cutting the budget and cutting taxes by a mere majority vote, but would require moderates and liberals to meet a virtually unattainable goal of 2/3 vote in both Houses to implement any of their policy goals, or to even undo anything Republicans might have done when they were in power. It would effectively ensure that Republicans control government, even if they lose elections. Only an overwhelming election of Democrats, ensuring a 2/3 majority in both Houses could undo this arrangement.

Fitzpatrick also voted in favor of and cosponsored a bill to send a Balanced Budget Amendment to the states (H.J. Res 2), something else that will pass state legislatures when pigs fly.

In response, click here to support Kathy Boockvar (with some news about Kathy’s candidacy here).

Oh, and by the way, Courier Times, we always knew you were Mikey’s PR service (this appeared online yesterday). Do you now have to accept advertising on his behalf paid for by taxpayer funds too?

Update 1/27/12: And here is more on Cut, "Crap" And Balance.

Thursday Mashup (1/19/12)

2012-01-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

You could cut the stoo-pid with a knife in this editorial in the Bucks County Courier Times today. But before I comment on that, I have to provide some background.

As this Philadelphia Inquirer article tells us, Pennsbury (Bucks County) High School student Ashley Zauflik suffered a devastating injury when she was run over by a bus in 2007, requiring the amputation of her left leg below the knee (the bus driver was found to be negligent). A jury awarded her $14 million last December; she deserves all of that and more.

Here’s the problem, though; a 1978 state law caps the amount that governments, including school districts, can pay out – the liability limit is $500,000.

Now, back to the Courier Times editorial...

That’s not right and everybody knows it, including state Reps. John Galloway, D-140, and Steve Santarsiero, D-31, whose legislative districts include the Pennsbury School District. Together, the pair want to replace the law with what they’re calling Ashley’s Law. It’s not exactly clear what the new law would mandate; they’re still doing the research. But the goal is clear.

“We want to determine whether the current cap is antiquated and whether insurance that is affordable to school districts and municipalities could allow innocent victims with catastrophic injuries, like Ashley, to recover without significantly burdening taxpayers,” Santarsiero said of the pending legislation.

To that end, the lawmakers have asked the Pennsbury School Board to support their effort and not hide behind the state law they believe should be reformed. Said Galloway, “Pennsbury should ... call for the insurance company to do the right thing.”

So far, board members are unwilling to do that, saying instead that the matter is out of their hands.

Well people, seriously now, what else did you expect with Simple Simon Campbell and his minions now in charge?

Oh, and speak of the devil…

School board member (Campbell) also speaks his mind and has a suggestion for the “two fearless johnny-come-lately crusaders”…

Take a slow boat back to the UK, if they’ll have you, you maniac – continuing…

…Encourage the outsourcing of busing as a way for school districts to “offload liability risk.”

Campbell makes a good point. The district would not be in the position it is in and neither would Ashley if a private company, which would not be protected by a liability cap, were running the bus service. But just looking into the issue has raised a ruckus in Pennsbury — such is the power of unions.

Oh sure, Bucks County Courier Times Op-Ed board; just kick the Pennsbury school bus drivers to the curb, if you will, and replace them with “scabs.” Why, it’s not as if we’re entrusting them with anything that’s actually important – only the safety of our kids!

And as far as whether or not privatizing bus service actually saves money, read this post, particularly the first bullet, to see that it has everything to do with bleeding taxpayers in Pennsbury dry and trying to break another public employee union, a stated goal of a gambler like futures trader Campbell (and nothing to do with helping Ashley Zauflik either, unfortunately).

Next, it looks like Baby Newton Leroy had a hissy fit here over the following from the 1,252,324th Republican candidates’ debate…

Hours before the debate, ABC News and The Washington Post released interviews with Marianne Gingrich in which she alleged Gingrich asked for an "open marriage" before their divorce.

Marianne Gingrich told The Washington Post that a day after he husband told her about his affair with Callista Bisek in May 1999, the former House speaker delivered a speech titled "The Demise of American Culture" to a group of Republican women in Pennsylvania.

"How could he ask me for a divorce on Monday and within 48 hours give a speech on family values and talk about how people treat people?" Marianne Gingrich said in her interview with the Post.

Gingrich said the story was false.

Yeah, well, he would wouldn’t he (here is more fun with Baby Newton Leroy).

Also, I don’t think there’s been a lot of attention paid to the fact that conservative casino mogul (and former “Freedom’s Watch” sugar daddy) Sheldon Adelson has been bankrolling Gingrich’s anti-Romney movie; here is more on that, and here is a prior post on Adelson.

Seems like every time the Repug candidates emerge from the GOP “clown car” for these spectacles, they’re one short. Wonder if it will be only three next time, with Gingrich the odd man out?

Finally, I give you true hilarity here (on Obama and his supposedly “job-killing” decision on the Keystone XL pipeline)…

…today is the day that Obama increased the amount of energy we need to import from places like the Middle East and Venezuela; today is the day that he crushed hundreds of thousands of US jobs. He did it because he can't be bothered to do ANYTHING, except campaign.

Today is the day he morphed from President Do-Nothing to President Hypocrite.

He did it by killing the XL Keystone pipeline which would bring a million barrels per day of North American oil to US refineries, create at a minimum 200,000 jobs and open up the US heartland for domestic development of oil- and the millions in jobs and domestic GDP it would create.

I think the video from here puts that “200,000” claim in its place.

It would actually be funny if it weren’t so utterly pathetic.

Thursday Stuff

2012-01-19T09:40:00.000-08:00

Here’s news about what we can do to protest that godawful Citizens United ruling on Saturday, the two-year anniversary of the atrocity from the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR…

…and Rachel Maddow tells us just how far out of any semblance of “the mainstream” the Repugs are on the latest attempt at “personhood” legislation…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…also, K.O. talks to Dem Senator Ron Wyden about the PIPA and SOPA fight; Wyden was “out there” a bit on the Paul Ryan/Medicare scam recently, but he’s usually spot-on concerning the issues that matter, and he is again here – and man, has my opinion of Chris Dodd fallen off the proverbial cliff; can’t believe he’s the same guy who once duked it out with Bill Orally in defense of Daily Kos – try collaborating with Reddit, Wikipedia, Google etc. on anti-piracy legislation instead of trying to cram this garbage down our metaphysical throats…

…and speaking of technology, I thought this was a good tune for the occasion.

Tuesday Stuff

2012-01-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

“Worst Persons” (this idiot in the Kansas state house named Mike O’Neal wishes for a Biblical curse on President Obama – love to see the Secret Service test out new methods of interrogation on this clown; Willard Mitt Romney takes second place for not answering a question from Clayton Holton, an 80-pound man suffering from a form of muscular dystrophy, about whether or not he would personally arrest someone for using medical marijuana, and also blowing off Holton in the process…what’s that expression, “plus ca change”?; but Greyhound Bus Lines driver Donald Ainsworth takes the top “prize” for harassing “Occupy” bus riders during a stop in (of course) Texas en route to an “Occupy” event in DC (it’s 2012, asshat, not 1912, not that your conduct would be permissible in that year either)…

…and speaking of birthdays (were we?), this little number goes out to this guy (sorry, no video).

Monday Stuff

2012-01-16T20:12:00.000-08:00

Hat tip to Atrios here (“School House Rock” was fun, but somehow I don’t think they covered this; a diversion from the 4,286th Republican debate tonight)...

Conspiracy Theory Rock by fruittreeofwisdom

...and with sleet in the forecast in these parts, I hear “The Sound of Winter” rapping, rapping at my chamber door, as it were.

Legacy Of A Dream, 2012

2012-01-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

President Obama issued a proclamation here in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and this post from 2006 concerning Dr. King is every bit as timely now as it was then.

Also, here is an excerpt from a speech given by Dr. King at the Barratt School in Philadelphia in 1967.

Saturday Stuff

2012-01-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

Awww, looks like “God’s quarterback” got his lunch handed to him by Brady and the Pats…

…and yep, looks like Willard Mitt and his pals are trying to “hate away teh gay,” if you will, big time (here)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…and I wonder if Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett would consider doing his job for free (here)? And, after watching this, I’m somehow supposed to be sympathetic to schemes involving vouchers...

…and I guess this is as good an excuse as any to take a trip back to the ‘80s.

Friday Stuff

2012-01-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

Point, meet counterpoint (from wingnuttia-land)…

…and somehow I have a feeling that, if Rod Serling were still alive, he would approve of this message (here, and in a related story as they say, this piece in the Times today made me want to puke)…

…and Rachel Maddow and Dave Weigel tell us here that it’s déjà vu all over again for the Repugs (and actually, her analogy between 2008 and this year holds up better when you realize that Former Senator Man-On-Dog quite probably won the Iowa caucus, as Weigel mentions - truly scary)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…and on this day in 1968, Johnny Cash performed live at Folsom Prison – nice bit of a remix.

Friday Mashup (1/13/12)

2012-01-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

This post at The Daily Tucker tells us the following…

The rise of Ron Paul in the Republican primary season has raised questions about what Americans expect from the executive office. The accepted interpretation of presidential powers and executive effectiveness centers on the “use” of the office. “Active” executives, such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, are usually considered “great,” while those who did “little” in office round out the list. For example, a 2010 Siena Research Institute survey included both Roosevelts and Lincoln in the top five while Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman were in the top ten. The bottom dwellers included Andrew Johnson, John Tyler, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce. Grover Cleveland and Martin Van Buren were also in the bottom half.

Author Brion McClanahan, author of The Founding Fathers Guide To The Constitution (yep, that wingnut alarm in the back of my head just went off) then uses this as an excuse to defend former Presidents John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, James Monroe, and (perhaps most egregiously) James Buchanan (presumably for low taxes, low tariffs, and lower spending than other chief executives – McClanahan does defend his selections of course, as he should).

When considering John Tyler, our 10th president, I think we should also look at the following (from here)…

He sided with the Confederate government, and won election to the Confederate House of Representatives shortly before his death (and Texas was annexed under his administration - maybe better left with Mexico? :-).

And what of Grover Cleveland? Well, from here…

He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans, believing that if their pensions requests had already been rejected by the Pensions Bureau, Congress should not attempt to override that decision. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland also vetoed that.

Oh, and there was that fathering-a-child-out-of-wedlock business, but that happened before he was elected to the White House (God knows what Fix Noise and their pals would do with that now, though).

I think we should also consider the following about Martin Van Buren (who came after Andrew Jackson)…

He oversaw the "Trail of Tears", which involved the expulsion of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina to the Oklahoma territory. To help secure Florida, Van Buren also pursued the Second Seminole War, which had begun while Jackson was in office. The war, which would prove the costliest of the Indian Wars, was highly unpopular in the free states, where it was seen as an attempt to expand slave territory. Fighting was not resolved until 1842, after Van Buren had left office.

The one selection where I don’t have much of a bone to pick, as it were, with McClanahan concerns James Monroe. However, the following should be noted from here…

As Secretary of State, Monroe dismissed Mordecai Manuel Noah from his post as consul to Tunis in 1815, for the apparent reason that he was Jewish. Noah protested and gained letters from Adams, Jefferson, and Madison supporting church-state separation and tolerance for Jews.

He also brought slaves with him to the White House, but that apparently was a common practice back then (repugnant still, though, I realize).

Monroe also said the following (to his credit)…

"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin."

And finally, this brings us to James Buchanan, the only president who came from our beloved commonwealth. As noted here…

Knowing that secessionist fervor was strongest in South Carolina, Buchanan made a quiet pact with South Carolina's legislators that he would not reinforce the Charleston garrison in exchange for no interference from the state.[53] However, Buchanan did not inform the Charleston commander, Major Robert Anderson, of the agreement, and on December 26 Anderson violated it by moving his command to Fort Sumter. Southerners responded with a demand that Buchanan remove Anderson, while northerners demanded support for the commander. On December 31, in an apparent panic and without consulting Anderson, Buchanan ordered reinforcements.

I think that Buchanan’s predecessor Franklin Pierce had at least as much to do with the runup to the Civil War as Buchanan did, though, truth be told, you could argue that no one could have prevented it (kind of the way that Calvin Coolidge was at least as much at fault for the Depression as Herbert Hoover because of his inaction…I realize, though, that all of this is conjecture in the end).

This probably would be a more appropriate topic for President’s Day next month, but I guess now is as good a time as any to comment on this subject too.

Next, I couldn’t help but come across this item from The Hill, in which Repug U.S. House Rep John Fleming of Louisiana criticizes Number 44 as follows…

With his new defense strategy President Obama has charted another step on his road map for American decline. His inconsistent, lead-from-behind mentality has diminished our standing in the world. As our exit from Iraq last month demonstrated, the commander in chief is more concerned with political appearances than with well-thought-out strategy.

The men and women of the United States military do an extraordinary job of executing their orders. They have been stretched throughout the past decade, but their service has paved the way for freedom in Iraq, while keeping terrorists from using their familiar haunts in Afghanistan to plan and carry out attacks on innocent Americans.

Hmmm, John Fleming, John Fleming – why does that name sound familiar?

Oh yeah, it’s because he’s one of these supposedly oppressed millionaires in the House whose $6.3 million swag is apparently only worth $400 grand, and he was all “woe is me” about it here (cry me a river, dirtbag).

Oh, and by the way, as noted here, the exit of our troops from Iraq had nothing to do with President Obama. It was negotiated in the Status of Forces Agreement under Dubya (and before you start blaming Obama for not enough troops in Afghanistan, take a look at this to see how President Hopey Changey has sent more of our people over to The Land Where Empires Go To Die after years of us shortchanging the war effort under Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History).

Finally, I thought the Bucks County Courier Times was occasionally lucid in this editorial this morning over the fact that Patrick Murphy, former U.S. House congressional rep and current candidate for the Dem nomination in the PA Attorney General’s race, did not take the PA state bar exam…

Criticizing Murphy for opting out of the only bar exam that tests students’ knowledge of Pennsylvania law, a spokesman for (Philadelphia prosecutor Dan McCaffery, another candidate) asserted, “Not taking the Pennsylvania bar exam automatically disqualifies (Murphy) for attorney general. It’s a fatal flaw.”

Maybe it will be for voters; we’ll see. But we don’t think it should be.

We further think the spokesman’s comments are a cheap shot because requirements for the job of attorney general do not include trial experience. In fact, the only professional qualification that the Pennsylvania Constitution mandates for attorney general is to be a member of the state bar.

Uh, yep – and as noted here…

Murphy's also taken some hits recently because he never sat for the Pennsylvania bar exam, but rather became licensed to practice in the state through a very common process known as "reciprocity," which involves passing another state's exam and then gaining sufficient legal experience. Speaking as a lawyer, this kind of criticism is manifestly stupid—if Pennsylvania thought it necessary for all lawyers practicing there to take the PA bar, they'd make that a requirement. But they don't, and it's not. That said, things play differently on the campaign trail than they do at bar committee meetings, and McCaffery has been making a big deal of this story.

To help out Patrick Murphy, click here (and as mentioned in the Daily Kos post, good luck to Dem Kathy Boockvar, who has lined up to challenge Mikey the Beloved for Murphy’s old seat…click here to help).

Mikey's "TRAIN In Vain" And Other Follies, Part 1

2012-01-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

A correspondence from our PA-08 U.S. House rep recently arrived at Le Manse Doomsy, which is Mikey The Beloved’s “2011 Year-End Review and Issues Update.” In this post, I will list the legislation Fitzpatrick supported, along with what I consider to be appropriate responses (the legislation is divided by headings, one of which appears below; I will not be able to cover the entire correspondence today, but I’m sure it will end up providing future posting material also).

Empowering Small Business Owners

HR 2401 – TRAIN Act

As noted here…

The health standards that the TRAIN Act will prevent are long overdue and would save tens of thousands of lives every year once they are implemented (including the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and Mercury and Air Toxics standards). Blocking these standards for just one additional year would result in:

• up to 25,300 lives lost;
• more than 11,000 heart attacks;
• more than 120,000 asthma attacks;
• over 12,200 more hospital and emergency room visits; and
• many hundreds of thousands more days of missed work or school.

And the bill’s lengthier minimum periods of delay (15 & 19 months) would result in up to 33,450 premature deaths. The real toll likely will be much higher since the legislation allows indefinite delays in these vital public health safeguards.

Continuing with Mikey (what a great start)…

HR 3094 – Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act

As noted here…

The House this evening passed (235-188) legislation (H.R. 3094) that gives employers new tools to combat and delay elections by workers who try to form unions. Dubbed the Election Prevention Act by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the bill is the congressional Republican effort to block some modest rule changes proposed earlier this year by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to reduce unnecessary litigation and modernize the way union elections are conducted.

…

While they have refused to pass jobs legislation this year, congressional Republicans have made nearly 50 separate assaults on the NLRB since January by proposing bills to gut the agency’s oversight and funding, holding hearings and issuing subpoenas, according to American Rights at Work (ARAW).

Your House Repugs on the job, ladies and gentlemen.

