Friday Stuff

I have a message for Bill "Spaceman" Nelson: I hope your career turns into a "non-starter" as a result of this stupid remark (and once more, for the reality point of view, click here)...



...and I dedicate this to the House GOP in light of this story...



...also, here's a number for everyone celebrating the festival of lights beginning tonight...



...and finally, as noted here, Sam Cooke died 45 years ago today (and this is a bit of an eerie coincidence).

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2009 - Pt. 5)

We're rounded the halfway point, for what it's worth (Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, and Part Four is here)...

Do Gooder(s) Of The Year Nominee

Roanoke television station WDBJ-TV for refusing to air a National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) ad attacking freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) for his vote on Waxman-Markey (here; the ad was full of factual inaccuracies – surprised?).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Formula One auto racing boss Bernie Ecclestone, who faced criticism from politicians and Jewish groups after being quoted as saying that Adolf Hitler "got things done" (here - no wonder).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Steve King here of New York for calling Michael Jackson a “child molester” and a “pervert” (the man is DEAD, Rep. King – how about letting go, OK? Besides, those accusations were disproven in court…I have my suspicions too, and I always will, but facts are facts)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

The Valley Swim Club of Huntingdon Valley, PA (just outside Philadelphia), which took $1900 from the Creative Steps Day Camp in NE Philly to let the kids from the day camp swim at the club; the problem is that the swim club is private and they threw out the Creative Steps kids because they were African American (despite what they say, that's what happened...the Valley Swim Club is repugnant for this practice, though I realize they can do what they want if they’re privately funded – at the very least, they should have learned more about Creative Steps before they took their money and not pretended to accept open membership…the best thing would have been for the Valley Swim Club to admit their mistake and let the kids swim, which of course they didn’t do, making the kids feel like pariahs because of the color of their skin…h/t Atrios; the pool would eventually file for bankruptcy here - another story is here, and related posts are here and here)

Waay Too Accommodating Corporate Media Shill Of The Year

As noted here, BoBo of The New York Times tells us that he “sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here,” with Booman quite rightly noting that, were anyone to try that with him, that person would have no more than 10 seconds to move his hand or lose it.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, for suggesting that President Obama’s mother wanted to abort him (here - real nice)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Not that the American Conservative Union needs much of an excuse to be named, but in this Politico exclusive, we find out that the group tried to shake down FedEx over supporting them with Op-Eds and PR stuff against pending Democratic legislation, but FedEx told them to take a walk, but UPS ended up siding with the ACU on this instead (any honor in sight for conservatives on this, people?).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Dem Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota for laughing at ads aired by the DNC aimed at Senators who, according to the Daily Kos, have been reluctant to support President Obama on health care reform (here...about the type of attitude you would expect from someone who doesn’t have to worry about his coverage being dropped – I guess this is what happens when Ted Kennedy is no longer around to whip gutter snipes like Conrad, Carper, Bayh etc. into line on this issue; here's more)

The “Gee, It Sounds Like The LA Times Including Andrew Malcolm Will Now Have To Write An ‘Expose’ On Chelsea Clinton In Response” Citation

This story tells us how both Jenna and Barbara Bush The Younger gave the Secret Service “fits,” as follows (particularly concerning Jenna, according to a book by the WaPo’s Ronald Kessler)…

Jenna would purposely try to lose her protection by going through red lights or by jumping in her car without telling agents where she was going. As a result, in a total waste of manpower, the Secret Service kept her car under surveillance so agents could follow her."

And it wasn't just the twins who stirred up trouble for the Secret Service — Kessler also claims that Jenna's now-husband Henry Hager got so drunk at a 2005 party that agents had to take him to a Georgetown hospital.

(Insert apple/fall/tree snark here.)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Comedy writer (allegedly) Andy Borowitz (OK, he can be funny at times), for making a joke here about liberal bloggers being unable to convince their moms that they met with President Obama, or something (dude, YOU’RE the one posting at Arianna’s site, not me, OK?).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee here, for saying that the House should have “PAYGO enforcement” (i.e., any spending increases are offset by spending cuts).

Nothing wrong with that – however, she then added…

…we're not going to cry 'emergency' every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a Tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending, that we don't go call for a special appropriation that allows us to circumvent the PAYGO rules.

As Jed L. tells us, approximately 1,500 people died as a result of Katrina. But somehow, as far as Blackburn is concerned, that doesn’t justify a “special appropriation” (though I lost count of how many “special appropriations” were passed for Dubya’s Not-So-Excellent Iraq Adventure).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug U.S. House Rep John Adams of Ohio, who introduced a bill here that would prevent a woman from having an abortion until she gets written consent from the biological father. As proposed, the bill triggers criminal penalties against women for “providing a false biological father.”

And, somehow, in the Broder-esque world of “bipartisanship,” the Dems are supposed to accommodate these assclowns as we go about the seemingly eternal work of trying to fix this country after six years of near-total Repug misrule (and I wonder how Adams’ infinitely more famous namesake from Massachusetts would respond – probably thrash him to within an inch of his miserable life; actually, I’d pay to watch Abigail tear him to pieces first if I could).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominees

Dan Rather for fighting back on the whole “Memogate” thing (here - Eric Boehlert was a bit presumptuous, but he still makes good points), and Jackson Browne for not backing down to McCain and winning a judgment and apology for McCain’s illegal use of “Running On Empty” (here, unintentionally apropos).

(And by the way, I think Rather earns a citation here even considering that this occurred...no word on whether or not an appeal is pending.)

The "And Wouldn't You Know It, I Forgot To Order That Late Night 'Indian Farming' Channel From My Cable Provider" Citation

As noted here, farmers in the drought-stricken Indian state of Bihar asked their unmarried daughters to embarrass the weather gods into sending the badly needed monsoon rains by ploughing the fields naked (works for me).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Fluffyhead David Gregory again here, for being one of the loudest complainers of HuffPo’s Nico Pitney’s supposed “access” by virtue of President Obama answering a question from Pitney about the Iranian post-election crackdown, when Gregory, on the other hand, contacted Mark “Don’t Cry For Me, Aregentina” Sanford’s office promising the SC guv an opportunity to frame the debate (or whatever) on Meet The Press.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

The NY Post here for publishing photos taken through a peep hole of ESPN sports journalist Erin Andrews naked in her hotel room.

And as if that isn’t bad enough, get a load of the Post’s explanation from the CBS News link…

The Post defended its publication of the images, while accusing the sports network of having outed Andrews in the first place.

Oh, suuure – nobody would’ve made the connection to Andrews if ESPN had only kept its mouth shut.

Those at the Post who approved publication of the photos instead of immediately turning them over to the police are the lowest vermin that I can imagine.

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee (Special “Errr, Errrrr” (?) Citation)

Departing Repug Ohio Senator George Voinovich, for saying in so many words what I and others have been saying for years here (curiously, Voinovich would pay no price whatsoever for this)

The “Incredible Disappearing Country” Citation Of The Year

Fix Noise had a novel approach to resolving any outstanding issues in Iraq by simply removing the country from the map (here)…

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey here for saying that he “wants the city to require bars to report fights to 911” in the wake of a bar brawl at McFadden’s Pub near Citizens Bank Park that resulted in the death of a patron who was there for his bachelor party (yeah, great move – nothing like diverting scarce needed resources on behalf of a bunch of drunks…I’ve had reservations about Ramsey for a little while now, and I’m starting to remember why).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Lou Dobbs, for resurrecting the Obama “birther” nonsense (so many directions you can go with this guy - take your pick from here)

Unlikeliest Republican Of The Year

Arlo Guthrie (I got a kick out of his reason why here in this New York Times story – yep, the guy who wrote and performed “Coming Into Los Angeles” is a GOPPER, as it turns out)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Rep. Pete Sessions — the chief of the Republicans’ campaign arm in the House — says on his website that earmarks have become “a symbol of a broken Washington to the American people.”

