Friday Stuff

From what I’ve read about the health care summit, I don’t believe there was much about it that was memorable (how many MORE ways must it be pointed out that the Repugs have NO INTEREST in trying to address this issue?). However, the moment captured below with Rep. Louise Slaughter seems to be the one that is most noteworthy (more here).

And of course, as a result, the GOP-simpatico noise machine has immediately started trying to drown out Rep. Slaughter here for interjecting the stark reality into a discussion that has more often than not descended into the typical dueling talking point garbage (I recently had lunch with someone who was proud of the fact that he listens to both Randi Rhodes and some conservative idiot named Lewis and thus believed he was getting both sides of a story; I didn’t bother to ask him what he’d actually learned about a certain issue, because based on his non-stop jabbering about how much he hated the Democrats, it was obvious that he had learned absolutely nothing – but I digress…please listen to what Rep. Slaughter tells us here)…



…and here is more proof that I never want to inhabit the universe where the wingnuts reside; to me, it is more than problematic as to whether or not it is actually here on earth (and Chris Hayes makes a great point at about 7:20 or so about the fact that people just living their lives are going to hear this crap but not benefit from anyone such as yours truly trying to debunk it)…

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...and here's another reminder (sorry if I sound like a broken record, but they have a bigger soapbox than I ever will, and I don't see a truce from their side anytime soon)...



...and guess what, you teabaggin' fools? Looks like one of your heroes isn't the "common man" he pretends to be after all...



Update 2/27/10: Boy, that Marco Rubio sure is a rocket scientist, isn't he? So he's trying to tie Crist to the Terri Schiavo travesty (here)? Wonder if it's worth pointing out to this guy that a CBS News poll from March 2005 told us that 82 percent of those polled thought the Repugs had no business sticking their noses into the matter to begin with (here)?

I think the best way to respond to this nonsense is to click here and toss some bucks in the general direction of Dem challenger Kendrick Meek. Let our corporate media preoccupy itself with the teabagger nonsense while Meek flies "under the radar," hopefully to victory.

...and with the Olympics winding down, I realized that, if I'm going to include a music video with curling, I'd better do it soon before they end (h/t Thers at Eschaton).



Update 2/27/10: I had previously embedded a video about the US men's hockey team that won a gold medal in 1960, but NBC screwed up the link so I removed it.

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (2/26/10)

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 (and I also posted here).

National debt limit. Members voted, 217-212, to raise the U.S. debt limit by $1.9 trillion to $14.29 trillion. The measure was then joined to a "pay as you go" bill (below) and sent to President Obama.

A yes vote was to raise the federal debt limit.

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

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

Well, at least the Dems authorized a vote on raising the debt limit, as opposed to the Repugs; as noted here from 2006…

Few lawmakers, though, wish to be on record as authorizing more debt -- the House goes so far as to hike the limit automatically. And Senate Democrats are telling their Republican counterparts not to expect any help from them, particularly in an election year.

If any amendments are attached to the Senate's debt measure, the House would be forced to vote on raising the limit -- the last thing many lawmakers seeking re-election want to be on the record as doing.

Treasury Secretary John Snow wrote congressional leaders last week, imploring them to immediately raise the $8.2 trillion debt limit. The House has put the new limit at $9 trillion.

So, Bushco as usual told the Repug congress to jump, and they asked “how high?”

And they have the nerve to criticize the Dems for transparency on this (and by the way, this is one of those votes that should come in handy for Patrick Murphy this fall when he probably will defend his seat against Mikey Fitzpatrick).

"Pay as you go." Members passed, 233-187, a rule under which tax cuts or entitlement spending hikes must be offset. If they are not offset, 60 Senate votes and a House majority would be needed to approve them.

A yes vote was to enact "pay as you go."

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

And this party-line vote tells you how serious the House Repugs are about sound money management anyway.

Cybersecurity programs. Members authorized, 422-5, $396 million in National Science Foundation grants to boost cybersecurity research and instruction at universities.
A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Dent, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Pitts, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

And by the way, let it be known for the record that the five idiots who opposed beefing up our cyber security were Paul Broun, Jeff Flake, Louie Gohmert, Jim Sensenbrenner and Ron Paul (noted here, and I don’t have to point out their party affiliation, do I?).

