Headline of the day

Shakira Coming To Arizona To Investigate Immigration Law

I'm certain that if anyone will get to the bottom of the legality of this bill it's constitutional law scholar and international pop sensation Shakira. If there's anything this debate needed it was warbly singing in Spanish and English, belly dancing, and sexy zombie walking.

Oh Arizona, you thought you could get away with this and no one would object. But now you've brought down the wrath of Shakira. For your sake I hope she goes easy on you. You definitely don't want a internationally successful, genre crossing pop hit about how you're all a bunch of shitheads. So help you God if she brings along Wyclef or Beyonce.

For the love of God go away

Rick Santorum is back and for the love of God I don't have any clue why. Is America clamoring for the leadership of a man who got his head caved in by 18 points to a charisma vacuum like Bob Casey? Does the Republican party need yet another orthodox Christian conservative with a lot of shady lobbying ties who wishes to take the party further out into the wilderness? I guess he's convinced so, because he's going to Iowa to start stumping for 2012.

“I have to tell you I was surprised by the response, just invitations…If you Googled ‘Santorum in Iowa’ before I did that Politico interview, there were 350 items would come up, entries that would come up on the search. I Googled it this morning. You know how many came up? Guess….1,360,000 entries! That surprised me, you know, when I see that and when I saw the reaction out there. It’s a little, it makes you step back and think when I actually wasn’t thinking about it.

“You say I should have been thinking about this long ago. Well, I wasn’t. Am I thinking about it seriously now? Well, I’m here.

That's funny, you know what the first thing that came up for me when I Googled Santorum? Oh, nothing.

Headline of the day

From the Huffington Post front page:

Activists Stunned At Pat Buchanan's Racial Tirades

Really? I know we all marveled at how Crazy Uncle Pat was able to tamp down his desire to start dropping the N-Bomb so he could provide cogent political analysis of John McCain's imminent electoral death during the election, but did we all really think he was going to be able to resist the siren call of "Latin woman on the Supreme Court" and not immediately revert back to the Classic Buchanan America fell in love with?

I mean come on, MSNBC is bringing the man on specifically to talk about race issues and GOP response to Sotomayor. How can he, or viewers, resist the temptation to revel in the insanity?

Media Matters has put together a stunning highlights package. Highlights: claiming Sotomayor didn't know English during college, and his support of a segregationist judge Nixon tried to get on the Supreme Court. It's like watching Jordan in his prime.

The free market

Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander added his voice to the chorus of those clamoring that a public health plan is the most unjust thing ever.

As part of President Obama’s push to reform health care, he has made it clear that he supports creating a public plan that would compete with private health insurance plans. In response, the health insurance lobby group AHIP has insisted that such competition would be “potentially lethal” to their industry.
...
“It’s a big problem,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) said. “It’s like putting an elephant in the room with some mice and saying, ‘Okay fellas, compete.’ There wouldn’t be any mice left after a while.”

Let me see if I have this right. If the lean, mean, private sector, what with all their innovation and awesomeness, was forced to compete with big, bloated, inefficient, government in a market based solely on quality of service, cost, and coverage, the private sector would get so thoroughly trounced as to negate their entire industry? Big insurance companies (which are now comparable to a mouse) can't hack it against the government in the free market? I thought business beating government in every way was the GOP's 11th commandment.

"Insurance company profits are more important than better health care for you. The American people must be protected at all costs from better and cheaper health care!" sounds like a winning argument to me. You and Nelson keep flogging this horse, we'll get someone else to fire up the "SOCIALISM~!" band.

Broken In Brief: American Tea Party teabaggers unaware of the sexual implications of their moniker

WASHINGTON—As the right wing American Tea Party pursues media exposure for their April 15th tax day demonstrations, snickering liberals remain divided over whether to let them in on the testicle-related sexual slang associated with the term "tea bagging."

“This week thousands of Americans will participate in these Tea Party protests against reckless government overspending,” said Mike Perkins, a spokesman for FreedomWorks, the group organizing the event. During a press conference promoting the ostensibly grassroots movement, Perkins declared, “My fellow tea baggers and tea bagging aficionados, we will show everyone that you can’t push us around. We’ll show the liberals our tea bags and let them know we can’t be pushed around. Tea baggers unite!”

