Must the government infringe on a man's right to be orange?

Cheap humor. Sweet, sweet, cheap humor.

We like to make fun of John Boehner for his tanning regimen. Why, because it's easy and we don't like to sweat for a joke. Besides, have you seen him? Motherfucker's orange. Thankfully, John likes easy humor as well, because he's serving up a nice opportunity for everyone to mock him for being a vain, self-obsessed Oompa Loompa.

What's he up to this time? Why he's decrying the abominable health reform bill by blasting out a press release knocking an onerous tax on... tanning beds.

The new tax adds 10 percent to the cost of tanning services businesses provide. Some 30 million Americans visit a tanning salon at least once a year and 75 percent of the employees and customers are women, according to industry sources.
...
According to this Wall Street Journal article, ObamaCare’s tanning tax is causing all kinds of problems for business owners who provide tanning services as well as other products or those who include tanning services as part of a gym membership.

And they call this America? Can't a man be uncommonly orange without the government trying to make him pay and extra buck for it? Is there an uncommonly weepy metaphor the GOP can use to complain about a tanning tax?

Unfortunately, no amount of sunscreen or Aloe will relieve the pain of the Democrats’ impending 10 percent tax on indoor tanning beds

The pain. The pain. Oh the pain. Does perhaps the former standard bearner and Presidential candidate of the Republicans have a Jersey Shore related pun he could unleash to complain about the tanning tax? Perhaps in a Tweet to Snooki?

@Sn00ki u r right, I would never tax your tanning bed! Pres Obama's tax/spend policy is quite The Situation. but I do rec wearing sunscreen!

SenJohnMcCain.

This is serious business, people! I mean, the outrage! People engaging in a luxury activity that increases their likelyhood of cancer by 74% should not be expected to pay minuscule taxes on that activity in order to pay for health care. Also, why would a Senator with a history of face tumors not want to get outraged over a tax that might decrease the amount of people who develop skin cancer?

Look, GOP... I know your minority leader is a tanning addict, but can't you let his unnatural obsession with looking like a citrus fruit be a personal thing? I mean you seemed to have organized a full court press from your leadership on this and even got the conservative media to go after it. Aren't you supposed to be a serious party concerned about serious issues? Isn't this supposed to be a serious country with adult leaders concerned about important business?

Oh, that's right, it isn't. Carry on then. OOOH THAT TANNING TAX! *shakes fist at sky*

Guh?

Hey, sorry I've been away. I parked my 1993 Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square and it seems to have gone missing. Been looking for it the past few days. Anyone seen it?

Oh.... Whoops.

Anyway, with all that behind us and a terrorist attack averted, now comes the most important part of any post-attack period: attacking the President for purely political reasons over a perceived lack of manliness and commitment to making America feel it's enemies have been sufficiently brutalized in the name of freedom. Obama's crime this time? He read the suspect his Miranda rights again and the suspect started freely giving up information again. When will he learn? That stuff might work in the real world, but in the fantasies of the right wing politicians of our country it doesn't and we would be better served by waterboarding these people 10 or 170 times. So let's listen to them bitch about it.

In a steady stream of indictments, top-ranking officials in the GOP said it didn't matter that the Obama Department of Justice was getting information from Faisal Shahzad, the now-detained the Pakistani-born American. The fact that the administration chose to read Miranda rights to the suspect shows a national security policy steeped in naivety and potentially dangerous.

"That is a stroke of good luck," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said of the news that Shahzad was cooperating even after getting his Miranda rights read to him. "What if he had not waived them and just quit talking, said 'I want my lawyer'?"

"Maybe we got lucky and [Shahzad] said I will go ahead and talk to you anyway," said Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "But you didn't know that when you read [him] the rights. So I stand by what I said -- it is better in these kinds of cases to get the intelligence first and then, if you decide you want to proceed with an Article 3 prosecution, then read the Miranda rights."

Peter King and John McCain joined the din shrieking against Mirandizing and having a terrorism policy that made sense, but had to be rebuked by Glenn Beck.

"He is a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens… If you are a citizen, you obey the law and follow the Constitution. He has all the rights under the Constitution… We don't shred the Constitution when it is popular. We do the right thing."

Yes, that Glenn Beck.

Dizzy. World spinning. Must... find couch... to... faint on. What kind of world do we live in where Glenn Beck is making sense on terrorism policies and actions taken by the Obama Administration? Wasn't it more likely that Obama would grow a Lenin style goatee, unleash robot death panels, goose step down Pennsylvania Avenue with his Obama Youth squads, and turn into the fascist parody Beck had been painting him as, rather than Beck deciding to make actual sense on terrorism and the Constitution?

