Windfall for Juan Williams

I guess in conservaworld, once you make unfair, judgmental comments about entire groups of people, you've got it made!

After Juan Williams got fired by NPR for his remarks about Muslims, it was no bother for Williams. Fox News just went right ahead and rewarded him with a $2,000,000 contract (which is a massive increase from his previous salary).

I guess all you need to do to win a lucrative contract from Fox News is make a stupid statement that gets you in trouble somewhere else.

As the right-wing furor over Williams's firing unfolds, Jim DeMint has introduced a bill to punish NPR for firing Williams by cutting off all of NPR's funding. Trouble with Jim Demented's bill is that NPR doesn't get any federal funds to begin with. (It's funded by member stations.) But Fox News does: It's called the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was a bailout for right-wing media.

Maybe we need to stop funding Fox News by repealing the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was passed by a fascist Congress anyway. If Congress won't act, the states must.

It begins

An election just wouldn't be an election if the Rethug-a-lugs didn't try to steal it - and this year is no exception.

Officials in Bexar County, Texas, scheduled repaving of a parking lot in a heavily Democratic precinct to coincide with early voting - thus discouraging voters from showing up. The area has a lot of people in wheelchairs who were unable to get through the mess.

Local residents want a federal investigation into the suppression of the vote.

Trying to rig the election again, eh, Repubs? Well, then GO AHEAD AND TAKE YOUR VERY BEST FUCKING SHOT!!!!! I so DARE the Republicans to cross me on this. I singlehandedly scared the Tea Parties out of Campbell County, and they're crossing the wrong guy. Trust me: They don't want me to humiliate them even worse than I already have.

I can make the next 2 years very, VERY difficult for them - depending on how Election Day goes. I've been in smaller rooms with bigger people, and I can't be intimidated.

Try me. I fucking dare you.

(Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/anger_flares_on_the_east_side_over_early_voting_105468893.html)

Art-burner James Aiona

Keep an eye on this right-wing idiot.

Hawaii Lt. Gov. James Aiona is the Republican candidate for governor. And he is a fucking nutcase.

He has admitted to being part of something called Transformation Hawaii - a chapter of the International Transformation Network. The International Transformation Network is a "ministry" that (among other things) advocates burning native art. Because the ITN hates gays, the group has also been involved with legislation in Uganda that attempts to exterminate the country's gay population.

The difference between this and what the Taliban did is...? Well, nothing. The Taliban also destroyed art - as did Nazi Germany.

The ITN's view is that native beliefs stand in the way of the ITN's agenda of trying to impose beliefs on native people. So - in the eyes of the ITN - native art must be reduced to ashes.

As lieutenant governor, Aiona also led a Transformation Hawaii religious ceremony at a public school and had it broadcast statewide. I guess he's just like Christine O'Donnell in having never heard of separation of church and state.

So this is where the Republicans are at these days. They've abandoned all semblance of sanity and have become totalitarian loons.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/19/911697/-GOP-gov-candidate-says-hes-in-group-that-burns-native-art;
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2010/10/19/8306/2124)

Dick Armey sez: You cheated!!! Waaaaah!!!

Now I remember why I hated this right-wing fuckchop so much.

It's still 12 days until Election Day, and Dick Armey is already proving what a sore loser he is. Presented with the fact that Democrats are voting at a better rate than Republicans in states that have early voting (a fact that debunks the media's narrative of a Republican wave), the hapless Billy Joel look-alike whined that this is nothing but vote fraud by the Democrats.

So voting is fraud now?

Dick, grow up! Stop being such a baby! Your side is discredited, and you know it. So shut up and go away.

Although right-wing waterworks over an election that hasn't even happened yet seems relatively new, throwing a fit about the actual results isn't. In every single cycle lately - even when the Republicans win - right-wingers make baseless claims that their opponents have committed voter fraud. In all cases that I know of, these claims are debunked.

In fact, Armey himself claimed it in 1996. On election night, he gave a drunken TV interview in which he ranted and raved about the media taking Alabama away from the Republicans - even though nobody disagreed that the GOP won that state.

In a saner world, morons like Dick Armey would just dry up and blow away. But it's the media that gives him a platform for his sour grapes.

(Source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/dick_armey_so_many_dems_are_voting_early_because_t.php)

DCCC = wusses

If the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee isn't willing to support Democrats, who in the party needs 'em?

The DCCC has yanked all its support from Florida's Alan Grayson - even though this contest was actually more competitive than some in which the Democrats are running DLCers who were much more likely to lose.

This proves once again that Democratic "leaders" don't care about electing anybody effective and will abandon candidates because they deem them too liberal. It's just like the time they abandoned that candidate in Missouri because he supported legalizing marijuana. Or how the DLC intentionally sabotaged that special election in Hawaii this year by running their own candidate, which split the Democratic vote.

The DCCC wants Taliban Dan Webster to defeat Grayson, I guess. I know a lot of folks consider Grayson's win last time a fluke, but that's still no excuse.