Yet in 2008, Sessions himself steered a $1.6 million earmark for dirigible research to an Illinois company whose president acknowledges having no experience in government contracting, let alone in building blimps (here).

What the company did have: the help of Adrian Plesha, a former Sessions aide with a criminal record who has made more than $446,000 lobbying on its behalf.

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Dem Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York, who got at least as fed up as anybody (probably more so) with the Repugs and their idiotic catcalling about “government-run health care” during the legislative back-and-forth on the issue and introduced a bill “to kill government-run Medicare” here (not a single Repug voted for it, of course…I should tell you that I’m as “hetero” as they come, but I love this guy).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Boston Police Officer Justin Barret, who referred to Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (he of the run-in with Sgt. Joe Crowley, who arrested Gates in his home) as a “jungle monkey” here (Barret was placed on administrative leave...this of course preceded the "have a beer" moment with Crowley, Gates, Obama and Biden).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Dem Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota (FINALLY!), who did the following when T. Boone Pickens was introduced at a Democratic Party policy lunch (here)…

According to a source, the wealthy oil and gas magnate and author of “The First Billion Is the Hardest” stepped up to introduce himself to Franken in a room just off the Senate Floor after the lunch ended.

Franken, who was seated talking to someone else, did not stand when Pickens said hello. Instead, Franken began to berate him about the billionaire’s financing of the Swift Boat ads in 2004.

According to a source, the confrontation grew heated.

Said Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh: “It was a lively conversation.”

And what a typical response from the Pickens people here...

“Boone has clearly moved on and is focused on a mission to solve the foreign oil dependency problem that he believes is a national security and economic crisis that America has to confront. Boone’s grateful for the impressive turnout of Democrats at the Democrat Policy Committee yesterday and for the interest they have shown in helping address this problem.”

As I pointed out here (aside from his scurrilous support of the Swift Boat Liars), Pickens is really running a game to corner the market on all of the natural energy resources of this planet. He has the right to earn a profit as a businessman, I realize, but not in a way that is so utterly irresponsible concerning our energy assets.

Even a member of the “Democrat” Party like me can see something so plainly obvious, which I’m sure has also occurred to Sen. Franken as well (and by the way, we'll hear from Minnesota's male U.S. senator again).

Do Gooder OF The Year Nominee

Former President Bill Clinton gets the nod here, for flying to North Korea and freeing jailed journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

Also, the Clinton Foundation is responsible for the following…

• Two million people in developing countries now have access to low-priced HIV/AIDS medicine, and we’ve just negotiated new pricing agreements that will enable better, cheaper treatments for more patients in the developing world.

• Thousands of schools across the United States have put healthy-eating and exercising programs into practice, so that more children are leading healthier lives.

• To combat climate change, 40 of the world’s largest cities are making progress in reducing their carbon footprint.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa here, for using Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor as a purported reason why government health care (presumably, a public option) is a bad idea – almost too repugnant for words.

Intersection of Karmic Destiny Of The Year Citation

Ben Stein loses his New York Times column over a product endorsement (here) at about the same time that John Hughes dies, the guy who gave Stein his show business break in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (by the way, Stein losing his column was long overdue based on this, if nothing else).

Dem Bleeping #@!hole Of The Year

Rahm Emanuel, for saying here that progressives were being “f$@cking stupid” in running ads pressuring Dem legislators for holding up health care reform (by the way, Rahm, good call to recruit Tim Mahoney in Florida, a guy who was a Repug but changed at the last minute before being voted out of office over a scandal with a mistress...also, I think the decision to "primary" Dem House Rep Donna Edwards of Maryland this year was his dumb idea)

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis here for telling the “teabagger” nuts and other health care protestors to “turn off the TV” when Glenn Beck comes on the air (and did I mention that Inglis is a Republican?)

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Federal Judge Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who, as noted here “sharply criticized the bonuses that Merrill Lynch hurriedly paid out before it was acquired by Bank of America last year and pointedly questioned a federal settlement that had seemed to put the issue to rest”...also for this

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Sen. Johnny Isakson, the Georgia Republican who authored Senate legislation providing Medicare coverage for end-of-life planning, who first said that “how someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as (meaning “death panels”) is nuts” (re: Sarah Palin), but then, when President Obama rightly noted that the provision was Isakson’s idea, the senator “went ballistic” and said he “vehemently opposes the House and Senate health care bills (including) more government involvement in what should be an individual choice,” thus blaming the House for language he introduced himself about end-of-life planning (all here...and have you guessed that Isakson is running for re-election in 2010? I cited him earlier as a "Do Gooder" for supposedly supporting the public option - I should have known better, I guess).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who said here that “The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover,” (and a secondary “Dregs” citation to that worm Lanny Davis here for saying the dustup with Whole Foods, as it were, is an example of “extremes on the left and the right”).

Do Gooder Of The Year

Prof. Stephen Hawking, who suffers from ALS (otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and who defended the British National Health Service here in the face of Republican propaganda (see, it’s funded by the “gumint,” so it has to be bad as far as they’re concerned…morons).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Former head of PR for CIGNA here in Philadelphia Wendell Potter (here), who testified on Captiol Hill against his former industry and on behalf of consumers (and by the way, Bill Moyers himself, noted in the link, should get a Do Gooder citation also for wrapping up an illustrious career this year in investigative advocacy TV journalism)

Dregs of the Year Nominee

The dispatcher for the North Canton, Ohio police department responsible for the Photoshop atrocity that can be viewed from the Think Progress link

Do Gooders Of The Year

I know I should utterly detest the New York Yankees for beating the Phillies in the Series, but they have to get a nod for this story by ESPN's Rick Reilly about how the team entertained the kids from Camp Sundown – as Reilly tells us, the kids…

…live life on the other side of the sun. All of them have the rare disease known as XP -- xeroderma pigmentosum. If kids with XP catch the slightest UV ray, they can and do develop cancerous tumors. Even fluorescent lights fry their skin like boiling oil. Most of them don't live to be 20.

So how could they take the field at Yankee Stadium? Because this was 3 a.m.

Superstar right-handers should be tucked into bed by then, yet there was (pitcher A.J.) Burnett, throwing Wiffle-ball splitters and chasing down line drives.

…

Eleven ghostly-pale XP campers took the field, including Yuxnier Beguebara, who is coming up on 71 operations, and Kevin Swinney, who has had over 200, and the rest of them, grinning through faces operated on so many times they seem to be covered in plastic. Feel sorry for them if you want, but they have one thing most kids will never have: For one night, the Yankees' field was theirs.

They high-fived Derek Jeter, ran madly around the bases and wallowed in the instant carnival the Yankees had set up -- from the magician to the bouncy castle to reliever Alfredo Aceves strolling the yard, strumming his guitar while (Yankees G.M. Brian) Cashman sang the Police's "Message in a Bottle." For one night, at least, these kids found out they are not alone in being alone.