Senate

Patricia Smith confirmation. Senators voted, 60-37, to confirm New York Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith as the Department of Labor solicitor. This followed the GOP's nine-month delay of her nomination.

A yes vote was to confirm Smith.

Voting yes: 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.).

Martha Johnson confirmation. Senators voted, 82-16, to end a GOP filibuster against the nomination of Martha N. Johnson to head the General Services Administration. She was then confirmed, 96-0, eight months after she was nominated.

A yes vote was to advance the nomination.

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

This week, the House debated the 2010 intelligence budget and whether to end the health-insurance industry's antitrust exemption (they did). The Senate (all together now) took up a jobs bill (don't get me started - I was quite rightly mad at Bunning earlier for preventing the extension of unemployment benefits, but if it had been in this bill to begin with, Bunning wouldn't have been able to do anything, right?).

(It occurs to me that, given the basic non-functioning of this Congress due to Republican obstruction in the Senate, I should probably put a new pic in these posts, since the image of the tire implies smooth driving on a steady road. I'll give that some more thought -perhaps a multi-car pileup would be more appropriate.)

Update 2/27/10: By the way, even though Arlen Specter has committed to supporting a public option in health care reform (here we go again), Sideshow Bob Casey hasn't for some reason. To bug him to do the right thing and support it, click here.

Time For Jim Bunning To Get "The Hook"

(Note: Baseball parlance for relieving a pitcher from the game, for the uninitiated.)

So let’s review the most recent antics of Senator “High And Tight,” shall we?

Bunning’s mental competency was questioned here in 2004 in his Senate campaign against Daniel Mongiardo, in which Bunning used a teleprompter during a debate (hmmm, criticizing a politician for using a teleprompter…sound familiar?), criticized Mongiardo’s campaign for an alleged attack on Bunning’s wife that never took place, and also compared Mongiardo's appearance to one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

And oh yes, this references the famous “civil liberties don’t mean much when you’re dead” quote (though other wingnuts have spoken those words also, it should be noted).

Also, he opposed naming R. David Paulison as head of FEMA after Katrina (post-Mike Brown) here because the agency hadn’t yet developed “a suitable appeals process for property owners whose flood insurance claims are rejected” (ummm…and wouldn’t it be easier to do that with someone actually heading up the agency?).

He also voted to extend amnesty to Iraqis who murdered our troops (one of 19 Repug senators to do so, noted here).

He was also the only Senator not to bother to vote one way or the other on health care reform here (one of the 21 votes Bunning missed for that month).

And now, I give you Bunning’s latest embarrassment (here – h/t Atrios)…

Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from prematurely losing their unemployment benefits next month.

As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.

And when Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."

And as a symptom of our corporate political-media-industrial complex’s almost fetishistic preoccupation with deficit reduction, it should be noted that Bunning supposedly doesn’t object to the extension, but only that it might add to the deficit unless it is paid for with stimulus funds.

(The next time I hear the Bucks County Courier Times Op-Ed page or any other conservative house organ yapping about how deficit reduction is supposedly more important than putting people back to work, I’m going to remember this episode.)

And as Politico/HuffPo report, the Senate has adjourned without acting on the extension.

At this moment, it is harder for me to contemplate a more worthless group of human beings than the U.S. Senate, I must tell you.

And Bunning wanted everyone to know that it was vitally important to him that proceedings end so he can watch a TV sports event.

This senile old fossil would be doing his constituents, to say nothing of the rest of this country, a favor if, after he returned home to watch his precious college basketball game, he decided to stay there and never come back to Washington.

He’s already not running for another term (not that he’d have a snowball’s chance of winning re-election anyway). Find a speck of decency and just quit right now, will you, Senator?

Thursday Stuff

Once again, Jon Stewart explains it all (waaay too late for merely Beltway media theatrics on this, and long past time to pull the thumb out and DO SOMETHING!!!)...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Summit's Eve
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Vancouverage 2010

...and I'm finding that this song applies on multiple levels any more (sorry, no video).

