Picture of the day

Via Comics Alliance: Nerds and superheroes vs. the shitbags of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church at Comicon.

Picture of the day

From some bullshit protest, a picture that sums up for me every single trust fund anarchist, smashing up a storefront in the name of whatever: some early twenties asshole in designer, pre-ripped skinny jeans and sandals, raging so hard against the police that their trendy white sunglasses fall off and they sweat up their $120 faux-vintage t-shirt. I bet she was screaming something about corporations when this all went down.

Fuck all these G-20/Greek protest people, the police cannot beat them hard enough.

Stay classy, BP

With oil quickly replacing water as the main liquid in the Gulf of Mexico, of course you expect failed rig proprietors BP to take extensive steps... to mitigate the damage to their asses from a legal and financial standpoint. Actually stopping that leak? That's in God's hands now. After all, this whole mess was an Act of God. If He wanted the dinosaur blood to stop seeping from the earth, He would have stopped it. Not to mention the fact that if He didn't want it to happen, He wouldn't have exploded the rig or lobbied against stiffer safety regulations. God... what a scamp He is.

No, the time is right for BP to make sure that all the people about to see any body of water or shoreline consumed by murky blackness have already ceded their legal rights to hold BP responsible for the actions for which they are completely responsible.

BP has been offering $5000 payments to residents of coastal Alabama areas, in exchange for essentially giving up their right to sue the oil giant over its deadly Gulf Coast spill, according to the state's attorney general.

AG Troy King last night urged BP to stop the effort, and told Alabamians to be wary. "People need to proceed with caution and understand the ramifications before signing something like that," King said, according to the Alabama press.

A spokesman for BP told a reporter that the waiver clause had now been removed from the contracts, and that the company won't enforce it in contracts that were previously signed.

Sure. You know whenever a large multinational corporation from a powerful industrial concern gets people to sign carefully constructed legal documents in an attempt to protect their corporate asses from any molecule of justice, they always freely say they won't ever try to get people to abide by them in a court and volunteer to make the legally binding agreements weaker. That's standard practice. Especially when your CEO is out there trying to claim that

"It wasn't our accident," he told the Today Show on Monday. Pressed by anchor Meredith Vieira, Hayward claimed: "the drilling rig was a Transocean drilling rig. It was their rig and their equipment that failed, run by their people, their processes."

Yeah, I'm sure BP will live up to their legal and financial obligations. Especially when they openly balk at paying for everything they've done... in front of sitting US Senators.

So thanks to BP for keeping their priorities in line here. Cover your asses first, attempt to weasel out of responsibility and culpability second, worry about stopping that massive oil slick your shoddy practices caused... who knows when, the future is such a far off place.

Stay classy, Arizona immigration law supporters

If the Arizona immigration law that makes you a suspicious person if you're caught breathing while Latino, has been good for one thing: the comedy resulting from those who support the law. Not so much "funny ha-ha" comedy, but more of a "oh sweet merciful Christ, these are elected representatives... in America... in 2010" kind of funny.

Even worse on the unconformable comedy of awkward discomfort scale are the people who have viewed this law as a gaslight for them to rush out and espouse their brilliant ideas about ways in which this country can go further down into a racist hole with immigration laws. Take Iowa Republican (shocking) congressional candidate Pat Bertroche

“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?

“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said.

Micro-chipping every illegal immigrant? You know, maybe Georgia was on to something with their crazy "no robit hunks in mah body" law. That being said, if we could catch every single illegal immigrant to the point where we could perform invasive microchipping surgery on them... wouldn't we just cart them over the border? I mean we go to all the trouble of catching them to scientifically experiment on them and we just release them back into the wild even though they're illegal? Methinks someone needs to mull over his "Mexicans are exactly like dogs" immigration plan.

But then there's Republican (shocking~!) Rep. Duncan Hunter the Younger of California, who isn't merely content to treat immigrants like stray dogs. No, he's got a better plan.

QUESTION: Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?