Not that they don't play baseball at Camp Sundown. They do -- at midnight, to the accompaniment of owls and bullfrogs -- against the local fire department. "We're pathetic," says Caren Mahar. "But we always play."

By 3:30, it was time to go, and there was no time to waste. They had to make it back to Camp Sundown before sunup. Welcome to life lived like a vampire.

And as Reilly tells us, most of the kids with XP don’t live to be 20.

As I said, it’s hard for me to like the Yankees, but at the very least, they’re owed a tip of the proverbial cap for this (though they have stadium issues to address also, as noted here).

Now good luck trying to repeat next year, you frauds!

More later...

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (12/11/09)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

House

Estate taxes. Voting 225-200, the House passed a bill (HR 4154) to permanently extend the estate tax at a top rate of 45 percent and with provisions to limit it to individual estates above $3.5 million and joint estates above $7 million. Initially, the bill would exclude more than 99 percent of estates from taxation, including nearly all family-owned small businesses and farms. But that figure would gradually diminish because the exemption levels are not indexed for inflation. The bill's cost of nearly $237 billion over 10 years would be added to the national debt.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

I have to admit that I’m confused by that last sentence; how on earth can reinstituting a tax add to the national debt?

According to this document, though, a total of $237 billion in net interest payments was added on the national debt in 2007 as a result of the wars and Repug tax cuts. I don’t know if one $237 billion figure is related to the other one here (and the figure above is a “cut and paste” mistake from the ’07 figure), but I’m just wondering about that, that’s all.

And of course, we have the predictable party line BS on display here from the Repugs, as usual.

GOP estate-tax plan. Voting 187-233, the House defeated a GOP motion to HR 4154 (above) that sought to eliminate the estate tax in 2010 and 2011, but allow it to return in 2012. Republicans settled for this approach after the Democrats' deficit rules blocked their bid for a permanent repeal of the estate tax.

A yes vote backed the GOP motion.

Voting yes: Adler, Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

So Adler votes for both the correct thing in reinstituting the estate tax and the highly questionable Repug alternative?

I’m sure Jon Runyan will have fun beating up Adler over that one.

Senate

Medicare cost controls. Voting 42-58, the Senate refused to strip a pending health-care bill (HR 3590) of its nearly $500 billion slowdown in Medicare spending growth over 10 years. The proposed fiscal controls would help pay the $848 billion cost of the bill while imposing long-term structural changes and securing the Medicare trust fund. Although the cuts target waste rather than benefits, critics say they could lead to a rationing of care. By category, the two largest reductions would lower subsidies of private Medicare Advantage policies by $118 billion and reduce payments to hospitals by $105 billion.

A yes vote opposed the bill's Medicare cuts.

Voting no: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (D., Pa.).

(Boy, between the “rationing of care” remark above and the $237 billion thing earlier, I would say there’s a lot of editorializing in these writeups this week.)

Anything to put Medicare Advantage on the road to extinction is a good thing in my book; as noted here…

Advantage plans have not lived up to expectations. Advantage insurers charge the government more money, not less, requiring a taxpayer subsidy that averages 14 percent more per-patient on top of what traditional Medicare pays providers. That's an extra $1,138 per Advantage enrollee nationwide, or $1,166 for those in Ohio, according to a George Washington University analysis.

Medicare Advantage plans also tend to limit the doctors that seniors can see, just as traditional insurers do.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has noted that many Advantage seniors wind up paying high co-payments when hospitalized…

So, I assume that those senators who voted No here favored the Medicare Advantage cut, then.

My compliments.

Women's health screening. The Senate voted, 61-39, to make women's medical screenings more affordable under HR 3590 (above). The amendment sought to eliminate or reduce copayments and deductibles that the bill's "essential benefits package" sets for screenings to detect breast, cervical, colorectal, and ovarian cancer; diabetes; heart and vascular ailments; and other diseases that take a high toll on women.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Specter.

Again, a good thing, but I just can’t help but wonder how much lowering the co-payments without offsetting cost somewhere else will drive up the price tag on this thing, though that’s a secondary consideration IMHO (and no, I won’t use this as an excuse to rail about the public option again, though I’d like to).

This week, the House took up a bill to regulate financial institutions, while the Senate continued to debate health care (this is a recording).

Thursday Stuff (updates)

This is the Rachel Maddow report I noted last night about the involvement of Richard Cohen in Uganda's attack on gays (with the additional involvement of Joe Pitts and Bart Stupak in the U.S. House, and Tom Coburn in the U.S. Senate).

(By the way, speaking of Stupak, while many of us were quite rightly outraged about the Palin/WaPo mess on climate change denial, Stupak ended up peddling a load of horse dookey in much the same manner in the New York Times recently on the pro-sepsis, coathanger abortion amendment sponsored by both him and Pitts - hat tip to Atrios for this)...

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

...and here's more from Jeff Sharlet, including the "freight train heading down the tracks with the horn blazing" scenario of Obama actually speaking before some of these criminals next February, noted at the end of the report (and why am I not surprised that Pitts apparently has nothing to say about this, but, as Sharlet tells us, he's all opposed to distributing condoms to fight AIDS?)...

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

Update 1 12/11/09: I’m not a bit surprised by Grassley’s reaction here, but I’m noting this to point out that 100 people protested Uganda’s London embassy today in response (and to all Americans wishing to express their displeasure, click here).

Update 2 12/11/09: And in a related story, as they say, I give you this.

Update 3 12/12/2009: Gee, Chuck, it took you long enough (hmmm, sounds a bit lyrical - here).

Update 4 12/12/2009: This is good - more like it, actually.

...and on a wholly other note, I just thought this was a nice song (no video)...



...and oh yeah, here's another seasonal item from those guys with the treadmills...



...and here's one more for the season for good measure.

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2009 - Pt. 4)

Onward and upward we go (Part One is here, Part Two is here, Part Three is here, and I also posted here)...

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Brian Ross and ABC News for “reporting” here that Robert Kennedy Jr. called Barack Obama an “indentured servant” to the coal industry; RFK Jr. said no such thing (h/t Atrios)

(And by the way, a more recent "smooth move" by ABC News is here.)

Dregs Of the Year Nominee

Dem Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who joined the Repugs in filibustering the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to lead the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel here because of “her pro-choice views on abortion,” though Nelson opposed the use of the filibuster on John Bolton and former Bush EPA administrator Stephen Johnson (even though the Dems might lose their Senate majority, it would almost be worth it to pare characters like Nelson, Lincoln and Bayh, telling them to make it official and join the Repugs at long last)

Update 12/26/09: This tells us that, in addition to Nelson, Repug John Cornyn and "Democrat" Arlen Specter also opposed Johnsen's nomination, to the point where the Senate took its holiday break without acting on her nomination, as well as that of Department of Labor Solicitor Patricia Smith and four other Obama nominations.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Texas (of course) Repug (bingo) U.S. House Rep John Culberson, who tells us that the land of the “yellow rose” could “divide up into smaller states” and “add six new rock-ribbed conservative Senators to the Senate overnight by dividing into five states” (uh, I believe Article IV, Section Three of the Constitution has something to say about that, as Jed Lewison points out here – also, Culberson has to work on his math; adding five states equates to 10 senators…idiot).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug Sen. Susan Collins of Maine for removing just about all of the $900 million in pandemic preparedness funds from the stimulus package here (particularly bad given the recent outbreak in Mexico in April and what this country would experience in the fall)…

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug Louisiana Governor Bobby ("Don't Call Me Piyush") Jindal here, for making fun of stimulus funding for volcano monitoring; the problem is that Mount Redoubt in Alaska erupted a month later

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Shane Murphy for this…

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

Senate Dems Ben Nelson (Neb., again I know), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), who opposed the central measure of a bankruptcy bill from the House proposed in April -- giving bankruptcy judges the power to reduce, or cramdown, a homeowner's mortgage payment under bankruptcy proceedings (here)...