The only poll that showed Taliban Dan winning by a commanding margin was a Republican internal. At least one other poll showed Grayson leading by just as much. So Grayson would still have a pretty strong chance if the DCCC didn't abandon him in order to save Blue Dog hacks who aren't worth shit anyway.

America doesn't deserve an idiot like Taliban Dan. But maybe the DCCC does. If Taliban Dan wins, I'm going to be pointing one finger squarely at the DCCC. Not like that'll ingrain the DCCC with any sense, because they've got pretty thick skulls.

Now do you understand why I switched to the Greens?

Democratic "leaders" refuse to draw blood, so I have to do it for them.

Corporations buying pro-GOP coverage?

Over the past week or two, I've been starting to get a strange feeling about the media being not quite on the level, and I think commenters on other blogs are starting to get this feeling too.

The Citizens United ruling enables corporations to spend as much as they want on political campaigns - and not disclose it. True to form, corporate expenditures in this campaign have increased markedly since the last cycle. And few would disagree that corporations strongly favor Republicans.

But I haven't seen any more actual campaign advertising than I usually do. In other years, the mailboxes and airwaves are already saturated with political ads well before late October, so campaigns don't really have many more places to advertise now than they did last time.

Yet at the same time, the media's actual coverage is - by far - more supportive of Republicans than I've ever seen it. This at a time when I haven't actually seen any more support for the GOP among actual people. (I see less public support for the Republicans now than at any other time since I've been old enough to notice.)

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I now truly believe that corporations are paying off news organizations to give favorable coverage to the Republicans. Think about it for a minute. This is technically a form of advertising, but it no longer has to be labeled as advertising, and the donors no longer have to be disclosed.

Simply put, it's advertising masquerading as news coverage.

I still avidly read "mainstream" newspapers (as difficult as that's become), and in no previous election season did I see so much coverage that seems so obviously orchestrated to write a narrative about what the election results will be. As I've said before, however, Republicans winning back Congress is not supported by polls that avoid the flawed likely voter screen - or by public opinion. Still, the media just keeps sticking to its GOP-friendly narrative, as if it's trying to create a bandwagon effect.

I'm not talking about just the media's usual right-wing bias. I've known since I was 15 that the media runs with stories that are fed to them by Republican campaigns. I'm talking about something more.

After seeing the widening disconnect between the media's narrative and actual public opinion, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Big Business is now paying the media generously for Republican-friendly articles. No doubt whatsoever. I think it's as much a part of their advertising budget as regular ads are.

I would BET THE FARM on it. You don't see coverage that's so friendly to a discredited party while the party continues to lose public trust, unless there's something propping up this coverage.

Grover wears underpants ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

'Sesame Street' is a topsy-turvy world where nobody ever acknowledges the existence of underpants. It's as if underpants were never even invented. They don't even seem to understand the concept of underpants on the ol' Ses, as monsters walk around in their birthday suits (or surrounded by a trash can).

But Grover has finally broken the silence.

In one fairly recent segment, we learn that Grover has mistakenly ordered 1,000 pairs of underpants instead of just one:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K5PHakJwz0

Is it just my imagination, or is Grover really masturbating at 1:00?

As for the underwear, I'm surprised Grover was ordering any at all. I just thought he strolled about Sesame Street with everything just hanging out. Or maybe he wears thong underpants that are so skinny that they just get buried in that jungle of blue fur.

Grover. He will cut your taxes!

Real people

In this election cycle, a pattern is becoming clear: Republicans won't use real people in their campaign ads - opting instead for out-of-state actors. That's because nobody supports the GOP's garbage unless they're paid to appear on the party's behalf.

There's nothing wrong with being a professional actor. But campaign ads aren't supposed to lie to people by making them think an actor is actually employed in some other field and is endorsing a candidate based on their own experiences. And you damn sure don't do this while ridiculing the very voters you're supposed to appeal to.

But the Republicans do it all!

In Ohio, right-wing gubernatorial candidate John Kasich ran a commersh that claimed to show a real Ohio steelworker. The purported steelworker charged that the Buckeye State's Democratic administration had cost jobs.

But it turns out that Kasich is so dishonest that he lied about the man being a real steelworker. The man is actually an out-of-state actor paid to appear in the ad.

This clip exposes Kasich's deception:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R48YAEcKZeU

(That video is worth watching just for the music!)

West Virginia's right-wing Senate candidate John Raese did something even more outrageous. In a commercial for his faltering campaign, Raese didn't hire real West Virginians. Maybe it's because Raese doesn't live in West Virginia himself: He lives in Florida (and is therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve as a senator from West Virginia). To find people to appear in Raese's ad, Republicans went to Philadelphia to look for professional actors who could produce what they called a "hicky" appearance.

In short, Raese hires out-of-state actors to portray what he thinks West Virginians look like. If there ever was a sign of the modern Republican Party's elitism, that would be it.