Thursday Mashup (2/25/10)

I know I’m a bit late with some of this stuff, but here it is anyway.

Did you know, by the way, that President Obama has “topped Bush at ducking reporters,” according to Joseph Curl of the Moonie Times (here)?

Well, I must say that that was news to me also, until you read further and discover that sessions such as Obama’s five-question, 33-minute exchange with reporters on a day earlier this month marked by a snowstorm didn’t count to Julie Mason, a longtime White House reporter and board member of the White House Correspondents' Association (and here is another occasion where Mason was less than spot-on with her analysis).

Also, when you get all the way to the bottom of Curl’s opinion column, this is what you find out…

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama tops his predecessor in total output. He has given 43 press conferences of various degrees, six of which were solo White House sessions, (Mark) Knoller (of CBS Radio) said. During the same period, Mr. Bush gave 24 press conferences, of which four were formal, solo White House sessions.

Here, by the way, is more from Eric Boehlert of Media Matters about how our august corporate, somnambulant media revived itself as soon as a Democrat took over An Oval Office after Commander Codpiece departed.

And all of this concerning a president who has “topped Bush at ducking reporters” (and here is an episode of journalistic malpractice by Curl that has to be read to be believed).

And oh noes – it looks like the support enjoyed by “BHO” among younger voters is experiencing a “quick cooling” based on this…

While young adults remain decidedly more liberal, the survey found the Democratic advantage among 18-to-29 year olds has substantially narrowed _ from a record 62 percent identifying as Democrat vs. 30 percent for the GOP in 2008, down to 54 percent vs. 40 percent last December. It was the largest percentage point jump in those who identified or leaned Republican among all the voting age groups.

For the millionth time, I know of no organization called the “Democrat” Party, but clownhall.com isn’t going to mend its ways purely because I wish it to, I know.

And on the subject of younger voters, this story tells us the following…

Michael Dimock, associate director for research for the Pew Research Center, said some Democrats confused young peoples' attraction to President Obama and their distaste for Bush administration policies with lasting loyalty to the Democratic Party.

"The plurality of young people are independent," Dimock said. "Democrats never really closed the deal with young people through this period."

…

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said Obama's dropping approval level among the youngest generation of voters was probably tied to the high unemployment rate, which has hit younger workers even harder than older populations.

Yep, as opposed to some newfound supposed love for the Repugs, that would explain a thing or two to me also, though Eli Pariser of Moveon.org notes that the Repugs have succeeded somewhat in “(moving) themselves away from George Bush.”

I will accept the point that the Dems have some work to do with this demographic among all others, but I think this needs to be pointed out concerning Obama’s predecessor as a measuring point (no need for a “quick cooling” here for a number that’s pretty “glacial” to begin with).

And finally, former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm concocted the following dreck here (on the subject of women serving on U.S. submarines)…

Now that the Navy has made its command military decision to broaden seaborne career opportunities for females, land-based Congress, which itself has woefully few career women, has 30 days -- no, make that 28 now -- to interfere. After all, cramming 118 young male sailors in a long metal tube driven by nuclear fission armed with warheads that could end humanity and submerging all that in 400 feet of deep ocean for 90 straight days with two women, what could possibly go wrong there? They're professionals first.

I’m surprised that Malcolm didn’t try some Curl-esque idiocy here about a “seaman.”

Meanwhile, this Wikipedia article tells us that Norway, Canada, Australia and Spain all allow women to serve on submarines.

I will now await an apology from Malcolm for his unprofessional sarcasm directed at our service members (funny how they claim to “support” those who are apparently such easy targets of ridicule), though I’m sure that none will be forthcoming.

Wednesday Stuff

No time to get to anything else today (posted over here though), which in a way is just as well, because I don't want anything to detract from this "Special Comment" by Keith Olbermann (I haven't seen any passion like this from our side since John Edwards ran in the primary - no reminders please - but it's high time, and thank God K.O. delivers it)...