Stupidest Use Of Political Campaign Resources (Thus Far)

Upon Arlen Specter’s defection back to the Democrats, the NSRC launched a campaign of robocalls to PA Dem voters (including this one) “reminding them of former President George W. Bush's support for Specter, in an effort to drive a wedge between Specter and the voters of his new party,” according to here.

Now here is my question – since PA’s primaries are closed, how on earth do the Repugs think this will possibly help Pat Toomey, their all-but-primary-winning candidate? Does the NSRC think Dem voters will now re-register and vote for their candidate instead as a result of creating a nuisance for those voters?

God, even when the Dems were out of power, I honestly can’t remember them doing stuff as stupid as this (and they did some dumb things, believe me).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Former Secretary of State Our Gal Condi Rice, for chiding a Stanford University student to “do your homework” on the question of who stayed the “trials” of the military commissions sponsored by her and her boss, without bothering to explain to the student that the Supremes (here, with plenty of conservative justices) did indeed stay the proceedings three times because the commissions "(were) not an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus" and thus "operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ" (if she and Dubya had done their legal homework, then maybe their “trials” could have proceeded...but of course, it will be up to Obama and Eric Holder to figure out what to do with the commissions).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Dem Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois (where that other guy came from), for his efforts on the "cramdown" and the Credit Card “bill of rights” (here - a shame the cramdown went for naught, and maybe one or two credit card changes ended up in legislation signed into law, but not much else...not for his lack of effort, though)

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Jayson Werth of the Phillies for stealing four bases (including home) in one game against the Dodgers in May (the Phils would defeat LA again in the National League Championship Series before losing the big one to the Yankees - boo hiss!:-)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Toxic radio hater Michael Savage who, after attacking Hillary Clinton for years with some of the most abusive language you can imagine, has now asked for her help in revoking Savage’s UK ban (here - breathtaking hypocrisy).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Fluffyhead David Gregory of NBC News for this (h/t Atrios – I’m not even going to try and paraphrase Jason Linkins’ terrific post here…you have to read this whole thing to believe it – and our corporate media actually wonders why they’re losing money).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

MoDo, for plagiarizing Josh Marshall (here - h/t Atrios, though, to her credit, she owed up to it here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Philadelphia city councilwoman Joan Krajewski here for “(changing) the zoning and planning provisions of the city code” to allow for development of Fairmount Park (so many levels of awful in this that I’m not sure I can capture them all – Philadelphia will have to work REALLY hard to show me that they can develop that area properly, and I don’t think they can).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch for killing a bill permitting gay marriage, which had already passed the legislature and enjoyed popular support (here - talk about giving Dems a bad name; here is an update)...

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

U.S. House Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) here for describing an ad attacking Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “reprehensible, irresponsible and unpersuasive” (the bar is already set pretty low for these people, so I guess this is progress).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

A collective citation to the Inky for 1) hiring Bushco torture architect John Yoo as a monthly columnist (here), and 2) doing so in late 2008 but not bothering to tell anyone, though word leaked out more or less unofficially in May 2009

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

In this latest installment here, former Senator Man-On-Dog gets the nod for telling Obama “to act like a role model” and…take his wife “down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer” (Steve Benen nails it at the end).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Media critic David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun, for claiming that Keith Olbermann’s commentaries create “the path to fascism” (huh? – I think C&L gives a good analysis here - as with Andrew Malcolm, other reasons for this guy too)...

And by the way, get a load of Zurawik’s response here and tell me if you think he’s mad that Olbermann apparently mispronounced his name or not (and, once more, anyone purporting to criticize MSNBC on the basis of the content of its stories should go through the exercise of actually verifying them for truthfulness against Fix Noise first before they try arguing some equivalency between the two that doesn’t exist).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

U.S. House Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX), who said here that the greatest threat to America is “liberal media bias”

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

The legislature of the state of Tennessee for overriding the veto of Dem Gov. Phil Bredesen on a bill allowing guns into bars and restaurants here, thus giving it the force of law (idiots).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

"Deadeye Dick" Cheney, for periodically poking his head from the hole of his undisclosed location from time to time over the year to remind us of how bad he thinks Obama is (and once more, in response, I give you Dem U.S. House Rep Alan Grayson)...



Update 12/30/09: And kudos to Dem House Rep Eric Massa of New York for giving it back to this vulture here...

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

New York State Senators Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, who, by switching their party affiliations from Dem to Repug, gave control of the New York State Senate to the Repugs (here; peee-yoouuuu – hat tips to Atrios and FDL)...

(And by the way, Monserrate would flip and go back to the Dems, leaving Albany deadlocked - fun; later in the year, he would be convicted of misdemeanor assault on his girlfriend, though he would escape jail time, as noted here.)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Bill Orally, for opposing gay humans but defending gay penguins here (I can’t make this stuff up, people)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

President Obama (yes, you’re reading this right...I think I cited him earlier too; hope I gave him a "Do Gooder" for Lilly Ledbetter) for signing a credit card fraud protection bill that included an amendment allowing loaded guns into our national parks (here - what, are “sportsmen” afraid of being robbed by grizzly bears...also for this).

Update 1 12/22/09: I seem to recall a lot more vocal support from him on the public option earlier this year; yes, I understand his point with this remark, but it would still have been better had he said nothing (and Dr. Dean is spot-on again here, despite Reid's handling of this...oh, and by the way, no one should forget this).

Update 2 12/22/09: Nothing "hopey, changey" here...

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Rusty DePass, a state Republican activist who said here that a gorilla that escaped from the Riverbanks (SC) Zoo on June 12th was an "ancestor" of First Lady Michelle Obama (he apologized, as well he should).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Sherri Goforth, an executive assistant for Republican State Senator Diane Black of Gallatin (a suburb of Nashville, TN), the life form responsible for the racist joke on Obama in the portrait linked here (and Black is another “values” crazy against GLBT people, and she just can’t wait for Roe to be repealed…wonder if Goforth and DePass are related? And check this out from Think Progress, by the way – her apology for getting caught only…)

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee (for now, until he inevitably flips on this)

Georgia Repug Senator Johnny Isakson for appearing to support a public option for health care coverage along with Obama and the Dems (here – but this is all a big “if”)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

A collective citation here to The Washington Post for firing Dan Froomkin (I guess when you’re told by Little Debbie Howell that you’re “highly opinionated and liberal,” that means that it’s time to get your resume on the street PDQ, not that it would help in this wretched job market, though, as noted earlier, Froomkin would be scooped up by HuffPo...to be fair, I should note that they've quite rightly given Ezra Klein exposure in Froomkin's place).