This is too much for my brain to process. I heroically overcome a bout of SuperAIDS and have to deal with this mindfuck? Still, score one for Beck doubling his meds and joining the fight to see our counter-intel and interrogation strategies get based on strategies that work instead of something you half remember as being completely awesome when Jack Bauer did them in Season 3 of 24 and would assuredly result in the man not getting convicted. Some other Fox commentator will have to worry about the stiffness of America's war boner, Glenn Beck is dabbling in rationality today. I'm sure we'll have to rescind this literally seconds from now, but... good job... Glenn Beck.

/tepidly golf claps
//belts scotch from a flask

Humility defined

When last we saw Grampa Senator he was denying his maverickyness to the masses while losing ground in a primary to a certifiable loon.

So our shadow president went to Fox News to gain that momentum back, but even Fox News couldn't let that "I ain't no maverick and I never said I wuz dangblastit!" remark go. So Senator McCain decided to make things a whole lot clearer and, in the process, show great humility with the new nickname he devised for himself. Remember it now, he'll be disavowing it in a week.

WALLACE: You said, I never considered myself a maverick.

MCCAIN: Well, all I — what I was saying was that I have considered myself a person who’s a fighter. I wouldn’t be around today if I wasn’t a fighter. I fight for the things that I believe in, and sometimes that’s called a maverick. Sometimes that’s called a partisan. And people can draw their own conclusions. I prefer great American myself.

Ah yes, the true mark of a humble patriot: bestowing the title of Great American on oneself. I mean sure, we got used to this kind of thing when he declared himself the "Original Maverick"... except that the whole phrase, definition, and political connotation of 'maverick' comes from the last name of an actual guy, Texas legislator Samuel Maverick, but still. Plus it is a better nickname than the one Obama gave himself: God King of the United States, Woe Unto You Who Speaketh His Name.

So really, could you just stop calling him a maverick. One, he doesn't know where you even picked up that nonsense. Two, he'd much prefer Great American, or, if you'd prefer, Greatest American, or, better still, American So Great They Ought To Retroactively Put His Name on The Declaration of Independence. It's what he deserves to be called before he's forced to take up the moniker Private Citizen and Former Senator John McCain.

Don't use the M-word

Ahh, consider the fate of America's crotchety old grampa, John McCain. Once the standard bearer of his party's shitty standard he is now forced to duke it out in a GOP primary against a man who might be more retarded than the woman he picked to be his VP running mate. Which is saying something.

So now as he's forced to duke it out in a primary with a man who believes Obama is a Kenyan, the man/horse marriage is a grave threat, and was driven from office because of his ties to Jack Abramoff. And he's in danger of losing to him. So Grampa Walnuts is doing the kind of thing that only a man of his incredible integrity and dignity can do: tack as hard to the right as possible and virulently disavow the brand you've spent the past decade annoyingly cultivating. RIP Maverick.

John McCain — who built his political persona and his 2008 presidential campaign around the claim that he’s a “maverick” — told Newsweek recently: “I never considered myself a maverick.”

When POLITICO asked McCain about the contradiction at the Capitol this week, the Arizona Republican grew visibly irritated and snapped: “I’ve been called a thousand things. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

He said 48 percent of the homeowners in his state are underwater on their mortgages. He said he’s always “done what’s best for my state and the nation.” Then he said it again, adding, “People can consider me whatever they want.”

And then he darted into the Senate chamber without explaining himself further.

That principle: getting elected by any means necessary while getting as much TV and media face time as can possibly be stained for himself and basking in the media adoration of being called a maverick. Which you aren't allowed to call him anymore.

Furthermore, he's not sure why anyone would even use that term to refer to him. I mean it's as if you go and spend the better part of several years, including a Presidential campaign, calling yourself that, calling your running mate that, noting how you're a team of that forbidden word, and constantly referring to yourself with that word so much that it became a running joke... well it's almost like people will keep using that word to describe you. The outrage! Don't they know he's not a maverick and has never heard the word before? He's a dyed in the wool Republican who would never shun the party for his own shallow political goals.

We'd just like to salute Senator McCain for hitting that final low point. We thought it came when he tarnished his entire reputation as a man of integrity an honor by running a third rate, gutter dwelling, half-witted campaign. No, it was when, in an attempt to beat a blithering idiot in a primary, he renounced the word and principles he practically tried to get people to use instead of his name.

Maybe there's a lower point, like running with Sarah Palin again or attempting to get votes by barking like a dog or being part of a County Fair dunktank in full clown make-up, but I don't see that happening. Unless JD Hayworth really looks like he's going to win. Then McCain might try to call himself the Original Hayworth and claim he has proof of Obama's Kenyan heritage. It's a complex process being the Man With The Most Integrity In Washington. The pressure is apparently getting to him. Let's hope he goes crazy in a more entertaining way than this.