HUNTER: I would have to, yes. [...] We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now. California is going under. How much in debt are we? Twenty billion dollars? [...] And we’re not being mean, we’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s what’s in our souls.

Yeah, fuck them. Who ever said that being born here means you're a citizen? The 14th Amendment? Balderdash! Let's repeal it and start chucking American citizens who aren't sufficiently white over the border. Their souls aren't American.

But if advanced GPS tracking, a catch and release Latino program, or grossly violating the Constitution in the name of racial paranoia aren't your thing, have you thought of just claiming all your Latin opponents of wanting to cede American soil to Santa Anna and his Mexican hordes? Then get on board with Republican (shocker) Rep. Steve King (shocker) from Iowa (shocker).

I’m wondering if we look at the map of Congressman Grijalva’s congressional district if we haven’t already ceded that component of Arizona to Mexico judging by the voice that comes out of him, he’s advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law, which is one of the central pillars of American exceptionalism.

He is of course talking about Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Latino himself and Arizona representative, who decried the law and advocated that people boycott Arizona in response. Of course that means he doesn't sufficiently love America, is probably a Latin sleeper agent, hates the law, freedom, and baby eagles, and is probably the point man for the Mexican Reconquista movement. Aztlan!

So stay classy everyone. I know we all though that a re-fried bean swastika was about as low as the debate could sink. But we didn't count on the prides of Iowa and a second generation half-witted reactionary race-baiter deciding that this was the perfect opportunity to offer up their brilliant ideas on better ways to dehumanize entire swaths of the US population. Wonderful. It wells me up with so much pride for the country.

Your daily reminder that justice doesn't exist

You all remember the Westboro Baptist Church, don't you? Fred Phelps and his bunch of crazies? They picket anything gay related with charming signs like "God hates fags" and "God hates you" and have taken to picketing gay funerals with even more charming signs about the deceased burning in hell. They're like a deranged cult, but without that great part at the end where they castrate themselves and drink strychnine according to some astrological chart.

In recent years they've taken to protesting military funerals with their atypical tact and class, choosing to blame the military deaths on America's tolerance of homosexuals. Well one father who had to go through their hateful idiocy at his son's funeral decided to sue them on the basis that they invaded his privacy and intentionally caused him emotional distress. He originally won millions in judgment. The appeals courts decided to see it another way.

The father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq has been ordered to pay $16,510.80 to a family that protested his son's funeral in Maryland.
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The judgment is a setback for Mr. Snyder, who has been fundraising to cover the costs of the Supreme Court action with hopes of finally bringing Phelps' followers to their knees.

"Armed the with knowledge that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review the case, the Court of Appeals made the decision concerning assessing costs," Mr. Snyder's lawyers said in a statement. "This decision is tantamount to adding insult to injury."

Not only did he have these assholes picket his son's funeral, he got to pay them for the privilege of them doing so. Because, as the court ruled, "as utterly distasteful as these signs are, they involve matters of public concern." Because where would this country be if inbred fundamentalists weren't able to invade someone's funeral to chastise, insult, hurt, and abuse mourners? I'd thank the courts for ordering the continued funding of Westboro, but Snyder will likely have to go into bankruptcy because he can't afford to pay Fred Phelps.

Rest easy, the courts today affirmed your right as a God given American to act like a completely subhuman piece of shit and get rewarded for it. So, happy day. American justice strikes again.

Quote of the day

House Speaker.... for about 10 more months, Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just told reporters that she does not believe she has enough votes in the House to pass the Senate health care reform bill as-is—at least not yet.

“I don’t see the votes for it at this time,” Pelosi said. “The members have been very clear in our caucus about the fact that they didn’t like it before it had the Nebraska provision and some of the other provisions that are unpalatable to them.”

“In every meeting that we have had, there would be nothing to give me any thought that that bill could pass right now the way that it is,” she said. “There isn’t a market right now for proceeding with the full bill unless some big changes are made.”