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

The Supremes are at it again here, this time for a ruling that, because Alaska is one of six states that doesn’t allow prisoners access to DNA evidence that could exonerate them, that takes precedence over that person’s right to that evidence (and a secondary Dregs citation to the Obama Administration for, bizarrely, choosing to side with Alaska on this).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Missouri Repug State House Rep. Cynthia Davis for claiming that “hunger can be a positive motivator” as a response for not spending more on that state’s summer food program (here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug Senator Bob (Keep On Demonizing The UAW While Sucking Up To The “Banksters”) Corker for blowing off a meeting with Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Obama Supreme Court nominee who of course was eventually confirmed, because she was 10 minutes late (here – let’s see how well you do hobbling along with a cast, sh*t-for-brains).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who believed that a strip search of a teenage girl suspected of carrying drugs, but who in fact was carrying Advil, was “constitutional” here (fortunately, the majority disagreed in a somewhat qualified ruling - and by the way, Poppy Bush's quota appointee ended up calling out Sotomayor recently here; nice to know Thomas has a pulse).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

I’ve had issues with “Jello Jay” Rockefeller on surveillance, but good for him for saying this about a public plan in the Senate health care proposals, though, as we know, the "public option" appears dead, and at this moment, we don't know exactly what will come in its place (h/t Atrios).

Commemorative Stu Bykofsky Citation

Michael Scheuer, who said we need another 9/11 here…

The "Even Though They're Gone, Bushco's Misdeeds Live On - The Nearly-Ruined Economy Which Obama Now Owns, In This Case" Citation

As Calculated Risk notes here the "naughts" truly were the "naughts" in terms of employment, statistically (h/t Atrios...I actually saw a wingnut site today refer to the decade as the "naughties"...where's that apocalypse that I ordered, garçon?)

More later...

Wednesday Stuff

Two sort of housekeeping notes: 1) For reasons I cannot really get into, it looks like there will be zero posting next week...I hope you like videos, because that's all I'm going to have; and 2) As soon as I can get video of Rachel Maddow's follow-up on Richard Cohen tonight (not the WaPo "liberal" columnist, but the guy who wrote a book on "curing" homosexuality and then sent his people over to Uganda to, in essence, lobby for all kinds of laws criminalizing homosexuality in that country), I'll put it up, along with another report by Jeff Sharlet and involvement by "the Family"...fascinating and important stuff (and whaddaya know - it turns out that a certain Repug U.S. House Rep from PA-16 is in it up to his stinking ears).

But for now, I apologize for actually inflicting Tweety on you here and his ramblings about the "Barack" Administration, but Alan Grayson is always good for the reality perspective...



...and I promise to make a New Years' Resolution to ignore the person K.O. and Chris Hayes talk about here, but I felt she deserved a shot (along with the WaPo for, in their eternal idiocy, giving her column space)...

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...also, no video here, but I can't pass on JB's seasonal stuff (Maceo!)...



...and boy, I hope this song turns out to be right (nice drumming too).

Tuesday Stuff (updates)

Posting is questionable for tomorrow, by the way...

So if it turns out that the great big, super-duper, wonderlicious compromise that might make President Snowe come on board (though she won't, of course) and stop the dripping sanctimony of Holy Joe Lieberman is to dump the public option in favor of expanding Medicare coverage to anyone 55 or older (here), I have two questions: 1) Why the hell didn't we decide to do that all along, and 2) What the hell will anyone under 55 do who won't be covered by a for-profit insurance carrier?

If this is what "hopey, changey" health care reform looks like, then we should prepare to get hammered in the 2010 midterm elections (ugh)...

Update 1 12/9/09: To me, kos is a pretty reliable barometer on how the "netroots" responds to how the Dems perform (or not perform in this case) on key legislation on behalf of core constituencies. And as he says here, there's no way to sugarcoat this - prepare for "Clinton II" in terms of divided government next year after the midterms.

This is ugly, ugly, ugly, and Obama and the Dems have only themselves to blame.

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Update 2 12/9/09: And as I read this, another reason occurred to me as to why, for the most part, the Democratic politicians we support are essentially clueless.

Here’s a thought – maybe instead of leaking out some details to our corporate media first, who are going to spin this every negative way possible, how about letting bloggers know first so we take a shot at explaining the details? I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but the AP, Reuters and other services have been tripping all over themselves for the most part on the wonky policy minutiae of this story in particular. This way, we could help with the “rollout” instead of scratching our heads along with everyone else saying “WTF?”

Say what you want about the Repugs and the right-wing media echo chamber, but they know this and they know how to use all kinds of media to get their message out, even if we don’t do it as consistently as they do (of course, the fact that their messages are largely bogus is a wholly other matter).

Update 3 12/9/09: I should probably complete this little monologue of mine within this post by noting that it suddenly occurred to me why Reid & co. would want to let pieces of this “reform” legislation dribble out a bit at a time and not use the bloggers, and that’s because what they’ve concocted is such a stinking dead dog of a bill that we would recognize that right away and call them on it.

(“Grab a mop” – please.)

Update 4 12/9/09: For what it's worth, I'm halfway between the reasoning of this and the fury of this (slim hope is here on the "90 percent" requirement in the amendment from Al Franken).

Update 5 12/10/09: This New York Times editorial answers some of my questions, but again, the details haven't been finalized yet.

..."Worst Persons" (Bret Stephens of the Murdoch Street Journal sort of, not really...but then again, yeah, really...calls those who acknowledge the plainly obvious scientific fact of global warming "Stalinists" - then I guess that makes deniers "stupidists"?; those undeveloped life forms at Fix Noise rely on a Rasmussen poll stating that 120 percent of those polled believe that scientists falsified their numbers on global warming - obviously, those polled never saw that scene in "The Producers" where Gene Wilder tells Zero Mostel, after Mostel as Max Bialystock sold about 100,000 percent of stock in "Springtime for Hitler" to the little old ladies for their money, that "you can only have 100 percent of anything"; but Russell Wiseman sort of apologizes, but again, not really, for claiming that Obama pre-empted "A Charlie Brown Christmas" with his Afghanistan speech because he's really NOTHING BUT A MUSLIM IN DISGUISE WHO DOESN'T WANT TO HEAR LINUS READ ABOUT THE BIRTH OF BABY JESUS!!!

(sorry - I know I'm not supposed to "shout" like that...and I didn't know you could say "sons of bitches" on a prime-time cable news/talk show)...

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...and at the end of the day, all you can do (if you don't live in Oklahoma, of course) is sit back right easy and laugh over Jim Inhofe, which is exactly what he deserves (he likes flying in planes upside down, apparently - I would say that explains a thing or two)...

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...and here's a holiday favorite (you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not violate your parole).

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2009 - Pt. 3)

The saga continues (Part One is here, and Part Two is here)..

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Greg Gutfeld, who mocked the Canadian Forces (as noted here); in reference to Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie's comment that the military may need a year to recover after Canada's mission in Afghanistan ends in 2011, Gutfeld stated "Meaning, the Canadian military wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, and run on the beach in gorgeous white Capri pants" (and Gutfeld, who of course has never served, said this when the Canadian Army was burying four of its soldiers killed in action, bringing their country’s casualty count to 116 – to date, Canada has lost more troops in Afghanistan than any other country).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

House Repug Leader John Boehner (yep, you’re reading this right) for calling out the “Blue Dogs” here – can’t wait for Cornyn & Co. to reciprocate towards Evan Bayh and his “secret senators”...the bar is set low here, I know, but fair is fair)

The “And So Let Me Guess; His Applying For Reinstatement, Then, Will Be The Lead ’Story’ In The Times?” Citation

Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the financial products unit of AIG, wrote a resignation letter that appeared on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times in March (here); in it, addressed to chief executive Edward M. Liddy, he promised to donate the bonuses due to him based on his contract “directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn,” though he was still paid $742,006.40 in March, after taxes…and kudos to Matt Taibbi for this, and also this)

Update 12/11/09: And Taibbi does it again here (and DarkSyde is right about Dems sitting on their hands if Obama doesn't wake up and give us something, and especially if the Dems blow it on health care reform).