Continuing with Mikey again…

HR 527 – Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act

As Michigan Dem congressman John Conyers noted here…

Rounding out the trio of public safety killing legislation is H.R. 527, the “Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2011.” Under current law, rulemaking agencies must make an analysis for every new rule that would have significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, such as small businesses. Among other things, this bill repeals the authority of an agency to waive or delay this analysis in response to an emergency that makes compliance or timely compliance impracticable.

So if there is an epidemic of E. coli or listeria infection caused by some item in our nation’s food distribution network, or if there is an imminent environmental disaster that could be addressed systemically through regulation, this bill says “Don’t worry. Don’t rush.”

My conservative colleagues argue that this legislation is necessary because too much regulation is responsible for our nation’s current economic difficulties. They must be suffering from some collective form of amnesia. It was not too much regulation of Wall Street that led to the near collapse of the worldwide marketplace. It was not too much regulation that caused the BP oil spill. And, it was not too much regulation that allowed mortgage brokers, servicers, bankers and others to engage in predatory lending and falsify foreclosure documents in court proceedings.

Continuing with Mikey…

HR 10 – REINS Act and HR 3010 – Regulatory Accountability Act (I combined them)

As noted here about REINS…

The first of these is the childishly-named "Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act"(H.R. 10). Currently, Congress passes a regulatory law and it is up to the agencies within the Executive branch to write the regulations based on that direction from the Legislative branch. If Congress doesn't like how it is done, there are expedited ways for them to halt the new or changed regulations.

Under the REINS Act, this all changes. Now, any new regulation that is deemed to be a "major regulation" (having an impact of $100,000,000 or more) must be APPROVED by both the House and the Senate. Not only that, it must happen within 70 days of being submitted to Congress.

Think about that for a minute. When was the last thing Congress did anything in 70 days?

The impact of this is dramatic. The current way regulations are written attempts to insulate the regulatory process from the political winds that buffet our country. It's not a complete insulation, of course, but it's an important separation. If this law passes, a small handful of legislators with a political axe to grind can bring the process to a near standstill, all but guaranteeing the 70 day window will close and no action is taken on the new regulation. When that happens, the regulation is scrapped.

If this becomes law, it also would allow a current Congress to thwart the actions of a previous Congress without ever having to repeal any legislation, a subjugation of our democratic process.

And as noted about the RAA from the same Daily Kos post…

The Regulatory Accountability Act (S. 1606/H.R. 3010) will grind to a halt the rulemaking process at the core of implementing the nation’s public health, workplace safety, and environmental standards. This bill will not improve the federal regulatory process; it will cripple it. Rules that somehow make it through the RAA's process would tilt against the public interest and in favor of powerful special interests.

The RAA would cover every rule and guidance – big and small – proposed by any executive regulatory agency and any independent regulatory agency. It seeks to fundamentally rewrite and expand the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a 65-year-old statute that can be considered as a kind of Constitution for administrative agencies and the regulatory process. There are now more than 110 separate procedural requirements in the rulemaking process; the RAA would add more than 60 new procedural and analytical requirements. For the country's most important rules, the RAA would add no fewer than 21 to 39 months to the rulemaking process.

And as noted from here…

The REINS Act is built on the faulty premise that the regulatory state is out of control. It’s easy to mock government rules, of which there are many, if you focus only on their costs and ignore their benefits. But, in reality, every major federal rule is already subject to extensive cost-benefit analysis by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and, under President Obama and President Bush, OMB has consistently concluded that the benefits of federal regulations far outweigh the costs. Last year, it concluded that the annual cost of major rules issued between FY 1999 and 2009 was $43 to $55 billion, while the annual societal benefits of those same regulations ranged from $128 billion to $616 billion—an excellent return on investment by any standard.

And lastly (for now)…

HR 910 – Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011

As noted here…

The bill prohibits the Environmental Protection Agency from protecting the environment. And other than the title, the word "tax" does not appear at all in the bill. This legislative lunacy has inspired a couple of obviously frustrated Democratic congressmen to offer amendments that seek to improve at least the official title of the bill.

Jared Polis of Colorado submitted an amendment to change the title to "The Dirty Air Act of 2011." Gerry Connolly of Virginia was somewhat more industrious. He submitted eight amendments including "The Koch Brothers Appreciation Act," "The Protecting Americans from Polar Bears Act," and "The Head in the Sand Act."

Some people may think that these sorts of pranks mock the serious responsibilities of the institution. But the truth is that these amendments are no more ridiculous than the title as written in the bill's original language. And nothing is more ridiculous the actual intent of the bill. This is a great way to illustrate that it's the GOP who are a joke.

Including Mikey the Beloved of course; I’ll plan to return to Mikey’s “year in review” later.

Thursday Stuff

2012-01-12T20:08:00.000-08:00

Well golly gee, it looks like that little puke Jimmy O’Keefe may have added a felony to his rap sheet (here, with a reminder below of one of his most notorious escapades; also, more here)…

…and here’s a little number to help make our days more tolerable.

Wednesday Stuff

2012-01-11T20:54:00.001-08:00

Listening to Baby Newton Leroy and “Goodhair” Perry trying to claim the moral high ground here is hilarious, though they definitely have a point about the presumptive Repug presidential nominee…

…and here’s something you’re not hearing much of, though you should, as Cenk Uygur tells us (more here)…

…and as Think Progress tells us here, today marks ten years since the first “terrists” were detained at Guantanamo, which makes me recall this clip from November 2008 (just after the election – more good “Young Turks” stuff)…

…and with that in mind, I bring you this – if the DFHs have a “national anthem,” it’s probably this song or that tune by Country Joe and the Fish at Woodstock (two notes first: 1) Though I definitely have disagreements with Obama from time to time, it should be noted that, while he’s shown in this clip, he did try to close GITMO, and 2) It might be worthwhile to read the story of John Kay, lead singer of Steppenwolf, and his harrowing escape from then-East Germany when he was young – songs like this arise from a true sense of idealism about this country, which I think is commendable).

And by the way, under the heading of “Crime and Punishment,” I have a great big “WTF?” reaction over this.

Tuesday Stuff

2012-01-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

I’m sure the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Bucks County Courier Times wrestle with this question every day, since it hits so close to home for their core demographic – heh…

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

…and from the Department of Double Standards, I give you this (oh, and by the way, I hate to shock anyone out there, but Mitt Romney won New Hampshire – yawn)…

…and speaking of Willard Mitt and his pals, I thought this was a bit of fun…

…and let’s hope we’re not all singing this tune after this November (speaking of New Hampshire).

Tuesday Mashup (1/10/12)

2012-01-10T13:31:00.000-08:00

This Daily Tucker post tells us the following…

The Department of Justice’s inspector general has refused to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder’s response to public safety threats stemming from the ongoing “Occupy” movement nationwide, especially in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The nonprofit investigative firm Cause of Action asked DOJ Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar to look into Holder’s response to concerns about the potential for violence in connection with Occupy protests.

About the group Cause of Action, here is a link to their web site. If you have better luck finding out who is behind this organization than I did, please let me know (ahhh, I can smell the Astroturf!).

Also, this link from the Daily Tucker “story” provides a video showing what is supposed to be an attack by “Occupy” protestors on “elderly women” outside of a Washington, D.C. fundraiser. Well, I watched the six-minute-or-so video (heavily edited as most clips from conservative sites are), and while it is possible that two women who weren’t particularly elderly were roughed up a bit in a scuffle between “Occupy” protestors and the D.C. police (you see the after effects more than the actual supposed misconduct, which again is typical), you also see a tall man in his 50s or 60s (I would guess) trying to manhandle two shorter (and younger) “Occupy” protestors, and you also see a confrontation resulting from this.

If the Department of Justice and the Inspector General aren’t going to investigate the car attack on the three “Occupy” protestors, then it would be utterly farcical to investigate any alleged “attacks” against those attending the Koch Brothers soiree in our nation’s capital.

Next, BoBo asks “Where are the liberals?” here. And if you guessed that this line is another excuse for a column full of straw man arguments against all Republican opposition, then you win a complimentary “Obama/Hillary 2012” bumper sticker courtesy of Bill Keller (here).

Actually, I think there are more than a few liberals here, BoBo (and here is more food for thought on that subject…by the way, I always thought that a liberal was someone seeking a benefit from the government and a progressive was someone who sought change through governmental legislation; if that's not totally correct, I'm open to discussion on that).

Finally, this tells us the following…

Tony Blankley, who frustrated and entertained reporters as press secretary to Newt Gingrich during his rise to power in the House, then joined the press corps himself as a columnist and editorial page editor for the Washington Times, died Saturday in Washington. He was 63.

Before I say another word, I wish to extend my condolences to Blankley’s family and friends. I think that 63 is too young of an age for someone to cash in, as it were.

However, that being said, I think the following should be noted about Blankley…

Here, he once called Valerie Plame “a CIA operations officer with relatively minor responsibilities” (last bullet).

Really?

Here, he said that Bill Clinton vetoed welfare reform twice (wrong, and this is particularly funny since, as was already pointed out, Blankley was Baby Newton Leroy’s press secretary at the time, so he should have known better).

Here…well, you can read a whole bunch of Blankley BS, so take your pick.

Again, it is sad for Blankley’s cohorts that he has passed, and I acknowledge that. What is sadder still is that his legacy, such as it is, is service for such an utterly dishonorable cause.

Monday Stuff

2012-01-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

I was trying to find a way to respond to the latest pain narrative from Fluffyhead here (h/t Atrios), and I think this clip sums up my feelings pretty well; this features Sam Seder in Wisconsin last March or April in response to the antics from Hosni Mubarak Walker.

(Oh, and here is another item to raise the blood pressure, I know, from last month - missed it while I was in "Do-Gooders and Dregs" mode)...

…and by the way, happy belated 65th birthday to David Bowie, featuring a song that mentions the place where David Gregory surely lives.

"Orwell That Ends Well"

2012-01-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

From Bill Maher’s great new book (a Christmas present from Mrs. Doomsy – this is dated March 16, 2007)…

New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn’t asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he’s asked us to sacrifice something enormous: our civil rights. When I heard George Bush was reading my Emails, I probably had the same reaction you did: “George Bush can read?” Yes, he can, and this administration has read your phone records, credit-card statements, mail, Internet logs – I can’t tell if they’re fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of Cheaters. I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning on the hope they’ll open it and see what it says.

So when it comes to sacrifice, don’t kid yourself; you have given up a lot. You’ve given up faith in your government’s honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here’s what you’ve sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment; here’s what you have left: handguns, religion, and they can’t make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.

In previous wars, Americans on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds. In the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Women donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes – can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? OK, bad example.

George Bush has never been too bright about furreners, but he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we wouldn’t miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn’t much care if we became a “big brother” country that has now tortured a lot of random people. And yet no one asks the tough questions like “Is torture necessary?””Who will watch the watchers?” and “When does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom? It’s been five years – is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?”

After 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run, but he couldn’t hide. But then he ran, and hid, so Bush went to Plan B: pissing on the Constitution.

Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Do you feel good about America now? I’ll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don’t even have to hold my head under water or have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don’t feel very good about that. They say that evil happens when good men do nothing. And the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.

The new season begins this Friday.

Update 1/9/12: And here is something else to keep in mind about Former Commander Codpiece (which isn't surprising in the least).

Saturday Stuff

2012-01-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

It truly is the civil rights struggle for our times (more here – oh, and I believe the Repug presidential wannabes are having their 1,254th debate tonight; yawn)…

…and speaking of the presumptive nominee Willard Mitt, Lawrence O’Donnell has a particularly good “Rewrite” here…

…”Worst Persons” from last night (Billo and Laura Ingraham – the former with at least half a load on, apparently – are railing against our Kenyan Muslim socialist pre-zee-dint because he’s going to lavish money for abortions, supposedly, which of course is completely illegal and something Obama has no intention of doing, but as we know, silly things like facts have never gotten in the way of Fix Noise before; Repug House Rep. Allen West is the runner up for apparently taking issue with Senate Republicans, which I agree with, actually; but the new president of Penn State, Rodney Erickson, takes the top “honor” for thinking that “taking control of the narrative” was the most important consideration about the Jerry Sandusky scandal – almost too disgusting for words)…

…and today was the annual “prog rock” show on public radio station WXPN in these parts, but I didn’t hear this tune (with a little Prokofiev thrown in, I believe), so here it is (sorry, no video).

Friday Stuff

2012-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

The U.S. House Repugs have obviously learned not a thing from the Mikey Fitzpatrick/Steny Hoyer debacle a few weeks ago (here)…

…and once again, when it’s time to take a hard look at the news events affecting our lives (harking back a bit to the item above), that means it’s time for Jon Stewart (here, including more of the video below)…

...and maybe Hulu's videos will cooperate, and maybe they won't - sigh...

…and in case anyone out there is still nostalgic for 2011 somehow (count me out), Mark Fiore is happy to oblige here…

...and I've been trying to get around to this video for a few days - better late than never.

Thursday Mashup (1/5/12)

2012-01-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

This story in today’s Bucks County Courier Times tells us the following…

As a real estate developer, Robert Loughery focused on transforming vacant properties from blighted to bustling.

On Wednesday, he pledged to try something quite similar with all of Bucks County.

The 41-year-old founder of the Keystone Development Group was named chairman of the Bucks County commissioners after a unanimous vote from its three-member board.

I mean, it might as well have been unanimous, since Dem Commissioner Diane Marseglia would have been outvoted anyway. And of course I didn’t expect Loughery and Charley (“I Have A Semi-Open Mind”) Martin to name Diane chairman anyway; as much as I would have liked to have seen that, it would have gone against the wishes of the voters after all.

But what really gets me about this story is this…

Charley Martin was named vice chairman of the commissioners Wednesday over objections from minority board member Diane Marseglia.

The lone Democrat on the board, Marseglia had nominated herself to be vice chairman. She called on Loughery and Martin to support her in the spirit of nonpartisanship.

Marseglia’s predecessor as minority commissioner, Sandra Miller, was never named chairwoman or vice chairwoman during several terms of office as county commissioner.

“But things are supposed to be different now,” said Marseglia.

Typically petty and stupid from Loughery and Martin (take a bow once more, all you Dems and independent voters who thought it was too much trouble to vote for Det Ansinn last November).

Update 1/6/12: Gee, it must be worse than I thought for Mikey The Beloved's press service to actually take notice (here).

Next, I give you Cal Thomas, who is a busy wingnut these days; here, he’s blaming President Obama for ending Dubya’s NASA Constellation program, which would include a return trip to the moon presumably to launch further space exploration.

As noted here, though, Obama canceled those plans in February 2010, which would have cost taxpayers $100 billion by 2020. Instead, he called for spending $6 billion over five years to focus on research and commercial development of rockets, robotics and other space-related technology.

On top of that, NASA (in the form of the so-called Augustine Commission) said it would require $50 billion more than that hundred billion over 10 years just to get to where we had planned to go under Constellation.

I think the excerpt from the Forbes article linked to here sums it up pretty well…

It comes down to money.

NASA is sacrificing the shuttles, according to the program manager, so it can get out of low-Earth orbit and get to points beyond. The first stop under Obama's plan is an asteroid by 2025; next comes Mars in the mid-2030s.

Private companies have been tapped to take over cargo hauls and astronaut rides to the space station, which is expected to carry on for at least another decade. The first commercial supply run is expected late this year, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launching its own rocket and spacecraft from Cape Canaveral.

Nary a day goes by without yours truly hearing about the supposed evils of “big gumint.” Well then, let our glorious private sector do a little better job of stepping up when it comes to space exploration instead.

Continuing, J.D. Mullane is lamenting here the fact that an ad campaign is apparently necessary to remind parents to make sure their kids practice good dietary habits. Which, to me, is another example of Mullane trying to have it both ways.

You see, as noted here…

…the Affordable Care Act provides $25 million in funding for the Childhood Obesity Demonstration Project, which was established through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) legislation signed by President Obama. The Secretary of Health and Human Services will award grants to develop a comprehensive and systematic model for reducing childhood obesity.

And as noted in this post from 2009, who was one of this area’s biggest whiners and complainers about “ObamaCare”?

You see, in J.D.’s imaginary, ‘50s-black-and-white-TV version of this country, people always do the right thing (or else Joe McCarthy will get you), liberals are beaten into submission, and everyone is following the career of that handsome, well-spoken actor from California and his commercials for General Electric. You know, that Ronald Reagan fellow.

And as J.D. reminded us here, everyone is well dressed at all times when speaking to politicians…uh huh.

Finally, I give you some true hilarity from Jack Kelly here, claiming that Obama is laying the groundwork for defeat in Afghanistan, more or less, using Yusuf al-Qaradawi of the Muslim Brotherhood for (supposedly) trying to broker peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan…

In 2003, he issued a fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. troops in Iraq. When the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca opposed the killing of civilians, Mr. al-Qaradawi criticized him. Yet the Obama administration considers Mr. al-Qaradawi to be a “moderate.”

I’m not going to go back and research every possible inflammatory piece of rhetoric al-Qaradawi might have actually said. What I will point out, though, is that, as noted here, al-Qaradawi also denounced the World Trade Center attacks, and he also supported the U.S. military in 2001 with a fatwa here.

