Joe the Politician

There are a couple of Conservobot posts on this, but this is easily my favorite from Cold Fury, I could probably be friends with this guy. Apparently Joe the "Plumber" had an interview and called out the 'Liberal' Media and some Conservobots are all happy.

Anyway, to recap Joe the Plumber's story, Joe asks Barack a question at a meet-and-greet. Barack answers the question and uses the phrase "spread the wealth". Conservobot Shitstorm ensues. 

Now, per the Conservo Blog posts, this is apparently the chosen narrative. The story goes that Joe is an ordinary dude and was dragged into all this against his will.  I ask you, over the course of the campaign, how many people asked Obama questions? How many might have actively disagreed with him? How many parlayed this exposure into a Book Deal and a Record Deal? Joe is a very ambitious person.

Of course, this was not all Joe's fault, as with most success stories this has it's share of luck. But let's not pretend this was a bad thing for Joe. He was propelled into national exposure and made the best of it, good for him. Conservatives like to ignore the fact that this is all the best thing that could've happened to dear old Joe (I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind a book and record deal for NO FUCKING REASON WHATSOEVER)

But what's truly amazing is that somehow according to the Conservosphere Obama is responsible for all this madness which Joe has found himself.  Allow me to remind all that ST. JOHN was the one that mentioned Joe a fucking million times. Obama mentioned him just in playing Defense. McCain created the mythology. The press went after Joe because that's what the press does. They are fucking useless. I was reading the Liberal Blogs at the time. They mostly (I'm sure there were exceptions)  did not give a fuck. Joe was clearly an inconsequential blowhard, a nobody, or as I originally thought, completely mythological. A product of McCain's aged and sleep deprived mind.  At the time Liberals were trying to keep the country from falling farther into the abyss, we had bigger things to worry about. 

So, in closing, Conservobots, quit worrying about Joe. He's fine. Still wrong as ever, but fine.

Anyway...

2008 Election

You know, I'm watching Keith Olbermann's recap of the 2008 Election. I miss the Election! Wahhh!!

Now that I know the outcome, I wish I could go back and just enjoy it without all the pain and anguish. 

God. I had NO idea she winked that much during that debate. Can Palin only close one eyelid at a time? I don't want to be ragging on someone with a disability.

Anyway...

Baal Worshippers

For those of you who did not grow up in a religious household, perhaps a little explanation is in order. Baal Worshippers were a particularly favorite boogie man in the Old Testament. I don't know how much is known of them Historically, but in the bible they are fairly nasty. I don't have my bible handy, but I think they were the ones that ended up in that Preach-off against Elisha that resulted in the incinerated alter. Elisha was all over that shit. 

Anyway, a second recent occurrence of crazy religious/political behavior comes from some wacko at the WorldNetDaily. He compares Baal worshippers with current liberal type people. You really have to read it, but the general thrust is that both groups  are comprised of child-murdering hedonists. Now, I don't think this guy is strictly speaking as a Republican, but clearly this is the faction that that Party has tied itself to.

I don't want to get too much into Abortion or Gay rights here (maybe later, when i'm drunk... drunker), but it never ceases to amaze me that the Anti-Abortion factions are always painting the pro-choice segment as reveling in abortion,  like we all use aborted zygotes as breakfast spread or something. During one of the debates, Obama made the point that reasonable people could search for a common ground about limiting abortions. This is a reasonable position. Reasonable people agree that ideally there would be no Abortion, but scared girls are going to seek this as an answer and they should be protected.  An unreasonable position is demonizing your opposition and comparing them to child-sacrificing orgy-goers. I mean, no matter how much fun that sounds like. 

Anyway...

The Religion

I can't remember, but I believe I've said this before. The Republican Party is now a religion. My first example, again by my man, Steve Benen, comes courtesy of everyone's favorite Conservo blowhard.

I'm not going to completely reiterate the posts, but basically here is a recap. Rush Limbaugh started a meme and it has been picked up a bit by other Converobots. The theory goes like this: Democrats wrecked the economy for political gains. 

Of course, it all makes sense. The Democrats drive the economy down, blame it on the Republicans, the People buy it despite the clear innocence of Republicans and, Score! Huge, talkin' HUGE Election gains and the mother-fucking-Presidency! 

Whoo! Those Clever Democrats. I mean, despite the fact that about everyone with any non-ideological stake in this is sort of blaming rampant deregulation and blind faith in the free-economy for the disaster. Of course, both those things are major tenants of Democratic philosophy. Oh wait, that's not right.

Now, conservatives and liberals are going to have legitimate philosophical differences and there are always going to be people who defend their side no matter what. But lately, it seems to me, we have had a legitimate Test and consequently compete FAILURE of Conservative politics. Now, rather than reorganizing, and perhaps engaging in soul-searching retrospection, Rush and his Ilk find it much easier to continue to blame the other side rather than ask tough questions about the legitimacy of their own beliefs. 