Quote of the day

John McCain (Shadow President-AZ) is mad as hell. Well he's mad as hell at a lot of things: the price of a Denny's Grand Slam, his wife doing an ad for the gays, getting out crazied in a Senate primary that he might lose, kids these days, the Kaiser, that authoritative butler or washroom attendant with the suit in the oval office who never lets him meet with whoever it is is President, that nurse at the home who is stealing money from him and trying to turn his family against him, and health care.

But what he's mad about today is health care. So he tied an onion to his belt, picked up Mr. Bell's new talking machine and called in to talk on the magic of Mr. Marconi's wireless gramaphone.

Democrats shouldn't expect much cooperation from Republicans the rest of this year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday.
...
GOP senators emerged Monday to warn that the health debate had taken a toll on the institution, and warning of little work between parties the rest of this year.

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

You hear that? How dare the Democrats use the system of representative government in order to pass legislation by means of a majority. The outrage! This is unprecedented! And what, pray tell, are the consequences? Well, the Republicans will no longer be helpful and co-operate with Democrats. My God, how will the nation cope? Why it's almost like McCain is promising that the GOP caucus will act in the manner that it has already been acting in since January 20th of 2009.

They were totally going to be on board with climate change legislation, immigration reform, jobs bills, and financial regulatory reform! Now, because Democrats used tactics that Republicans used too many time to count, the system is declared broken and the GOP is going to abandon their helpful strategies. So cancel the bipartisanship parties, the Republicans are taking their football and going home. Or, alternately, opening the window of their home and waving around a football to remind you that they took it home over a year ago. It's a shame, I though the next few months were going to be a banner time for fake co-operation followed by accusations of treason/betrayal followed by unified opposition that had already been opposed in a unified manner. Ah well, just the last two now, I guess. We'll have to soldier on somehow.

Message

Via Coffee Ghost comes this look at how previous Don't Ask, Don't Tell policies benefited humanity.

That's why it's nice to see the Obama Administration and the military finally moving on trying to get this repealed. And despite the overwhelming and increasing popularity of the idea (even in the military), the same hypocrites and troglodytes and fearmongers come out of the woodwork to warn how this will crack the planet in half, legalize armed pedophilia, and make the military susceptible to defeat from a sufficiently armed boy scout troop.

So with the support of the President, the Defense Department, the military, and a general population that doesn't see supporting bigotry or a tacit acceptance of bigotry as aspiring to American ideals, hopefully this can get past Congress in a reasonably sufficient amount of time. By which I mean sometime before the sun burns out. But hey, at least they're finally moving on it. I don't think we're in danger of any more Turing type situations, as I think we've advance a tiny bit since then, but hopefully we could at least avoid firing all those arab linguists that it would probably be smart to have in all those public and secret Middle Eastern wars we start.

Video of the day

In a Daily Show piece on the decision to roll back Don't Ask Don't Tell, John Oliver offers up his own suggestions for who should and should not be allowed to serve.

Broken In Brief: Disoriented John McCain crashes state dinner

WASHINGTON—With most of the media focusing on the security breach of Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who infiltrated the State Dinner for the Indian Prime Minister last Tuesday, there has been little attention paid to another mini-scandal erupting from the event. According to sources, an inebriated and confused Senator John McCain also crashed the event. But instead of attempting to get photos with various leaders and celebrities in attendance, the senior Senator from Arizona opted to attempt to host the event as if he were the President.

“Yeah, all was going well, massive security breaches aside, and then the Senator comically barged through the main ballroom doors, fell over, and then made his way over to the receiving line,” observed Juande Ramirez, a member of the wait staff.

“He stumbled past Larry Summers, elbowed the First Lady into a fichus, began shaking the hands of anyone who attempted to make him leave, and made some remark to the Indian Prime Minister about setting aside some time to really sit down and talk shop about how they would bravely lead their great nations into the 19th century.”

According to bemused onlookers, McCain then told President Obama, whom he was leaning against in a bid to stay upright, that it was good that "[the President] wasn’t all bent out of shape over losing the election.” McCain then stumbled onto the dance floor, performed some rudimentary cha-cha, started clinking a fork against a wine glass in an apparent attempt to get some imagined couple to kiss, before retching on a commemorative cake shaped like Ravi Shankar and passing out on top of a dessert cart.

As staffers dragged the comatose war hero out of the event by his feet, they apologized for their bosses’ indiscretions, noting that the last year “has been a hard one for him.”

While there are no immediate plans for “President” McCain, besides a long-in-the-making intervention, his staffers have noted that his personal itinerary mentions a “health policy address” referring to an incident where the soused GOP standard-bearer bitched about his goiter to his daughters’ porcelain doll collection. An indication that this problem may have a deeper root than a secret stash of navy rum.