The "Second Verse Same As The First" Citation

DeSantis again here (oh brother)…

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, who endorsed same-sex marriage here (if he sticks to his guns on this, thus alienating himself among the wingnuts his candidate claimed to represent last year, then he will have won a measure of respect from your humble narrator that I did not think would ever have been possible for him to achieve, and to date, he has)

The “Insert Your Snark About Automatically Being Disqualified To Work In Harrisburg Also As A Result Here” Citation

A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled here that Collier Township officer David Agostino could be discharged because he lost his sense of smell in an off-duty motorcycle accident.

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

Luzerne County, PA Juvenile Court Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, who, along with fellow Luzerne County judge Michael T. Conahan, pleaded guilty this year to taking $2.6 million in secret payments from the former owner of two juvenile detention centers, to which about 2,500 juveniles were sentenced; the youths thus experienced "routine deprivation of children's constitutional rights to appear before an impartial tribunal and have an opportunity to be heard” according to PA Chief Justice (and former Philadelphia District Attorney) Ron Castille (as many as 1,200 cases are expected to be overturned as a result - this page is a collection of related stories).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Evan Bayh (so many reasons, but a few are here, and here – h/t Atrios)...

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Wyoming County, PA District Attorney George Skumanick (pronounced skoo-MAN'-ik) Jr. for filing child pornography charges against three Pennsylvania teenagers who took racy cell-phone pictures of themselves (good for the girls and their families for suing this idiot – there’s a proper response to be meted out here, but what the DA came up with ain’t it...here and here).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who brought six Bushco officials up on charges of torturing Guantanamo Bay detainees (here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

“President” Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan here (more like “Treat Women Like Cattle-istan”) – I think he said he’d rescind this at some point, but I have yet to hear anything else on this…

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Jessica Meyer of Morrisville, PA, who watched a pit bull being tossed out a car window onto a sidewalk (unbelievable), then rescued the dog and took it to the Center for Animal Referral and Emergency Services in nearby Middletown, PA (here). As a result, the dog was adopted by Bob Kuder, who’d lost his own pit bull to lymphoma on the same day.

April Fool Of The Year (Millennia?)

Mann Coulter for this...

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Dem Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Walton-Land Arkansas (I’d expect this from Kyl, but this is inexcusable for a Dem...before the year would end, though, Lincoln would do a lot of inexcusable things, prompting this...I don't care much about Barrow one way or the other, but deciding to "primary" Donna Edwards is ridiculous).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Shana Brown, a 32-year-old mother in PA who was charged with giving her 13-year-old daughter drugs and alcohol so the woman's boyfriend could impregnate the girl without her knowing, police said here (Brown can no longer have children, see, though she wanted to have one with the boyfriend – yep, this is as bad as it sounds; picture says a lot, by the way, and the guy is your typical, garden variety thug).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Former Toronto Blue Jays star baseball player Joe Carter (here), who said that his 1993, World-Series-winning home run off Phillies pitcher Mitch Williams doesn’t get the respect that it deserves, or words to that effect.

Now I honestly am not citing this because Carter hit the home run, crushing blow that it was. I’m citing Carter because he’s trying to compare it with Bobby Thomson’s “Shot ‘Heard Round The World” for the former New York Giants, or Kirk Gibson’s home run off Dennis Eckersley which Gibson basically hit on one leg.

Here’s the deal; everybody in the world knew that Williams was out of gas, and he threw up a beach ball “right down Broadway” that Carter hit about two miles. No, wait, I take that back; everybody knew that except Jim Fregosi, the Phillies’ manager, who kept running Williams out in save situations throughout the LCS and the World Series despite the fact that he was done.

So, do Carter and Williams stay in touch? Well…

Carter still talks occasionally with Williams, and got the better of the reliever in a celebrity bowling match in 1998. Williams, an accomplished bowler who owned the alley where the match was held, did not know Carter had grown up bowling regularly with his dad.

"I went out there in the first game and bowled a 245 and just killed him," Carter said. "I killed him three straight games, it just demoralized him."

“Demoralized him” in a celebrity bowling match, huh?

What a dick.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Robert Powell, the Dallas police officer who pulled out his gun and threatened NFL running back (and former Eagle) Ryan Moats while Moats' mother-in-law lay dying in a nearby hospital bed (here); Moats blew a red light in Plano, TX to get to the hospital to visit her, and Powell pulled him over and cornered him in the hospital parking lot – an understandable action as long as no one was hurt (she died before he could visit her – Powell later resigned…creep).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Somebody named Lloyd Marcus, who obviously doesn’t have much of a career (h/t Atrios/Instaputz)…



Dregs Of The Year Nominees

The 40,000 or so Texas Rangers baseball fans who gave Former President Reality Avoidance a “standing O” here at the team’s home opener when he threw out the first pitch (I’ve got some suggestions for what you can do with that “Yellow Rose,” by the way – and gosh, they were so excited that he ACTUALLY THREW A STRIKE!! - though the team had a good season, they ended up missing the playoffs)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

The Obama Administration for trying to throw out the FISA lawsuit (here – yes, I actually typed those words...also for this).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

So far, I’d give it to this guy, Sun Wenguang, for reasons noted in the story (even if he didn’t use very good judgment – hope he lives).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Archbishop Raymond Burke, head of the papal courts at the Vatican, who said here that Catholics who voted for President Barack Obama engaged in “a form of cooperation” with evil because of Obama’s pro-choice policies…

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Patrick Murphy here for taking the lead in the House congressional effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (h/t Atrios – can hardly wait to hear the howls of outrage from the Courier Times readership over this one...also for defending fellow Dem U.S. Congressional rep Patrick Kennedy, denied communion by Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, RI because Kennedy is pro-choice here...the wingnut outrage in the Courier Times over this has been every bit as despicable as I knew it would be)

The “You Go First, Madam Representative – How About Lady Moron Politician?” Citation

Austin, Texas (of course) Repug state lawmaker legislator Betty Brown, who suggested as follows to Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans: “Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” adding “(can you) adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with…?” (h/t Atrios - she apologized here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Lucinda Glinn, the appeals officer for the PA Open Records Office, who ruled here that it was OK for the Northampton, PA Area School Board to provide a draft copy of the budget proposal to a reporter for The Morning Call in Allentown after a public meeting, though the dollar amounts were redacted (as the story tells us, the budget was discussed at a special meeting in February, so it was a public record – what’s the purpose of having a “sunshine law” if this is going to be permitted?)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

"Uh-Oh Silvio" Berlusconi here for claiming that those who lost their homes in the tragic Abruzzo earthquake should consider their time in aid camps "a weekend of camping” (wish I had time to revisit more antics with this guy)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

PETA, for basically terrorizing Chester County, PA dog breeder Linda Brown for selling a German Shepherd puppy to Vice President Joe Biden (here); these crazies used this as an excuse to “blame the killing of shelter animals on people who buy from breeders.”