Am I going to argue that al-Qaradawi isn’t a “bad apple” from time to time? No (and if he does anything worse than spout bilious rhetoric from time to time, please let me know, OK?). All I’m saying is that we’re foolish to apply some kind of a litmus test to every individual we may hope to use for our benefit without looking at it from some sort of a cost/benefit perspective, that’s all (after all, Dubya and his pals did that for Quaddafi, didn’t they? And I’m not aware of any complaints from Kelly about that...and as noted here, Kelly is a serial misinformer on other topics also).

Of course, it’s ridiculous to assume that Kelly knows anything about war and that area of the world anyway based on this.

Wednesday Stuff

2012-01-04T20:40:00.000-08:00

So it looks like we won’t have Moon Unit Bachmann to kick around any more, at least not as a presidential candidate (here…oh, and by the way, as I watched K.O. talk with Matt Taibbi, I just kept thinking “can we finally put to rest the notion that the Teahadists can be ‘king makers’ – or 'queen makers,' I guess – when it comes to anything?”).

The only thing I'll say in fairness to Bachmann was that her campaign was severely hampered by the entrance of "Goodhair" Perry into the fray, since that basically split the "duuuhhh" faction of the GOP, which is probably bigger than anyone wants to admit...

…and while I know this song deals with a different context than a political campaign, I still thought of it anyway on this occasion.

Wednesday Mashup (1/4/12)

2012-01-04T08:51:00.001-08:00

(A bit overdue I know, but posting is going to be highly sporadic for a little while…)

As I point out periodically, part of what I do here is to read the Bucks County Courier Times for posting material so others don’t have to subject themselves to that publication, and the paper rarely disappoints (good for me, but bad for the purpose of informed discourse overall).

And today, Cal Thomas whines that “a weak mind dumbs-down our politics,” from here.

Actually, based on what happened in Iowa yesterday, I agree with that for a change (shocking, I know).

Not to be outdone, though, someone named Ben Shapiro claimed earlier in the Courier Times (from here, a few days ago) that “the liberal effete class… believe that all robbery is a noble redistributionist impulse…”

Funny, but didn’t a certain OxyContin addict once say that “a conservative is a liberal who got mugged”? Well then, if that’s so, why would that person turn from a liberal to a conservative if Shapiro was right?

Shapiro also opined as follows…

Let them shut down the government, other than essential services. Good riddance. Let them warn of dire economic consequences if they're unable to send billion-dollar checks to abortion clinics. Somehow, we'll deal with it.

No word on what those “essential services” are, by the way. More importantly, though, this tells us that federal law already prohibits funding of abortions, due to that amendment named after a deceased Republican House member who was also a serial philanderer.

Oh, and what could be a rather interesting example of projection on Shapiro’s part, I give you this.

Next, I give you the following from last weekend in an otherwise highly sensible column from Frank Bruni of the New York Times about Iowa (here)…

In its least hypocritical moments, the Republican Party has provided an important counterbalance to a Democratic tropism toward paternalism and bloat.

I don’t know what the hell Bruni is talking about here, but if he’s referring to Democrats versus Republicans on the budget, then I think the following should be noted from here.

Which political party was in charge of Congress when the decision was made to put two wars, the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit and George W. Bush’s stinking tax cuts “on the card”? Not the Dems (talk about "bloat").

Oh, and Bruni also suggests that Michael Medved is one of the “more pragmatic conservatives” basically because Medved opposes Ron Paul, which I will admit is a point in Medved’s favor.

However, I think the words “Michael Medved” and “pragmatism” really are unrelated based on this.

Finally, I give you the latest from The Daily Tucker (here)…

When Americans flock to the polls in 13 months, we will not simply decide which direction our country should take over the next four years. Rather, we will decide whether or not our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms will survive over the next several decades.

Currently, the Second Amendment clings to a 5-4 pro-freedom majority on the Supreme Court. Just one vote is all that stands between the America our Founding Fathers established and a radically different America that Barack Obama and his supporters envision.

Yep, it’s time for more “Oooga Booga” scare BS from the NRA about how that dern Kenyan Muslim Socialist pre-zee-dint is supposedly going to steal everyone’s guns.

There are a few different directions I can go with this, but let me just begin by pointing out what we learn from here; it turns out that Margaret Anderson, a Mount Rainier part ranger, was recently killed in a shooting during a traffic stop in the park on New Year’s Day (our sympathies to her family and friends).

And by the way, who was it who signed legislation last May permitting licensed gun owners to bring firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges as long as state law allows it? President Hopey Changey, that’s who (here).

You want to know what’s really going on here in this Daily Caller screed by the NRA’s Chris Cox? Basically, this is a fundraising appeal, and as noted here, the NRA has raised a ton of dough playing this trick in order to try and defeat President Obama (not illegal I know, and I wouldn’t care if it weren’t for the fact that people’s lives are at stake).

In a few days (January 8th to be exact), we’re going to mark the one-year anniversary of the Tucson, AZ massacre last year in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was very nearly killed, and 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green and Federal Judge John Roll, among others, actually were murdered, to say nothing of those besides Congresswoman Giffords who were injured.

And what did we do in response (after the funerals and commemorations)? Absolutely nothing.

No, the federal assault weapons ban wasn’t reinstituted. No, this eminently intelligent proposal by Repug U.S. House Rep Peter King wasn’t passed and signed into law either (I agree with King on practically nothing, but he was right here).

However, the one thing too many of us can agree on is that the biggest threat to our safety supposedly comes from our 44th president instead.

And the title of this post is more apropos than ever.

Monday Stuff

2012-01-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

Gee, ya’ think that maybe – just maybe – Mr. and Mrs. America are getting just a wee bit tired of being lied to (here)?...

…and with that, I find myself harking back to this melodic tune from Frank Zappa (in honor of Ailes and company).

Sunday Stuff

2012-01-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I would say so too (and again, he's the only one in that entire gaggle of idiots who matters)...

...and yes, I know it's naughty of me to put up a video like this with a bad word in the lyrics and title, but I kind of like the beat, so I'll give it a 7 (and speaking of "Rate a Record" and "American Bandstand," for the love of God, Dick Clark, please retire - you've had a great run, but it's time to step off the stage).

Saturday Stuff

2011-12-31T13:59:00.000-08:00

Happy belated 75th birthday to boomer icon Mary Tyler Moore (and best wishes for good health too)…

…and I think this is a good question aimed at the presumptive Repug presidential nominee…

…and this, when all is said and done, is probably my favorite tune from the year that is coming to a close (so apropos)…

…and yeah, I think this is a nice tune for ringing in 2012; won’t mind seeing 2011 fade into obscurity (and once more, Happy New Year to one and all).

Friday Stuff

2011-12-30T19:52:00.001-08:00

Huffington Post is replaying what it considers some of the funniest political moments on late night TV over the past year, and here is one - I would be inclined to agree (And remember when it was supposedly a big deal that Conan O'Brien was shopping around for a new channel for his show?)...

...and here is another favorite video from the last 12 months.

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 12)

2011-12-30T15:15:00.001-08:00

(I know it's hard to believe, but since all good things must come to an end...Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, Part Five is here, Part Six is here, Part Seven is here, Part Eight is here, Part Nine is here, Part Ten is here, and Part Eleven is here.)

RIP

Pete Postlethwaite, Anne Francis, Gerry Rafferty, Matthew Crozier, Federal Judge John Roll, Christina-Taylor Green, Dave Nelson, Susannah York, Josephine Harris, Sargent Shriver, Don Kirshner, Jack LaLanne, David Kato, John Barry, Ernest McCulloch, Brian Rust, Maria Schneider, Ahmad Mohamed Mahmoud, Gary Moore, Rashawn Anderson, Chuck Tanner, George Shearing, Kenneth Mars, Frank Buckles, Jane Russell, Shabhaz Bhatti, David Broder, Rick Martin, Warren Christopher, Bill Winslade, Elizabeth Taylor, Joseph William “Pinetop” Perkins, Geraldine Ferraro, Richard Leacock, Joe Bageant, Sabah al-Bazi, Farley Granger, John Adler, Baruch Blumberg, E.J. McGuire, John Sullivan, Sidney Lumet, William Donald Schaefer, Tim Hetherington, Anton Hammerl, Chris Hondros, Madelyn Pugh Davis. Michael Sarrazin, Phoebe Snow, Don Clark, Marian Mercer, Jackie Cooper, William Campbell, Cornell Dupree, Odell Brown, Jr., Harmon Killebrew, Jeff Conaway, Gil Scott-Heron, James Arness, Andrew Gold, David Mason (trumpet player on “Penny Lane”), Carl Gardner (lead singer of The Coasters), Wild Man Fischer, Clarence Clemons, Yelena Bonner, Peter Falk, Gil Spencer, Margaret Tyzack, Fred Steiner (composer of this theme, among others), Anna Massey, Cy Twombly, Armen Gilliam, Betty Ford, Shannon Stone, Facundo Cabral, Sherwood Schwartz, Sam Denoff, Jerry Ragovoy, Ketzel (meow), Amy Winehouse, G.D. Spradlin, Dan Peek, Bubba Smith, Hugh Carey, Bernadine Healy, Nancy Wake, Jared Hagemann, Albert Brown, Christina Santiago, Ruth Brinker, Nick Ashford, Jerry Leiber, Brad McCrimmon, Pavol Demitra, Mike Flanagan, Casey Ribicoff, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Kyle Willis, Charles S. Dubin, Cliff Robertson, Charles Percy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Troy Davis, Wangari Maathai, Ralph Steinman, Steve Jobs, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, Derrick Bell, Bert Jansch, Roger Williams, Dan Wheldon, Paul Leka, Virginia Knauer, Robert Pierpoint, Andy Rooney, Joe Frazier, Bil Keane, Tom Wicker, Harry Morgan, Dobie Gray, Oscar Griffin, Jr., Desmond Ryan, Cesaria Evora, Vaclav Havel, Dan Frazer, Michele O’Callaghan, Jacob Goldman, Kim Geun-tae, Simms Taback

Dregs of the Year

After reviewing all of the evidence, I don’t know how it could be anyone else but this guy, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News International.

This tells us about the phone hacking scandal that broke open over the summer after the British newspaper The Guardian reported on Milly Dowler, 13, who disappeared on a walk home in a London suburb in 2002. Days later, private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, working for News of the World, allegedly started intercepting Dowler's cellphone voicemail messages, and erasing them to make room for more. The deletion of messages gave Dowler's family and the police false hope that Dowler was alive, until her remains were found in September of that year.

Oh, but News Corp conducted an “investigation” in August that did little more than further cover up phone hacking allegations on both sides of the Atlantic, as Eric Boehlert of Media Matters noted here.

Also, this UK Guardian article tells us, among other things, that 803 phone hacking victims were identified by police, including Sara Payne, whose daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000 (Keith Olbermann provides more information here in an interview with British journalist Robert Moore).

So what do Rupert The Pirate and company have to say in response? This tells us about the various denials by News Corp employees that turned out to be thoroughly disproven, and this tells us about the ongoing investigation by the Justice Department (with United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, recusing himself from the office's ongoing investigation into News Corp. because of a longstanding friendship with Viet Dinh, a News Corp. board member). In addition, this tells of the typical Murdoch hubris on display as the investigation unfolded.

For these reasons (particularly the hacking of Milly Dowler, Sarah Payne, and the Iraq and Afghanistan military personnel, all of which took place and more with his approval as far as I’m concerned), Rupert Murdoch is Dregs of the Year (at least).

Do Gooders Of The Year

Time Magazine recently named “the protestor” as its Person of the Year, as noted here; I’m not so sure I would go that far because I still have a “wait and see” attitude towards Egypt and Libya (though I think the movements to depose Mubarak and Quaddafi were basically good developments). However, I definitely would name the “Occupy” movement as Do Gooders of the Year.

It most definitely is a positive development that the “Occupy” movement has brought the issue of class inequality front and center in this country, doing so by making great sacrifices and with a bit of flair at the same time, concocting stunts such as this “human red carpet” at a Chamber of Commerce soiree in Washington, D.C. (for which the “Occupy” forces have earned the wrath of the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch, as noted here, which the group should wear as a badge of honor, particularly Iraq war vet Scott Olsen, as noted here).

I think an example of the group’s dedication to change on behalf of the “99 percent” is noted here in K.O.’s interview with Dorli Rainey, the 84-year-old Seattle “Occupy” member who was pepper sprayed by that city’s police force (Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn later apologized – more about the group can be accessed from here and here)…

For all of these reasons and many more, the “Occupy” forces are, collectively, the Do Gooders of the Year (and here is a song for the occasion).

Update: And in the spirit of the season, I give you the following (here)...

Also, in keeping with my annual custom, I want to thank everyone who has taken any time whatsoever over the prior year to visit this site and read and/or comment on what I have to say (particularly my “followers”; I’ll try my best in the New Year to return the favor). There’s more competing with my posting time than ever before, which has definitely cut down on my output (including the congressional vote write-ups – not sure what I can do about that at the moment). I’ll keep you all informed as best as I can on any future developments as they occur.

I hope you all have a great 2012 – in the coming year, let’s keep doing what we can as our means allows to put our country back on track.

Thursday Stuff

2011-12-29T21:07:00.000-08:00

What a shame these kids can’t vote – yet (more here and here)…

…and here is another fave from earlier in the year.

Wednesday Stuff

2011-12-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

Basically, I don’t give a crap about the hoopla going on in Iowa right now on the Repug side – what I care about is infrastructure, the economy, and the fact that our planet is melting and the Repugs continue to pretend that it isn’t happening; given all of this, why would I even consider voting for any of those clowns?

And with that in mind, I give you the following about the person who will end up as their nominee…

…and here is another video I found this year that I want to show again (though I think it's from '09...oh well).

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 11)

2011-12-28T08:24:00.001-08:00

(Not quite at the end, but close...Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, Part Five is here, Part Six is here, Part Seven is here, Part Eight is here, Part Nine is here, and Part Ten is here.)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

I never thought I would end up giving a citation to Dem Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, but I must for going along with Puppy Dog Eyes Paul Ryan and his scheme to drown Medicare in the Grover Norquist bathtub, as it were (here...um, I thought these guys cared about the deficit – but of course, as Atrios as well as many others have pointed out, it’s really all about preserving those stinking tax cuts and making everyone except the richest 1-2 percent in this country suffer).

…and a Do Gooder citation to the Obama White House for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

There are a lot of reasons to give a citation like this to a creep like Andrew Breitbart, but here, he was busted by Media Matters for running a Nazi-era cartoon on his web site (would that this would receive a fraction of the coverage that Breitbart, O’Keefe and company received for their bogus “stings” on ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, etc.).

Dregs of the Year Nominees

Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao and the rest of the Repug congressional “leadership” for this (one way to answer is for President Obama to keep touring the country making the case directly to voters in swing states – of course, another way is for idiot voters not to elect Repugs in the first place, though I might as well try to teach my cat to play the piano for all the good wishing for that will do me)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Steve King for this (apparently bored by the testimony of fellow Rep Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas regarding that awful Stop Online Piracy Act…you Iowans who continually vote for this numbskull every two years must be so proud – Jackson-Lee is a Dem, by the way)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that a new rule created by the FAA that discounted employees that don't vote in elections to create a union, rather than counting their discounted votes as no votes, was legitimate (a tactic used by the Repugs and their corporate puppet masters for years to make unions look more unpopular than they are; looks like “Man Tan” Boehner has something else to cry about…poor baby - here).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Guy Petroziello, Op-Ed page editor of the Bucks County Courier Times, gets another dishonorable mention, and the reason why is because, in lieu of editorial content that is actually interesting and informative, the paper is instead publishing excerpts from comedy monologues by late-night comedians on a fairly regular basis (as if some of the newspaper’s “Vents” aren’t comical enough).

Yeah, who needs to read actual progressives or writers besides those appearing on the Op-Ed page of the Washington Post (though Gene Lyons is definitely an exception).

I cannot possibly imagine how this newspaper continues to make money (also, nice work to include a writeup on the Op-Ed page called “How to avoid gift wrapping your pet” on 12/22).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Baby Newton Leroy, for saying here that “activist judges” should be arrested…

Here’s your first candidate, Disgraced Former House Speaker (for this).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Little Ricky (“No One Ever Died Because They Didn’t Have Health Insurance”) Santorum here - uh, no…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Mikey The Beloved gets a mention – yet again – for contributing to gridlock – yet again – on the matter of passing the extension of the payroll tax cut proposed by President Obama (here).

"In the 2010 election I heard loud and clear what the people were saying," Fitzpatrick said. "They wanted us to go to Washington and put the country's fiscal house in order. That's what we've been doing. It's difficult finding bipartisan solutions when you're dealing with the Senate, which hasn't passed a budget in three years."

Really, Mikey? Check this out from one of your fellow Repugs…

In an unusually harsh critique of his own party, moderate GOP Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts said House Republicans' opposition to the two-month extension was "irresponsible and wrong" because it threatened to result in tax increases and jobless benefit cuts.