Whatever the problem, staffers hope to have gotten the Senator the help he needs by the end of the week.

Shaming

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is quickly becoming one of my favorite elected representatives in the health care debate. He fights for a robust public option, seems to understand obvious truths, tries to humiliate and shame liars in public forums, makes a hell of a lot of sense on the issues, stays within the realm of fact, and his last name is Weiner, which is of critical importance to someone as childish as myself. Now, he's also getting into the 'shaming Republican hypocrites' business, which is admittedly easy, but he still does a good job of it.

WEINER: It’s more another way of looking at this debate, this discussion about the public option, to put it in focus. We went, just out of curiosity, looked at how many members of Congress get the public option. And I know a lot of people have said, “Well under the new bill, how many of you members of Congress would choose the public option?”

Well there already is one; it’s called Medicare. And we found 55 Republicans and 151 members of Congress are on Medicare right now. So they’re already getting the same type of public option that we’d like people who are without insurance to be able to get. And I guess the purpose of this list was to kind of point out some of the hypocrisy of this debate.

Yes, he's done his own study, naming names on who is full of it on the health care debate. These 55 oppose a public option while they themselves not only have a public option, while they not only have government run health care, but are using single-payer government run health care in the style of the Socio-fascist League of Homosexual European Freedom Haters that they despise so much.

Now there is one critical flaw in Weiner's plan: he is trying to point out hypocrisy in politicians and shame leaders who have no capacity for acknowledging hypocrisy and had their sense of shame removed in a procedure paid for by Medicare. Plus he's doing it in a media environment that can't find time to give srious proponents of the public option interview time, but can find time to let Overlord McCain warble on and on about nothing for the millionth time. And why not, Gramps won so convincingly a year ago. Still Mr. Weiner (tee-hee), the effort is appreciated. Maybe next time you'll want to accuse the 55 leeches of seeking to kill health reform because they want everyone's grandmother to die bankrupt. It's pretty much the only way to get on TV nowadays. Unless you've got a precocious kid who is willing to hoax the media about a balloon mishap. Don't know how you'd tie that into the health care debate.

Stones

We've heard some bizarre penis-related conspiracies before. Who can forget Rush Limbaugh decreeing that we needed to save our penises from Obama. Well it turns out that Rush was almost right, which for him is a stunning achievement in accuracy. He just needed to turn his attention just a few tics lower....to the balls. Yes, Obama is a danger to Republican balls. Science said so.

Those who remember the street parties of Election Night 2008 might think the testosterone levels of Obama voters had shot up in triumph. That would be wrong.

Instead, liberal testosterone levels stayed stable, while those of male Republican voters plummeted. The latter also reported feeling submissive and unhappy.
...
Indeed, Republican men “felt significantly more controlled, submissive, unhappy and unpleasant at the moment of the outcome” than those who voted for Obama, the researchers wrote. “Moreover, since the dominance hierarchy shift following a presidential election is stable for four years, the stress of having one’s political party lose control of executive policy decisions could plausibly lead to continued testosterone suppression in males.”

Obama's win and McCain's loss had no effect on the testosterone of women, with male levels showing the same levels as they normally do when their sports teams win big games. Which just goes to show you that women need to invest more of their physical and emotional health into politics and sports like men do. So when you say something political felt like "getting kicked in the balls", something I do like five or twenty times a day, you're close. It's something closer to a chemical/metabolic ball kicking....from the inside.

So the next time some conservative commentator talks about how some liberal policy enacted by the liberals in Congress and the White House is damaging the masculinity of the country and pussifying it, just know that he's speaking from experience and scientific evidence. In fact were he to drop his pants on TV, which is what Glenn Beck is two weeks away from doing....tops, you would see the effects of 9+ months of shriveling, shrinkage, and receding. In fact the teabaggers might don't even have the requisite ability to teabag if Obama keeps issuing brutal commands from his throne of skulls. Still, this is a net positive. If there's anything Republicans need, it's less testosterone in their politics.

In which I am momentarily confused

Glenn Beck decided to make some news, and not for saying something so insane or racist that it would cause him to lose the other the other half of his advertisers. No, he went on on Katie Couric's online web show, which is pretty much going to make sure no one sees it or hears it, to praise....Obama? Well, only in comparison to Grandpa Crackers. It's complicated.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Beck said when asked about Hillary Clinton, "but I think I would have much preferred her as President, and may have voted for her against John McCain."

That's because John McCain is a "weird progressive" like Theodore Roosevelt, Becks says.

Then, laughing almost frighteningly, Beck said:

"I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama. How's that?"