Uh, this is more than a little ridiculous, particularly when you consider that, as the story tells us, both Brown and Biden have received death threats (tells you how stupid PETA is to bring the Secret Service down on them for something like this…and a dishonorable mention goes out to the “dog wardens” who have shown up repeatedly at Brown’s kennels, citing her for trivial “infractions” to the point where she’s had to incur $4 grand in court costs to defend herself).

Blaming breeders and the people who buy from them for the destruction of shelter animals reflects the workings of a lunatic mind; are the breeders and their customers supposed to be responsible for people who don’t spay and/or neuter their pets?

Non “Haute Couture” Expert Of The Year

In April, George Will of the WaPo wrote a column decrying blue jeans (hey, at least he wasn’t fabricating about global cooling or telling everyone that Americans didn’t want to buy fuel-efficient automobiles).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana here for signing a bill into law that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation, and thus playing into the hands of the emerging “secession” crowd, to say nothing of pissing all over any notion of common-sense gun control (God, do I HATE pro-gun Dems for stuff like this, and I don’t give a damn where in this country they come from).

Song Misappropriator Of The Year

California Repug Senatorial Candidate Charles DeVore running against Barbara Boxer (I’ll have fun watching that slaughter) who, after Don Henley of The Eagles sued him for misusing two of his popular songs (“The Boys Of Summer,” “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”), stated as follows here…

"We're responding with a counter-claim, asserting our First Amendment right to political free speech," the site said. "While the legal issues play out, it's time to up the ante on Mr. Henley's liberal goon tactics. By popular request, I have penned the words to our new parody song."

Uh, this is a case of copyright infringement, asshat. See you in court (at least Eric Cantor had the good sense to stop playing “Back In The Saddle” in a promotional video when Aerosmith told him to knock it off).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Chrysler, for “(turning) away a $750 million government loan because executives didn't want to abide by new federal limits on pay,” as noted here.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

So many reasons to nominate Sen. Jim Inhofe of OK (usually related to denial of global warming), but here, for promising to filibuster Obama judicial nominee David Hamilton over a ruling based on a Supreme Court precedent (you mean, he’s NOT one of those dreaded “activist judges,” like Lawrence Silberman on the DC gun ruling?), when, in 2003, Inhofe said that “any senator who would dare filibuster a judicial nominee would necessarily be violating their oath to 'support and defend the Constitution.'"

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Former Virginia U.S. House Rep Tom Davis for acknowledging here that Repug Jim Tedisco lost in New York State’s 20th Congressional District to Dem Scott Murphy (not that noteworthy of an accomplishment, but it’s so rare to find a Republican living in the real world these days that I thought I should acknowledge it; and what does it say that a legitimate centrist and a respected member of Congress no longer feels at home enough to serve in his own party, at least for now?).

More later...

Monday Stuff

"Worst Persons" (some generic Fix Noise hairdo tells us that "low-income" people will have "low-income" babies unless they have more taxpayer-funded abortions, even though the poor also pay for them through their premiums - hilarity always ensues when attractive looking white people decide to lecture their audience about that dreaded, filthy underclass that threatens to invade their dinner parties while they pass the sweet and sour shrimp; Glenn Beck has his nightly paroxysm over global warming - I hope he ends up being chased all over an ice floe by a polar bear; but Mayor Russell Wiseman of Arlington, Tennessee takes it - this is one for the books, people - because he believed Obama purposely scheduled his speech on Afghanistan last week to pre-empt "A Charlie Brown Christmas"...sometimes there truly are no words)...

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...and the greeting for a happy '09 needs to be updated, but otherwise, I thought this was appropriate to kick off the holiday stuff again, as a follow-up to the "Worst Persons" finalist if for no other reason.

Doomsy's Do-Gooders And Dregs (2009 - Pt. 2)

On we go (Part One is here, and I also posted over here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Stewart Parnell, owner of Peanut Corp. of America, who repeatedly invoked his right not to incriminate himself before the House subcommittee holding a hearing on a national salmonella outbreak blamed on his company, as noted here (the story tells us that “the outbreak has sickened some 600 people, may be linked to nine deaths - the latest reported in Ohio on Wednesday - and has resulted in one of the largest product recalls of more 1,800 items”).

The story also tells us that Parnell “urged his workers to ship bacteria-tainted products, pleading with federal health officials that he should be able ‘turn the raw peanuts on the floor into money’.“

As I said to a friend of mine, Parnell and Sammy Lightsey, Parnell’s plant manager, should both be tied to chairs with their mouths pried open so they could be force-fed their contaminated peanuts.

And of course, the company ended up filing for bankruptcy.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, for all of the utterly tiresome episodes noted in this post; so as of now, he’s not going to run in 2010, creating another possibility for a Dem seat, but he decided not to support the stimulus, and now, without a cabinet post, he may end up with zilch – not real bright career moves here, people.

Do-Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Florida Governor Charlie Crist (and any other Repug) who actually supported the stimulus (here, though of course he would walk away from that later)…

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Grant Exton, the executive director of the Arkansas Concealed Carry Association, who said allowing concealed weapons in churches would not make churches more likely to have volatile situations, but adds that that is not his point (link expired - sorry).

"It's a problem of (the government) telling churches what to do in an area of moral issue, where that should be none of their business," Exton said. Of 48 states that allow concealed carry, 42 let churches make the decision, Exton said.

"We have the government in an area that it shouldn't be," he said.

Uh – right.

Read this, brainiac; it tells you that Arkansas is one of the 48 states that allows “concealed carry.”

So what is your point, exactly? Besides promoting yourself and your cause at the expense of innocent victims of gun violence, I mean?

The bill sponsored by state rep Beverly Pyle (another numbskull) would end up forcing churches to post signs saying that guns aren’t allowed, if they wisely choose to keep them out of church. Which would lead to the inevitable court challenge to get them INTO church (this whole episode being nothing but an idiotic attempt to overturn the 1995 concealed carry permit law, which specifically prohibits concealed weapons in places of worship - John Phillips, pastor of Central Church of Christ in Little Rock, was the only sane person in this story, IMHO...he spoke out against the bill).

Remind me never to contemplate actually living in the state of Arkansas (I posted on this here).

(Fortunately, the bill died in the State Senate - here.)

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

A dual citation to Virginia House Repug Eric Cantor and Baby Newton Leroy; the former for following the latter’s obstructionist course in the U.S. House from the ‘90s here (meanwhile, the country makes up its own mind here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

George Will of the WaPo, who claimed in a February column that "according to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979," an assertion which happens to be patently false (kudos to TPM Muckraker for calling Will on this here, and Fred Hiatt of the WaPo receives a dishonorable mention for helping Will get away with this - in a related vein, Will would look like an ass on this subject later over the hacked University of East Anglia Emails here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

George McGovern for opposing the Employee Free Choice Act (here...as noted in the post update, though, he did the right thing by bailing on the CPAC conference)…

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Cartoonist Sean Delonas of the New York Post for comparing President Obama to a dead chimp (here - unbelievable)…

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominees

The DeKalb, Ill., High School basketball team and coach Dave Rohlman; what a story this is.

His team (the Barbs?) was playing the Milwaukee Madison team, whose captain, Johntel Franklin, lost his mother before the game. The game had started, and Franklin showed up from the hospital and was mobbed by his teammates; they and the coach asked Franklin if he wanted to sit with them on the bench for the game. Franklin said no – he wanted to play.