"We cannot allow rigid partisan ideology and unwillingness to compromise stand in the way of working together," Brown said in a written statement.

This is another reason why can be thankful for the U.S. Senate candidacy of Elizabeth Warren, people (oh, and maybe Mikey and his pals should have listened to these people in his party also, particularly his party’s nominee in the last presidential election).

And I’m long past the point of being sick of listening to Mikey whine about the debt. Take a look at the graph in the fourth bullet from here (showing the debt he helped to run up from 2004-2006 when he last took up space in Congress) and tell me why anyone should take him seriously on this subject.

…here is more on this whole mess…

…and of course, as has been already noted, the Repugs caved on this one (Do Gooder citations to everyone who contacted these clowns in the House and complained – more like this).

And one last note about Saint Mikey…we received a political mailer from him telling us that “Washington has to tighten its belt” and we should “Respond with your ideas to Congressman Fitzpatrick,” just like the mailer I completed a month or so ago with my ideas that our wet noodle PA-08 U.S. House rep promptly ignored.

Oh, and did I mention that we received Mikey’s mailer on Christmas Eve? As if we don’t have infinitely more important things to accomplish at that moment.

What class.

Update 1/1/12: Oh, and I forgot to note this earlier, but in response to Mikey's garbage about the Senate supposedly not passing a budget in three years, I ask that you read this.

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

The 30,000 (!) Chinese “Occupy” protestors noted here

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Braylon Edwards of the NFL’s San Francisco Giants – as noted here…

As a Cleveland Browns rookie in 2005, Edwards announced he'd give $10,000 in scholarships to 100 area eighth-graders if they could graduate high school with over a 2.5 GPA and 15 hours community service. Of the 100 who were afforded the opportunity, 79 met the criteria and have begun their first year of college. Many are attending Ohio universities, but the schools represented spread across the country and include Harvard, Cornell and Johns Hopkins.

Basically, given that Edwards will make about $1 million this year, the donations will eat up most of his salary.

Kudos to him for his generosity and not going back on his word.

Update: Oh well, good luck to Edwards anyway (here).

Dregs of the Year Nominees

John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, hosts of The John and Ken Show on the Clear Channel radio station KFI in California, for giving out on the air the personal cell phone number of Jorge-Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA); Cabrera was then subject to “hateful and threatening phone calls” from the single-digit-IQ listeners of the radio show – apparently these two idiots have a history of this sort of behavior (noted here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug Michigan Governor Rick Snyder for this (of course, no taxpayer funds will be wasted in the costly court battle that, quite rightly, will now ensue – of course not)

…also for this (scumbag)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Francis Cardinal George of Chicago for comparing LGBT individuals to the Klan here (um, I hear plenty of demonization of gays from the pulpit, but I don’t hear the same response towards the church from these people trying to obtain marriage rights)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Troy, MI Repug mayor Janice Daniels, who turned down $8.5 million in federal grant money here to build a transportation center in the city and thus create, you know, JOBS (And did I mention that she founded a local teabagger chapter?).

Oh, and check this out about Daniels…

The transit fight is not Mayor Daniels’s first brush with controversy. Earlier this month, it was revealed that she posted a message to her Facebook page last June, after New York State approved same-sex marriage, stating, “I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.” In an interview, she said she regretted the online comment.

“Regretted” but did not apologize for, it should be noted (of course).

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The Obama FCC gets a dubious mention here for “preparing to relax a longstanding rule that limits the ability of companies to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same local market,” thus further consolidating the corporate voice (Now let me see, exactly where did I leave that dictionary? Ah, here it is – I need to look up a couple of words…”hope and change, hope and change”…).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Baby Newton Leroy again, who compared his failure to qualify for the Virginia GOP primary to the attack on Pearl Harbor here (you’re at about 14:50, Mr. GOP Idea Guy…too funny)

…more here…

…also for this…

…and for this too…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Lou Williams of the 76ers, who managed to persuade a gunman trying to rob him to cease and desist, and Williams even ended up treating the guy to a meal at McDonald’s (no word if charges were pressed – Williams has got more guts than I do...here)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The utterly clueless editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times gets a mention for complaining about that darn, unruly Internet here for distributing the video of Mikey Fitzpatrick banging the House gavel, ending the session and cutting off Steny Hoyer from making a motion to vote on the middle-class payroll tax cut (and of course, Hoyer gets blamed also for calling out Fitzpatrick as Mikey turns and exits, stage right).

Ever since the PA-08 voters, in their eternal, dunderheaded stupidity, turned out Patrick Murphy and reinstalled this fraud into the U.S. House, he has done nothing but preach this austerity crap while our economy has continued to flounder (yes, I know unemployment is 8.6 percent, a decrease from 9 barely outside the margin for error, but let’s see if it remains at that rate or goes down after those seasonal workers hired for the holidays are done). It’s long past time for him to face the proverbial music as a result.

And of course (as already noted), the tax cut was eventually passed anyway, putting Mikey firmly on the wrong side of the issue along with “Man Tan” Boehner, who faces a very good possibility of losing the role of Speaker of the House because of it.

Of course, you’d never know any of this reading this latest fluff from Mikey’s press service, who, among other faults, will never question Fitzpatrick for meeting only with “job creators” instead of residents of his district who are actually unemployed.

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who get a mention here for founding the Daltrey/Townshend Teen And Young Adult Cancer Program at UCLA, the first project of its kind in the country. It will build on the work of the UK trust they’ve also sponsored, which has helped fund 19 special teen cancer units in the UK (I guess that’s what you’d expect from two guys who performed songs stating “sickness will surely take the mind where minds can’t usually go” and “every moment has its special charm”…nicely done).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor who was appointed to her state’s highest court by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), who became the latest high-ranking official to question whether her state should continue to impose a death penalty (here – use it effectively or get rid of it, and unfortunately, I’ve seen too many problems in its application)

Update: Dregs of the Year Nominee

The Pentagon inspector general who ruled here that it was just fine for our retired generals to shill for themselves and the Iraq war on network TV (I can't imagine how this person lives with himself, or herself)

I'll end this next time, I promise.

Tuesday Stuff

2011-12-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

(Hopefully back to Do-Gooders and Dregs tomorrow - not much more to go...)

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, “Benator” (here; so let the damn state go Repug, then – if the people living in it don’t have enough common sense to see who’s selling them out, then they get what they deserve)…

…and before the year ends, I want to present some of my favorite videos once more that I happened to come across – here is one.

Monday Stuff

2011-12-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

Notwithstanding the utterly cretinous Dana Loesch (And why exactly is she on the show anyway?), I thought this was a memorable New Rules segment from Bill Maher that I wanted to revisit (from here)…

…and Happy Boxing Day (some fun, eh?).

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T07:51:00.001-08:00

From me and Nat...

Saturday Stuff

2011-12-24T08:34:00.001-08:00

What would Christmas be without Bing and Bowie…

…and this number from the former lead singer of Johnny and the Moondogs?

Friday Stuff

2011-12-23T21:29:00.001-08:00

Giving the political/activist videos a rest for the evening in favor of seasonal stuff…

Yeah, I’m pretty much in the mood to go to church after hearing this little number…

…and I’m sure they didn’t exactly “check their egos at the door,” but I still think they did a good job on this one…

…and to me, it’s not Christmas until I hear two songs: here is the first one…

…and here is the other.

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 10)

2011-12-23T15:07:00.000-08:00

(Back after a bit of a hiatus...Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, Part Five is here, Part Six is here, Part Seven is here, Part Eight is here, and Part Nine is here...some bad words in this post, by the way, but they're mostly quotes.)

The “So Who Exactly Does That Make You Then? Jumpin’ Jesus On A Pogo Stick?” Citation Of The Year

Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Kelly of PA compared President Obama to Pontius Pilate here.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Man Tan” Boehner for calling an extension of the middle class payroll tax cut “chicken shit” here (besides shaking down fat cats for dough, I always wondered if Boehner was a subject matter expert on anything else, and now, I think I know…and it’s a huge understatement to say that this would bite Boehner in the ass later)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Politifact, for this (God, I get so sick of everyone bending over backwards in the name of trying to establish fake Democratic “equivalency” when the Repugs pull stupid crap)...

…more here…

…and a “Dregs within a Dregs” citation to Bill Adair of Politifact for this in response (RJ Eskow explains why here).

Update 12/24/11: And on the subject of fake equivalency, I give you this good column from Professor Krugman.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Poor Pizza Man Herman Cain earns a raspberry, not for suspending his campaign (which was inevitable, given the revelation of a long-running affair), but for blaming the media for doing so.

Oh sure, it was the fault of “the media” that you shoved a woman’s face into your crotch and asked her if she wanted a job (as one of my senior correspondents reported, did you know that Cain’s full name is an anagram for “Reach in Man”?).

And let’s think about what this says about Not Your Father’s Republican Party, by the way; Cain can be an abuser of women, and that apparently was OK enough for him to continue his campaign, but the moment word breaks of an adulterous affair, he has to quit…just a bit of a head scratcher there for yours truly.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Dr. Erik Fleischman for this (h/t Atrios) – basically, this monster performed “rib-cracking CPR” on a pregnant mother in Tanzania and called his partner who involuntarily tied the woman’s tubes (making her pretty much sterile) “a hero” (and as the Feministe post tells us, Fleischman is pretty well connected, though that doesn’t make him any less of a utter pariah)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Ross Douthat of the New York Times for the stupefying, doctrinal idiocy of this column from earlier in the month, including the following (if you guessed that Douthat is making fun of liberals again, you win a free subscription to The Weakly Standard)…

Yes, Occupy Wall Street was dreamed up in part by flakes and populated in part by fantasists. But to the extent that the movement briefly captured the public’s imagination, it was because it seemed to be doing what a decent left would exist to do: criticizing entrenched power, championing the common good and speaking for the many rather than the few.

The union rallies and the Keystone demonstrations, by contrast, represented what you might call the decadent left, which fights for narrow interest groups rather than for the public as a whole.

The Wisconsin protests didn’t defend American workers’ right to bargain for their fair share of company profits, as traditional union protests have. They defended government employees’ right to negotiate with elected officials over the division of taxpayer dollars — a recipe for profligacy that even liberal icons like Franklin Roosevelt and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s George Meany once opposed.

This is flat-out bullshit, and the fact that Bill Keller and “The Old Gray Lady” allowed it to see print is a travesty (and publishing a right-wing lie at fifty other right-wing sites doesn’t magically change that lie into the truth, by the way).

As noted here (for about the zillionth time in the blogosphere – and yes, I still hate that word), Governor Hosni Mubarak Walker created his own budgetary distress by shoveling money out the door in the form of tax cuts for his friends. Then, crying poor mouth, he demanded that his state’s public employee unions give up their rights to collectively bargain so he could impose “austerity” (which, as noted here, was an utter con anyway). And THAT is why the protests took place.

Continuing…

Likewise, the Keystone protesters haven’t been defending “the interests of wage-earning Americans,” to borrow the historian Michael Kazin’s description of the historic purpose of the American left. They’ve been harnessing the power of the Democratic Party’s wealthy environmentalist donors to actively kill off American jobs.

Uh, no – as Think Progress tells us here…

...in late October Republican Gov. Dave Heineman (NE) called a special session of the state legislature to address his citizens’ concerns posed by the pipeline, and soon after the Republican-controlled legislature voted to reroute the pipeline so as to avoid the Sand Hills region and the Ogallala Aquifer. It is interesting to note that although TransCanada originally was strongly resistant to alternate routes for the pipeline, after the Nebraska vote the company is already working to find a new one.

Jane Kleeb, who testified today on behalf of BOLD Nebraska, further explained the position of Nebraska landowners in her testimony:

While the permit process may seem like it is taking too long, we still have no proposed route in Nebraska and no study on how tar sands affects our land, water and health. Additionally, if this oil is meant for the United States, then please make an agreement stating as much. Pass a bill saying the oil is for US consumption. It is hard to rationalize how a pipeline carrying oil across our nation to an unknown final destination can be in our national interest. We all know TransCanada and other tar sands companies need to get their oil to various ports in order to sell it to the highest bidder. In the end, we assume all the risks and none of the rewards.

Do you know how long it took for me to find the information I linked to above from HuffPo and Think Progress? About five minutes (oh, and by the way, Chunky BoBo, Heineman is a Republican).

But of course, why would Douthat try to do something like that let it get in the way of trying to propagate yet another bogus narrative about Democrats?

I think I said, earlier in these posts, that Douthat was better than Kristol Mess, who he replaced.

I now realize that that’s kind of like arguing that walking pneumonia is better than a migraine.

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Repug presidential nominee Jon Hunstman for telling “The Donald” what he can do here."here (the latter was due to “moderate” the 372nd GOP candidates debate earlier this month, though he ended up backing out…Huntsman basically said that it isn’t serious to have Trump moderate much of anything, though I don’t consider the GOP field to be really that “serious” either)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Fix “Business” for asking if The Muppets are “anti-corporate” here (just stop, OK?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Drudgico, for naming Puppy Dog Eyes And Watch Him Steal Granny’s Medicare And Social Security Paul Ryan “health care policy maker of the year” (as Hunter at Daily Kos sez here, “Politico proves that in D.C., awards are not given on actual merit, but on what The Village cares about.” – uh, yep.)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

An eight-year-old boy known only as “Elijah” who told Moon Unit Bachmann here that “my mom is gay and she doesn’t need fixing” (appropriate in a season in which we sing “a little child shall lead them”)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The Obama Administration earns a dubious citation yet again, this time for overriding the Food and Drug Administration's recommendation to make the contraceptive Plan B available over the counter. The drug is currently available to women of all ages by prescription and over the counter to those who can prove they are at least 17 (here and here).

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius claims she is overruling the FDA because the company that asked to sell it over the counter didn't produce evidence that girls under 17 "can understand the label and use the product appropriately."

As the writer at In These Times noted, “By that logic all over-the-counter medication should be banned because people under 17 might buy it.”

OK, Mr. President, let’s talk. Just you and me for a second, OK?

Listen to me carefully; I’ll say the words slowly so there’s no misunderstanding (yes, you are a smart man, but apparently you have a bit of a mental block in this particular area).

Conservatives…will…never…support…you.

It doesn’t matter how many ridiculous positions you take like this one on “values” issues in an attempt to placate them. And no, it’s not as if they’ll dislike you because you’re African American (though that’s a bonus for their purposes, I’ll admit).

It is merely because you are a Democrat.

So let’s stop this idiotic garbage which, in point of fact, does nothing but alienate further the people who did more to elect you than anyone else.

(And by the way, there has been definitely more blame aimed at Sebelius for this, as noted here, but as far as I’m concerned, the problem on this issue starts with Number 44.)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The 14 Repug U.S. Senators who spoke out against filibusters under Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, but apparently have no trouble with the filibuster while that “Kenyan Muslim socialist” is in the White House, as noted here (more great stuff from Think Progress)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Jim Matthews (brother of Tweety), who, as I type this, is still a Montgomery County, PA commissioner despite his recent arrest for lying to a grand jury, as noted here (he was replaced by Joe Hoeffel as chairman, Hoeffel being a far better public servant)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Recently retired Chief of Police in West Goshen, PA Mike Carroll gets credit here; he appeared in a full-page ad that appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times on December 8th criticizing Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick for his vote in support of HR 822, “a bill that would force PA to accept concealed carry permits from every other state, even if a carrier is too dangerous to be granted a permit under our own laws,” as Chief Carroll told us (more is here).

I’ve said a few times that our police and emergency medical personnel have to “get in the game” more when it comes to standing up to the NRA, because not enough private citizens will and waay too many politicians would wet themselves before they did that themselves. This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about (Is it fair to add that burden to those who serve us so bravely? No, but that’s the reality.).

Thank you, Former Police Chief Carroll (and of course, Carroll was later subjected to wingnut umbrage in the Courier Times as a result, which Carroll should wear as a badge of honor).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

I know I’ve given President Obama a few Dregs citations here (including the one a minute ago), and I believe they’re deserved (particularly on issues of state secrets and the fact that, with the recent Defense Authorization, American citizens can now be subject to capture and “rendition” without a court order), but let’s not forget that, with all of the infantile political garbage taking place in Washington, just about entirely because of the Repugs, he has stood tall as someone who has advocated for the consumer financial protection bureau (blocked by the Repugs), the middle-class payroll tax cut (blocked by the Repugs before they finally caved), the jobs bill (blocked by the Repugs), appointing Dr. Donald Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid services (blocked by the Repugs - he got in as a recess appointment before he had to step down), properly funding the infrastructure bank (blocked by the Repugs…anybody else besides me starting to see a pattern?), and he has even expressed his support for the “Occupy” movement here.

And though I don’t think that, by itself, trumps all of the other Dregs citations, it definitely counts in his favor and comes fairly close.

Update 1/2/12: It should be noted here that President Obama issued a signing statement to the Defense Authorization Bill saying he "will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens" (nicely done, Mr. President).