This is the flip side of a form of elitism that's been much more prevalent in the GOP since the mid-'90s. They like to shout down opposition by saying they governed the way they did because we voted them in. Except that we didn't. I don't think I've ever voted Republican except in one county race years ago in which the Democrat ran to the right. And nobody even disagrees that Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election. Bush claimed he had a mandate without even winning the most votes!

In other words, Republicans think some voters' votes count more than ours. "You don't support us? Sorry, you don't count." I honestly don't see a huge difference between modern GOP elitism and the Divine Right of Kings.

They think it's their birthright, just like how now they think it's their birthright to win back control of Congress.

The corporatists have gotten to the state courts too?

America is supposed to have 3 equal branches of government that act as checks and balances of each other. But lately, there are some lawmakers who try to make themselves judges, some judges who try to make themselves lawmakers, and some Presidents who try to make themselves both. (I'm talking about Bush here - except he wasn't even a legitimate President.)

The Supreme Court went unchecked early this year in the Citizens United ruling - which created special "rights" for corporations out of whole cloth. As a result, dirty corporate money (much of it sponsored by totalitarian foreign governments) has flooded the airwaves during this election cycle.

There was no legal basis for the Supremes' ruling. None. It was an activist ruling.

Now folks in Montana are being treated to a big stinking repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat...repeat.

District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock (like Sherlock Hemlock, that dude on 'Sesame Street') has tossed out a state law against corporate bankrolling of political campaigns that had stood for almost 100 years. The 1912 law had been approved in a voter referendum - but I guess the will of the people takes a back seat to corporate "rights" created by an activist state court.

In issuing this ruling, the judge ruled in favor of the Western Tradition Partnership, a secretive right-wing think tank.

So corporations are people now? Clearly, they're being given more rights than people, since they've just been allowed to outvote a voter-approved law.

In the meantime, I think it's time for a statutory fix to the Citizens United ruling. Just pass the old law again and dare the rogue Supreme Court to do anything about it.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/18/AR2010101804283.html)

Another poll shows failure won't be rewarded

I saw an interesting quote on another blog the other day. It said something like, "America is drifting left - but will our presumed betters allow it?"

Public opinion is indeed trending leftward, but the other side is trying to tell us we can't have it. The media is trying to write a narrative that says the upcoming election will be a Republican wave - but I saw a poll yesterday that seems to confirm that it won't be.

Earlier this month, I blogged here about a poll that showed that Republicans are losing support among self-described moderate voters. The poll I saw yesterday also forecasts a river of waterworks among the GOP fold: According to that poll, 76% of Obama voters plan to vote Democratic in the looming House elections, while 8% plan to vote Republican. At the same time, 71% of McCain voters plan to vote Republican, while 9% plan to go Democratic. So that's actually a gain of several points for the Democrats. (Furthermore, Obama has higher approval ratings than any other President of the past several decades had at this point in their first term.)

As I said before, if polls of individual contests don't bear this out, it's because they use a likely voter screen that is now nothing short of discredited. Other blogs have gone over this over and over, but the media has a narrative to tell, so they're sticking to this flawed screening method.

The biggest foreteller of the Republicans' doom though isn't a poll. Rather, it's a very simple fact: The Republicans ran the country for decades and proved they couldn't govern competently. But in the 21 months since they've been out of power, America has seen the most sustained economic recovery in 30 years. The American people couldn't possibly be so fucking stupid that they'd reward the Republicans for their past failures by returning them to office. I've seen plenty of weird things happen in my time, but I've yet to see anything that weird.

If the elections are honest, it ain't gonna happen. Simple as that. You know it and I know it, so let's cut the bullshit.

Even now, with the election only 2 weeks away, the more people see of the Republicans (a party that seems to have rebranded itself as the fascist Tea Party movement), the less they like them. As if they didn't hate them enough already.

If the pop-up media can't even see what's in plain sight to everybody else, that's pretty sad. I personally suspect the Republicans are going to get their clocks cleaned again, and I'm almost certain they're not going to retake Congress. Our media overlords are about the only people who haven't figured this out yet.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Phone Phun"

What do you do when a rogue bank calls your house 30 times a day for 6 days demanding that you pay a debt you don't owe?

The 1988 Tim would sit back and take it.

But this is the 2010 Tim!

A certain bank keeps calling here asking for a woman who I don't even know, in an attempt to collect a debt. On Tuesday morning, I sent the bank a letter in which I called them "pigfuckers" and ordered them to stop.

But they are obviously illiterate, because they still keep calling. In fact, they even called at 1 AM today. My phone line is completely useless because of these assholes.

So I'm fighting back. Hard.

True, I may be spending a few dollars to get a cell phone to use instead of the traditional landline. (Remember, I have to keep the landline because that's where I get my Internet. However, I will be disconnecting the phone. Also bear in mind that the phone company could put a stop to the harassing calls at the snap of a finger, but in the 26 years since I started getting calls from school bullies, it has chosen not to.) But I'm not depleting my bank account without a fight. If I have to spend extra bucks, I'm going to HAVE A LITTLE FUN with it. I'm thrifty, so I'm gonna get what I pay for, dammit!

