Spencer Ackerman PWNS Crazy Pete Hoekstra

Spencer catches Congressman Hoekstra fundraising off of fear mongering over the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253. Further he hits him over the head with the fact that the terrorist who attempted said attacked is being housed right there in Michigan with all his terrorist super powers and other worldly abilities.

Somebody better get the fainting couch ready! LOL

You Gotta See McMegan Get Ripped To Shreds!

I just had to link to this instant classic from inversesquare who proceeds to bend Megan McArdle over and spank her, and not in the good kind of way.

(h/t John Cole)

Because Only Minorities And Single White Women Have Abortions

This kinda shit is the reason why I have little to no respect for the GOP and that will probably never change.

Stay classy, assholes.

Blah Blah Blah

I don't think even fans of Sean Hannity believe much of what he says these days. Still there is nothing wrong with passing along evidence of his lies.




On another topic, I wonder how Hannity is going to explain palling around with a terrorist.

Gog And Magog

I am not sure how true this story is that Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks dug up but the sad thing is, knowing President Bush, its entirely plausible.

Pat Buchanan Is STILL A Racist Asshole

I know I am stating the obvious but still. To call a woman of Sonia Sotomayor's accomplishment an affirmative action nominee is disgusting even by Buchanan's low standard. When will MSNBC put that old bastard out to pasture and spare the rest of us his perpetually bigoted wankery?

Truly Despicable

When you have to lie about a murder victim of a hate crime just to try to score political points there aren't any words to describe just how low you have sunk. North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx isn't worthy to be a member of any elected office. It is my sincere hope that one of her colleagues in Congress moves to censure her and whichever Democrat decides to run against her next year will have my full and I mean FULL support.

Strategery

The more Michael Steele talks the happier I am that he is running the RNC. This guy is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for the Democrats for the next year and a half.

A Box Of Rocks Is Smarter

How scary is it that Michele Bachman serves in Congress and doesn't realize the fact that the Constitution gives Congress the right to authorize spending? Or that Congress gave the Federal Reserve all of its rights in the 1930s?



Talk about being underqualified to serve on the banking committee.



(h/t Cole)

Jim DeMint Is An Idiot

Check out Senator Jim DeMint's statement on school kids in Washington D.C.

"If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating."

Please understand that Senator DeMint hails from one of the worst states in the union when it comes to public education and needless to say he was WAY off base.

For the record, DCPS has about a 70 percent graduation rate, which is on par with the national average.

DeMint was arguing in favor of preserving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships program, an experimental voucher program in the District which is in danger of being killed by language in a Democrat-authored spending bill. (The bill was blocked by Senate Republicans last night, but will likely proceed next week.)

Naturally, the D.C. Council was not pleased. Yvette Alexander (Ward 7) basically called DeMint an idiot: "He has no sense of what D.C. has to offer making statements like that ... If someone outside of [the District] is to make a gross misjudgment like that one, he should keep his comments to himself," she told the Times. Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), defending the District, said, "I'm a public school parent. My daughter is in third grade, and she is not likely to be a gang member." (However, he did damage his creditability somewhat by bizarrely adding, "I am quite pleased with the public school system." That's a pretty tough stance to defend.)

The GOP just keeps on trying to expand that big tent don't they?


(h/t ThinkProgress)

Who Watches Glenn Beck's Show?

It's great that Stephen Colbert made Glen Beck look like the worlds biggest loon but still I have to ask, who watches this guy's show? Supposedly he gets more than a million viewers per day and he is a total whack job and it doesn't seem to be just an act. Do people really take this guy seriously. And if so, shouldn't we all be concerned about that? I think it's the height of irresponsibility for FoxNews to give this guy a platform to appeal to the fringe of our society and potentially convince them that the government is their enemy. Who knows what one of these fools might do spurred on by Beck's antics. If someone gets hurt because of something he says on his show there has to be some retribution.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Glenn Beck's War Room