Well that sure was a nice health care reform effort that was made, but it's time to give up. I mean there is that new 41-59 Republican majority to think about.

I just want to say thanks to Democrats for wasting the last year, failing to understand what the fuck they're reaping, damning themselves to severe losses in November, placing political gamesmanship over making advances in the US health care system, not learning a goddamn thing from any of the previous failed health care efforts, and for convincing Americans in one year that they don't want you anywhere near the reins of power. That last one was impressive, it took Republicans eight years of failed wars, terrorist attacks, corruption, civil liberties violations, torture, spying on citizens, Constitutional violations, and economic failure to decide that they were unfit to run things.

Way to fuck up as always Democrats. For extra comic effect, do you think you all could attempt to organize a one car funeral? I'd just like to see what happens.

Everything is fucked, we're all going to die

As you may have heard, the voters of Massachusetts stood up in unison last night and said "It's probably better for this country if absolutely nothing gets done for the rest of the year" and put Scott Brown into their open Senate seat changing the balance of the Senate from 60-40 to 59-41, effectively allowing Republicans to succeed with the filibusters they do on every single bill. Apparently voters get mad when you can't fix the problems Republicans spent eight years creating in one year and thus feel the need to hand more power back to them to create even more problems and gridlock. Makes sense.

Were there any lessons learned? Yes, Ted Kennedy is a complete asshole for dying. Also, Massachusetts has a real "fuck you, I got mine" attitude towards public health care. Any positives? Well, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson are no longer the penultimate votes, so they'll probably no longer infuriate you with their childish demands. You also won't have to concern yourself with bills that get passed or learning new laws as none will be passed now.

But what does this mean for health care? Well there are a few options. One: hammer out a compromise bill and vote on it before Brown is seated. This is what's known as "what the Republicans would do", so of course the Democrats will not even attempt it. Second: the House passes the Senate bill. This would make sense and get this country to make some minor progress towards better health reform, but it would involve House progressives taking some sort of metaphorical political defeat and not allow them the delusion that their bill is all that different from the Senate version, so this will probably never happen. Third option: form a circular firing squad, despair as all hope is lost, get to the business of killing health reform dead, and cement the fact that you will lose horribly in November. Ding ding ding, I think we have a winner.

Yes, before Martha Coakley's body was even cold Democrats were out in full force trying to shoot off their feet, cave immediately, and commit political suicide. Barney Frank was out talking absolute shit about no being able to continue on the current health care path and engaging in some utter fantasy that Republicans will now be eager to join in and offer meaningful dialogue and compromise. Anthony Weiner was alternately saying health care reform should stop or that it should continue, but that he was opposed to voting for it and passing it. Jim Webb was all for letting health care come to a screeching halt and so was Evan Bayh, who took additional time to blame this on liberals who didn't win one single battle in the health care fight against middling "centrist" douches like him.

Gee, sure looks like we're going to get a health care bill real soon. So the conventional wisdom is that quitting and doing nothing, pivoting to some nebulous jobs bill that no Republicans will support, looking incredibly weak, and generally getting nothing done is the only way that they'll be able to save their own hides. Well, who can argue with the political acumen of the Democratic party. I mean they're so often right and prone to picking the most successful path. I'm sure this will all work out for them. Because there's nothing this country likes more than quitting, weakness, and failure.

Congrats on completely fucking up, Democrats. Not passing health care reform is the final step and you seem well on your way to doing it. Thanks for the memories, it sure was a great year. I'll remember to act surprised when you all lose your jobs in November.

Oh Blackwater, you scamps

Another day, another Blackwater scandal. It seems to lovable extralegal rascals and their private army have gotten into another minor kerfuffle over whether or not it is wise or even legal to indiscriminately shoot civilians while drunk and off duty. Blackwater employees say yes, foreign governments, the law, and those with a shred of human decency say no. Who is to say who is right?

Two former Blackwater operatives were arrested by US federal agents on murder charges, stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May.
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In May, reports emerged that four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC were alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian. According to the Wall Street Journal's August Cole, "At least some of the men, who were former military personnel, had been allegedly drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren't supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol."