That means responding in kind to the harassers. I do unto them what they done unto me. In other words, I call 'em back! As another example of my Midwestern thrift, I found their toll-free number on the Internet instead of calling them at the countless long-distance numbers in several different states that they call me from.

But let's suppose a cell phone will cost me maybe $8 more a month (not including $30 for the phone itself). That fucking ENTITLES me to do $8 of damage monthly to the business of the assholes who won't stop calling me. Fair is fair.

My latest 'LCQ' episode shows one of the ways I fight back against rogue debt collectors like this bank:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80zn-LuJ394

The duck call has worked with other debt collectors - until now. The bank I'm dealing with now is as thick as a brick, and the Internet is rife with complaints against this bank. They've even called me twice in the half-hour since I finished filming that episode - which of course has already resulted in them being called back.

Taliban Dan the Social Security-slashin' man

Florida's Dan "Submit To Me" Webster is one of the most worthless pieces of shit running for Congress this year.

The Republican politico is known as Taliban Dan - a fact highlighted in a campaign ad for Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson. (Grayson's commersh is by far the best campaign ad I've found this season.) When Taliban Dan tried debunking the ad by posting the entirety of the speech that was quoted in the ad, all this accomplished was to prove that Taliban Dan was even worse than the ad made him appear.

Taliban Dan came across as a totalitarian whack-a-doodle in that speech, but even that doesn't do justice to his serial meanness. Taliban Dan also wants to make senior citizens PAY BACK past cost-of-living increases in their Social Security. He could just as easily be called Kal Kan Dan.

No, I'm not making this up. Taliban Dan is that much of a scuzz.

When you think the Republicans can't get any more extreme, they always do, don't they?

So let's get this straight: Under Taliban Dan's plan, an elderly person who has seen their Social Security benefits increase because of inflation would now have to PAY BACK the increase they got. Yep, that's what Taliban Dan said. That's Taliban Dan's ridiculous idea, not mine.

Taliban Dan's idea isn't even on deficit reduction grounds. He simply thinks Social Security recipients shouldn't have gotten an increase, period.

This ranks right up there with the time some right-wing lawmakers about 10 years ago wanted to create special entitlement programs for descendants of slaveholders as "reparations" for the government "taking" their slaves under the Emancipation Proclamation. Only in conservaworld can the government make Social Security recipients pay back their benefits so slaveholders' descendants can be reimbursed for slavery being banned.

Incidentally, Taliban Dan has also been endorsed by a frequent speaker at white supremacist events - which isn't too surprising, considering the racism that pervades the Republican Party these days.

Wheel of misfortune

We've known for years that 'Wheel Of Fortune' host Pat Sajak is a right-wing clod, but he just gets more extreme every time he opens his cavernous mouth.

Now Sajak - in an article for some right-wing blog nobody reads - says government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. His so-called reasoning is that workers in the public sector have too much of a stake in government.

Sajak, you idiot, the whole reason voting exists is because people have a stake in things. For example, I have a stake in keeping nuclear waste dumps out of my state, so I'd be inclined to vote for a candidate who wants waste disposed of elsewhere. Folks in another state might have a stake in having it dumped here instead of in their state, so they'd vote for somebody else. In a democratic republic, voters vie for influence. We don't vote just because we like to collect "I Voted" stickers.

"I'm not suggesting that public employees should be denied the right to vote," Sajak writes. But keeping public employees from voting is exactly what he recommended.

As others have pointed out, Pat Sajak's stance is significant because the past 30 years have proven one thing: Ideas like Sajak's that seem wacky at first are inevitably incorporated into Republican campaigns - not to mention the DLC. I've also learned that once their bizarre ideas are put in force, it's nearly impossible to reverse them. (Does the Telecommunications Act of 1996 sound familiar?)

If Sajak's idea was enacted, there would have been several major elections in which I wouldn't have been allowed to vote, because I worked for a public agency like the library.

Maybe voting should be limited to where people actually have a stake. In 1994, a right-wing referendumb in Massachusetts that bars cities from having rent control laws passed because (in addition to the "election" being rigged) much of the vote was cast in wealthy suburbs where people owned their own homes and which lacked rent control laws. These suburbs had no stake in the measure, yet they voted on it.

Is it fair that wealthy communities that had no stake in rent control were allowed to deny affordable housing to the rest of the state? Pat Sajak apparently thinks it is. (Cow pies to the Massachusetts legislature for not overturning this measure. They've had 16 years to do so, and they've sat on their hands.)

A country run by Pat Sajak would be one of cheap elitism that bears no resemblance to how a democratic republic is supposed to operate.

Number Painter and gorilla try to educate Ron Johnson ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Wisconsin's right-wing Senate candidate Ron Johnson doesn't know how to make a 5.

In a recent campaign spot, Johnson writes numbers on a board while he complains that there aren't enough financially secure types in the Senate. His attempt at a 5 looks more like an 'S', a 3, a snowman, a pot-bellied stove, or just an illegible squiggle.