Let's see, you've blamed Obama for the economic meltdown, the bailout, the stimulus, you've called him a socialist, communist, fascist, racist, compared him to Hitler, said he'll murder everyone's grandma, said he's starting FEMA concentration camps, is indoctrinating our children, used health care reform as a jumping off point for racially motivated fear attacks against blacks and Mexicans, and used your program to draw up various nefarious conspiracy charts about left wing plots to destroy this country while weeping and screaming, as well as a hundred other things I'm probably forgetting.

How would McCain have been worse? Because he's like Teddy Roosevelt? Or because Beck wouldn't have been able to drum up attention, support, and ratings by doing all that stuff to an old, rich, white Republican? Though I do agree that Hill-Dawg would have been better for Glennie's career. He wouldn't have had to spent all that time inventing new conspiracies, he just could have used all the left over ones from the nineties. Obama has cost him precious "Glenn Time". So just remember all of this next time Glenn goes off on one of his "Obama is using the fillings in my teeth to transmit CIA codes" rants: he can actually conceive of a world where things are worse than the imminent freedom destroying liberal apocalypse that he's describing. He's a sick man.

Broken News: Minutes from top secret Congressional/White House health care negotiations

Unbeknownst to many, in advance of his health care speech, President Obama gathered together various leaders from the House and Senate in a last ditch effort to hammer out some sort of consensus on health care. What follows are minutes from the top secret meeting, presented here unedited.

While no Bothans died to bring us this information, one Senate staffer was beaten with a sack of frozen oranges and, in a related event, three lobbyists had their mouths filled with quick-dry cement.

3:59PM—Members of the various leadership groups and key health care players from the Republican and Democratic parties file in.

4:02PM—Grumbling immediately begins as the Republican group, led by House Minority Leader John Boehner, professes unhappiness with what they see as a comfort disparity between the chairs provided to each political party. Despite assurances that all chairs are the same make and model, Boehner threatens a walkout. A premature and calamitous end to the meeting is averted when Democrats agree to a compromise: Montana Senator Jon Tester will be forced to stand for the duration of the negotiations and NY Representative Charlie Rangel will sit on the lap of Vice-President Joe Biden.

4:27PM—Amid cries from several members of both parties that they had not eaten in “1-2 hours, tops” and that they were “fuckin’ starvin’ over here”, the group starts begins what is expected to be the most taught and fractious negotiations of the night: what to order for dinner. Working under guidelines from the President mandating, “There is no way I am ordering from four different goddamn places,” negotiations begin.

4:31PM—After a heated declaration from Arizona Senator John McCain that under no circumstances will he ever eat Asian food again, honoring a vow he made while imprisoned in Vietnam, the Chinese menu is quietly removed from the table.

4:55PM—A surprisingly quick accord is reached as Virginia Representative Eric Cantor and Virginia Senator Jim Webb both note that nearby Shakey’s Pizza not only features a wide array of Italian foods, but also includes Mexican items, as well as varied sandwiches, burgers, appetizers, and hot wings with 12 varieties of sauce. Orders are placed and, in a landmark sign of bipartisanship, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agree to split an order of Shakey’s famous Gravy Cheese Jalapeño Explosion Fries.

5:30PM—The food arrives and is paid for in a private ceremony involving White House photographers, an elaborate Roman-columned stage, and several different ceremonial pens for the official “Signing of the White House Petty Cash Reimbursement Slip.” During the ceremony McCain thanks his colleagues for not making him eat the food “of the people that kind of look like the people I despise so much.”

5:44PM—Pelosi and McConnell share their fries to the applause of onlookers. Tester complains that his feet hurt and that he didn’t get the extra capicola he ordered on his Italian sub. During a break in the conversation Oregon Senator Ron Wyden openly asks if they could “stop dicking around and get to work on health care." After a round of jeers, the room breaks out in laughter as Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston simultaneously call Wyden a “homo.”

6:11PM—The Rangel-muffled voice of Joe Biden echoes out as he states that everyone seems to be finished eating and that they better let Wyden speak before he, "Gets all weepy and shit again, like a little bitch.”

6:28PM—Wyden completes his run-through of his Healthy Americans Act, a health care bill that, if passed, would actually reform the health care system while drastically expanding coverage. He notes that the Congressional Budget Office has run projections showing the bill would be revenue-neutral two years after implementation and begin reducing health care costs thereafter.

6:33PM—Laughter subsides as a weeping Wyden runs from the room. Someone sarcastically yells out “single payer” and a small riot ensues. Mississippi Rep. Roy Blunt calls a staffer and asks him to bring over new pants after he wets himself when Harry Reid sarcastically suggests, “Medicare for all.”

7:39PM—After different members take to reading out other serious health care reform plans in lilting, girly voices, an angry Max Baucus taps his watch impatiently and notes that, “It’s almost time for So You Think You Can Dance” and "It'll be a cold day in hell before I miss my show."