Blackwater employees lighting up a bunch of innocent civilians at a traffic light? Where have I heard that one before? You think they would have passed out a memo telling everyone not to do that. Of course, being the reactionary hotheads that they are, the family of the slain men and the people of Kabul not only blame Blackwater and the US, but are immensely unhappy and loathe us. Hearts and minds, folks, hearts and minds. All in a day's work for Blackwater.

Now I'm not here to pile on Blackwater, mention just how dangerously intertwined they are with our operations overseas, or abhor their tactics and seeming complete lack of any goddamn sense. No, that's what everyone else does. In fact, you might be wondering "Is there anything good that Blackwater is affiliated with?" Well, there is Jeremy Scahill's book, but I'm not sure that's what you meant. But yes, I am here to tell you that Blackwater is in fact affiliated with something good.

One of the stars of the widely acclaimed Iraq war film The Hurt Locker has claimed that the filmmakers hired the mercenary firm Blackwater while shooting the film in the Middle East, including in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan.

"We had these Blackwater guys that were working with us in the Middle East and they taught us like tactical maneuvers and stuff--how to just basically how to position yourself and move with a gun," said Hurt Locker star Anthony Mackie in an interview with the New York Times's Carpetbagger blog.

You know, now that I think of it, I always suspected Jeremy Renner might have been involved in killing 17 civilians.

Now producers deny this claim, saying they only hired mercs and they may or may not have worked for Blackwater, but they didn't contract out to Blackwater itself. Well, whether Blackwater worked on the film or is only being mention in conjunction with the film, it's at least something positive, because the Hurt Locker kicked fucking ass. So yes, there is something decent that the organization now known as Xe may have been involved in. That's the best news about them that has ever come out. Good for them. More consults on great movies, less killing of civilians and undermining our efforts to fight terrorism. Now go see the Hurt Locker.

One step closer to awful compromise

It's Monday, and if I'm not mistaken, I do recall the Democrats in the Senate voting to officially start the debate of the debate of the debate of the debate over whether to start the debate over health care. By which I mean "debate". Everyone already knows pretty much how everyone is going to vote and there will be very little deliberation in the "world's greatest deliberative body". 40 Republicans will vote against it, 56 Democrats for it, and a collection of 4 Democrats will try to make the bill dumber, less effective, cover less people, and reduce costs less in a bid for relevance and TV time. Yes, because we couldn't even get through a bullshit procedural vote without Democrats rushing towards the mics to announce all the ways they'd kill the bill if they didn't get their terrible, shortsighted way.

There was Mary Landrieu ("D"-LA), telling people that the public option had to be "triggered" -likely in a way that means it'll never be triggered- or she wouldn't vote to over come a filibuster. Ben Nelson ("D"-NE) was out on the Sunday talk show circuit talking about filibustering if the bill had a public option, didn't get all Stupak-y with women's uteri, and get better on costs controls, which, if his past action on the stimulus are any indication, means cutting actual cost control measures. Blanche Lincoln ("D"-AK) said the same on the public option, and Joe Lieberman (Lieberman-CT) popped his head up to remind everyone he's still a rotten douche. They all took care to mention that the public option doesn't have the support of the Senate. But, as we've learned, when 56 Senators support something that means that something doesn't have support.

Of course Bernie Sanders (Socialist~!-VT) and Roland Burris ($50 or best offer-IL) tried to point out that they'll block passage of a bill without a public option, but they were laughed out of the room because they were advocating for a liberal position and will be expected to cave without getting anything.

So there we are: "debate" has started. Soon the last remaining gasps of life the bill has will be compromised out by the same cast of characters you wish would die in a plane crash. Then after the reform bill passes without a public option and featuring a requirement that makes all women get a signed permission slip from Ben Nelson before taking an aspirin, it moves to the conference committee where we'll all pretend that he bill might get better...and it won't. Then the bill will be signed amid claims of "history" and "no, really, this is a good bill", as people try to subsume their rage as yet another opportunity to fix a large problem was squandered by our elected betters. In other words: the way it was pretty much expected to go at the start of the whole process. God bless this great land.