In the back of the press conference, a group of snarky college students were stifling laughter.

“He thinks he's [laughter] talking... about spending and... [laughter] the... Boston Tea... Party… but… he’s actually… talking… about… balls [laughter]… and... and… ballsacks,” said a doubled over Brandon Rousch, a Georgetown campus student organizer, between brief gasps for air.

After this initial rallying cry, Mr. Perkins announced another FreedomWorks plan to mail boxing gloves to Democratic leaders to show them that the Republican party was ready for a fight.

“Speaker Pelosi, we’re ready to do battle with you over the future of this country. That’s why we’re proud to announce the beginnings of what we hope will grow into another national movement: Operation Donkey Punch!” he said, apparently in reference to a pugilistic bout with the traditional mascot of the Democratic Party.

At this point Mr. Rousch and his colleagues were rolling around on the floor, unable to control their laughter. “Nobody tell them,” he said, a spot of urine beginning to appear on his pants. “Nobody tell them what that means!”

A storm of gays is coming!!!

Perhaps you saw this. It's the brand spankin' new ad for The National Organization for Marriage, who wants you to know that the black smoke monster from Lost is very unhappy with you and your gay coddling legislators and jurists. Run for the hills and be afraid, because the gays aren't content to just get married, they're coming for you and they're bringing hell with them. Not only will they encircle you, steal your freedom, and toss it from gay circle member to gay circle member as you vainly run from side to side trying to get in back, they'll infringe upon your rights as a doctor not to treat gays, they'll force you to perform their gay marriages in your church IN FRONT OF JESUS, brainwash your kids with gay marriage acceptance before you have a chance to brainwash them against it, spook your livestock, poison your crops, preemptively cause floods, and get all sorts of legal rights that will conversely strip you of yours.

Now of course all of this is true MWA HA HA none of this is true. But I would just like to commend them for their Grade A fear mongering, lying, "they're coming to get you Barbara", thunderclouds, apocalyptic overtones, "hey it's not just for white fundamentalists, all races and faiths should hate gay marriage" coda, and the message that stops just short of claiming everyone will be forced to gay marry. Thanks, because if this was actually well done, I might have some fears for the future of gay marriage. If this is the opposition, then gays'll will be destroying what passes for society in Alabama by next year. Here's a suggestion for the next round of fear mongering: less blindingly overt dishonesty and hire better actors.

Broken In Brief: NFL considers renaming “franchise tag”

NEW YORK—When the NFL created the franchise tag in 1993 it was as a means of enabling teams to keep elite players from entering free agency while ensuring the player would be payed appropriately -- compensation commensurate with the top five paid players at his position. Now with the recent disappointing raft of franchise designations to what outsiders have called “…a combination of kickers, second stringers, no names, and Max Starks” the NFL is considering changing the name of its so called “franchise tag.”

“Yeah, it really has lost all meaning, hasn’t it?” a concerned NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wondered. “It used to be a way for teams to retain world-class players for one year at an appropriate price. Now teams are just using it to lock up punters. Granted, I am referring to the Bengals, who could hardly be called a 'professional football team,' but still, do teams even know what a franchise player is? Tennessee used it on a tight end and they never throw the ball. St. Louis used theirs on a safety I never heard of and now he’ll get paid like Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu. But the most recent has to be the worst. The Steelers are giving [Offensive Tackle Max] Starks, who can only be loosely defined as a 'lineman,' $8.45 million? I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.”

“Franchise player means ‘…an athlete who is not simply the best player on their team, but a player that the team can build their franchise around for the foreseeable future.’ I fuckin’ got that from Wikipedia. Someone tell the Bengals that’s what it means,” an exasperated Goodell yelled. Throwing up his hands and sighing he finished with an angry and disappointed “C’mon!” before leaving the press conference.

While no concrete name changes have been given, league sources state that several options are on the table, including the “Best of a Bad Lot” tag, the “Oh No You Don’t” tag, the “We’ll Never Let You Leave" tag, the “Where The Fuck Do You Think You're Going?” tag, and the “We Can't Teach Another Guy Our Complex Punting System” tag. Additionally, the "Sorry, But We Forgot to Draft Someone at Your Position" tag, the "Well, We Have All This Extra Cap Space" tag and the "Simply an Average Free Agent" tag are also being kicked around the office.