'Sesame Street' to the rescue!

'Sesame Street' in the '70s is known for several memorable series of number sketches. The ones with the baker falling down the steps were designed to teach how to count with each number. The ones with the famous Number Painter - played by the late Paul Benedict, who also played Mr. Bentley on 'The Jeffersons' - were meant to teach the shape of each numeral.

And Ron Johnson could use the one about the number 5:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgpSP0aPfM

In that sketch, the Number Painter breaks into a cage at the zoo just to satisfy his strange fetish of painting numbers on things. In the process, he befriends a gorilla, who finishes his 5 for him. (I wonder if that gorilla knows Paul the Gorilla from 'The Electric Company'.)

Why does the Number Painter always put the handle of his paintbrush in his mouth? That goes against everything we've ever been taught about how to avoid picking up germs.

But if you're Ron Johnson and are deficient at making a 5, that skit is for you!

Motorist kills candidate with SUV

Evil. Pure evil.

This story shows what America is up against.

Natasha Pettigrew was the Green candidate for Senate in Maryland. Last month, as she was bicycling, she was struck by a motorist in an oversized Cadillac Escalade SUV. The driver did not stop after hitting Pettigrew. The 30-year-old candidate died from her injuries:

http://www.tbd.com/articles/2010/09/green-party-candidate-hospitalized-after-accident-12745.html

The driver who killed Pettigrew said she thought she hit a deer. A deer on a bicycle? I do not believe that for one second.

I don't even need to tell you whether or not I think this was politically motivated.

Why child molesters are voting for Ron Johnson

This blog has been rather light lately, because the Republicans have set the bar for stupidity so high that they've ceased to be interesting.

But what Wisconsin's Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson did was so incredibly stupid that it's almost beyond belief:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/11/909456/-WI-Sen-Breaking:-Johnson-Hired-Pedophile-Shortly-After-Child-Sexual-Assault-Conviction

In a nutshell, Johnson's company hired a pedophile right after said pedophile's sexual assault conviction.

It's unknown however if this convict was part of the now-infamous program in which Johnson benefited from prison labor. This story also follows revelations that Johnson testified before lawmakers against a bill that would have made it easier for victims of child sexual abuse to sue abusers.

Can America really afford to lose Russ Feingold to this creep?

Another year of dog food for Grandma!

For yet another year, America's seniors and disabled are going to be skipping meals.

Yesterday, the government announced that - for the second year in a row - there will be no cost-of-living increase for Americans who receive Social Security or disability benefits. The excuse is that inflation wasn't high enough.

What??? If there's any inflation at all, there's supposed to be a cost-of-living increase. Them's the rules. If the Tea Parties don't like it, too fucking bad.

Meanwhile, Congress has received automatic pay increases - which violate the Constitution's provision against receiving pay raises in the middle of a term.

For years - starting in 1995 - Congress intentionally undercounted inflation just so the cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients would be less than it should be. There was one year when they were caught and had to pay America's seniors what was stolen from them, remember? Maybe there ought to be a cost-of-living adjustment this year just to make up for all the years when Congress lied.

Congress has money for bailouts and useless wars, but not enough to pay seniors what they put into the system?

And did I tell you that the head of the Social Security Administration (who administers these rulings) happens to be a Bush appointee?

Meanwhile, there's a sensible bill in Congress to pay seniors a onetime $250 sum to help ease the burden created by the lack of a cost-of-living increase. But not a single one of the bill's 127 cosponsors is a Republican, of course.

Moderates key to humiliating GOP

This story is the strongest sign I've seen in months that all the Republican bluster about retaking Congress is just that - bluster.

Last night, I found an interesting entry on Public Policy Polling's blog:

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/10/republicans-still-lacking-with.html

It says that if the Republicans win, "they're doing it without having improved their appeal to the center at all since the 2008 election."

More striking than this observation though is the numbers. In 2008, self-described moderate voters went for Obama by a margin of 21%. In the upcoming congressional election, polls show them going Democratic by 30%. Moderates in West Virginia went for Obama by 5%. Now, Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin is carrying moderates in his Senate bid by 29%.

None of this has been picked up on yet by the media.

You don't go from a Democratic wave in 2008 to a Republican wave in 2010 by expanding Democratic support among moderates. You just don't. That doesn't happen. Understand? The Republicans are less popular now than they were 2 years ago, and that's not how you win elections.

Why aren't these numbers borne out by polls of individual contests? Simple: Pollsters don't think that moderate to liberal respondents are likely voters. If you take away the likely voter screen, it's as much of a Democratic rout as the last 2 cycles were.

Either way, the Republicans aren't owed a damn thing in November except a middle finger.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "There's No Wa!"

Shit breaks, man.

Back in my day, shit didn't break as much. But these days, shit breaks like it's going out of style! You name it, it breaks!

Americans work hard, yet most things they spend their hard-earned money on are a pile of dust within a month. The problem has become progressively worse for 30 years.