We are ruled by adults

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum looks at what it took to pass a simple extension of unemployment benefits for the 10.2% of Americans who consider canned beans a luxury.

Democrats only had to break three separate filibusters in the Senate to get this passed! The first filibuster was broken by a vote of 87-13, the second by a vote of 85-2, and the third by a vote of 97-1. The fourth and final vote, the one to actually pass the bill, was 98-0. Elapsed time: five weeks for a bill that everyone ended up voting for.

Why? Because even though Republicans were allowed to tack on a tax cut to the bill as the price of getting it passed, they decided to filibuster anyway unless they were also allowed to include an anti-ACORN amendment. Seriously. A bit of ACORN blustering to satisfy the Palin-Beck crowd is the reason they held up a bill designed to help people who are out of work in the deepest recession since World War II. Details here and here. That's called taking governing seriously, my friends.

So in order to extend a measure that everyone supported, Democrats had to add in a first-time homebuyer credit that basically adds to our problems in the housing market in an attempt to prop it up and enact a tax-cut shenanigan that allows small-businesses to engage in shadier accounting practices. All to pass a bill slightly faster so that hundreds of thousands of extra people wouldn't go broke while they dicked around.

...AND THE HOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAVE! Makes you glad to be an American.

Good morning, these things are unrelated

Still on the Job, but at Half the Pay

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track pay cuts, but it suggests they are reflected in the steep decline of another statistic: total weekly pay for production workers, pilots among them, representing 80 percent of the work force. That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the 1981-1982 recession.

“What this means,” said Thomas J. Nardone, an assistant commissioner at the bureau, “is that the amount of money people are paid has taken a big hit; not just those who have lost their jobs, but those who are still employed.”

Wall Street On Track To Award Record Pay

Major U.S. banks and securities firms are on pace to pay their employees about $140 billion this year -- a record high that shows compensation is rebounding despite regulatory scrutiny of Wall Street's pay culture.

Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007, according to an analysis of securities filings for the first half of 2009 and revenue estimates through year-end by The Wall Street Journal.

Also unrelated and not showing some kind of staggering disconnect between the "recovery" and the people in the "recovery" or the economy for corporations and the economy for employees: the Dow crossing 10,000 right around the same time unemployment is expected to cross 10%.

Stay classy, insurance industry!

A Guardian Life Insurance Company executive explaining how people with health insurance who actually use that health insurance are enemies to be squashed. Especially those societal health care leeches we call "muscular dystrophy patients."

Ian Pearl has fought for his life every day of his 37 years. Confined to a wheelchair and hooked to a breathing tube, the muscular dystrophy victim refuses to give up.

But his insurance company already has.

Legally barred from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims, the New York-based insurer simply canceled lines of coverage altogether in entire states to avoid paying high-cost claims like Mr. Pearl's.

In an e-mail, one Guardian Life Insurance Co. executive called high-cost patients such as Mr. Pearl "dogs" that the company could "get rid of."

How dare this sick man try to infringe on the main objectives of a health insurance company (profit) with his pissant concerns that they provide the health insurance coverage he pays for. Some people just make me sick, though let me make it clear: not sick enough to use my health insurance. If I had any.

Someone want to remind me why we're working so hard to preserve the system of private health insurance?

We commend your balls

With the world's leaders gearing up for the international negotiations over climate change at Copenhagen in December, many ideas, plans, numbers, alternatives, and solutions are being offered up as ways to combat the problem. But it isn't only developed and developing nations trying to come up with solutions, the OPEC nations have one of their own: any attempt to combat global warming should also include large sacks of money to be given to them because of lost revenue.

