Out Of Touch

Memo to Republicans: If you are going to try to make the case that Democrats are out of touch with working class families, you might want to have a clue about the minimum wage.

Dumbass

Eric Cantor's Magic Bullet

Up and to the left. Up and to the left...

Unfortunately the mainstream media will still probably use this as a basis for false equivalency.

Pointing And Laughing

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Soft on terror, eh?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Jane Hamsher And "Union Thuggery"

If you still weren't sure that Jane Hamsher had completely gone over to the dark side, there should be no doubt any more.

No amounts of apologies will suffice for this kind of rhetoric from a so called progressive in my opinion.

I can't wait till she starts advocating for free markets and tax cuts.

About That "Shadow Budget"

LMAOOOOOOOO

So it turns out that even if Paul Ryan could get ever conservative's wet dream of slashing MediCare and privatizing Social Security and cutting spending to social programs for the poor, we STILL wouldn't have a budget in.......2080

Somehow EPIC FAIL just isn't a strong enough term

Somewhere Charles Blow Is Gritting His Teeth...

...because Mo'nique won an oscar for her supporting role NOT playing a crack mother in a movie NOT made by Tyler Perry.


;)

The REAL Reason People Aren't Behind Health Care Reform

Its because our media refuses to do its fucking job. Prime example, earlier this week ABC News investigates Bart Stupak's claim that the Senate health care reform bill requires the government to subsidize abortion with tax dollars. The investigation came to a clear cut answer, the claim is FALSE as its typed in red across the screen during the piece.



Fast forward to today and you have the very same network hosting a debate about health care reform. George Stephanopolous is hosting both HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the aforementioned pro life Democrat Bart Stupak. Now it would be different if this conversation was supposed to be about the bill as a whole, then MAYBE I could understand Stephanopolous being so unprepared for Stupak's argument. But being that this WHOLE segment was supposed to be about Stupak's opposition to the bill over abortion rights and his own network had already investigated Stupak's claim about the bill, you might think Stephanopolous would have been ready to step in and call him out for being wrong, lying or both over the language in the Senate bill.

And you'd be wrong.



So to recap, even thought ABC News did an investigation and found that Bart Stupak was wrong about the language in the Senate bill when it comes to government funding of abortion, the same network's host of "This Week" framed the whole debate on if they would be able to change the language of the bill so as to placate Stupak on something that he is totally wrong about......according to ABC News.

I swear I wanted to type this whole post in all caps because I just noticed this right after I left a comment about how the White House needs to take on the media more if they want to do better with their agenda but there is no way that anything I type on this blog whether it be in bold, in red, more cuss words or whatever could truly convey the contempt I am feeling at this moment for our media. Contempt and righteous anger. They are playing around with people's lives and instead of taking that seriously they just keep doing the same shit every day either more concerned with ratings than substance, or so cowed by right wingers that they have decided to just not do their job rather than be accused of "liberal bias".

I certainly hope that there is a hell and there is a special place carved out for journalists who allow harm to be done to their readers because they don't have the guts or the conscious to do their damn job.

Black History Month Fail

If you are a teacher that sincerely believes its appropriate to have your students "celebrate" O.J. Simpson and RuPaul for black history month then you are too dumb to teach MY kids.

Also, if you are a parent who thinks this is no big deal then you are too dumb to raise YOUR kids.

real talk.

No Ford In This Race

Harold Ford Jr has decided not to run get his ass kicked against by Kirstin Gillibrand.

Funny that even with his non run he probably damaged himself beyond repair in politics. That takes some kinda incompetence I tell ya lol.

Charles Blow's EPIC FAIL

I have been very annoyed over the past few months because of a phenomenon I have noticed in black intellectual circles. It seems that all of the "high brow" black folks hate Tyler Perry because his movies show a side of the way black people live that doesn't comport with what they contend is their reality. What's most annoying about this is that these "high brow" black folks tend to conflate Tyler Perry with the characters he plays in his movies. They talk about him as if he walks around in his day to day as his wildly popular character "Madea". Wildly popular that is to just run of the mill black folks who aren't teaching at Harvard or don't have their own column in the New York Times. Its funny to me because I recognize people from many of his movies that I know in real life. Its also pathetic in the sense that characters like Madea are obviously supposed to be over the top caricatures but they insist on treating them as if Tyler Perry is proclaiming that everybody has a grandma EXACTLY like "Madea".

Well Charles Blow decided that he would take his shots today in his op ed column . What followed is in my opinion PURE COMEDY.