The problem is that, since Franklin wasn’t on the pre-game roster, the rules state that, if he were put in, the Milwaukee team would have to be penalized, giving DeKalb two free throws.

That’s what happened. And DeKalb player Darius McNeal missed both on purpose.

Class.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Former Senator Man-On-Dog himself here for stating that the Qur’an was written in “Islamic,” which doesn’t happen to be a language – any wonder why he was voted out of the Senate?

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

A dual citation: one to Rick Santelli, on-air editor for CNBC, who called Americans who face losing their homes to foreclosure "losers" who don't deserve government help (here), and the other to Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank received $25 billion in bailout funds from the government, though he refused to tell CNBC anchor Melissa Francis how the bank is performing this quarter and also said the following…

"I don't think just because someone's underwater they say I don't have to stay there. But they're supposed to pay the mortgage, and we should teach the American people, you're supposed to meet your obligations, not run from them. Because you have a mortgage doesn't mean you should run away as it goes down."

As Bugs would say, what a maroon, at the very least (here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

The Arizona-based punk rock band The Awful Truth here for putting a photo on its album of police officer Erik Hite lying on the ground after he was shot during a chase (Hite later died). And to boot, the photo was the property of the Daily Star newspaper, who sued the band (so they’re insensitive idiots and possibly guilty of copyright infringement also – nice work).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Repug Sen. Jim “I Hear Voices” Bunning, for predicting that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be dead from pancreatic cancer in nine months here (OK, so he apologized here, and fortunately he was wrong also, but is it too much trouble to spell her name right?)

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Utah Repug Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. here for criticizing his congressional party members for opposing the stimulus (and, predictably, earning their wrath in the process)…

The “Just To Prove He Doesn't Walk On Water” (Before His Poll Numbers Fell Somewhat, I Mean) Citation

In his address before Congress in February, President Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. “invented the automobile,” which technically isn’t true (here); Germans Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach produced a four-wheeled automobile with a four-stroke engine in 1895, and Henry Ford didn’t build the “Model T” until 1908.

Cheapskate Of The Year

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who refused to pick up the tab for dinner with the Bushies (here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

“Diaper Dave” Vitter here, for calling on Blago-appointed Illinois senator Roland Burris to resign due to the latter’s answers concerning his fundraising work for the former profanity-spewing Illinois governor which, inconveniently for Burris, happen to run contrary to what he said prior to confirmation (at least Burris didn’t associate with a prostitute after caterwauling about “family values” during those supposedly awful Clinton days and remain in his seat anyway like Vitter did).

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

I'm sure Colorado is a great state, and it's plenty gorgeous I know, but it sure has two scummy Repug politicians to chastise here: first is State Sen. Dave Schultheis, who says here that HIV testing for pregnant women rewards "sexual promiscuity" here...and State Sen. Scott Renfroe, who equated “homosexuality as a sin with murder” here.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Los Alamitos, CA Mayor Dean Grose, who sent an “e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title ‘No Easter egg hunt this year’”; he resigned, but he’s still an idiot (here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Dem Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey for still supporting that idiotic embargo on Cuba (here)…and way to help the whole “divided Dems” narrative along, Bob (here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

Repug U. S. House Rep Zach Wamp of Tennessee for saying health care in this country “is a privilege, not a right” here (I’m particularly steamed about that after having watched “Sicko” as I recovered from a sinus infection)…same for Bushie Andrew Card here.

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown for condemning Proposition 8 (here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, who pronounced excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped, as noted here (dishonorable mention to Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church's Congregation for Bishops, who defended Sobrinho).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Warren Buffett, for opposing the Employee Free Choice Act here (“card check” my ass)…

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times here for trying to sanitize Dubya’s abuse of signing statements (h/t Atrios; so many reasons with this guy, including this also for mocking an unemployed man - what an a#@hole - but this will do for now)…

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Chuck Norris, another wingnut proposing an armed insurrection against the United States here (how appropriate that his “call to the troops” will be broadcast on Friday the 13th).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Former Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota; continuing the campaign for his seat in Congress after it has long since been lost is one thing, but posting the credit card numbers of your donor database online (along with the three-digit security codes) is a whole other level of stupid, I must admit (here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Justin Cardinal Rigali for this

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Ari Fleischer, for STILL trying to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11 (here)…

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Former Philadelphia Phillies left fielder Pat Burrell, a member of the ’08 world championship team who was not resigned by the team after the season; Burrell, in a typically odd coincidence in sports, ended up signing with the Tampa Bay Rays, the team the Phillies beat in the World Series – he gets the nod here for taking out a full-page ad in the Philadelphia Daily News in March thanking the fans for supporting him and the team…class.

Update 12/31/09: And by the way, former Eagle and current Denver Bronco Brian Dawkins deserves a Do Gooder citation for doing the same thing as Burrell did in today's issue of the Philadelphia Daily News, thanking the Eagles fans for their expressions of appreciation upon his return to town for the recent game between his current and former teams that the Eagles won 30-27.

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

CNN’s John King for his “fluffarama” of an interview with Deadeye Dick (here)…

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Dana Perino, for trying to give her old boss credit for the recent stock market rebound here (uh, Dana, he’d been gone for almost two months, OK?).

Dregs of the Year Nominee

Chip Reid of CBS News (here), for asking Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if it was OK to attack Deadeye Dick Cheney after the former veep from hell expounded at lunatic length already against the new administration

Dregs Of The Year Nominees

Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin Dontcha Know, who rejected half of her state’s stimulus funds (here), and would-be felon Larry Kudlow of CNBC for setting a dollar bill on fire (here)

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Albert Haynesworth, former star defensive tackle for the Tennessee Titans who had signed a $100 million contract with the Washington Redskins, though that didn’t prevent him from an indictment for driving recklessly with an expired vehicle registration here (numbskull).

Do Gooder Of The Year Nominee

Federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., who blocked a Bushco rule allowing people to carry concealed loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges (here - and in a flashback, she also deserves credit for this)…

The “Get A Life, Will You, People?” Citation Of The Year

The New York Times reported in March on Scott Veazie of Washougal, Wash, who, along with a bunch of other “Trekkies,” built chairs designed on the one in which Captain James T. Kirk sat in the original “Star Trek” series (oh, excuse me…I mean, “Trekk-ERs” - here).

Dregs Of The Year Nominee

Israeli President Shimon Peres for calling on the Iranians to topple their government immediately after Obama sent them a message calling for a fresh start of sorts here (I mean, if Peres wants to say that any other time, fine, but just chalk this up to yet another moment when our “allies” the Israelis play us for saps – and by the way, speaking of Israel, does anyone know what the $#@! is going on with Ariel Sharon? Is he hooked up to tubes all over the place like Darth Vader or something? Not trying to make fun if the man is very sick - just wondering).

Most Ignored Anniversaries Of The Year (Including By Me, Unfortunately)

Amadou Diallo died 10 years ago on February 4th (and I think this was the 13th anniversary of the death of Ron Brown and the 10-11 people on that plane in Croatia in April – it was also the 25th anniversary of the death of Marvin Gaye on April 1st). Also, the Phillies and the Cubs played that 23-22 game on May 17, 1979, and the 30th anniversary of the Riverfront Stadium disaster outside the Who concert in Cincinnati, Ohio that killed 11 occurred on 12/3.

More later...