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Tuesday Stuff

Yep, today turned out to be a no-posting day as I suspected, and I’m not real sure about tomorrow either - still managed to put up a video here though.

I really was planning to ignore all of the CPAC nonsense this weekend until I came across this video by Max Blumenthal of HuffPo, with background here – what balls (and I don’t even know why Breitbart went through the formality of trying to ask a question before he started with his insults; I’m just sorry that he can’t be charged with O’Keefe as an accessory for that ACORN crap).

(And by the way, speaking of Breitbart, O'Keefe and ACORN, check this out.)



…and K.O. accepts what appears to be a “diversity challenge” from some Dallas teabaggers (heh)…

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…and if anyone in this country is trying to do something constructive in any way on health care reform, then it must surely mean that Bart Stupak cannot be far behind trying to revive his pro-sepsis coat hanger abortion amendment, and Pancake Joe Pitts is along for the ride too, appearing briefly in a film clip with Stupak (and by the way, to get an inkling as to why this matters – which should be obvious, I realize – get a load of what’s going on in Nicaragua here...h/t Atrios)

(By the way, Rachel Maddow continues to kick butt on the issues that matter, for anyone out there keeping score; her summary of the Stupak-Pitts atrocity before introducing Jan Schakowsky is the most cogent explanation I’ve yet heard on this subject. And I’ll remember it when I receive the periodic haranguing from the pulpit on this subject again this Sunday…finally, nice work by Schakowsky on the petition to get rid of our military contractors – you can sign here)…

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Update 2/24/10: And in a similar vein, I give you this (h/t Atrios for this also).

…and I like this tune, and it also fits as a weather forecast.




And speaking of rainy days, it looks like Brian Westbrook, formerly of the Philadelphia Eagles and Villanova in these parts, is having one based on this; the organization does what it does best and that is to use up and eventually discard players as if they were household appliances – I mean, the Eagles have to do something good, since, as they are now, they can’t beat NFL-caliber playoff teams any more.

So, with that having been said, my thanks go out to Westbrook for giving it his all for an outfit that doesn’t deserve it (I believe the NFL “combine” is coming up soon, which will be the cue for all of the media sports-mouth idiots in this town to start talking about the Eagles and the Super Bowl…dear God, I may bust a gut laughing out loud).

Monday Stuff

I think this report tells you all you need to know about how feeble the U.S. Senate truly is; as Chris Hayes says, a procedural vote takes place to allow debate on a $15 billion jobs bill, which would generate about a tenth of the amount of jobs actually needed to restore this country to something approximating full employment by 2012, and most of that $15 bil is tax cuts…why do I even bother to waste the calories pointing out that tax cuts don’t do anything to create jobs…all the same, kudos to Scott Brown, shockingly so, for doing something positive, as well as Collins and President Snowe, and as K.O. and Hayes note, Bond and “Err, err” Voinovich are leaving, so what do they care – also, I keep pointing out that Coburn is a dangerous lunatic, but if you’re reading this, you already know that…

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…and if you’re disgusted by the human embarrassment known as Steve King as I am based on this, click here to do something about it...



…and here’s a nice mellow little tune with some nice images to think about as the snow melts…



…and on a much happier note, happy 60th birthday to Dr. J!

Monday Mashup (2/22/10)

(I also posted some stuff over here.)

The New York Times Magazine yesterday published a “10 Questions” segment with Repug U.S. House Rep Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who has put together an alternative GOP budget; here is one of the questions and answers about it…

Your “Road Map,” we should explain, is a somewhat alarming document that proposes, in 600-plus pages, erasing the federal deficit by radically restricting the government’s role in social programs like Social Security and Medicare. The president described it as “a serious proposal.”

Right. And then the next day his budget director starts ripping me and then the day after that the entire Democratic National Committee political machine starts launching demagogic attacks on me and my plan. So when you hear the word “bipartisanship” come from the president and then you see his political machine get in full-force attack mode, it comes across as very insincere.