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Joke of the Day

Thomas Friedman Is A Big Fat Idiot

And he isn't a liberal so please stop saying that he is. This Vanity Fair take down of some of Friedman's predictions is just exquisite. A sample:

Then, a month into the Afghanistan conflict, Friedman complained that “the hand-wringing has already begun over how long this might last” and advised readers to “take a deep breath,” noting that Afghanistan is “far away.” Besides, Friedman had “no doubt, for now, that the Bush team has a military strategy for winning a long war.” A month later, he noted in passing that “America has won the war in Afghanistan” and that “the Taliban are gone,” though he did express some concern about “all the nonsense written in the press about the concern for 'civilian casualties’,” a term he took to using with scare quotes. Seven years later, civilian casualties remain a major item of concern for Afghan’s in the non-won war against the non-gone Taliban.In 2005,

Friedman explained that it was necessary for Democrats “to start thinking seriously about Iraq” lest the party “become unimportant.” Though Democrats never came around to Friedman’s way of serious thinking , they did manage to take control of both chambers of Congress the following year, ushering in a period of nearly unprecedented political dominance that continues to this day, which strikes me as a pretty important thing to do.

Give the whole thing a gander, its really worth your time.


(h/t Ackerman)

Trolling For A Drudge Link

Why is Mikey Scherer so needy?

Yeah, Lets All Listen To Cramer Now

I would say Jim Cramer should stick to his day job, but it appears that he sucks at that as well.




(h/t balloon-juice)

Thank God For FoxNews And YouTube

Here is why I am thanking God for FoxNews and YouTube, you see a lot of Republicans in leadership positions aren't very bright. For this reason I am advocating hearing them talk a lot more. The more people hear them, the more they realize just how batshit crazy they are. Well thanks to FoxNews they will always have a platform to spew as much as they want. And thanks to YouTube I don't have to watch any FoxNews shows to catch them saying something stupid.

Witness Michael Steele:



Now aside from his silly ass "I'm open to anything baby" quote Steele has just effectively backed himself into a corner. You see now he almost HAS to put up a primary challenge to both Senators Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter. If he doesn't do so you can bet your bottom dollar that the base of the Republican party is going to be livid. But here is the problem, if he DOES primary these Senators and his candidates get crushed he is going to get tossed out on his ass with no vaseline. Now I know some feel that Specter is vulnerable but I don't see him losing, and if you look at Olympia Snowe's history, primarying her is basically going to be a waste of funds. So now Steele has put himself in a no win situation early on his his reign as RNC chair. This will not end well for him folks.

And it couldn't have happened to a better person!

(h/t Greg Sargent)

Rick Santelli = John McCain?

Check out Rick Santelli from September 2 of last year right before the market collapsed.



"I think the economy IS healthy"

What. A. Dumbass.

And that also applies to "Wolf Man"

(h/t Crooks and Liars)

A Principled Idiot

I gotta give it to Bobby Jindal, he might be a dumbass but at least he is backing up his words with actions. I hope that will give him great comfort after they kick his ass out of office in two years. Out of everything to turn down, money for unemployment?!?! All I can say is WOW.

Fucking Coward

After talking all that shit, Governer Mark Sanford announced he is going to accept the money from the stimulus bill, SURPRISE SURPRISE. This generation of Republicans are just contemptible. Hell at least if you really BELIEVE the bullshit you are spouting, stand up and refuse the fucking money! Show us all that you really reject socialism and that President Obama is wrong. I hope the idiots who voted for this clown in South Carolina now see that all he wants to do is grandstand and he doesn't really give a shit about them. If its socialism to give the money it is for damn sure socialist to take it so guess what that makes you Governer.

Not Very Bright, That One

Congressman Eric Cantor, an opportunist if there ever was one, it seems is not very bright. I guess up till now he has gotten over with decent looks and an ability to talk in complete sentences. But unfortunately the problem with being a power hungry politician is that sooner or later you get to a level where you actually have to DO something to justify your stature. It seems the more Cantor opens his mouth the more we see just how empty of a suit he is.