For this week's 'LCQ' episode, I go on location in Covington, Kentucky, to talk about when objects render themselves utterly ru and destructo. In particular, I discuss a water bottle that sprang a leak and wasted all my priceless wawa:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPZmhb_JzpM

Corporatism means shoddy goods, wasted money, and spilled water. Here's hoping we can someday return to the days of quality goods!

Obama to veto right-wing notarization bill

There's gobs of stories that should be covered by this blog, but aren't, because I've been bogged down lately by health issues. But here's one that just came out today, and it speaks volumes about the power of big banks in Congress...

Congress recently passed - with no debate whatsoever - a Republican bill that would have forced states to accept questionable notarizations from other states. This would have made it harder for people to challenge bogus foreclosures.

But the Obama administration is taking a stand for the rights of consumers and the states' autonomy by vetoing this bill.

If congressional Democrats want to maximize their approval ratings, they need to vote against this bill when it's returned to Congress for the override vote.

What's amazing is that - even with an ostensibly Democratic Congress - it's so hard to get worthwhile bills passed, while this shitty bill sailed right through.

GOP wants Obama investigated after Tea Party cover is blown

When the Democrats are in the White House, the Republicans are all about investigate, investigate, investigate. They can't deal with losing, so they investigate the party that wins. They'd rather investigate political foes for bogus reasons than get shit done.

With the discovery that the head honchos of Koch Industries are major bankrollers of the "grassroots" Tea Party group known as Americans for Prosperity, the GOP is throwing a fit that their cover is blown. So now Koch and the Republicans are blaming a particular Obama administration official for allegedly disclosing Koch's tax status. Seven Republican senators are calling for an investigation of the Obama White House over this.

Big problem with the Republicans' witch hunt: Koch's tax status was already public record. Nobody in the Obama administration divulged any secret information. If it seemed like it was such a secret before, it's only because the media had neglected to expose it.

Gee, Repubs, if you don't like the message, don't attack the messenger.

The real scandal is that a corporation like Koch is funding a fascist movement - not the fact that somebody dared to find out about it using public records.

(Source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/obama_admin_statements_on_koch_industry_tax_status.php)

Pollster gets it wrong, throws fit

The media (who else?) is trumpeting polls by a firm called Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB) that show several Democratic congressional candidates (including incumbents) losing - despite the fact that other polls (which the media ignores) show them winning.

I immediately got suspicious of these polls, so I did a little research about PSB.

Turns out that they did polls in the recall election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that showed Chavez losing by 20% - when in fact, Chavez survived the recall effort by 20%. What did PSB say about its poll being so hilariously wrong? PSB's Doug Schoen said of Chavez's win, "I think it was a massive fraud."

Aw, did the poor widdle PSB lose?

Grow up, Doug. Not every election that fails to go your way is fraudulent, you know.

In the meantime, the election in the good ol' U.S. and A. is less than 4 weeks away, so keep a sharp, sharp eye on the Evil Empire. There's no enthusiasm gap in my household, and - depending on the results - I can make things very, very hard on the other side. In the unlikely event that the elections turn out like 1994, the boom is going to be lowered very quickly this time.

I don't answer to the Republicans. I answer to a higher power.

How much are these condoms, Mr. Looper? ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

'Sesame Street' isn't just for kids. Adults love it too!

Some of the segments on the ol' Ses have parts that are clearly designed for grownups - like the sketch where Oscar the Grouch gets turned on by the inspector at the airport metal detector. Somebody else pointed out that the reference to Oscar's chain and anvil was clearly adult-oriented.

Just a few days ago, I saw an uproarious article about 'Sesame Street' naughtiness. It said that the crew that worked on the show liked to stock the shelves of Mr. Hooper's Store with condoms and pornographic postcards. Yes, the show was filmed with the items still on the shelves. However, there were no scenes where viewers could discern what the items were.

Hopefully, the fine folks at Children's Television Workshop removed the grownup items before filming this skit (from 1971 or earlier) in which small children patronize the store:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCMA_5nK_G0

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong on the shelf at Hooper's Store: birdseed, bubble gum mislabeled as malteds, or pornographic postcards?

Can you guess which one? Why, the bubble gum mislabeled as malteds, of course. Because everybody knows mislabeling food violates the Pure Food and Drug Act.

In the meantime, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, the Count, and the rest of the 'Sesame Street' kick-ass crew know where to get their condoms.

(Source: http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/eyewitness-sesame-street-was-naughty-way-before-katy-perry/19652007)

Back in the U.S.S.R...I mean Facebook...

Early this morning, I discovered something rather odd.

As you may know, I deactivated my Facebook account 2 months ago, primarily because I was sick of all the whining by right-wingers there and the fact that Facebook kept yanking the accounts of people who disagreed with them. But today, I found that Facebook had reactivated my account without my permission.

In doing so, I discovered another one of Facebook's lies: Facebook says that if deactivated accounts are reactivated, all your personal information and settings are saved and will be waiting for you. However, Facebook deleted all my personal data. So they lied.