First lets start with the title of the column,

Tyler Perry’s Crack Mothers

Now I have seen all of Perry's plays and most of his movies and I could only remember distinctly one character who was a mother and a crack head so I decided to read the column to see where this was going. Here is his dramatic opening to his piece.

Mo’Nique is a favorite to win an Oscar next Sunday for her powerful and disturbing portrayal of an abusive mother in the movie “Precious.”

If she wins, I may grit my teeth at the depraved depiction, but at least her character is merely juxtaposed with the crack scourge and isn't in fact an addict. That's heartening since the crack-addicted black mother has recently made a curious comeback.

There was a time when this character was more relevant: in the 1980s and 1990s when the crack epidemic plunged whole communities into violence, fear and chaos. (To be fair, “Precious” is set in the 1980s.) But this character now feels like a refugee of time — and discordant with the facts on the ground.

Oh my, Charles Blow might grit his teeth if Mo'nique wins an Oscar for her role in the movie "Precious". Hmmmm I guess. I mean I know some people loved the movie and some folks hated it and to that I say to each their own. But why open a piece about Perry's "Crack Mothers" with three grafs that have nothing to do with a "crack mother" in one of Perry's movies. Ahhh there is a correction at the bottom to explain this.

Correction: An earlier version of this column incorrectly described Mo'Nique's character in the movie "Precious." She was not a crack addict.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So in a column meant to hit Tyler Perry for supposedly stocking his movies with crack mother characters, Blow doesn't even know or realize that Mo'Nique didn't play a crack head in "Precious". I guess he ALSO didn't know or realize that while Tyler Perry did "present" the movie "Precious" it wasn't literally one of his movies. He didn't write it nor direct it and the book it is based on had literary acclaim in its own right before the movie ever came along.

But Blow and other "high brow" black folks can't be concerned with such facts can they? As a matter of fact in a column which Blow tries to intimate that Tyler Perry has single handedly brought back the notion of "crack mothers" which in his mind is now a sort of fantasy, he can only come up with two instances (which he doesn't explain) when such a character has been in any of Tyler Perry's movies. And I can tell you that in at least the movie that I saw where there was a "crack mother" the story line revolved around her being an addict for years, not some kind of recent development.

Im sorry but this is the classic definition of the crab in a barrel mentality that most "high brow" black folks tend to decry. For whatever faults Tyler Perry has, he also has many many good attributes. He has used his position to help other black folks get roles in his movies. He gives quite a bit of money and time to various charities including building homes for Katrina victims and giving $1 million dollars through his foundation to the Haiti relief fund. But you won't hear those "high brow" black folks ever even out their criticisms about him. No they just want to blame all of the ills of the black community on Tyler Perry.

Give me a fucking break.

We have seven year olds stealing cars because they want to do "hood rat stuff" and these folks are more concerned with tearing down a self made black man than addressing real problems. Im sick and tired of it, and honestly its making me lose a lot of respect for folks who I thought were better than that.

Truly.

Just. Shoot. Me. Now.

Remember how earlier today I posted about how I had a bad feeling about this health care summit tomrrow? Yeah, well this didn't make me feel ANY better.

* I’ve repeatedly noted here that the pressure is on Obama to pull off a decisive win tomorrow, because if there’s no clear victor — and the public perceives the summit as more Beltway white noise — Republicans will walk away satisfied. But a senior Dem aide emails a counter-argument, saying Republicans have already blown the politics of this:

After receiving the invitation from the President, Minority Leader Boehner and Minority Whip Cantor sent a letter detailing their pre-conditions for attendance. Some Republicans have insulted the Summit by calling it a set-up or a taxpayer-funded infomercial. Now we learn they have spent several weeks organizing a rapid response operation. The RNC is putting out real-time fact checks. They have a Truth Squad. On something as simple as getting together for a bi-partisan Summit, they have tried to turn it into a hyper-partisan event.

Republicans have already failed to match the President’s class, conduct, poise, and bi-partisanship.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!



?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!


?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!


I have no idea if that "Senate Aide" knows what he's talking about or not, but I will say that if the Democrats are going into the summit tomorrow thinking they are going to win by being more classy, I am going to have to lock up all the sharp objects in my place and dangerous weapons..........FROM MYSELF!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Kick Me"

So the Democratic strategy for tomorrow's health care summit has now been revealed......and its the equivalent of walking in with a "kick me" sign on their back.

At a private meeting today, top Democrats settled on a strategy for tomorrow’s summit: They will strive to project a strong sense that they’re in “listening mode,” even as they make it clear that under no circumstances will they scrap their plans and start again, sources say.