7:40PM—An exhausted Jon Tester passes out onto the floor. No one seems to notice.

7:44PM—The assembled agree to follow Senate Plan 3B on negotiations. According to Robert’s Rules of Order, this requires them to, “verily fuck around for a fortnight before ultimately passing legislation that helps few, annoys all, and tosses large burlap sacks of gold Hessian bullion at the reigning industrial elite.”

7:45PM—The meeting ends as a frantic Max Baucus runs from the room screeching about how he should have bought a Tivo.

8:12PM—Sen. McCain wakes up in a cold sweat, screaming "Sarah who?"

Shocking revelations of an unfathomably surprising nature

Cheney Says He Was Proponent for Military Action Against Iran

Former Vice President Dick Cheney hinted that, in the waning days of the Bush administration, he had pushed for a military strike to destroy Iran's nuclear-weapons program.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Cheney described himself as being isolated among advisers to then-President George W. Bush, who ultimately decided against direct military action.

"I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues," Mr. Cheney said in response to questions about whether the Bush administration should have launched a pre-emptive attack prior to handing over the White House to Barack Obama.

Wouldn't that have just been the perfect ending to the Bush Administration? "Here black dude, we just bombed the everliving shit out of Iran because Dick really, really wanted to. I think that makes it three wars in the Middle East we're leaving you with. Oh, and the crippling economic collapse. Ah well, good luck. I'll be in Dallas if you need me!" Those must have been a hellish last couple of weeks for various Bush Administration officials. You're trying to find a new job after this current one has tainted your reputation and every few days you have to run over to the White House to form the opposition to some half baked military invasion that Dick Cheney wants to enact, whether it's Iran again or he wants to carpet bomb Central America because he thinks the guy that fucked up his lunch order was vaguely Panamanian.

This was all part of the Dick's wide-ranging, some would say tragically sycophantic, interview with Chris Wallace. In the interview they covered such subjects as why Cheney is not only cool with torture, he's cool with interrogators going above and beyond the specific torture methods they approved, as well as his consternation about how politicized the Justice Department is now, and a few overt dares to investigate his various crimes. He even caused John McCain to stand up and take notice, deriding the effectiveness of torture and the vapidness of Cheney's arguments, though with the caveat that despite the illegality and Geneva Conventions violating nature of the crimes that the best way to move forward and make sure it never happened again was to not investigate one single thing about it.

God love Dick Cheney's media tours, he's such a font of rage inducing hypocrisy. Did I mention he's writing a book? I can't wait for that thing to come out, I think it might cause Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher's heads to explode at the same time.

Take that, F-22

Senate Beats Back Military-Industrial Complex In Historic Vote

The Senate, by a vote of 58-40, approved an amendment proposed by Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to strip $1.75 billion in funding for the F-22 fighter. Levin worked hand in hand to kill the F-22 money with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

"There was an extensive effort by the White House," said Levin. "The president really needed to win this vote, not just in terms of the merits of the F-22 issue itself, but in terms of the reform agenda."

Tragically this makes all of Michael Bay's "in the not too distant future" multi-film spanning F-22/military hardware wankery futuristically inaccurate. Starscream will have to transform into something different for Transformers 3: Revenge of the Rise of the Risen.

For those of you keeping score at home that's

Military Industrial Complex 37,673,987
Government Crusaders: 2

Hopefully no one gets assassinated in Dallas as payback this time.

Money

Hey, you know what the difference is between Senators who oppose new health care measures and those who support them? Well, on average, it's about $1.1 million per year in donations from the health sector according to OpenSecrets. Is your mind blown yet? Politicians getting money from an industry in return for opposing popular legislation. I know, it's unthinkable, but that's what OpenSecrets says is going on with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which approved a health care bill yesterday. From the OS report:

* Those members who voted "no" today have received $1.1 million more on average from the health sector since 1989 than those who voted "yes" ($2.2 million versus $1.1 million). This includes contributions from the employees and political action committees of health companies to the lawmakers' candidate committees and leadership PACs.

* Those members who voted "no" have received $118, 227 more on average from insurance companies than those who voted "yes" -- $250,000 compared to $131,800. This includes health and accident insurers, HMOs and health services.

* Those members who voted "no" have received $266,182 more on average from pharmaceutical and health product companies than those who voted "yes" -- $520,100 compared to $253,950.

Shocking. John McCain has been hoarding the most cash, tripling the second place runner up in health sector donations. It has something to do with how mavericky he is. I mean normally someone who gets face cancer every other month would appreciate the need for quality health care and access to it. But McCain's maverick streak (and rich wife paying the bills) allows him to not care about all the medical concerns of the peasant class.