In response, I give you the following from Matt Yglesias here…

Paul Ryan has gone where I thought no Republican would dare to tread and put out an alternative budget proposal that would, in fact, balance the budget over the long term. Part of the program is draconian real cuts in all domestic programs—less money for Pell Grants, less money for local schools, less money for the FBI, less money for job training, less money for National Institutes of Health research, less money for food stamps, etc. And part of the program is cuts in Social Security—people work be getting what they’ve been promised. And part of the program involved Medicaid in a way I don’t really understand.

But over the long haul the most important thing here is Ryan’s proposed cuts in Medicare.

…

Ryan is proposing to ration care for seniors. He’ll take the baseline level of per capita medical costs for seniors in 2020 and then draw a curve representing 2.7 percent annual growth and say that any costs above that won’t be covered. If grandma’s got a bunch of money, then she can spend her money. If not, then the plug is pulled.

…

If Obama’s efforts to create a viable regulatory framework in which individuals can buy private health insurance (a) pass congress, and (b) turn out to work well and be popular, then you can imagine a version of Ryan’s plan being put into place. But in the absence of that kind of reform, I just don’t see how you can do this, which is presumably why the implementation is delayed all the way to 2021 which helps Ryan avoid needing to think about implementation details.

Also, Ryan has called the health care reform legislation currently working its way through Congress as a “terrible” bill, which is not surprising given his awful alternative, as noted here.

And Ryan actually criticizes Obama for being “insincere.”

Also in the Times yesterday, John Harwood wrote the following here about what is, for the most part, congressional inertia originating from the Senate…

Many Democrats now focus on curbing use of the Senate filibuster, even though they found the 60-vote threshold useful in preventing Mr. Obama’s predecessor from getting many conservative nominees to the federal bench.

Well, if that indeed was the “focus” of congressional Democrats under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, it should be noted that they failed miserably; this tells us that Number 43 managed to rank third in presidential judicial appointments between Bill Clinton (#2) and The Sainted Ronnie R (#1).

And when it comes to Bushco judicial appointments, the following should be noted from here…

WASHINGTON — Within weeks of George W. Bush's inauguration, he revealed a systematic, aggressive and tightly controlled approach to making lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

The new president ejected the American Bar Association from the screening process, ending its half-century role of reviewing candidates' credentials before a nomination. Bush turned to lawyers who had been on Ronald Reagan's judicial selection team to help seek out prominent conservative thinkers. All indications were that Bush was trying to emulate Reagan, whose conservative mark on the bench has been deep and enduring.

Also on the matter of judicial appointments, I thought this was a telling article, particularly the following…

By February 2002, President George W. Bush had nominated 89 judges to the lower federal courts. This week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy prodded President Obama, who has nominated just 42 federal judges to date, to "get up names as quickly as possible." President Obama promised to make this "a priority." He'd better.

There are currently 102 vacancies on the federal bench. Of these, 31 constitute "judicial emergencies"—vacancies that have severely threatened a court's ability to handle its workload. Before the end of the year, there will be dozens of additional openings on the lower courts (20 have already been announced) and, in all likelihood, one and perhaps even two Supreme Court vacancies to fill. With an energized Republican Party, the loss of a filibuster-proof majority, and a scary-looking midterm election in November, Obama faces a difficult task in filling these vacancies this year. But this is it—when is he likely to have a better opportunity?

When indeed?

And by the way, Harwood makes a remark about "some White House strategists" who want to see a congressional replay of 1994 for some reason. I have two thoughts on that: 1) No self-respecting journalist should publish a comment like that without proper sourcing, and 2) Anyone in the Obama White House nursing any notions that any Democratic defeat can be positive in any way should be fired immediately.

And turning to the Op-Ed page of the Bucks County Courier Times, I give you the following “vent” from yesterday…

We should remember that Mike Fitzpatrick in the last year of his term was the first congressperson of his own party to publically repudiate George W. Bush's war policies.

Of course, since this is a “vent” on the Op-Ed page, it must observe the approximately-25-word limit, which precludes proper sourcing (another reason why I think the whole “vent” thing is a dumb idea anyway).