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board for this (this foul ad never should have aired in the first place)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Baby Newton Leroy Gingrich gets a citation for calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel here (again, real hard for me to feel sympathy for the Palestinians since they continually turn to bad actors like Arafat and Hamas for “leadership,” but I don’t see much serious from “Bibi” and his crowd either, particularly on “right of return” and those damn settlements)

Update 1/3/12: And speaking of Baby Newton Leroy, I think this is absolutely precious (hat tip to one of my senior correspondents).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

The amount of wankerific garbage generated by John Harwood of the New York Times is virtually endless, so I have to pick my spots carefully; here, he said the following recently…

In part, these decisions reflect every president’s obligation to take up some fights but not others, to gratify core supporters most of the time but selectively challenge them in the name of reaching a wider audience. President George W. Bush roiled his base on education, Medicare and bailouts while doggedly advancing conservative goals on taxes and national security.

Concerning Dubya and “national security,” I give you the following (if I didn’t know better, I’d swear Harwood was on hallucinogenic drugs when he wrote that – and yes, I’m going to keep reminding him of that because, no, he has not apologized, nor do I expect him to at this point).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Former Reaganite Bruce Bartlett for this, including the following...

“Basically we’re still stuck in the situation we were three years ago and we haven’t made any progress at all except that our problems are much worse because of political reasons, because we now have a crazy party in charge of one of the Houses of our Congress and they won’t allow anything to happen because it’s in their vested interest to make things worse,” Bartlett explained in his typically exasperated way. “Plus they have a theory that is completely nuts…. I’m very depressed....The most we can hope for is that a complete crazy person like Newt Gingrich gets the Republican nomination, the Republicans lose so badly that they lose control of the House and don’t get control of the Senate and then maybe in a year we can finally talk about doing something rational...”

Actually, there are a lot of people in this country who don't have a year to wait, but I'll give Bartlett points for speaking truth to stupid anyway.

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The National Lawyers Guild (which, otherwise, seems to be a commendable organization) recently held a phone conference at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia with convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal (who also, astonishingly, is a “VP” of the group) on the occasion of the commutation of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence to life in prison (basically, untold sums of money would have been spent to retry Abu-Jamal and try to obtain a death penalty verdict, but Philadelphia DA Seth Williams – wisely, I think, and with the blessing of Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Officer Daniel Faulkner, who Abu-Jamal murdered – decided not to retry the case and accept the life sentence instead).

Why the National Lawyers Guild treats Abu-Jamal as anything besides pond scum is something I cannot imagine (and as much as I hate to give Mikey the Beloved credit for anything, I have to give him a Do-Gooder citation for writing a letter in protest to the NLG, as noted here).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Scott Bennett, a 45-year-old resident of Brookville, PA, who had an obituary published for his mom so he could get bereavement time from his job; the problem was that his mother was still alive, which he apparently knew (here...I can appreciate how important it is to hang onto a job and to cover yourself when asking for time off, but this move is still ridiculous)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Russell Simmons here, for buying up the remaining ad time for the program “All-American Muslim” that was dropped by Lowe’s after the hardware giant panicked when (presumably) their customers decided they didn’t like the program because the Muslims weren’t portrayed as bloodthirsty terrorists (and definitely a Dregs citation to Lowe’s, a store that I otherwise have patronized…and yes, I’m rethinking that)

…and with that in mind…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock along with all of the other corporate numbskulls who pulled their advertising from the program “All-American Muslim” as noted here, under pressure from a typical “values” group because the Muslims weren’t SCARY enough, I guess (and a Do Gooder citation to all of the companies who kept their advertising on the program, basically telling the group of hateful bigots called the “Florida Family Association” to stick it, as opposed to Niblock and company who utterly caved)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

PA State Senator (and my own, sadly) Chuck McIlhinney for this (re: “voter fraud”)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

No, this isn’t a misprint – Crazy Tom Coburn gets it for this (uh – thanks?)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

Robert Pear and Jennifer Steinhauer (and really, by extension, Bill Keller) for the following propaganda from the New York Times (here)…

WASHINGTON — Defying a veto threat from President Obama, the House on Tuesday passed a bill extending a cut in Social Securitypayroll taxes for 160 million Americans for another year. But the Democratic majority in the Senate vowed to reject the measure because of objections to other provisions, including one to speed construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

The 234-to-193 vote set the stage for negotiations between the House and the Senate that were likely to continue into the weekend.

The vote was a victory for Speaker John A. Boehner.

Really, New York Times? A “victory”?

After you get through about ten or so paragraphs of Republicans boilerplate and self-congratulation in this supposedly hard-news story, you learn the following…

…Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the bill was “loaded up with goodies to mollify the extreme right wing that is in charge of this House.” And the No. 2 House Democrat, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, urged his caucus to vote no.

“This is a partisan bill sticking a finger in the eye of those who disagree with the policies included, simply for the purpose of energizing a small political base in their party,” Mr. Hoyer said.

Republicans “included things that clearly are unacceptable to the president,” like the (Keystone XL) pipeline, Mr. Hoyer said. “They know this is not going to pass the Senate.”

Want to know more about Boehner’s supposed “victory”? The following was larded up on the bill sent to the Senate with no hope of passage (from here)…

…whether to bar the District (of Columbia) from spending tax money on abortions for low-income women. Also at issue are whether to include language to reverse a decision by Obama to make it easier for Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and whether to include a provision to block new standards for incandescent light bulbs.

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos considers all of this “stupid, Republican ideological shit,” and I completely agree. But as far as the Times is concerned, this is still a Boehner “victory” (though I grudgingly have to admit that this is a “victory” also for Boehner and company, though definitely not for the “99 percent,” as noted here - yet another "cave" by the Democrats).

And funny, but I cannot recall any similar “victories” by the Democrats (at least, as reported by the Old, Gray Lady) when they legislated against the petulant, idiotic will of Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History.

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The Vermont (ugh) chapter of fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon gets a dubious mention here; it has been suspended for passing out a survey to its members that asked questions including, “If I could rape someone, who would it be?”

Which is particularly appalling in light of this…

…and all of which, sadly, is timely in light of this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Joseph Amendola, the attorney for former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, who has been accused on multiple charges of rape of young boys, for saying here that those decrying Sandusky should call 1-800-REALITY; in addition to being an idiotically snide remark, that is also the number for a gay phone sex line (of course, we already know that Sandusky is almost too monstrous for words and deserves every little bit of what awaits him in prison)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Obama AG Eric Holder for this (I asked about this earlier – good for him for following up)

I'm not sure if I'll finish this up next time or not, but I'll give it my best shot.

Thursday PM Stuff

2011-12-22T20:45:00.001-08:00

Uh oh, it looks like somebody got spanked (here) – and by the way, how dumb does Mikey the Beloved now look for this…

…and I’ll put up what I think is a clever parody of that Christmas tune, the original of which I will never feature here…

…though I always get a bit of a chuckle out of this…

…and I always liked this version; kind of neck-and-neck with the one by Ed Ames (I hope she’s OK).

Thursday AM Stuff

2011-12-22T08:08:00.001-08:00

Hey Democrats, this is how it’s done; try fanning out to all the news networks with initials for names and beating the Repugs over the head with an actual issue the way that bunch does to you over phony ones…

…and isn’t it amazing how far some people will go in a desperate effort to try and remain relevant (more here)?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wednesday Later PM Stuff

2011-12-21T20:12:00.000-08:00

I thought this was pretty good, assuming it buffers OK...

How The Gingrich Stole Christmas narrated by Paul F. Tompkins from Paul F Tompkins

...and it bears repeating that that little stunt by Mikey The Beloved today has everything to do with placating the racist sign and funny hat crowd, a bunch that utterly terrifies our wet noodle PA-08 U.S. House Rep...

...on a seasonal note, here is a number from Sweet Baby James...

...and I'm sure "yule" swing with this one - get it?

Wednesday Early PM Stuff

2011-12-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

Of all of Mikey The Beloved’s most infamous moments in Congress, this should rise unceremoniously to the top…

...and here’s a little reminder about our PA-08 rep, who insists he isn’t a “career politician.”

Tuesday Stuff

2011-12-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

Louise Slaughter provided what I thought was a pretty good response to this morning’s propaganda from Mikey the Beloved that appeared from his PR service on the matter of the middle class payroll tax cut (the only thing these jokers are going to understand – Boehner and his pals I mean – is to vote them back to the minority, or out of Congress altogether, next November)…

…”Worst Persons” (Cassie Wright, this week’s president of the University of Texas College Republicans, brings teh stupid alleging that Number 44 uses drugs, she of course being the replacement for the person in that role who thought an attempted assassination of the president was a joke – what truly great Americans; the NRA “news” team takes the runner-up for doing their part to perpetuate the dreaded “war on Christmas”…yes, there were indeed howls of outrage here in the “boonies” of Bucks County when the Courier Times, that model of journalistic propriety – snark – changed the “Give a Christmas” fund to the “holiday” fund…must be nice to be able to preoccupy yourselves with such drivel; but Hosni Mubarak Walker and his little sock puppet in that commercial of his take top “honors,” and Keith tells us why)…

...and this little number goes out to everyone celebrating the festival of lights beginning tonight...

...and this really isn't meant as a response, but I came across it and thought it was pretty good (once more, a seasonal offering).

Monday Stuff

2011-12-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

(Tomorrow looks shaky for Do-Gooders and Dregs – I’ll try for Wednesday.)

Kudos to Lt. Dan Choi for standing up on behalf of Bradley Manning here…

…and I was wondering if and when any protest songs would be coming out over this year’s developments; even though I guess this is an “homage,” it works for me…

...and Seth MacFarlane is a genius in any season, but particularly now…

…and here’s a seasonal favorite from a guy who didn’t need no stinkin’ music videos.

Sunday Stuff

2011-12-18T19:59:00.001-08:00

Here is something secular for the season…

…and here is something sacred.

Saturday Stuff (update)

2011-12-17T21:13:00.000-08:00

I hope that bastard Chuck McIlhinney in the PA Senate (here) is watching this (more here)…

Update 12/18/11: And I suppose this idiot thinks what McIlhinney and company are doing is just fine (here).

…and yeah, I guess this is sick and twisted – cool (more here)…

…but what would the season be without this?...

…and speaking of sick and twisted…

Friday Stuff

2011-12-16T20:39:00.000-08:00

If she were running in P8-08, I guarantee that she’d have my vote…

…and I thought this was a great debunking of Baby Newton Leroy’s code language (h/t Atrios)…

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

…and tomorrow is an international day of support for Pfc. Bradley Manning; K.O. tells us more in an interview with Daniel Ellsberg of the "Pentagon Papers"…

…and there is humor, and there is the immortal Bill Hicks…

…and ya’ gotta love those holiday traditions…

…and I thought I’d mix up the seasonal stuff a bit with this little number (trying not to think about last night’s Shatner clip as I watch this – yes, I know it was a joke).

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 9)

2011-12-16T07:33:00.001-08:00

(Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, Part Five is here, Part Six is here, Part Seven is here, and Part Eight is here.)

(Also, I'm going to try and break these up into smaller posts, since I may have a challenge finishing this by the end of the year, for what it's worth.)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Radio host Lisa Simeone, who was fired from her show by NPR for participating in the “Occupy Wall Street” protest here (and a Dregs citation to that supposedly liberal broadcasting network for doing so)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Democratic” U.S. Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Sergeant Pepper Spray” Anthony Bologna – looks like his poor widdle feelins are just hurt soooo bad (cry me a river, jackwad...here)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Iraq war vet Scott Olsen, who joined the Occupy Oakland movement and was critically injured by police here, suffering a fractured skull when mayor Jean Quan approved the jackbooted tactics to roust the protesters (and of course Quan gets a Dregs citation also – as of early December, Olsen had returned to the Occupy Oakland protest…what courage)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Journalist Caitlin Curran gets a nod for assisting the “Occupy Wall Street” movement by helping them with a sign and making a pitch to the producers of WNYC’s public radio show “The Takewaway” to use it for a segment she wanted to do on the protests – not only was she fired from the network and her show (just like Lisa Simeone...ummm, what part of the word “public” in the phrase “public radio show” does WNYC not understand?), but the show ended up using her idea and twisting it in a way favorable to the institution she was trying to hold to account…your “liberal media” at work again, people, here – and yes, WNYC earns a Dregs citation as well.

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The Loudon County, VA Republican Party for this, timed for Halloween (imagine the outcry if lefties did something like this to Bushco)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

The six senators behind this (I can think of no legislation more important, nor legislation facing more formidable hurdles)…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

I never expected to take note of DC Circuit Court Judge Laurence Silberman this way, but he deserves it for this…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

The 275,000 individuals who signed a petition here calling for MSNBC to, finally, at long last, dump Pat Buchanan’s sorry ass (long past time for “Uber Alles” to be shown the door)

Update 1/9/12: If this is true, then, wow (long past overdue, though, but still surprising...I didn't think Phil Griffin had it in him).

Update 1/11/12: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The 2,000 or so Penn State students in “Happy Valley” PA who rioted here in response to the firing of legendary football coach Joe Paterno in November (even if they rioted in response to the sex abuse allegations against former coach Jerry Sandusky that Paterno helped cover up – and actually, the riots were apparently in anger that Paterno was dismissed – it was still the wrong thing to do from a school where some alums never miss an opportunity to communicate to the world how much better they think they are than everybody else because that’s where they received a college education)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

Sticking with sports, the Philadelphia Eagles get it for deactivating wide receiver DeSean Jackson for a November game against the Arizona Cardinals for missing a team meeting the day before.

To which I say – duuuhh??!!

Fine him for missing a meeting if you want. Don’t have him start the game – whatever.

But deactivating your most potent offensive weapon for missing a meeting?

Oh, and the formerly 2-6 Cardinals ended up winning the game 21-17.

…

Butt-heads, the whole sorry lot (And for God’s sake, Andy Reid, please don’t say in response that you “have to do a better job.” That was established years ago already.)

And by the way, partly as a result of this, the Eagles now have to deal with another pouting athlete. Am I saying they should give in? No. But they do need to manage these situations better (see T.O. and Donavan McNabb).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Former legal advisor to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan (Dan Siegel by name) for this (emphasis on former)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Bill (Maybe He Should Attend A Play) Orally for this (re: his book contained so many factual errors on our 16th president that it was banned from the exhibit at Ford's Theater, though apparently it is available in the gift shop, next to the toy Civil War soldiers and the "Lincoln Logs," I'm sure)…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Retired Philadelphia Police captain Ray Lewis for sympathizing with the Occupy Wall Street protesters here

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Laurene Pierce, President of the College Republicans at University of Texas, for this (i.e.., joking about shooting Obama at about the same time some nut arrested in PA took two shots at a White House window – by the way, I saw from the Democratic Underground I think that Obama gets about 30 death threats a day…dear God)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, the person responsible for this…

…more here…

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The law firm of Stephen L. Baum, the “foreclosure mill” that featured employees dressed as homeless people for Halloween (what fun), earns a dubious mention; turns out that, for this and other reasons, the firm will close (here…so maybe some of the employees won’t have to play “dress up” to find out how some of the “99 percent” lives after all).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber for this

Dregs of the Year Nominee

AIG’s Hank Greenberg – words fail, truly (the very definition of hubris, I would guess...here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Fix Noise humanoid Megyn Kelly for this – if you think it’s just a “food product,” then try applying some to yourself, hon, preferably directly into your utterly soulless eyes (and it’s almost not even worth it to reply to Falafel Bill...here)

Megyn Kelly Pepper Spray Thanksgiving - watch more funny videos

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug NLRB member Brian E. Hayes, who apparently is going to resign so the board does not have a three-member quorum to implement election rules and thus prevent the growth of unions (here - typical)

…more here…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Bill Looman, who owns U.S. Cranes, LLC in Waco, Georgia (of course) – as noted here, this rocket scientist posted a sign saying he won’t hire anyone “until Obama is gone” (if there’s any justice, Looman will be gone soon and not Number 44…Looman’s company anyway)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Kansas high school student Emma Sullivan, not necessarily for saying that that state’s governor Sam Brownback “blows” (though you could argue that he does, so to speak), but for standing her ground when Brownback’s staff demanded an apology and the school tried to discipline her (here...and as much as I hate to give Brownback credit for anything, I should do so here to be fair when he said that his staff overreacted and that Sullivan’s free speech was protected)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Former Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for this (if Andrew Ross Sorkin felt any shame, he would find a way to edit “Too Big To Fail” and thus make Paulson look not quite as heroic as Sorkin made him out to be)

The “Sorry, Mommy, I Thought I Had The Safety On – I Apologize For Splattering Donner’s Brains All Over The Mistletoe” Citation

Here

Dregs of the Year Nominee

New Hampshire Repug (of course) House Speaker William O’Brien for this…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Nick Hanauer, a successful venture capitalist as Think Progress tells us, for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Every U.S. House Repug except Walter Jones of N.C. (including Mikey the Beloved) for passing this atrocity of a bill banning public funding from political campaigns (going absolutely nowhere in Congress…the GOP non-jobs agenda staggers on)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Ryan Howard of the Phillies for this…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Gerard Arpey, departing CEO of the now-bankrupt American Airlines – not giving him credit for failure here, but for refusing to take a severance package after 30 years with the company…

“I believe it’s important to the character of the company and its ultimate long-term success to do your very best to honor those commitments (to the company’s employees and holders of its stock and debt),” (Arpey) said. “It is not good thinking — either at the corporate level or at the personal level — to believe you can simply walk away from your circumstances.”