It's dawned on me why I've never had my account pulled when others have. Facebook has deleted my posts - which culminated when (at the request of the local school system) they deleted a post I made criticizing my former middle school. But my account has never been yanked. That's because I used Facebook enough that it was generating ad revenue for them.

Here's the good part: Almost all ads on Facebook are right-wing. So - with my account reactivated - guess who's paying? Right-wingers, that's who. Granted, the revenues go to Facebook, but Facebook isn't going to be around for much longer anyway once something halfway decent replaces it.

Because now I know Facebook reactivates accounts without permission, there's not much point in deactivating it again, since they'll probably just activate yet again. So now that I'm back on Facebook, I'm really lowering the boom against the right-wing crybabies who generally dominate there.

My Facebook profile can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/bandit41073

Shocker! Tea Parties support big government!

The fascist Tea Party movement claims to support smaller government. According to them, this is their very reason for being. And the media is always happy to feed this claim.

But anybody who witnesses their rallies knows better. I've seen them distribute handbills demanding sterilization of welfare recipients and deliver speeches advocating a 23% national sales tax. I saw it with my own two eyes, and if they want to say I'm making it up, I've posted photographic evidence on this blog before.

And now (shocker!) a new poll confirms that the Tea Party thugs support expanding government - not reining it in.

The American Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute says Tea Party thought guardians are much more likely to support restrictions on personal conduct than the general public is. The survey shows that the Lipton Lugnuts generally share the Religious Right's views on culture war issues like gay marriage or government sponsorship of religion.

In other words, they claim to be for smaller government, yet they support policing what people do in the bedroom or what religion they're allowed to follow. I'm reminded of the "war is peace" mantra from '1984'. In Tea Party land, "less government" means more government.

In summary, the Tea Party movement IS the Religious Right - if not worse. Same shit, different name. More specifically, the Tea Parties are the progeny of both the "values voters" of the 2000s and the right-wing class-baiters of the 1990s. They represent the right wing of both axes of an ideological graph.

Gee, conservos. If you're gonna be conservative, pick one axis - or neither. One or none. It makes no sense to support deregulating Big Business while expanding restrictions on personal behavior.

Hell, if I was the Campbell County Judge-Executive, I'd legalize gay marriage right this minute. I'd love to see the Tea Parties' reaction to that. That'll show the county how "small government" they really are, won't it?

If you want to see the Nastea crowd throw a fit over something else, legalize marijuana. I'd almost trade my left arm to see the looks on their stupid faces if that happened!

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0519766420101005)

Schwarzenegger channels Pa Bush

Remember the elder Bush? Yes, I'm talking about George H.W. Bush, not his idiot son.

Remember how every time Congress tried to accomplish anything, Bush would just veto it? (And remember how the media blamed Congress? But that's a whole other issue.)

The Bush spirit of serial obstructionism lives on in California's right-wing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger recently broke out his veto pen to nix a sensible bill regarding fur in clothing items. The bill - modeled after a similar law in other states - would have required clothing makers to disclose what their products were made of, including whether it was made of dog fur.

But Schwarzenegger - quite idiotically - vetoed the bill. He said he was worried about the costs to manufacturers.

Unbeknownst to many consumers, some unscrupulous clothing makers have been kidnapping dogs out of front yards, electrocuting them, and using the fur to make clothes. I guess Schwarzenegger is more concerned about protecting these criminals' livelihoods than in making sure the public knows what their clothes are made of.

After vetoing this bill, Schwarzenegger then vetoed a bill that would have prevented Texas's revisionist social studies curriculum from being adopted by California schools.

You see, Texas has been the elephant in the room of America's education system since at least the era of Mel and Norma Gabler. The Lone Star State screens textbooks to make sure they reflect a right-wing standpoint. Textbook publishers don't want to lose business from the second-largest state in population, so they eagerly comply.

The California bill would have directed education officials to watch out for the propaganda that Texas officials wanted added to textbooks.

But Schwarzenegger vetoed this bill.

So now California schoolchildren are being forced to learn that climate change is a hoax, the world is only 6,000 years old, and Title IX is a leftist conspiracy. Smooth move, Terminator.

And I thought Kentucky schools were the bullshit capital.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/27/BA301FKFKN.DTL;
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_16199121?nclick_check=1)

Firefighting, Tea Party style

The decade is young, but this story may end up ranking as the biggest outrage of the 2010s.

You don't have to wait for Rand Paul and Pat Toomey to take over Congress to see what the Tea Party would be like if it ran the country. In Obion County, Tennessee, the Tea Party already controls the entire county commission. And the ravages of the all-Republican commission are showing in how it treated a family whose house caught ablaze.

When firefighters arrived on the scene in unincorporated Obion County, they were fully equipped to extinguish the flames. But then they discovered the family who lived there hadn't paid their "subscription fee" for fire protection. They're not rich, you know.

So the firefighters refused to put out the fire.