However, it should be noted from here that Mike Fitzpatrick didn’t propose “bringing battalions home” from Iraq until September 2006 in a Guest Opinion column (and in that same opinion column, in a truly unbelievable fit of partisan jujitsu, he criticized both Patrick Murphy and John Kerry for their “extreme withdrawal timeline” for bringing our troops home, even though that was plainly supported by the majority of the people in this country, which had more than a little bit to do with the fact that Mikey lost, as I recall).

And besides, how did Mikey voice his “repudiation” of Commander Codpiece? By writing a “strongly worded letter” to the Iraq Study Group, the outfit that was supposed to give Obama’s predecessor cover for a withdrawal (though, as we know, Bush ignored that and plowed ahead with the “surge” anyway which succeeded because of our military working in concert with the Sunni Awakening councils; this doesn’t take into account the ethnic cleansing of that period, by the way).

Mikey can continue to “repudiate” our prior ruling cabal all he wants to. However, it will take a Democratic president and what will hopefully remain a Democratic congress to clean up the Iraq mess for which Fitzpatrick is partly, though not primarily, responsible.

Finally, Dick Polman of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote the following yesterday…

The date was Jan. 20, 2009. Ted Kennedy, who was battling a brain tumor, collapsed at an inaugural luncheon - prompting many anonymous participants in our national conversation to rub their hands in glee and root for his death.

On the ABC News Web site, one commenter exclaimed, "Hot diggity damn! Maybe we're finally rid of him!" Another exulted, "And I thought nothing good would come of this day!"

But this was mere foreplay compared with the purrs of satisfaction that were posted online when Kennedy died seven months later. Many commenters were frankly giddy at the prospect that the late senator would dwell forever in a fiery climate.

And of course, Polman believes he is obligated to inflict some “yeah, well, the lefties do this stuff too” equivalency…

When Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized with chest pains on Dec. 30, the left-leaning comment boards were jammed with celebrants:

"Garbage in, garbage out. Let him die."

"If he croaks, this is officially the greatest year in American history."

"Come on, 2009! Don't fail me now!"

And not all the trash-talkers were anonymous. Last spring, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, comic Wanda Sykes said of Limbaugh, "I hope his kidneys fail."

OK, she was joking, but the joke was symptomatic of our cultural illness. Incivility is rewarded; it's one big reason for Ann Coulter's success.

“Left-leaning comment boards,” huh? What thorough sourcing! And by the way, the answer is no; I don’t condone death wishes against anyone except Osama bin Laden, no matter how repugnant they may be.

I’ll tell you what, Dick. Do some Googling and get some pics of what goes on at these Tea Party rallies (including the signs in particular). Then, go attend any “Drinking Liberally” function of your choice, “Netroots Nation” when it come around again, or any liberal/progressive meetup of your choice; take lots and lots of pictures, and compare the two different types of gatherings, OK? And then ask yourself which ones are demonizing the opposition the most hateful way possible and which ones are meeting with political figures and journalists in an effort to effect political change in this country (and also ask yourself why the latter group receives a fraction of the media coverage of the former).

And Polman, of course, is above such petty behavior and name-calling as we know. That’s why he called John Edwards a “headless chicken” here (well before Edwards’ political and personal lives imploded), and that’s why he also made fun about people supposedly not caring about the Supreme Court here (funny, but it looks to me based on this that they care a lot about the dreadful Citizens United ruling).

Oh, and according to Polman here, Barack Obama would not get a post-Democratic Convention “bounce” in the polls in 2008 (uh, really?). Also, here is another “golden moment” with Polman where he claimed that the Internet needed a “sheriff.”

Yeah, well, all I can say (quoting the movie “Die Hard”), “Yippee-ki-yay” (don’t worry – I won’t be so impolite as to provide the rest of the quote).

Sunday Stuff

I know "The Governator" has issues, but when he's right, he's right big time (here).

(And please allow me to vent, if you would - after eight miserable years of failed non-governance prior to Obama, why the hell should anybody give a shit what the Republican Party thinks? Do I really need to ask whether or not the Democrats would be invited on the Sunday morning gab fests if they had a record of utter failure like that?)...



...and I thought this was appropriate given this story.