I’m not the biggest fan of former Dem Senator David Boren (though he’s a titan of intellect and morality compared to his slimy son), but I think the elder Boren was spot-on when he said “This country would be so much better off if we had more people who had Gerard Arpey’s sense of responsibility and character as well as ability.”

More later...

Thursday Stuff

2011-12-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

Noted anti-unionist Walt Disney died on this day 45 years ago (based on this, though, it looks like a settlement between Disney workers and management was just hammered out a few days ago)…

…and “’tis the season” for this too, unfortunately (here)…

…turning to more seasonal stuff, I guess it’s too late for anybody to “beam Mr. Shatner outta here”…

…and here is an “oughts-era” tale.

Wednesday Stuff

2011-12-14T19:55:00.000-08:00

“What on earth is the President doing” indeed, to say nothing of House Democrats (here)…

…”Worst Persons” (Australian communications minister Stephen Conroy, a guy who apparently is big on censoring those darn Internet tubes for just about anything, lets fly with an “F” blast – have fun polishing the windows of your glass house; Fix Noise collectively gets second place for another incorrect graphic display, this one an attempt to ridicule Willard Mitt Romney – seriously, are they even trying anymore; but Joseph Farah of World Nut Daily takes top “honors” for a stunt that, as far as I’m concerned, defines the term EPIC FAIL – I can’t do justice describing it)…

...and the thought of "skating away" appeals to me this time of year also...

...and does anyone have a bicarbonate of soda?

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 8)

2011-12-14T09:11:00.001-08:00

(Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, Part Five is here, Part Six is here, and Part Seven is here.)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Guy Petroziello, editorial page editor of the Bucks County Courier Times, gets a mention here, and I need a minute to set this up.

Petroziello published a Letter to the Editor from Bucks County Repug Committee Chair Pat Poprik in September in which she criticized the Democrats for the PA Voter Assistance Office boondoggle last year, which appeared to be a ham-handed attempt by the Dems and the campaign of former rep Patrick Murphy to ensure that absentee ballots were sent to one location (the actual office apparently did not, and does not, exist). However, no illegality has ever been proven, and to date no one has been charged.

However, I happen to know that Petroziello will not allow any mention, in a Letter to the Editor, Vent or Guest Opinion, of the Rob Ciervo/Mike Fitzpatrick voter fraud letter from about the same timeframe last year, in which the parents of college students were told to send absentee ballots to the residences of the students at their campuses, creating confusion about which addresses should be written on the actual ballots (if the college residence is shown on the ballot instead of the voting district residence, the ballots are discarded). And this is the case even though the Ciervo/Fitzpatrick letter was reported by his own newspaper! Oh, and did I mention that college students primarily (but not always) vote for Democrats?

The house organ of “Mikey The Beloved” strikes again.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Conservative comedian (I can never figure out if that’s redundant or a contradiction) Eric Golub for referring to liberals here as “special needs children”; he was opening up for a speech by Palin, apparently, who of course will never criticize conservatives for mocking the handicapped (oh, but Rahm Emanuel and his oh-so-awful “temper” is just SOOO BAD for referring to someone as “retarded,” isn’t he?)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Former Philadelphia Eagles kicker (and All-Pro) David Akers, for thanking Eagles fans here with a billboard that he paid for as he departed for San Francisco, where he signed with the 49ers (and the Eagles remain an utterly amateur organization for continuing to boot experienced veterans out the door when they could provide leadership to younger players; coach Andy “I Will Never Win A Super Bowl, Though I’ve Conned This Ownership Into Thinking I Will” Reid’s remarks after Akers missed two kicks in a playoff game against Green Bay earlier this year were particularly classless, especially considering that Akers found out that his little girl was suffering from a malignant tumor before the game…Green Bay ended up winning the Super Bowl; I don’t think two missed kicks would have ended up making a difference – hopefully Akers will receive the professional respect from the 49ers that the Eagles refused to give him here…by the way, as of this month, the 49ers lead the AFC West and Akers is having another Pro Bowl year, and the Eagles have about a hair’s width of a chance of making the playoffs after they “crashed and burned” despite all of the Philly “Dream Team” media hype...another "pigskin pick" shortly)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee earns a mention – I’ll need a minute to set this up also.

As Daily Kos tells us, federal agents raided the Gibson guitar company last month looking for illegally imported exotic woods. The raid followed one in 2009; no charges have yet been filed but the cases are ongoing.

And as a follow up to that...

(Blackburn) invited (Gibson Guitar CEO Henry) Juszkiewicz as her guest at Obama's jobs speech on 9/8, to make the point that, by enforcing laws inconvenient to Gibson Guitar, Obama is creating a bad environment for jobs.

As DK also tells us, “According to a law passed in 2008, prior to the Obama presidency, it is illegal to import wood that was illegally exported from its country of origin. Gibson Guitar was found doing exactly that, and was raided for further evidence. And this…is evidence that Obama is somehow overreaching. By enforcing laws passed under George W. Bush.” (and more from Captain Clueless in a minute, by the way)

As long as Moon Unit Bachmann continues to take up space in the U.S. House, Blackburn will never have to worry about being the stupidest Republican in that entire body. However, that really isn’t anything to brag about, is it?

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The National Football League earns a dubious mention for scheduling a full slate of games on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (so let me get this straight – they were prepared to delay the season as a result of the players’ lockout in the event that a new collective bargaining agreement had not been reached, but they decided not to do that to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the worst foreign-based terrorist attack this country had ever seen).

As far as I’m concerned, the anniversary should have been a day of reflection and remembrance only; probably puts me in the minority, but so be it. Yes, I realize people probably went through that exercise in their own way within themselves, and that’s fine. However, there’s still a ton of information about the attacks, to say nothing of the aftermath, that we should remember and reflect on also (Rachel Maddow and Richard Engle of NBC News hosted a bunch of programs in this vein in the two weeks leading up to the remembrance; everyone else should have also…and a Do Gooder citation within this one goes to the New York Times for publishing a great remembrance section on the anniversary).

Would it have really killed the NFL to start the season on the week of 9/18 instead? I think not.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Anyone mad at NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for deciding not to have any religious figures at the 9/11 10th anniversary observance at the WTC site; see, if you really wanted leaders of the religious faiths of all of the victims, that would include a Muslim or two also…and I would guess that more than a few of the people complaining about Bloomberg’s decision also helped raise the hue and cry over the “ground zero mosque” also, and Bloomberg probably decided that he didn’t want to deal with the whole mess…I can’t blame him (though Bloomberg would definitely not cover himself in glory in response to OWS later, which I’ve pointed out before I know)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Dubya, for claiming any credit whatsoever for bin Laden’s death (here...what a pathetic, venal little nothing of a human being; under this logic, or what passes for it, Bill Clinton should get credit too since he was hunting bin Laden before Dubya supposedly was)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

That sleazy weasel Eric Cantor for calling for cuts to first responders in exchange for emergency disaster aid on the eve of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 here (there are actually human beings who, I suppose, manage to sleep at night even though they voted for this cretin – beyond belief...also for this)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

The job search web site Indeed.com, for banning job listings that discriminate against unemployed job seekers (here)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao and “Eye Doctor” Rand Paul for thinking that their teabagger cred is more important than the health and well being of their constituents; as noted here, they both oppose President Obama’s American Jobs Act, and all the while, a major federal bridge connecting their state with Ohio (or Indiana – not sure) is closed due to “potentially serious and catastrophic” structural cracks (of course, Obama’s Act would put people to work fixing it – looks like something else besides the notions of government from these two nitwits is defective…but then again, Kentucky voters, somebody elected them – take a look in the mirror)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Federal Judge Christopher C. Conner of Pennsylvania ruled here that the individual mandate in the health care law is “unconstitutional” (commerce clause, commerce clause…how many stinking times do I have to keep repeating it?).

Why do I have a big, ugly picture of “Activist” Hangin’ Judge JR making new law and torpedoing the whole damn thing when it eventually gets to him?

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Claudia Rendon for this (and I'm curious to find out the employer who treated her so shabbily - no wonder they don't want that information to be known)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Ron Paul, at long last, for this – when it comes to political hypocrisy, I don’t know how you can get any lower (and hopefully I never will)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Federal Judge Marcia G. Cooke gets it for blocking a Florida law that forbids doctors from asking patients about whether or not they own a firearm here; Judge Cooke quite rightly claimed that the law violates the First Amendment speech rights of the doctors (of course, Lex Luthor Scott will appeal…another waste of taxpayer funds, but hey, people actually elected this meat sack – I keep saying that about these clowns because it’s always true).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Pat Robertson, for saying that Alzheimer’s somehow makes divorce OK here (no doubt taken from a passage included in the Book of Hypocrisy, Chapter 11, Verses 6:8)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

The Foo Fighters, for turning the tables on Fred Phelps and his gang of hateful, bigoted freaks, otherwise known as the Westboro Baptist Church, here (serenading them on a flatbed pickup truck dressed as hillbillies, right in front of one of their little protests – genius!)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The board of directors of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency get a dishonorable mention for awarding $750,000 in public funds to Brooklyn-based artist Tom Otterness to make 59 bronze sculptures of the “cartoonish characters he now makes” for a local subway station (here).

What could possibly be wrong with this? It turns out that in 1977, Otterness made a short film in which he shot and killed a dog he adopted from an animal shelter under the guise of “art.” And somehow the agency didn’t know this apparently when they gave Otterness the funds.

I’m sure another round of wingnut “humor” bashing San Francisco as a supposed bastion of liberal decadence was spawned over this. Nice work (at least San Francisco mayor Ed Lee has put the project on hold pending an investigation – h/t John at Eschaton).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Sen. Charles (“Muffin Man”) Grassley for this (and a dishonorable mention to Repug U.S. House Rep Ted Poe also...and does it need to be pointed out yet again that this turned out to be a wingnut "scandal" about absolutely nothing?)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

As noted here, cross-country runner Josh Ripley participated in a contest in Andover, MN in September; he was running the course when he heard a scream from another injured runner, Mark Paulauskas of Lakeville South.

Every other runner passed Paulauskas by, but not Ripley. So what did Ripley do? He turned and carried Paulauskas a half mile back to the starting line, which was a good thing because Paulauskas had been accidentally spiked by another runner on the course, and he needed to be taken to a nearby ER to get 20 stitches to stop the bleeding (he also needed to be fitted for a walking boot). After carrying the injured runner back, Ripley, though winded, still found a way to turn around and run the course, finishing the race.

So Ripley did a good deed and still somehow found the stamina to participate in the run. Nice work.

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Stephen Hill, serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq, for “coming out” in front of the Repug presidential candidates beauty pageant on 9/22 here (and Dregs citations both to the audience who actually booed Hill and the Repug presidential candidates for not both supporting Hill and telling the audience that they’re homophobic idiots)

Dregs of the Year (Maybe The Millennia) Nominee

Judge Edith Jones of the U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for this (wow)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Yes, I can picture the scolding I’ll get for this and snide derision about “the professional left” once more, but President Obama has to get it for the sale of bunker-buster bombs to Israel (h/t profmarcus – I guess this is the “geopolitik” approach from the Obama White House while also pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians over settlements, but I still think it stinks)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Rose Marie Belforti – as this New York Times story tells us, she is the…

…elected town clerk in this sprawling Finger Lakes farming community (Ledyard, N.Y.) and a self-described Bible-believing Christian. She believes that God has condemned homosexuality as a sin, so she does not want to sign same-sex marriage licenses; instead, she has arranged for a deputy to issue all marriage licenses by appointment.

…

Ms. Belforti, represented by a Christian legal advocacy group based in Arizona, the Alliance Defense Fund, is arguing that state law requires New York to accommodate her religious beliefs.

“New York law protects my right to hold both my job and my beliefs,” she said in an interview last week, pausing briefly to collect $50 from a resident planning to take 20 loads of refuse to the town dump. “I’m not supposed to have to leave my beliefs at the door at my government job.”

But the couple, Deirdre DiBiaggio and Katie Carmichael of Miami, are arguing that the law requires all clerks in New York to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The couple are being represented by a liberal advocacy organization, People for the American Way, based in Washington.

“Gay people have fought so long and hard to get these civil rights,” said Ms. Carmichael, 53, a filmmaker. “To have her basically telling us to get in the back of the line is just not acceptable.”

In response, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says…

“When you enforce the laws of the state, you don’t get to pick and choose,” he said this summer. And the State Health Department issued a memorandum to clerks that refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples would be a misdemeanor.

Uh, yep.

So obey the damn law, OK? (h/t Atrios).

...on the other hand...

Dregs of the Year Nominee

New York Mayor Andrew Cuomo for this (he definitely should know better)

Dregs of the Year Nominee (Commemorative “Look Out Kid, It’s Something You Did…God Knows When, But You’re Doing It Again” Citation)

A certain R. Zimmerman – as noted here…

Bob Dylan faced uncomfortable questions Wednesday over several paintings in a New York exhibition by the prolific singer-songwriter that appear to have been copied directly from other artists' photographs.

The paintings are part of a show at the Gagosian Gallery titled "The Asia Series," billed as "a visual reflection on his travels in Japan, China, Vietnam, and Korea."

According to the Gagosian, the art work, which went on display earlier this month, shows how Dylan "is inspired by everyday phenomena in such a way that they appear fresh, new, and mysterious."

But Dylan watchers and an article in The New York Times highlight another mystery behind the exhibition: that several paintings supposedly reflecting Dylan's globe-trotting artistic career are nearly identical to already published photographs.

If Dylan used images of other artists, that’s fine as far as I’m concerned. All I (and others I’m sure) care about is that he acknowledge that. After all, it’s not as if most of them (I would guess) are going to come anywhere close to approaching him when it comes to celebrity status; maybe a plug from Dylan would help their careers or their recognition in the art world.

Otherwise, as somebody once wrote, “all the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.”

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Skank of America, as Bill Maher calls it; I actually was going to give them a pass on this because they had company in adding their onerous debit card monthly “swipe” fees along with other financial miscreants like Wells Fargo (B of A is going with $5 a month, and W.F. is going with $3 a month in some southern states, which means that, like a lot of other bad ideas from below that Mason-Dixon line, it will be nationwide soon enough).

But no, Skank gets it for the following supposed justification…

The bank, the largest in the nation by assets, blamed its decision on the so-called Durbin Amendment, a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law put into place by Democrats in 2010 that set limits on the fees banks could charge retailers for swiping their debit cards.

Bank of America said the economics of debit cards has been altered by the fee limit, which will take effect Oct. 1. Banks say the fees go to pay indirect costs of providing debit cards, such as fraud and overdraft protection.

In response, Dick Durbin said the following…

“It seems that old habits die hard for Bank of America,” Durbin said in response to the new policy. “After years of raking in excess profits off an unfair and anti-competitive interchange system, Bank of America is trying to find new ways to pad their profits by sticking it to its customers.

“It’s overt, unfair and I hope their customers have the final say.”

I hope so too (sigh...also, Dregs citations to CEO Brian Moynihan for this and this).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Randy Forbes (here)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times, who estimated here that there were only “80” protestors at the “Occupy Wall Street” protests, presumably across the country (try thousands, numb nuts…oh, and way to suck up to the criminals responsible for the catastrophic state of our economy the way you did in that book and movie of yours – another thing: I’m still waiting for your apology to Paul Krugman for saying that Krugman wanted to nationalize the U.S. banks, which was a flat-out lie)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

There are lots of reasons to give it to Charles and David Koch, but as noted here…

A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.

Why do Charles and David Koch hate America? And yes, I’m asking that question with total seriousness.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Moon Unit Bachmann, for replying, when a talk radio caller said he’d vote for Charles Manson over Obama, “hey, thank you for saying that” (what a pinecone…the correct answer is “even if you don’t like President Obama, it’s utterly disgusting to mention him in the same breath as one of this country’s most notorious mass murderers” – imagine the howls of outrage, which would be justifiable, if a lefty said something like that about Dubya...here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Hank Williams, Jr. gets it for comparing Obama to Hitler here (God, that’s so 2009, dude). Oh, and as a result, that dumb song of his that led into “Monday Night Football” was dropped (tee hee…what an asshat, to say nothing of an unworthy namesake to your old man…and yes, he apologized, but I’m tired of idiots like him saying preposterous crap like this about Obama and then saying “oops, sorry if people were offended,” instead of saying “oops, I’m a freaking idiot for saying it in the first place”).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for this (and best wishes to his wife in her recovery from breast cancer)

Dregs of the Year Nominee (Commemorative, “Hey, I’ve Got A New App Called ‘Hyperbole 4.0’” Citation)

Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs (who passed away in October, of course), compared Jobs’ death to the assassinations of JFK and John Lennon here (ummm, no...Jobs had been in poor health for some time and benefitted from the very best our for-profit health care system in this country has to offer; the other two were calamitous acts of sudden violence that shocked the world and have reverberated for decades, and will probably continue to do so).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Right-wing nut job (redundant?) Laura Ingraham for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

It should be noted that the performance of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during the “Occupy Wall Street” protests starting in September has been particularly awful (pointing that out yet again, I know); not a word of reproach aimed at “Sergeant Pepper Spray” who snuck up on two women protestors behind a barricade and attacked them when they weren’t looking (the officer then did his best to disappear into the crowd), not a word of reproach at the NYC police officers who arrested some of the OWS crowd that tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge without warning them not to do so in traffic lanes, and finally, this item in which he claims that the OWS protestors are “trying to destroy jobs” (your “benefactors” who bankroll your campaigns and are the targets of the protests have already done a far better job of that than anyone ever could).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Goalie Jason LaBarbera of the Phoenix, AZ Coyotes earns a mention here; he has chosen to honor former Army Cpl. and one-time Arizona Cardinal football player Pat Tillman with images of Tillman on his goalie mask; as we all know, Tillman’s 2004 death in Afghanistan was propagandized to the max by our prior ruling cabal under Bushco before the truth came out that he was killed by friendly fire (Tillman was also a fan favorite at Arizona State).