"Subscription fee"??? Since when do people have to "subscribe" to get service from the fire department? Why are people paying taxes if their tax dollars don't even cover vital services like fire protection? The more important point is that even if you don't pay your taxes, fire crews are still supposed to put out fires. It's just like if you go to the emergency room, the hospital has to treat you without interrogating you about your insurance first (despite Bush's ukase to the contrary).

The family in this story offered to pay the "subscription fee" upfront so the crew would put out the fire, but the fire department refused to accept it then.

And get this: Suburbs that have higher incomes than the relatively poor rural areas don't have to pay this fee. Of course.

Firefighters finally began battling the blaze when it spread to the property of a neighbor who could afford to pay this fee.

In Tea Party land, I guess you're on your own if you're not at least somewhat financially secure, huh?

What if somebody had been trapped in the house and died because the fire wasn't put out? Keep in mind also that the policy of not putting out fires when people can't pay the fee endangers the entire community by allowing fires to spread.

They can't quite claim that requiring people to "subscribe" if they want fire protection is about "small government." After all, Obion County is a dry county. Yes, folks, they're so "small government" that they want government to make everybody follow blue laws that attempt to regulate "morals." I guess what this really boils down to is that this is all about the money of a few elites who try to police what everybody does in private but don't want their own taxes going up to pay for important services.

I guess that's the essence of Tea Party extremism: "Small government for me, not for thee" - or vice versa, when it comes to receiving vital government protections.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/04/county-firefighters-subscription)

Cat Food Commission wants bailout for corporations

The Cat Food Commission is our name for the congressionally mandated committee charged with reducing the deficit - which to them means slashing Social Security and Medicare. We call this Republican-dominated club of elites the Cat Food Commission because by looting Social Security, they would force senior citizens to live on pet food (instead of receiving the money they paid into the system).

Now the Cat Food Commission wants a bailout for corporations and the rich - in the form of more cuts in corporate taxes and the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax cut would benefit only the wealthy - and corporate tax cuts would of course benefit only corporations.

This from a deficit reduction committee??? Anyone with some semblance of a brain should see that you don't balance a budget by reducing your stream of revenue. It doesn't happen. Period. If you could balance a budget that way, then why are there any taxes on anything?

I'm sure the Cat Food Commission knows this - but they just don't care.

This coincides with news that many of those who'd benefit from this handout have already bilked the taxpayers by abusing the unemployment system. New IRS figures show that in 2008 alone, nearly 3,000 millionaires claimed jobless benefits. Although they had at least $1,000,000 in income, they received a total of almost $19,000,000 in unemployment benefits.

Oh, so I guess they're idle rich, if they made $1,000,000 but aren't employed. Just another reason why the Leona Helmsley crowd on Facebook that hates the poor needs to have their yips slammed tight.

The IRS refused to publish data for 2007, for fear the millionaires' identities could be detected. Tough shit. These millionaires are spending our money. Maybe they should have to be fingerprinted like kids at school do if they receive a reduced-price lunch.

In summary, the Cat Food Commission wants to loot Social Security and Medicare to pay for handouts to corporations and wealthy individuals who already got unemployment benefits they don't need.

(Source: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/republicans-on-obama-debt-commission-push-for-corporate-and-capital-gains-tax-cuts.php;
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-01/almost-3-000-millionaires-claimed-jobless-benefits-in-2008-irs-data-show.html)

More about Supertrampgate

A few days ago, I told you about the IFPI lying to YouTube about whether a snippet of the Supertramp song "It's Raining Again" in one of my videos was fair use. YouTube promises to forward all counter-complaints to the original complainants, but when I submitted my counter-complaint, YouPube announced that it had declined to send it to the IFPI. So YouTube lied too.

But I'm stretching out my reportage of the IFPI's perjury - to humiliate the IFPI to the maximum extent possible.

There's one dynamic to this story that was obvious a week ago, but I didn't make light of it then because I was saving it until now. And it's this: The IFPI targets videos because of politics.

Bloody well right, it's true!

There are several instances on YouTube of the video of "It's Raining Again" being posted by others. Not just 10 seconds of the song, but the entire song and video! Some of these have been up for 4 years. Yet the IFPI won't go after those.

That's proof positive that the IFPI targeted me because of the political content of my other videos. Absolutely not one iota of doubt about it.

If there's anybody the government ought to lower the boom on, it's liars like the IFPI who commit perjury by making bogus DMCA complaints and who systematically target folks because of their political views. As a foreign corporation that abused its privileges, the IFPI should be banned from operating in America lickety-split.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Wasted On The Way"

"Tim we have wasted on the way..."

Wasted!

Don't you hate it when stuff gets wasted, utterly ru, or destructo?

For the past few days, my head has hurt, my leg has barely worked, and I've had an ear infection. I've felt like I was run over by a bus! So it's as if the past few days have been wasted.

Our latest 'LCQ' episode explores the uproarious phenomenon of the word 'wasted', and the News Newt even makes an appearance:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evPDnxFRxiQ

On a more serious note, I don't think there's a whole lot of time left, but I have a doctor's appointment coming up in the near future, so maybe I'll get some answers.