It's probably not the legitimate definition, but in my mind, continued blind adherence to disproved (or unprovable) beliefs smacks seriously of religion.

Anyway....

Music Idiocy

I'll be linking a lot to Steve Benen today, but the man was on fire. Anyway, this is a good post on Warner Music pulling it's videos from YouTube.

I swear, I do not understand the music industry and I kind of hope they burn. The problem with the music industry is that they themselves have gotten too big, but unlike some industries it does not matter if they fail. I mean, I feel sorry for all the people with the cool fucking jobs that are suddenly going to have to make copies for corporate law firms, like someone else I know.

But the times they have changed. You get a hit single and you can't sell it for a quarter to half the teenagers in America. Digital Music is not the industries fault. They just can't sell how they used to. However, the way they have structured their business is their problem. They have a HUGE fucking infrastructure to maintain. They have bonuses to give out and Executives to pay. The prices of CDs are huge and most of that money goes not to the artist, not to the cost of production, but to label cost and advertising. You don't want Madonna's New CD? YES YOU DO!

Of course, there are legitimate expenses to run a label, but places like Warner have gone way too far. For a long time the big labels have been as top-heavy as a metal video extra. The Reckoning has come, fuckers. 

The industry had a choice back in the day. Embrace a technology that was Clearly not going away, or treat the consumer as criminal. They made the wrong choice then, and they've clearly learned jack-shit.

However, that doesn't mean, when you see a band that clearly doesn't have any money that you shouldn't buy their CD, particularly if they are on an indie label. And don't burn it for all your friends. You cheap fucking bastards.

Anyway...

The Blago Report

So, the Blago Report is officially out and Surprise, Sur-fucking-prise, Obama is about as innocent as he claimed. 

Now, there is a lot of hair-splitting about how Obama said he had "No Contact" which is of course Literally true, but still smacks a little of politics. However, this is not a "I did not have Sexual Relations with that woman" moment no matter how much the press would like it to be. 

What really amazes me is that NO one is really mentioning (not even liberal blogs that i've seen) that Bush has been influence peddling for Years. Except Bush's favorite currencies are Loyalty and Incompetence. Ok, that was a low-blow, his favorite currencies are Loyalty and loving the Un-born and Reagan. Not necessarily in that order.

Anyway, I don't expect the Conservosphere is going to give this shit up (i mean, why would they, proof of innocence is NOT proof of innocence, right?). However, it does lose a little steam, a typical post, and one i enjoy comes from Hot Air.  Of course, it is not entirely free of innuendo. My favorite is the continual unrelenting condescension to both Obama and his Supporters. I can see The One is not going anywhere either. 

Anyway...

More Blago..

Steve Benen at washingtonmonthly.com makes essentially the same point I was making about tying Obama to Blago, but, you know, without all the swearing and mild threats of violence. Or threats of mild violence. The fact remains, there still is no there there.

Anyway...

NOW they pay attention

It is a well known fact that Republicans only pay attention to political scandal (or the lack thereof) when it's affecting Democrats. After years of being lied to by the lyingist administration of quite possibly the entire history of the union, now they get all worked up. 

I'm of course referring to the Blagojevich scandal.  All the Republican blogs (i'm looking at you particularly Michelle Malkin, you fuck) are all up in arms desperate to make something of this. 

Here is but one example. I'm not entirely sure this guy is of the more psychotic variety of Republican, but he's making a patently ridiculous argument.  After the 8 years of catastrophe this one little bit of guilt by association is supposed to make everyone lose all faith in Obama? I have no doubt that Obama is playing a bit of cover-his-ass. Rahmbo does seem to have a bit of a bad streak. But seriously, all the facts point to Obama and Blago not being the best of buddies. There is just no scandal here. Obama seems to take governing seriously, he is appointing smart people and laying out a plan to actually help, rather than destroy the economy. 

It's sad that the Insane Conservative Posse is not even remotely cowed by the severe beatings of the last two major election cycles, but I'm not entirely surprised.

Fortunately, most people finally have decided what is important and what ain't, so Obama's numbers are hanging strong, despite all these efforts to find a there there.

Anyway...

Kim Jong Il

So, Kim Jong Il was not killed by his stroke, as I've just learned from Ms. Maddow. I guess Billy Joel was right.

Ok, enough fucking around, my next post will be serious.

Anyway...

Suffering

I just burnt the soup I was reheating while I was crafting that last post. Do you see how I suffer for you people?  I will expect gifts and worship.

Coal-trane

So, the singing coal carolers are done. For those people unaware of the singing coal, apparently the 'Clean' coal people had animated lumps of coal singing pro-'Clean' coal 'technology lyrics to everyone's favorite X-mas carols. 