Also…

For every win (LaBarbera) gets during the 2011-12 season, he plans to donate $420 -- Tillman's number was 42 -- to the Pat Tillman Foundation. It was started by Pat's widow, Marie, and provides support to military service members and their families.

All class.

...on the other hand...

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Patrick Howley for this (if anything, though, I’m surprised it took the wingnuts this long to try a stunt like this concerning OWS and the “99 percenters”)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

John Smid, the “ex-gay ministry leader” who has “come out” himself and recanted his previous teachings, which hopefully will lead to a greater understanding of LGBT issues (here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who said, in response to the “Occupy Boston” protest (in which protestors were arrested for supposedly despoiling a green area, even though that city’s jackbooted cops did a lot more to do that during the actual arrest than the protestors did), that “civil disobedience doesn’t work for Boston” here (ummm…if it weren’t for “civil disobedience” in Boston from about 240 or so years ago, this country wouldn’t exist – h/t Will Bunch)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The city council of Topeka, Kansas, for repealing its local law that makes domestic violence a crime as a “cost cutting” measure here (what the hell is wrong with these people?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Pancake Joe Pitts for this latest atrocity, a bill that would allow hospitals that already don’t perform abortions to turn away women seeking the procedure to save their lives, basically denying abortions in any circumstance (I assume Pitts is married, but I don’t know; if so, his wife truly suffers from Stockholm Syndrome)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

Yahoo, for deciding to part ways with the “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce (here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Trent (“You Have To Have Shot Someone” To Be Elected) Franks of Arizona…yes, Arizona, the state containing the city of Tucson, where you-know-what happened last January (here - what an asshat)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Freshman (person?) Repug U.S. House Rep Jamie Herrera Beutler gets it here for asking the Centralia (WA) Chronicle newspaper not to publish her “town hall” event, apparently wishing to keep it secret so only her supporters would find out (nice try, cupcake – and a Do Gooder citation to the Chronicle for refusing to go along with her stupid request).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Marine Corps Sgt. Shamar Thomas, who stood up to 30 NYC policemen during the Occupy Wall Street protest in October, with only words as his weapon (the act of a true hero - here)

More later (yes, there's more).

Tuesday Stuff

2011-12-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

(Hopefully back to “Do-Gooders And Dregs” tomorrow, by the way…)

Thirty years ago, the former Soviet Union crushed the Polish Solidarity movement and imposed martial law – here is a remembrance (oh, and by the way, Jeane Kirkpatrick reminds us here of Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech, which I always thought was a strange thing to call it seeing as how Carter never uttered the word in his speech even once – of course, Kirkpatrick’s spin on the speech is nothing but propaganda, which was typical for her – peversely funny now to hear Richard Perle telling us that “détente didn’t work” when that is exactly what The Sainted Ronnie R pursued with Gorby later that decade).

Also, you may find some of the same parallels that I found between Solidarity in the clip and today’s “Occupy” protests, just to let you know…

…and I’m sorry – I believe in a just and merciful God, but I can’t believe He would let us be lucky enough to get this baboon as the nominee…

…and here is more traditional seasonal fare…

…and I suppose this is too.

Monday Stuff

2011-12-12T20:40:00.001-08:00

You can tell that Willard Mitt Romney really “screwed the pooch” on the whole “$10,000 bet” thing when even our corporate media decided to pay attention (of course, “Fix and Fiends” couldn’t resist the opportunity to propagandize about the payroll tax cut in one of the clips…and not only does it make Romney look like a rich, out-of-touch, elitist Republican – which he is – but based on this, it makes him a pretty lousy Mormon too, inasmuch as it’s possible to measure that)…

…and if there’s ever a blog that deserves some coin or two, it’s Think Progress, for the reasons noted in the clip (from here)…

…and I always liked this John Denver version of a holiday favorite, full of scenes from The Big Apple…

…and though this isn’t what “Der Bingle” had in mind, it still works for me anyway.

Sunday Stuff

2011-12-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

Isn’t it hilarious to hear well-to-do white people pontificate about how “poor” kids should work at an early age instead of benefit from the comparatively meager educational opportunities that exist for them (to say nothing of the largely well-to-do white people in the audience applauding that idiotic notion - here)?

Oh, and by the way, in response to Gingrich’s crap about janitors and teachers, I give you the following (here)…

New York City teachers certainly don’t get paid enough. The base pay is about $45,000, and it takes 22 long years to hit the $100,000 cap, according to the Department of Education. A city janitor maxes out about $6,000 higher—those top 20 reported to earn over $140,000 did so through massive overtime. But in the U.S., the average janitor makes $22,000—roughly half of a teacher’s starting pay. A handful of custodians who have worked long and hard enough to make a good living shouldn’t be an affront to anyone.

Also, from here…

The fact is, Gingrich and the Republican Party want to end child labor laws so that they can replace union workers with cheap labor. Children are easily manipulated and if Gingrich were allowed to put his plan in action, corporations wouldn’t have to provide health care to their new child labor force because they would all be working part-time. This is a way for corporations to eliminate adult workers and would aid in the Republican scheme to end public education. When would young kids find time for school if they are working for pennies? The answer is they wouldn’t. And at that crucial age, school is very important to the development of young minds. If children have to work, it would most likely have to be during the day, when schools are in session. Children will miss valuable educational lessons and will grow up to be ignorant, which is exactly what the Republican Party wants the population to be. Besides, if young kids are used to replace adults in the workforce, they are unlikely to find jobs as an adult because their jobs will be filled by another generation of child labor. Republicans want to groom future generations of Americans to accept what amounts to slave labor. It’s a vicious cycle that will only serve the interests of corporations and the GOP.

Yep, I would say that pretty much nails it.

Also, as noted here (when Gingrich was House Speaker before he resigned in disgrace, in response to Gingrich telling us how much he supposedly loves to fund science)…

…Gingrich and his Republican colleagues succeeded...in pushing through a broad program of (budget) austerity that, though it preserve(d) most of the basic research programs now in place, (put) them on a strict diet. As this issue went to press, most basic research institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health, which sponsors biological and medical research, were slated for cost-of-living increases at best, while others, such as the National Science Foundation, were expected to have to make do on slightly less.

…

The Republicans are expected to continue chipping away at spending on science in 1996. If Congress makes good on its resolution to balance the budget, it will have to cut science and technology spending by 3 3 percent (I assume that’s 3.3 with a typo) over the next seven years, according to estimates by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Stagnation could be the result, as young scientists find it increasingly difficult to win funding. From their viewpoint, American science could be racing toward the millennium on a diet of cold gruel.

And there are people I talk to who actually wonder why I don’t watch this crap.

...and from the ridiculous to the sublime, I give you this.

Saturday Stuff

2011-12-10T19:41:00.001-08:00

Is anybody out there looking for a holiday “stocking stuffer”? Here’s a suggestion (probably a little late on this video, I’ll admit – I never imagined a line of sorts from shielding a certain R.M. Nixon all the way to shielding the banksters, Big Pharma, and the rest of the one percent, but fortunately, Glenn Greenwald did more than imagine it)…

…and I thought this was a catchy little seasonal number (sorry, no video).

Friday Stuff

2011-12-09T21:08:00.000-08:00

Happy 95th birthday to Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas (a scene that has been often lampooned, but never duplicated, nor could it be)…

…and kudos to Elizabeth Warren for giving Turd Blossom a dose of what he deserves (here)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…and Rachel Maddow brings us the “Best New Thing In The World” (yeah, it’s all about that infrastructure that the Repugs hate so much…and by the way, on a similar theme, that being jobs, this was a great Guest Opinion in the Bucks County Courier Times today, for a change)…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

…and here is another holiday item (jump back - gonna kiss myself!).

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 7)

2011-12-09T14:16:00.001-08:00

(On we go...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 Gooder of the Year Nominee

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for acting like an adult here on the issue of raising the debt limit, coming up with a plan to raise the ceiling by $2.7 trillion along with $2.7 trillion in cuts, which largely come from “winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” as opposed to Man Tan Boehner and his fellow Repugs who don’t give a damn about the deficit and want to do all they can to stick it to Obama (and gut entitlements as well as preserving those stinking Bush tax cuts, of course – the NYT said Reid’s deal wasn’t so hot, but at least he tried to move the ball the right way, as it were)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Pastor” Rick (Half Of America Doesn’t Pay Taxes) Warren here (yet another h/t Atrios - maybe a record this year)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ruled that NY Times reporter James Risen did not have to testify in court about who gave him details on a top-secret CIA program targeting Iran; Judge Brinkema ruled Risen would only be required to take the stand to verify the accuracy of his reporting and would not be required to identify any confidential source or sources (wise – here)…

…but on the other hand, Judge Brinkema might have unnecessarily opened up the proverbial can of worms, as noted here.

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Former U.S. House Rep Bob Edgar, now head of Common Cause, who was arrested here along with 10 other religious leaders in July after they knelt to pray in the Capitol Rotunda to protest proposed cuts to social services prior to the conclusion over that utter nonsense in the matter of raising the debt ceiling (Edgar is also a United Methodist minister…exactly the sort of person we need in government, as opposed to the type of cretins we generally have now)

...and speaking of cretins...

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Doug Lamborn of Colorado, who said here that associating with President Obama is like “touching a tar baby” (he later apologized, yet again, as well he should...at least the third such instance this year by my count)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Former Dregs of the Year Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao, who said here after that ridiculous debt ceiling vote nonsense played itself out in August that he was prepared to go through all of it again (once more, idiot voters send this life form back to Washington over and over…unfortunately, McConnell’s antics affect not just Kentucky, but the whole country)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Holy Joe” Lieberman for this (presumably, so we can fight them “there” so we don’t have to fight them “here,” and yes, that’s snark...this guy can't be gone soon enough)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Uber Alles” Buchanan for referring to Obama as “boy” here (and kudos to Al Sharpton for not letting him get away with it…seriously, why is Buchanan still on TV?)...

…and more here (unbelievable).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug Iowa Governor Terry Branstad for vetoing a tax break for the poor because it didn’t lower corporate taxes (here – what a scumwad)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Once again, the bar is set low, but I have to give it to Governor Bully for this (lots of other stuff wrong with this guy of course, but he "found the nut" here)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominees

Our brave Navy SEALs and other personnel killed in Afghanistan in August here (I’m sure the Pentagon is doing some kind of a review to determine why the #@!! so many of them were in that chopper together, including Chief Petty Officer Michael Strange of Philadelphia)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Actor Jeremy Irons for this charming quote (and by the way, for all of his good performances, he should have paid me to sit through “Dead Ringers”…h/t Daily Kos)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The 11th Circuit Federal Appeals Court for ruling against the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate here (commerce clause, people – how many goddamn times do we need to keep repeating that?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Shery Lanford Smith of the Sumter County, Wisconsin Tea Party (figures) gets it for making yet another joke here about killing President and Mrs. Obama here (ha ha – have fun explaining this to the Secret Service, wingnut).

And Joe Nocera of the New York Times actually felt he had to apologize to these cretins (actually, he should’ve apologized for that horrible column about Boeing and the Dems in August)…

…and I guess Nocera would apologize to the Teahadists for this too.

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Judge David Hamilton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit earns a mention here; he upheld a lawsuit by Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, two contractors who went to Iraq to work for an American security firm and became whistleblowers when Mr. Vance grew suspicious that the company was involved in illegal activity, including weapons trafficking (the suit by the two claims they were “physically threatened, abused, and assaulted by the anonymous U.S. officials working as guards”).

And by the way, the parties named in the suite are Former Defense Secretary Rummy “and others” (Bushco will face the music one of these days, and hopefully, this is the beginning of that process).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Minnesota Twin (and former Phillie...and now a Phillie again - yaay!) Jim Thome for hitting his 600th career home run in August (here)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Baby Newton Leroy Gingrich for saying here that same-sex marriage is to blame for our lousy economy (OWWWW, TEH STOO-PID!!! IT BURNS US!!! And he's the frontrunner - hilarious)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Willard Mitt Romney for criticizing Obama's vacation in Martha’s Vineyard here (here we go again) – turns out the Mittster will be there the same day (what a moron)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Crazy Tom Coburn for this (and he will never face criticism over remarks like this from our corporate media – ever)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Pope Benedict XVI for this (a little more of what you might call "social action" would be nice to go with this too, Your Holiness)…

Worst Attempt at False Equivalency By A Dem Who Should Know Better

The term “firebagger” was coined by Obama campaign staffer Ray Sandoval in an attempt to demonize those on the left who may be a bit strident at times (though we’re just about always right on the issues, as it happens) by equating us with the teabaggers, presumably meant as a shot at the blog firedoglake (here - and the geniuses in the Obama Administration actually wonder why “the professional left” gets mad at them).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Antonio Diaz Chacon, who chased down a suspected child abductor and saved a 6-year-old girl from what could have been a horrible fate, as the story tells us; on top of that, he also announced that he’s here in this country illegally (I don’t typically encourage that, but I admire his courage for standing up and doing his best to defeat the wingnut narrative that all illegals are nothing but law-breaking scum living off the “big gumint” teat…by doing so, Chacon single handedly has made a tremendous case for common-sense federal immigration reform AT LONG LAST!)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Puppy dog-eyes Paul Ryan for calling the cops on unemployed constituents who staged a sit-in at his office to protest Ryan’s plan to pay for access to his town hall meetings here (oh, but he’s a common sense, Catholic conservative according to our corporate media, not a shameless lackey for the “pay no price, bear no burden” investor class doing ALEC’s bidding…sure he is)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Straight Talk” McCain and Huckleberry Graham for thanking every country but the U.S. for their role in topping Quaddafi in August here (the lengths that some people won’t go to in order to take a swipe at Number 44 – why do they hate America?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee (“One Really BAA-AAD Idea” Citation)

PA Gov. Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett gets it for his education budget cuts that forced schools in Carlisle, PA to use sheep to cut grass instead of lawnmowers here (unbelievable).

Dregs of the Year Nominee (Special “Born Free…Of Intelligence” Citation)

Texas (of course) GOP congressional candidate Roger Williams compared welfare recipients to donkeys here (takes one to know one, dude).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Steve Chabot of Ohio for banning cell phones and video recorders (which happens to be illegal) from his “town hall” events as a response to push-back he got over lying about Planned Parenthood here (this tactic is also utterly appalling – what country am I living in again?)...

…though it looks like somebody got the message to this clown (here).

Dregs of the Year Nominees (Commemorative “Seven Days In May” Citation)

William Gheen, head of the hardline anti-immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration, who appeared on the talk radio show of “Christian” wingnut Janet Mefferd to discuss plans for an actual military coup against Obama here…so the citation goes out to Gheen, Mefferd – who apparently treated this in kind of a typical blasé manner instead of telling Gheen that he and his pals are nuts and engaging in a criminal act – and those shadowy characters who are actually discussing and probably planning treason against this country; I just asked the question, but I’m keen to ask it once more…what country am I living in again?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, who said here that he expect unemployment to remain high “for years” (for a guy who wrote his thesis on the Great Depression I believe, he sure is dumb as a rock when it comes to putting people back to work)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

Daniel Webster and Tim Griffin for this…

“Perhaps A Distant Relative of Chase Utley?” Commemorative Citation

As noted here…

Global news outlets and blogs in Asia have focused this week on a young woman who graduated top of her class at a prestigious college in Singapore. Except they aren't raving about the student's accomplishments. They're abuzz with a bad word she dropped in her graduation speech, according to Singapore's Straits Times.

"We f–king did it!" Trinetta Chong exclaimed to congratulate her peers at Nanyang Technical University's 2011 graduating ceremony. The 23-year-old's remark came after what a local reports called a "rousing" six-minute speech.

Might as well blame those lazy, overweight, unemployed Americans for that also, huh?