Whether it was last year when he blamed the House Republicans voting against the TARP on Nancy Pelosi hurting their feelings or whether it was his office a week ago releasing a very vulgar youtube parody of an old union ad (this after he campaigned against obscenity in media)in response to pressure put on him to vote for the bill by union groups Eric Cantor has seemed to undermine himself and his party at every turn. So now he comes out with the relevation that he "studies" Newt Gingrich's opposition as leader of the minority in the early nineties as some kind of model for what House Republicans should do now. Then when he catches flack for admitting that he his patterning himself after a guy who got run out of Washington on a rail because of his antics, Cantor doubled down on teh stupid.

Today over at Greg Sargent's Plum Line we find out that Eric Cantor has now released a statement to the media that he ALSO studies Winston Churchill as a model for how to react when in the minority. Now first of all wouldn't you know it, Cantor got the basic facts of when Chamberlain was even the leader of the minority wrong. But the best part of the story is how it might directly relate to the vote on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926.[82] His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget, came after long consultation with various economists including John Maynard Keynes, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Otto Niemeyer and the board of the Bank of England. This decision prompted Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world depression. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by Lord Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries.[83]

Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life. However in discussions at the time with former Chancellor McKenna, Churchill acknowledged that the return to the gold standard and the resulting 'dear money' policy was economically bad. In those discussions he maintained the policy as fundamentally political - a return to the pre-war conditions in which he believed.[84] In his speech on the Bill he said "I will tell you what it [the return to the Gold Standard] will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality."[85]

The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard depressed industries. The most affected was the coal industry. Already suffering from declining output as shipping switched to oil, as basic British industries like cotton came under more competition in export markets, the return to the pre-war exchange was estimated to add up to 10% in costs to the industry. In July 1925, a Commission of Inquiry reported generally favouring the miners, rather than the mine owners' position.[86] Baldwin, with Churchill's support proposed a subsidy to the industry while a Royal Commission prepared a further report.

That Commission solved nothing and the miners dispute led to the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" and claimed that the fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces"—that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men."[87]

Later economists, as well as people at the time, also criticised Churchill's budget measures. These were seen as assisting the generally prosperous rentier banking and salaried classes (to which Churchill and his associates generally belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters which were known then to be suffering from imports and from competition in traditional export markets,[88] and as paring the Armed Forces too heavily.[89]

If you have been following the whole stimulus bill discussion you might remember that Keynes fellow. He is the guy whose theory of economics is the basis for President Obama's stimulus bill. He is also the guy that WingNuts like Cantor have decided didn't know what the hell he was talking about. If Cantor is REALLY studying Churchill maybe he would have noticed what happened when Churchill rejected Keynes' advice way back when. At the very least you have to wonder does he REALLY want to bring this kind of attention to Churchill when essentially he made the same mistake the GOP is right now in rejecting Keynes expressly for political reasons?

Like I said before, not very bright.

Shuler Gets Bitch Slapped.

Heath Shuler and I came in as freshman together in 1991 at Tennessee so I have some degree of admiration for the guy. But his voting record as a US Congressman that calls himself a Democrat has been dissappointing to say the least. I swear he talks more like a wingnut than some of the people you might find on RedState. So I was pretty pissed when he accused Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (and Harry Reid but I don't give a shit about him) of failing to lead with respect to the stimulus bill. Well he was asking for a spanking and Jim Manley (Harry Reid's spokesman) made sure he gave him a good one.

Let me get this straight - this is coming from a guy who threw more than twice as many interceptions than touchdowns?

Maybe Someone should tell congressman Shuler that under the leadership of President Obama we have put together a bipartisan bill that will create or save 3 to 4 million jobs, and that We have been more than willing to work with our republican friends. We have accepted some of their ideas and will continue to do so. But not at the expense of creating jobs, investing in our future of helping the middle class. He can stand on a stage if he wants, but senate democrats are busy trying to pass legislation that will provide essential investments designed to create and save jobs

O U C H.

Maybe next time he will shut his damn mouth when grown folks are talking!

(h/t Hamsher)