Now, apparently, the coal people are sort of blaming the liberal blogosphere and Rachael Maddow for mocking them enough that they did not get any traffic at their site. 

Seriously? I'm sure the mocking didn't help, but we have real viral videos out there, you fucking idiots! We are an easily distracted people, but you have to give us Something, goddamnit! Are you people seriously surprised we didn't want to watch badly animated lumps of COAL sing different lyrics to fucking CHRISTMAS Carols!? The same X-mas Carols we will be bombarded with  24-Fucking-Hours a DAY for the next MONTH!? Seriously? Seriously.  Jesus, people. Peddle your pollution elsewhere, we're bored.

Anyway...

How DARE You make $25/hour

Why oh why are the Republicans so hateful toward the Unions? Basically, the Republicans will only allow the bailout to go through when they break the back of the UAW.  

I'll try to link to it, but Keith Olbermann (granted, a partisan source) has a good report tonight on the efforts of Mitch McConnell and his band of Hating Haters to crush the auto bailout.  Republicans hate unions because it gives the people power to force their employers to listen to them. This allows money to flow to everybody, not just uphill. 

This is kind of a disjointed post, but I'm really angry at these fucks. And it's been covered at length by smarter people than me. But, I firmly believe the UNION DID NOT CRASH GM! Just Did NOT fucking happen. The people in charge are playing a game here in order to crush the union. Unions are dangerous to power. They dilute it, make it harder to control. The power junkies will always try to crush something like that. 

When I hear Mitch Mc-fucking-Connell (I don't know if I'm spelling his name right, and I do not care) say word one about getting rid of Huge packages to the CEOs of dying fucking banking institutions, I'll start listening to his dumb hateful ass about Unions.

Disclosure: In order to make a quick buck, I'm the proud owner of rapidly devaluating GM stock. I like to think I'd be in the union's corner in any case. Pretty safe bet on that.

Anyway...

Smokin'!

Tom Brokaw asks the Tough questions.  Again, and not to belabor the point, but this is the sort of thing about which I can NOT give a fuck. You know what, Obama, smoke away. Have a pack on me. Or two, or three. In fact, I'll dig up a fucking hash pipe for you, just please, pretty please, do not, in Any Fucking Way, govern as your predecessor has. 

Of course, this attitude is probably due to my lax moral standards. Thank god for our serious press corp to pick up the slack. Jesus. At any rate, I didn't see this portion of the interview, but I suspect it was something of a throw-away by Brokaw. But clearly the Yahoo people are taking this seriously. I am curious to see if the Right tries to make a big deal of Barack's smoking. They have funny morals sometimes, but they always seem to side with the tobacco industry.

And, for clarity, I don't give a fuck about Bush's drinking either. Many, many fine world leaders have drunk like fish. Bush, of course, was not one of them. Maybe he shouldn't have given it up, might have helped.

Anyway...

Turkeygate

Ok, I was going to try to get this post out before Thanksgiving, but I didn't make it. Anyway, I'm sure you've seen it, but in case you haven't, check out this video.

Basically, Palin, everyone's favorite V.P. candidate, pardons a turkey and then conducts the post-pardon interview in front of a GODDAMN TURKEY KILLING MACHINE!  Now, I personally don't care about the turkeys. People eat turkeys and obviously they are generally killed first. 

But a couple points. First, the choice of locale has NO effect on Palin. Part of this, I'm sure, is that a woman who thinks it's fine to gun down wolves from Airplanes is not going to flinch at a few turkeys buying it behind her. 

But, second, and more importantly, it demonstrates a Complete inability to understand Irony. I think Palin would understand the concept if you explain it to her. Or, if you pointed an example out to her, she would maybe do her little fake laugh and say, "oh, I see, you're kidding." But she wouldn't find if funny. And the deadlier aspects of Irony are clearly lost on this woman. 

One of the common themes I see in current Republican behavior is that they behave more like a religion than a political party. I will hit this as long as I do this blog (about another week, i figure), but I this is also behavior I think that is a common trait among religious Fundamentalists.  I don't want to say Religious Fundamentalism breeds and insensitivity to irony, more like the other way around. People without a sense of irony are DRAWN to Religious Fundamentalism. 

Standing in front of a Turkey Execution immediately AFTER pardoning a fucking Turkey does not faze Palin because she is incapable of recognizing the absurdity of the situation. This inability does tend to affect a lot of Republican rhetoric. This is the mindset that lets them label a black man, raised by a single mother, who truly had to crawl up from the bottom,  and could only go to a good school on a scholarship he earned, an Elitist. This is why they can say, "government get out of the way" while they are running to become part of the FUCKING GOVERNMENT. I must ask, how can you function normally in modern society without being able to understand Irony? Again, the answer is, clearly, you can't.

Anyway...

Get over it

Does anyone remember 2000? Remember there were these two guys, Gary Bush and Alberto Gore. Where are those guys now?