In any event, the bill that passed the Senate Committee 13-10 is remarkably similar to the House bill and includes a public plan. I don't know what's more shocking: money losing out in the Senate or a good idea beating bullshit compromise in the Senate. Surely there must have been some mass hostage taking or bombing threat to cause this sort of deviation from the Senate norm. We can only hope the hostages won't be released until the final vote takes place.

EDIT: Spoke too soon. There's the "centrists" standing up to fuck everyone. Whew! I thought I was going crazy there for a minute when I saw the Senate actually functioning.

Diagram it out

If you were as confused as I was by Sarah Palin's hurricane of bad metaphors, similes, explanations, and descriptions during her "Winners quit, losers stick around" resignation speech, then you're in luck. Deadspin has put together a diagram of one of the more confusing metaphors: the basketball one. Yeah, I thought Coach Jesus would employ a better offensive system against a press, but then again I don't know the man as well as "the Barracuda". Also, I'm not sure Olbermann should play so far off McCain, he's old but he can still drain an open J from 20 feet and a former sportscaster should know that.

Someone muzzle Grampa

With Iran refusing to nullify the election, moving to swear in Ahmadinejad, and taking that extra classy Chinese Government step of charging bullet fees for the protesters government security forces shot, I have but one small happy thought: thank Baby Jesus that John McCain isn't President.

Sen. John McCain continued to rap President Barack Obama for his measured reaction to the crisis in Iran, which McCain said was inadequate in its support for the protestors of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contested re-election.
...
The line pushed by McCain has become the de-facto Republican criticism of Obama since the crisis in Iran began. The president has expressed his concern with the rising violence in the country as well as the obvious inaccuracies in the presidential vote. But he has avoided outright support for the seating of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.

The measured manner of Obama's response, while criticized by some, has been described as essential by many foreign policy observers.

I love that his plan come down to the President waving bigger pom-poms and perhaps forming a human pyramid before trying to get onlookers to spell our I-R-A-N letter by letter. Good plan Johnny, because people in Iran, let alone the rest of the world, are confused to America's thoughts on the matter. What we need to be doing is intertwining American power an influence with the leadership of the revolution. Because after all, what Iranian doesn't like the thought of the foreign power that overthrew it's democratically elected government in 1953 and propped up a dictatorship for decades, then supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons so he could gas Iranians in an all out war, co-opting the leadership of a democratically based revolution? I totally bet that it wouldn't be used as a weapon to discredit the movement and as an excuse to get even harsher with protesters.

I can't believe the man that glibly sang about bombing these same people that are now marching in the streets doesn't know enough about Iran to gauge stupid foreign policy from smart foreign policy. Here's a tip Mac, if Joe Scarborough is labeling your criticism as "so shortsighted I find it stunning", and George Will, a man who nakedly distorts facts, thinks the intellectual rigor of your arguments equates to "foolish criticism", it's time to hang 'em up. It's one thing to say "maybe you shouldn't shoot so many protesters", it's another to wrap yourself in green and swear fealty to Mousavi. Learn the difference.

Oh Christ, not this shit again

Obama Tells His Cabinet to Look for Efficiency

When is $100 million small change?

When you are President Obama and you propose trimming that amount from your $3.6 trillion federal budget.

On the theory that every little bit helps, Mr. Obama convened the first cabinet meeting of his presidency on Monday and said that in an effort to make the government “as efficient as possible” and to ensure that “every taxpayer dollar is being spent wisely,” he was challenging department heads and agency chiefs to come up with ways to save $100 million over the next 90 days.

You know during the campaign when Crazy Uncle John and the Church Lady were droning on about how making government more efficient would account for all their budget holes and economic crises, it was funny. Because we knew these were the last desperate gasps of losers who, after they said it, would go back out behind the McCain Campaign Shed for a serious session of weeping.

But now Obama also thinks it's a good idea and wants everybody to pretend that a million dollar cut here on studying the migratory patterns of herons, a million dollar cut here to make those assholes at the Smithsonian use a cheaper brand of printer paper, and buying office supplies from Staples instead of Office Depot will fix everything, one efficiency at a time. Obama's mantra is "It all adds up", but no, it doesn't. As Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman points out, from his Econo-balloon floating 2 miles over Princeton, that if we cut $100 million from the budget every working day during Obama's first term, at the end of the term they'd have reduced the budget by $80 billion, or 2% of the budget for one year. "Chump change" I think is the proper economic term.

I'm all for making government more efficient, but can we do it in a manner that doesn't appear to be by picking a random number that you feel sounds good, holding the Defense Department to the same dollar amount cuts as the Department of Transportation, or pretending that this is all making some grand difference. How about just making the changes without the big empty gestures and focus group tested numbers?

Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.17

Ex-McCain aide to call for gay marriage support
Seems former McCain aide Steve Schmidt thinks that Republicans being for gay marriage is a smart thing. He'll be denounced as a heretic, shunned, and possibly stoned by the rest of his party in 3...2...1. While it's good to see him make the argument, let's make sure he's not involved in selling it or getting it passed. I don't know how much McCain campaign type backbiting, mixed messages, infighting, confusion, incoherence, and mismanagement the issue can take.

Banks Rush to Repay U.S. Funds, but Cling To Other Lifelines
Well, well, well. Banks want to bitch about taking one set of government funds while lining up at the trough to take another. CEO's are complaining about the restrictions surrounding the use of TARP funds, using words like "scarlet letter", "asinine", and complain that they only took the money to show a united front. Now that some turned a 1st quarter profit, they want to yell about how they never needed the money in the first place, they're defaulting on checks to their butler, and the terms are "damaging the economy", neglecting to mention the fact that they'd be bankrupt if they didn't get the TARP money and are still hoovering up government billions from other areas. They really haven't learned anything, have they?

Injured War Zone Contractors Fight to Get Care From AIG and Other Insurers
Turns out those bastion of usefulness, AIG, were making quite a handsome profit off of the Iraq war. Not only did they insure civilian contractors, collecting premiums to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars, a sum an army audit called "unreasonably high", they went ahead and denied 44% of all claims for contractors suffering serious injuries and over half of all claims for psychological distress. They were able to net a cool $600 million profit, which given their track record, they probably used to fund the liquidation of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. God, I'm so glad they were too big to fail. What would we ever do without them? I mean besides have a solvent economy and treat people wounded in war with a shred of dignity.

Sondhi Limthongkul Survives 84 Gunshots
Mr. Limthongkul, aka King of the Badasses, organized protests that ended up deposing Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra last year. The New Rasputin, who led the 'yellow shirts', has been under fire (figuratively at first, now literally) from the 'red shirts' who backed the previous government and are trying to protest the new government out of power. When asked for comment, Mr. Limthongkul responded that "there is no spoon" and then kung fu fought his way through a bunch of men in black suits.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 4.1

Super Bowl Loss Can 'Kill' Some Fans
I knew the Steelers winning the Super Bowl meant more than just bragging rights over 31 other cities, it turns out the XLIII victory meant that the Steelers Nation will live longer. Now if they could just figure out how many years Super Bowls XL and XLIII added to my life and computate it with how many years the Kordell Stewart helmed AFC Championship games took off it. According to science if the Steelers are able to string together three SB victories in a row everyone in Pittsburgh will become functionally immortal. Highlanders. So draft some fucking lineman already so we can live forever.

Unions protest Joe the Plumber in Pittsburgh.
What's that? A union town doesn't like a mongoloid political novelty act come to town to bash unions and ignorantly pontificate on things he doesn't understand? For future reference: Republicans, if you want to send someone to advocate to unions that they should willingly sodomize themselves, don't send the scab plumber.

McCain Rumored To Be Working His Own Budget
Oh dear God, someone kindly tell him he lost and no one cares. Let me guess what his budget is: no earmarks, tax cuts for the rich, some paen to the working class about how government needs to tighten its belt just like the regular folks do in tough times, and something named after Reagan. I know it's April 1st and all but can the GOP stop releasing so many joke budgets? As we demonstrate here daily, jokes become less funny after you ram them into the ground a few thousand times.

FARC guerillas fail in bid to kill defence minister after spelling mistake
Pobody's nerfect in FARC. I can just imagine the conversation. "You wanted me to kill Jose Rodriguez? I thought you said Jose Bodriguez! DOH!" followed by a comical slap to his forehead, the sad trombone, studio audience laughter, and the sound of gunfire as he's shot to death by a firing squad out back. Actually it's even dumber: they misspelled "policia" on their fake police gear. Boy are they gonna get made fun of in prison.

Luxury Property - The Luxury Real Estate Authority
If you'd like to trainwreck gawk at the misery of the rich there's the Luxury Property Blog. A place where you can see all the hot new foreclosed mega-mansions that are up for sale. Perhaps laugh as some poor baron's castle and mega-yacht are put up for sale. It's OK to laugh, they're rich and thus don't have real human feelings or emotions. Remember to point.

HBO sets drama series in Treme with focus on city's musicians
What's that, David Simon, creator of the Wire and Generation Kill? Writing a new TV show for HBO? About post-Katrina New Orleans? It follows destitute musicians trying to get back on their feet and it stars Bunk and Freamon from the Wire? Sounds like like a typical Simon appointment viewing epic for those of us who get a huge tragedy boner from depressing TV. I'll get my TiVO ready.