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

The oil-rich kingdom has pushed this position for years in earlier climate-treaty negotiations. While it has not succeeded, its efforts have sometimes delayed or disrupted discussions. The kingdom is once again gearing up to take a hard line on the issue at international negotiations scheduled for Copenhagen in December.
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“It is like the tobacco industry asking for compensation for lost revenues as a part of a settlement to address the health risks of smoking,” said Jake Schmidt, the international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The worst of this racket is that they have held up progress on supporting adaptation funding for the most vulnerable for years because of this demand.”

C'mon world leaders, what's more important: combating global warming or keeping Saudi profit margins up? I mean after all if an emissions treaty is signed that means that OPEC nations will only make $23 trillion dollars from 2008-2030. That's a drop of 16%! How are you supposed to build the world's tallest skyscraper, build underwater hotels, create giant sand islands, or fund a decent mujaheddin with a measly $23 trillion? Hell, their women might even start learning to read if they don't have enough money to stop it.

I think with the revelation of this information and the fact that the Saudis view this as a "make or break" provision means we have to do the right thing. We have to scrap any meaningful emissions or climate change actions until such a time as we can adequately address the needs of rich shieks. In the rush to take necessary action for the common good it seems we forgot about the billionaires and oil conglomerates. I mean isn't that always the way? For shame.

Lick my bootheel, shiteyes

In and event that surprises no one, Sen. Rockefeller's strong public option amendment failed 15-8 and Sen. Schumer's weak public option amendment failed 13-10, thus the Senate Finance Committee health care bill goes out without a public option. Baucus, Carper, Conrad, Lincoln, and Nelson voted against Rockefeller's, and Baucus, Conrad, and Lincoln voted against Schumer's.

Conrad and Baucus were quick to point out that while they totally supported a public option, they were going to vote against it because it didn't have enough votes to pass...because they didn't vote for it. Circular logic....head..hurts. Which also means that they're essentially protecting Democrats who would support a Republican filibuster (against the biggest attempt public health care reform in US history) by making sure they won't ever have to raise their head up and stick by that "no public option" "no reducing the cost of health care" conviction they allegedly seem to so strongly believe in. Awesome, we wouldn't want to play hardball with public plan opposing Democrats or try to exert pressure based on the extreme unpopularity of supporting a GOP filibuster, now would we?

For their part Schumer and Rockefeller were quick to declare moral victories, what with their moral health care savings, claim that the public option is not dead, and claim that a future fight for the public option in the full Senate will be less daunting. Proving that both of them must have hit their heads on something very hard and forgot how the Senate works. Thanks again for all this nothing Democrats.

Oh that rascally Bush Administration

The Matt Latimer book on the end of the Bush Administration is coming up on its release date and boy does it look like a hell of a read. In previous installments we learned that Bush had no idea what the bailout bill was about and that he likes to talk shit on everyone that isn't himself. Now we're learning about all the numerous anecdotes, foibles, and shenanigans of the rest of the gang...shenanigans that led to a couple wars, a couple hundred thousand dead, a couple Constitutional violations, a bit of torture, a sprinkle of police state, and stewarding over the complete collapse of the economy. But at least we can look back and laugh.

Donald Rumsfeld had to be talked out of editing his own entry on Wikipedia, which he referred to as "Wika-wakka."

Oh, that Rumsfeld. This almost makes up for not planning out those wars. I think we can definitively state he spent more time trying to edit his own Wikipedia page that planning the Iraq invasion. But the fact that we can imagine him walking around his office raging about "the bleggers" on "the intertubes" smearing him on "the Wikka-wakka" before having to be physically pulled away from the edit page blunts that pain a little.

"Karl spread rumors through the White House that one of Obama's potential vice presidential running mates -- and a United States senator -- had beaten his first wife. 'Karl says it's true,' the president assured a small group of staffers. Then knowing Karl, he quickly added, 'Karl hopes it's true," reports Latimer.

I'm disappointed. This is such a rote and obvious depiction of evil. I guess I just had expected more creativity in the dark deeds Karl performed.