Top Dems also agreed to make a concerted effort to highlight Republican ideas that are already in Obama’s bill, in order to disarm GOP charges that Dems aren’t serious about compromise, the sources add.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the other Congressional Dems attending the meeting gathered today behind closed doors to chart their plan for tomorrow. Attendees agreed on the need to strike a balance between projecting openness to GOP ideas, while leaving no doubt that if Republicans don’t compromise, Dems will move forward.

“The consensus that was arrived at is that we have to be in listening mode,” one senior Dem aide familiar with the meeting tells me. “We will say, `We are listening to your ideas, we have been and we’ll continue to do so. But at some point, if you are not gonna be willing to vote for this, we have to move forward.’”

Yeah, good luck with that.

The Repubicans are going to come in with flamethrowers tomorrow and they are going to try to burn down as much of the support for the bill as they can in six hours. They have already telegraphed that they won't be bringing any ideas of their own so what do the Democrats think they will be doing with their time?

Listening mode, heh. Welp, if the Dems really fall through on this strategy you can full expect the Republicans to frame the entire debate tomorrow and you will see even more skittish Dems running for the hills. This has all the makings of an unmitigated disaster.

Wingnuts' Selective Outrage

Sometimes you just gotta love Gawker.


The nerve of that uppity negra putting his feet up on "our" desk....just like that great patriot Bush did....

The Liberal MSNBC

Will members of the media who keep equating MSNBC to FoxNews please explain when FoxNews has a liberal on their programming for 3 straight hours who yells and berates guests on a regular basis, always favors liberal and Democratic ideals, and would be such a hypocrite as to shut off a conservative's mike and command his producers to go to commercial when that conservative was holding a liberal guest's feet to the fire?

Im waiting....



For the record both Joe Scarborough and Marc Theissen are pussies.

That is all.

What We Missed (Was Edited Out) Of Bill O'Reilly Vs Jon Stewart

If you were wondering why Jon Stewart was so lame on Bill O'Reilly, well its because they edited the shit out of the video. He kicked the shit out of Bill O and it wasn't even close.

Thank God for Gawker!

Update: The good people over at Crooks and Liars put some of the clips that didn't make it on air together for your viewing pleasure.

Sit Yo Five Dolla Ass Down: Michael Eric Dyson Edition

Michael Eric Dyson is quickly making a name for himself as the country's preeminent race hustler for the new decade. I mean seriously, this cat would never see the inside of a TV studio but for his crusade against President Obama dating back to not being invited to the White House. Not only does he look like the first fool in saying Obama has run from the issue of race considering his speech during the campaign after the Rev Wright fiasco as well as the media invented Skip Gates situation, but he also then doubles up on his fuckery by comparing him to a black man running from the cops. Yeah, race hustler, thats the image I want everyone to have of black men.

Get the fuck outta here wit dat bullshit. Nobody is buying your big ass words and binoculars.

And he for damn sure doesn't speak for most black Americans.

Dude, Please STFU

Michael Steele just keeps on digging.

This Dude Right Here....

I stopped paying much attention to RNC Chairman Michael Steele quite a while ago because the guy has been such a clown since being elected that he does more to hurt the Republican cause than help it. But its one thing to look like a joke and try to fool the good white folks in the GOP into believing that he has some kind of special insight into the hip hop culture, its quite another when he starts stuffing his pockets with money by leveraging his position as RNC Chairman. I figured for awhile that there was no way possible for them to fire Steele because he was their token, meant to fight President Obama tooth and nail for the heart and soul of brown Americans. But now, after this, there ain't no way in hell they can keep him in his position.

And if they do, won't that be an example of the same kind of affirmative action practices they claim to hate?

I mean seriously, if the DNC sat down and imagined the perfect RNC Chairman to drive the GOP off the cliff could they have done any better than Michael Steele? I don't think so.

OF COURSE He Didn't Read The Bill!

Maybe its just me but I don't think anybody should be surprised that Dick Armey didn't read the stimulus bill. To revise a Chris Rock riff, these days Republicans "love to not know shit". If anything I am mildly surprised that he admitted it. But then again being against reading probably ups his cred with the wingnuts.

Remember When Charlie Crist And The Republican Legislature Regected Stimulus Funds For Unemployment?

From TBO

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Unemployment compensation taxes paid by Florida businesses will skyrocket next year due to the state's high jobless rate - 11 percent in September.

snip

The increases are needed to replenish the state's Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund. It dropped from more than $1.3 billion last year to zero in August. Florida then began borrowing $300 million a month from the federal government to pay benefits.

That's your Republican economic philosophy in action. I wonder if they will try to paint THAT as a tax cut....