Ok, so everyone remembers 2000, but lets have a refresher. Gore wins the popular vote and Bush ekes out a victory by a slim electoral vote margin in, say it with me, Florida. Florida, where Bush's Brother, Jeb, is Governor. Florida, where Katherine Harris was Secretary of State and responsible for certifying the final recount (or something. She was fucking important, ok!).  Funny story, Ms. Harris was ALSO The Chief Chimp's campaign co-chair in Florida. Now, some might call this a conflict of interest. Of course, a LOT of other people would only call it a conflict of interest ONLY if this situation happened to the Republicans (I'm looking at you, Limbaugh, You Fuck). 

Now, here we have a highly contested state with some Serious conflicts of interest. But is the ultimate result decided in a hot and heavy recount like the one currently going on in Minnesota? No, it is decided by the Supreme Court in a suit filed by Mr. Bush where a recount is STOPPED and Bush declared the winner. 

Now, what was the advice of Republicans to Democrats in the face of such a highly dubious election result? Get over it.  Moveon.org? Get over it.  Daily Kos? Get over it. Just a general person with some sense of fairness and decency? Get over it.

So, now, the shoe is on the other foot. Except it isn't. Obama/McCain is not a contested election. In fact, given today's circumstances the result was the closest you could have to a blow-out. But in the next couple of posts I will outline a few of the temper tantrums by certain people on the Right that are actually getting some play in the mainstream media (i'm looking at you, Hannity, you fuck). And to those people I have a word of advice. I feel your pain. We Democrats (or more accurately, in my case, liberal-leaning independents) are actually kind of used to losing. So, my friends, I fear you will not listen to me, but for your own peace of mind...

Get. The Fuck. Over. It. And, more importantly, quit bother us while we get the country back on track. Finally.

Anyway...

Nixon tapes!

For those of you like me, (anybody?) a new batch of Nixon tapes is a great early X-mas present. The great thing about Nixon is that he was Evil and Smart. As opposed to our current Chimp in Chief who is too dumb to be evil in an interesting way, just a banal horrifying way. And as for smart, well, not to repeat myself, but he's just not.

At any rate, Digby covers it, so I'm not gonna.

Anyway...

Cabinet

So, as much as I'm enjoying life now that a real live, responsible adult is about to be in charge, two of my favorite media-type people today have put out some disturbing news about two of Obama's non-Clinton cabinet picks. Both Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have blog posts today about Cabinet picks, Attorney General and HHS respectively. Basically, their point is that these people are not exactly the blameless, shiny-white souls you might hope. 

Now, along with many people I cheered and cried when Obama won the election. However, I've never deified Obama (actually, I think most Liberals don't deify him, no matter how many Wingnuts think we do). It takes a special person to be president. These people are inherently untrustworthy. They have to EARN that shit. And even when they earn it, you have to watch them. Why? Power corrupts. And if you want that much power, you're likely already corrupt. 

Now, regarding his potentially corrupt cabinet picks, Obama will be setting the tone and he's very smart and presumably not totally twisted and evil yet. So if he's setting the tone, perhaps the demons from the pasts of his underlings will not come back to bite us all. We can only hope. But you have to watch them. Obama is nominating people with experience, and with experience means you've been rolling around in the pig-sty that is Washington for a long time. Nobody's clean, everyone's guilty. If the last 8 years have taught us anything it should be this, All these fuckers need watched.

Anyway...

Clinton!

I feel the need to weigh in on the whole Clinton madness. And it has really solidified something for me. I hate the media. At least as far as the Clintons are concerned. What is it about the Clintons that drives these people to madness? I mean, I've never really understood the soap opera fascination thing, so maybe that's it. Guy cheats on his wife. Guy happens to be president. I have to tell you, I DO NOT give a fuck. Just don't. As compared to Bush he could've been blown by every woman on the East Coast, one every 10 minutes for 8 years, just don't, you know, destroy the free world. Hell, the whole world.

And YET, even now with the world burning all around us with Bush still fiddling away, all that these people can discuss are the Clintons. And behind all the Clinton talk is always the blow job.  Forget the Fucking Blow Job, already! The world is burning! When your house is burning do you sit and talk about the time your husband went to far at the strip club 8 years ago? NO, you get the fuck out and FOCUS on what is actually important! What a fucking concept.   

A final thought. The other thing annoying me is the continual contention that Obama was somehow elected to save us from the Clinton Administration. Example. (Common headline, "This Is Not Change We Can Believe In"). Obama is a Democrat. Democrats tend to like and/or respect the Clintons. The change was away from the fucking Republican Nightmare we have been living in for the past 8 years. The Change he was selling was change from Bush NOT Clinton. This is not hard to understand, please try to get your collective column-writing heads around that. Thanks.

Anyway...