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation, for using unpaid Chinese laborers to complete the memorial here (the dedication ceremony was postponed from August 28th due to Hurricane Irene – I seem to recall Dr. King having a thing or two to say about economic opportunity; in fact, supporting it was the last thing he did before he died...more here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Stuart Varney of Fix Noise gets it for saying the poor lack “a richness of spirit” here…

You know what? Upon further consideration, I must tell you that I don’t even know what the #@!$ that means, but if nothing else, it’s still pretty damn stupid.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“Goodhair” Perry earns a mention here for billing the U.S. $350 million, supposedly for the cost of Texas incarcerating undocumented immigrants; the thought process (or what passes for one) I guess is that it’s the fault of the federal government for not passing immigration reform.

As noted here, that same supposedly awful federal government assumed $10 million of Texas debt when that state entered the union in 1845 (no idea how that translates to current dollars). So Perry really should shut his pie hole on this (but why pass up the chance for a good sound bite, I guess?).

Oh, and Perry wrongfully claimed that "tort reform" has been a panacea in his state, when in fact, you could argue that it has increased Medicare spending in his state, as noted here.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Glenn Beck for calling Hurricane Irene a “blessing” here (typically disgusting)…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

California school superintendent Larry Powell for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

The Pima County, AZ Republican Party for this (hard to find the words to truly communicate my disgust)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

President Obama for backing down on creating and enforcing a new standard on ozone pollution here (it’s almost comical to see how many times President Hopey Changey gets rolled by his foes…we need a fighting Dem, but unfortunately, we’re stuck with someone who, more often than not, is nothing but a martinet...lately, though, he's shown a bit more of a spine, which I attribute to OWS)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

New York State Rep Leo Berman of the Crazy Party here for being the one to get all that “anti-Sharia law” crap propagated all over the country, particularly the south of course (a “solution” in search of a problem)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Jim Renacci of Ohio for banning a cameraman from the Democratic Party-aligned group American Bridge from his most recent town hall here (I’m sure Mikey the Beloved is taking notes)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Mike Coffman of Colorado, who said here that having Peace Corps volunteers teaching English in China is “an insult to the American taxpayer” (oh yeah, it’s the fault of the Peace Corps that our supposedly august captains of industry in this country, in their eternal, dunderheaded stupidity, gave away the computer hardware business to China and the lion’s share of software development to India to turn a quick profit, to say nothing of adding to the deficit they pretend to care about…God forbid we should act like we belong to a community of nations – so “pre-9/11,” right?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee (Collectively)

The Richmond, VA area Holiday Inn that cancelled an engagement with that sleazy weasel Eric Cantor, citing liberal protestors that the Inn said were “a security threat” here (a demonstration was planned the same night Cantor was slated to speak – yeah, and your breakfast buffet stinks too)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Alex Dicandio, a college student in Tampa, attended a Phillies road game against the Florida Marlins and tried to catch what would have been a ground-ruled double at the very least by Hunter Pence of the Phillies (possibly a home run) with his cap, and ended up interfering with Marlins’ right fielder Bryan Petersen here (and yes, Dicandio is a Phillies fan apparently since he was wearing a team jersey).

Pence was ultimately ruled out on the play, quite probably negating two runs that would have given the Phillies the lead and possibly a win in a game they ended up losing in 14 innings.

So what did Dicandio say? “It should have been a home run.” It probably would have been, doofus, if you hadn’t interfered (yes, calling the player out in that situation is a stupid rule, though it is a matter of interpretation I realize, but trying to change that is a topic for another day; because of the ump’s ruling, Phils manager Charlie Manuel complained and was tossed, and the team played the rest of the game under protest).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Mike Lofgren, former staff member of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote a column here for TruthOut in which he explained why he left Capitol Hill after 30 years and why Republicans are not to be trusted and have devolved into a cult, in his insider opinion (kudos for speaking truth to stupid).

More later (we're getting there).

Thursday Stuff

2011-12-08T17:34:00.001-08:00

I thought this was pretty funny, bad words and all...

Rick Perry - Weak (Strong Parody) - watch more funny videos

…and I’m glad to see that Billo successfully defended himself against the mortal threat of a bystander with a high-res camera asking him a perfectly innocent question (what a turd - Falafel Man I mean)…

…”Worst Persons” (God, Fix Noise is sure hyping the anti-Obama spin cycle into overdrive, aren’t they; Glenn Beck, while trying to plug his next media event, inadvertently steers people towards a gay porn web site…in the immortal words of Max Bialystock in “The Producers,” “just say ‘oops’ and get out”; but Rick Santorum earns another dubious mention for saying that we don’t need food stamps because there is obesity in America – whatever comes after us is going to wonder how in God’s name any human being anywhere would have been stoo-pid enough to help elect Santorum to any public office of any kind)…

…and in keeping with the tradition for this day, I give you the following.

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2011 - Pt. 6)

2011-12-08T06:09:00.000-08:00

(Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, Part Four is here, and Part Five is here.)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The western Michigan teabaggers and U.S. House Rep Justin Amash here for having reporters from Think Progress and seniors ejected from a supposed “town hall” event in which Amash spoke because the people from TP allegedly threw things at the teabaggers, even though multiple individuals testified that no objects were ever thrown (and as TP notes, it’s particularly funny that the teabaggers advocate transparency, supposedly)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Kansas state house Republican Pete DeGraaf – I’ll let this exchange with fellow Rep. Barbara Bollier speak for itself, just as the poster at Daily Kos did (here)…

(DeGraaf), a Mulvane Republican who supports the bill (that called for banning coverage for abortions of rape pregnancies…Dear God, why are these clowns debating this garbage??), told (Bollier): "We do need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?"

Bollier asked him, "And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with pregnancy?"

DeGraaf drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, "I have a spare tire on my car."

"I also have life insurance," he added. "I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for."

And the linked story from the Daily Kos post tells us that DeGraaf is actually a “pastor.”

I cannot imagine what is in the minds of these people, and hopefully, I never will.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug Georgia U.S. House Rep Rob Woodall gets a citation here; in response to a query from a constituent about obtaining health insurance after they’re dropped from their employer and lose private coverage, he chided her and said “when am I going to decide to take care of me” instead of “the gumint” doing it, presumably (Dregs citations also to the idiot constituents who applauded the remark from Woodall).

To begin, it should be noted (according to Ryan Grim’s story) that Woodall now makes about $174 grand a year with “generous benefits,” so he is hardly in the same situation as the vast majority of the constituents he represents. Second, in his tirade about everything that is supposedly wrong with government, he warbled on about how Social Security is adding to the debt, which is a pretty obvious clue that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, since that is part of a separate fund that is nowhere near bankruptcy.

I believe that, basically, constituents get the elected officials they deserve, and it looks like the people represented by this numbskull just want to turn off their brains, turn up the ether and just let themselves be lied to and taken advantage of time and time again.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

House Majority Leader and sleazy weasel Eric Cantor for calling for spending cuts here to (I suppose) offset aid to Joplin, MO, which was struck by a tornado that killed more than 100 people and wrought horrific devastation (as Steve Benen noted elsewhere on this, Cantor has pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of making Tom DeLay look like a moderate by comparison – DeLay has said to pretty much just ante up the aid without any strings, or at least he has said so in similar circumstances)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

“Bibi” Netanyahu, who is a world-class liar for saying here that Israel “does not occupy the West Bank,” when even Ariel Sharon admitted that they did as far back as 2003 (and a secondary citation to all of the idiots in the House who applauded Netanyahu when he said so...of course, Obama and Sarkozy are supposedly bad guys for this - riiiiight)

Dregs of the Year Nominee (and related to the item above)...

Rob Andrews for this (and he was doing so well, but this is a big step backward)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

The Mittster for now claiming here that he supported the automaker bailout (which, again, was really a loan), when he wrote the following in 2009 in the NYT: “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Reagan-appointed federal Judge James Cacheris, who ruled here that corporations have a constitutional right to contribute money directly to political candidates (I thought there may be hope from this development, but no – he let that awful ruling stand, as noted here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee (Special “Welcome To The Club” Citation)

Repug U.S. House Rep Joe Walsh said here that President Obama was elected because he’s black (giving voice to a wingnut narrative others wish would stay silent, no doubt).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

John Elway, vice president of the Denver Broncos and Hall of Famer, for telling the punk rock band Elway to change its name, which actually turned into great publicity for the band, here (maybe the band should change its name to "Quarterback That Bailed On The City of Baltimore" instead)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Get ready for a shock – Kristol Mess gets it for accidentally telling the truth here (the bar is set really low again, I know).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Lex Luthor Scott in Florida for pushing for welfare recipients to undergo drug tests before they claim benefits here (I hope those Florida voters who thought he was a reasonable alternative to Alex Sink last year are happy with themselves)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

That half-term, moose-hunting-from-a-helicopter former governor of Alaska herself for claiming here in Massachusetts (during that bike/bus/whatever tour in May/June) that, during the legendary midnight ride of Paul Revere, he warned The British also (and runner-up citations to her single-digit-IQ fans who tried to edit the related Wikipedia page here to make it conform to her twisted narrative – see HuffPo…still, though, The Old Gray Lady and Mark Leibovich decided to feature her as the main story in its Week in Review section on 6/5 – that woman can literally say or do anything and still get press)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug LA state rep John Labruzzo for comparing women seeking abortions to heroin addicts here (he’s lucky this got out on the same day as the “Weinis” story, as Atrios called it, broke)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Paul Broun of Georgia for this (typical of a repeat offending a-hole like this guy)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Delta Airlines gets a note of infamy here for charging troops returning from Afghanistan an extra $200 each to bring a fourth bag home, forcing one unit to pay more than $2,800 in baggage fees. Evidently, Delta’s policy is to allow troops only three free checked bags, while the soldiers said that their military orders allow them to carry up to four bags free of charge.

So they’re anti-union, anti-fair elections, and now anti-troops to go along with it.

Bastards.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Willard Mitt (“I’m Also Unemployed”) Romney here (elitist, rich, out-of-touch asshole – another h/t to Atrios)…

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for suggesting in a ruling that undocumented immigrants have no Fourth Amendment rights (here)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The fans of the Vancouver Canucks for rioting in that city after the team lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on their home ice here (hey, you’re only entitled to do that if you win, and yes, I’m being tongue-in-cheek…I was tempted to cite the Boston Bruins fans for a pic where two of the faithful were smiling as they watched Mason Raymond of the Canucks sprawled on the ice with a compression fracture of his vertebrae after a check by Johnny Boychuck of the Bruins, but I thought better of it…I don’t know how the other Bruin fans in attendance reacted)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Texas (of course) State Senator Chris Harris gets it for telling Antolin Aguirre of the Austin Immigrant Rights coalition here that “he should be speaking in English” before Harris’ subcommittee during a hearing on an immigration bill (Aguirre, a naturalized citizen since 2001, brought an interpreter with him…probably wouldn’t have done any good anyway, since I don’t think either one of them knew how to talk in “stupid-ese” to Harris).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

The High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR gets the nod yet again for tossing the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that certified the class action lawsuit brought against Wal-Mart by, at one time, 1.5 million women employees claiming discrimination in pay, though the number had fallen to about 500,000 with other court rulings (Scalia – of course – writing for the majority, said that the claim didn’t meet the “commonality” standard, though that many claimants having the same grievance sounds pretty “common” to me…as Adam B. of Daily Kos points out here, business wins in the Roberts court yet again).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Ian Ritchie, the head of England's Wimbledon tennis tournament, for complaining here about the grunting of women tennis players during matches (Dude, seriously, is that what preoccupies your time? Actually, I think it’s kind of kick-ass)…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Louis “Luigi” Borda, a teacher at the college-prep Masterman school in Philadelphia, who embarked on a 100-mile run to Harrisburg to protest the “catastrophic” (yep, that fits) cuts to public education by Repug Gov. Tom “Space Cadet” Corbett (here)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Todd Akin of Missouri for saying here that liberals hate God (a consequence of the continued right-wing hissy fit over NBC’s airing of a pre-taped segment before the U.S. Open golf match including the Pledge of Allegiance - ?? – in which the words “under God” and “indivisible” were omitted, though the network apologized for the omission…wonder how many wingnuts like Akin know that the phrase “under God” wasn’t added to the Pledge until 1953, and the “Bellamy” pose when reading the Pledge for years looked suspiciously like the Sieg Heil salute?)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

The bar continues to be set low here, but I have to give it to Moon Unit Bachmann for this…

…on the other hand…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

To Bachmann for this and this (And what is it with Repug candidates stealing songs? And I think she tried it with “Walking on Sunshine” too and got slapped down again.)

...and let's not forget this too.

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Greta Van Susteren of Fix Noise for saying here that Wisconsin Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson should resign, in response to the news that fellow justice David Prosser “grabbed (Justice Ann Walsh Bradley) around the neck” in an argument in Bradley’s chambers in June (as TP tells us, Abramson has also been victimized by Prosser’s abusive behavior also…and of course, not a word of reproach to Prosser himself)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Missouri Repug Governor Jay Nixon gets it for cutting help for abused children in his state to pay for flood disaster relief here (secondary citations to a certain Willard Mitt Romney and that sleazy weasel Eric Cantor for saying that it is immoral and unacceptable to offer disaster assistance without other spending cuts…then again, give them a minute before they yammer on about how much we supposedly still need Dubya’s stinking tax cuts, one of our biggest deficit “drivers”).

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Judge Emmet Sullivan for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

That fossil Don Imus yet again for this, and yes, I think the photo juxtaposition was intentional (how many second chances is this guy supposed to get?)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

NJ State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Dem, for being dumb enough to actually trust Governor Bully and helping to sell that state’s public employee unions down the proverbial river (here…and for waiting to get angry until AFTER he was totally played by Christie – was this guy born last night or something? Yes, I know he ended up doing the right thing in the end, but give me a break!)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

The Houston, TX jury that acquitted Charles Boartz and KBR of raping former employee Jamie Leigh Jones here (almost too despicable for words)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Obama SecDef Leon “”We’re In Iraq Because of 9/11” Panetta (here – thanks for helping to codify perhaps the most egregious of all the Bushco lies that we have been working tirelessly to refute)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Arizona State Sen. Lori Klein (R). who aimed her raspberry-pink handgun here at a journalist who was interviewing her about her pro-gun positions outside of her chambers; the gun, a .380 Ruger, was loaded, and Klein did not have the safety on (oh, but I’m sure that raspberry pink color was just so adorable, wasn’t it?)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Christian Lopez, the New York Yankees fan who, after catching the ball from Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit (a home run), gave it back to Jeter when Lopez could have kept it and probably earned six figures out of the deal…and though it pains me to say this, a Dregs citation goes to the IRS for making Lopez pay anywhere from $5 to $13G in taxes on the gifts he received from the Yankees in return, including “luxury box tickets for the rest of the season (including postseason), along with signed baseballs, bats and jerseys from Jeter” – Lopez also scored four premium front-row seats to the June 10th Yankees-Rays game (sickens me that a honest man like Lopez could get hosed on taxes like this while megacorps like GE ended up paying zilch in taxes in 2010 - here)

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Peter King for this (what balls, considering how his party takes its marching orders from Roger Ailes and Rupert The Pirate…Dem Rep Earl Blumenauer of Oregon gets a nod also for echoing King’s call for an investigation into “RupertCorp”...more on this later)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Cisco, for this…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Eric (“I Don’t Remember Any Terrorist Attacks On American Soil” Between 2000 and 2008) Bolling (here…the bar for a Fix Noise flunky is already set low, but he cleared it easily)

Dregs of the Year Nominees

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco for ruling here that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” should continue (and the Obama Administration also for asking for a continuance of this discriminatory policy)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

“President Hopey Changey” himself gets it for bailing on Elizabeth Warren as head of the consumer financial protection bureau (here, even though Gallup said Obama was “over performing” here).

Yes, Obama gets credit for standing up and walking out on that ridiculous debt ceiling meeting with Eric Cantor in July, but then he turns around and utterly caves on making Warren a recess appointment.

Do I need to point out for the hundredy umpteenth time how Obama’s predecessor would have handled this? He would have “recessed” the nominee he wanted anyway and extended the middle digit to Congress (and, knowing Dubya, he might have literally done that), all with that idiotic smirk on his face.

Going “balls out,” as it were, to support Warren here was the correct course of action, Mr. President. Instead, yet again, you cut a progressive off at the proverbial knees.

And funny, but I seem to have lost that “Obama 2012” fundraising Email and, gosh darn it, wouldn’t you know that I can’t find it? What a shame (of course, a benefit of this was that it spurred Warren to run against “Wall Street Scott” Brown in Massachusetts, where, last I checked, she had a slight lead).

Update: My bad - seven points is more than "slight" (woo-hoo!).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Tom McClintock of CA for this…

Do Gooder of the Year Nominee

Rais Bhuiyan (this Think Progress post tells us who he is and why what he’s trying to do is so heroic – it would be nice if everyone prattling on about the ZOMG SCARY GROUND ZERO “MOSQUE”! story had read it also)…

More later...

Wednesday PM Stuff

2011-12-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

RIP, Colonel Potter...

...and here is more holiday stuff.