For a commencement address at Furman University in spring 2008, Ed Gillespie wanted to insert a few lines condemning gay marriage. Bush called the speech too "condemnatory" and said, "I'm not going to tell some gay kid in the audience that he can't get married."

See, this is only a partial quote. It ends with "...but if everyone in my party wants to and Karl wants to run a 2004 re-election campaign around it, who am I to stop them? Someone want to get me a pretzel?" I think that's the very definition of moral courage.

There's more, like Bush's reaction to Larry Craig, the Administration deciding to sleight Colin Powell by reminding everyone he used to work there, the unending petty war between Maine's senators, and the testimonial adventures of "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." This is really going to be one of those "laugh....then slowly stop laughing as your rage boils up and you angrily throw the book down" kind of books.

Damn this politicization

Ahh we've already come to an important time in the aftermath of Senator Ted Kennedy's death. And here I though tit would take more than three days. It is a time where people who despised Ted Kennedy, his ideals, his legislative record, and issues that were important to him, get to take to the airwaves en masse to complain that everyone else is politicizing his death.....and that oh by the way that means everyone should rally to defeat stuff that meant a lot to Kennedy, like health care. I mean is there any better defender of Ted Kennedy's legacy than Rush Limbaugh?

Key conservative voices have begun to charge in the day after Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death that Democrats are inappropriately politicizing the senator’s death, his memorial and his legacy.
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"Placing [Kennedy’s] name on a health-care bill, in memoriam, or using his name as a sympathy ploy to advance a health care bill that would deny Americans the choices Sen. Kennedy had is an insult and is supreme hypocrisy,” the talk show host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday. 'The senator's passing is going to give them the opportunity to use the sympathy play to get as much done in his name as possible."

"No government was a partner with God in Ted Kennedy's death. To put his name on this current health-care bill would be to insult what he stood for,” Limbaugh said.

Yes, I can think of no greater insult to the American people than Democrats using Ted Kennedy's lifelong fight to extend health care coverage to all Americans to...extend health care coverage to all Americans, or even worse: by letting Americans get the same coverage that Kennedy got because he was a member of the Senate. I can think of no greater polar opposites, of no greater incongruity.

All I know is that when I see Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity advocate for the same idea and line of thinking within two sentences in the same article and try to put forth the idea that an event that hasn't even happened yet is irrevocably politicized, I am filled with the knowledge that it is undeniably a good idea and the product of honest people trying valiantly to protect Ted Kennedy's legacy and look out for the American people. In fact, I agree, in order to honor Ted Kennedy and make sure there isn't even a whiff of politicization in the air we need to make sure health care is defeated! For Teddy!

This is how stupid the health care debate has gotten

No, no, no, the health care debate didn't reach it's nadir when people started yelling about government sponsored grandma killing squads. It officially hit a low point when changes started being made to health care bills because of lies about "death panels" and piles of dead grandmas stacked on street corners like cord wood. That's right, sensible end of life planning, things like living wills and discussions about what you'd like to happen if you slip into a coma, have been dropped because enough liars stoked the fires of hysteria.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said in a statement that the committee “dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”

A Senate Finance Committee aide confirmed that the panel was not discussing end-of-life measures, adding that they were “never a major focus” of the committee’s negotiations.
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In his statement, Mr. Grassley called the House legislation “so poorly cobbled together that it will have all kinds of unintended consequences.”

“On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options,” he continued, adding “Maybe others can defend a bill like the Pelosi bill that leaves major issues open to interpretation, but I can’t.”

Oh that's right, it was all a matter of leaving "major areas open to interpretation" and not the fact that your party is comprised of craven liars, Chuck. I mean there's one thing I do know is how easy it is to confuse making a living will with the forced euthanasia of anyone who has crossed the government's new age restrictions. I mean we can't leave it vague, otherwise an elderly man who comes in to discuss what he wants to happen if he should become paralyzed might be blown away by the shotgun blast of a doctor who is convinced he now has the right to kill indiscriminately. Whew! Bullet dodged.

So, what did we learn today kids? That no matter how inane, stupid, dishonest, deranged, crazy, or ridiculous your conspiracy theory is, if it comes in relation to an important legislative debate and the opposition party is dishonest enough to repeat it, then you can get useful provisions stripped out of said legislation. AND THE HOOOOOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAAAAAAAVE!!!

Everything is proceeding as should be expected

Did you hear? Everything's better now in the health care debate. The Blue Dog Democrats got Henry Waxman to make the House version of the bill bad enough so that they could finally deign to support it.

Efforts to pass sweeping health care legislation took a big step forward on Wednesday as House Democratic leaders reached an agreement with fiscally conservative party members that would cut the bill’s cost and exempt many small businesses from having to provide health benefits to workers.

Whew! Incessant pandering to conservative blowhards (who will never support the bill) and Republican enablers (who still reserve the right to back out) has produced something that everyone can pretend does something and is so milquetoast and compromised that it could even be passed by incompetent Democratic leadership. Everything's fixed.

As word of the agreement spread, liberals fired back. "We do not support this," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Progressive Caucus. "I think they have no idea how many people are against this. They can't possibly be taking us seriously if they're going to bring this forward." At a press conference, she said, "[W]e might have to come back and start over."
...
"Waxman made a deal that is unacceptable," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told Politico, after meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday.

"We signed a pledge to reject any plan that doesn't include a robust public option, and this plan doesn't have a robust public option," he added.

My God, who could have ever foreseen that completely ignoring the largest block of voting members in order to pander to ideals that are supposedly anathema to your caucus would backfire? You mean there are some assholes who are concerned with getting something worthwhile passed and not just interested in mollifying crybabies? Well that's the House for you. I'm sure in the Senate, where Finance Chairman Max Baucus is almost negotiating exclusively with Republicans while not even consulting or even informing the rest of the Democrats of his plans, in order to completely jettison a public plan and other Democratic priorities from the bill, will completely not backfire either.

Hey is it a good sign for Baucus' work on the health care bill when Harry Reid endorses your efforts and the Health Insurance Industry cuts an ad praising you? I think an actual kiss of death would give me more hope. Thanks Democrats! Super-majorities and the White House and you still can't stop from screwing yourselves, and by extension: the country. Now I have my doubts about them being able to pass the 2009 One Car Funeral Act.

Quote of the day

As the Democratic Party prepares to put an exclamation point on years on complete uselessness by taking a 60 vote majority and handing health care reform over to three right-leaning Democrats, one "centrist" Republican, and two fruitcake Republicans on the Finance Committee, we get Arizona's other Senator stating for us what seems to be the prevailing wisdom for health care in Washington:

“The health insurance industry is one of the most regulated industries in America,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) on the Senate floor Monday. “They don’t need to be ‘kept honest’ by the government.”

I guess this is why the Finance Committee, with the implied thubms up of the Democratic Senate leadership, is doing their best to pass an "any bill is a good bill" bill that doesn't include even basic things like a public option or employer mandates or really do anything at all worth doing. Because all the health care industry really needs is a few minor tweaks and a heaping dose of "reform", not anything that would actually make things cheaper or help cover more people. I'm just glad everyone seems to agree with Kyl and we've finally taken steps to shelter the insurance companies from the three-headed dragon known as "competition", "covering people", and "the basic interests of the American people".

Too lazy to work

Earlier today word came down from useless human Harry Reid that the Senate was not going to vote on a health care bill before the August recess because not only might it cause them to miss a few precious days of the vacation that they so richly deserve, but that it might otherwise distract from all the nothing they're getting done. And why not? It's not like they're the ones without health care. They have pretty good coverage. It's most of the rest of us who are fucked.

But I can see why they wouldn't want to rush plans that have been sitting around and being worked on for six months. I means it's not like 14,000 people a day and 100,000 people a week lose their health coverage, is it? It is? Well, it's not like they'll ever meet one at a cocktail party or at their vacation house.