Category: Wanker

Seriously, Charles Schumer is a Boil on the Ass of the Body Politic

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While I am highly dubious that the recent “leadership” position granted to Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, the response of Chuck Schumer to this development was a case study as to why the Democratic Party is seen as hopeless:

When Reid was in talks with Warren about a job in Senate leadership earlier this month, Schumer suggested tapping moderate Sen. Mark Warner, too, to balance out her progressive politics — or perhaps making her a “liaison to liberal groups,” a narrower job than what Reid had proposed, according to sources familiar with the private talks.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said no to both of Schumer’s suggestions, later taking the job as a policy adviser to Schumer’s messaging operation.

Mark Warner? Seriously?!?!?!

Because somehow or other, Elizabeth Warren is just so scary that Schumer needed for her to be counterbalanced by yet another bland creature of the oligarchs.

More of This

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Elizabeth Warren has announced that she is opposing the nomination of Antonio Weiss as Treasury undersecretary, because he is a creature of the corrupt Wall Street establishment who arranged a huge “inversion” deal to avoid US taxes:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to oppose President Barack Obama’s nomination of Antonio Weiss, a Wall Street investment banker, to be Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance, another sharp-elbowed move by the progressive movement’s most prominent leader.

Weiss, head of global investment banking at Lazard, is widely respected on Wall Street. But he advised on Burger King’s acquisition of Canadian doughnut chain Tim Horton’s, a so-called “tax inversion deal.” Defenders say the deals are commonplace across Wall Street and Weiss did not advise on the tax portion. Such arguments have not swayed the Massachusetts Democratic senator, a persistent Wall Street critic who appears headed to a leadership role in the next Congress.

A Warren adviser told POLITICO: “She is a no on Antonio Weiss. She was a Treasury official herself, she cares a lot about who is in the domestic finance role. It oversees Dodd-Frank implementation and other core economic policy-making.”

The adviser added that Warren “agrees with Senator Grassley that his past work with corporate inversions is a major issue, and she’s had growing concerns with the Administration being loaded with so many appointees from Wall Street rather than more people who would bring different perspectives.”

The adviser also argued that Weiss’ mergers and acquisitions background on Wall Street was not a good fit for the domestic finance post. “She also doesn’t believe that his investment banking background – which focuses almost entirely on Europe and on international mergers and acquisitions – puts him in a good position to oversee domestic issues like consumer protection and US financial regulation,” the adviser said.

The fact that Obama has nominated is a Wall Street type who is unsuited, and probably disinclined, to protect consumers from the banksters is not an unintentional oversight.

Neither it is Obama practicing eleventy dimensional chess.

If the past 6 years have shown anything, it is that Barack Obama and Eric “Place” Holder have put the wealth and impunity of the financial sector above all other policy concerns.

Rush Limbaugh is a Whiny Bitch, Part MMMMMMCMLXIX

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Yeah, he’s threatening to sue the DCCC over their use of his quotes in the last campaign:

Rush Limbaugh is hopping mad at the Democratic Party — but this time he’s threatening to do more than just talk about it on the radio.

The conservative pundit is threatening to sue the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for a series of fundraising e-mails that suggested Limbaugh was condoning campus rape in comments he made on his widely syndicated program on Sept. 15.

In a letter to the Washington-based organization intended for delivery Monday morning, Limbaugh’s lawyer demanded a retraction and a public apology for the fundraising e-mails. The letter indicated Limbaugh will sue for defamation and business “interference” if his demand isn’t met.

DCCC representatives were not available Monday; the organization’s offices are closed for the Veterans Day holiday.

The legal threat is the result of DCCC fundraising appeals sent out in the wake of Limbaugh’s on-air comments about a new policy at Ohio State University that instructs students to get verbal consent before having sex. The DCCC highlighted one particular sentence from his commentary — “How many of you guys . . . have learned that ‘no’ means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it?” — saying it was tantamount to condoning sexual assault.

………

The legal threat is the result of DCCC fundraising appeals sent out in the wake of Limbaugh’s on-air comments about a new policy at Ohio State University that instructs students to get verbal consent before having sex. The DCCC highlighted one particular sentence from his commentary — “How many of you guys . . . have learned that ‘no’ means ‘yes’ if you know how to spot it?” — saying it was tantamount to condoning sexual assault.

Yeah, well I listened to what he said, and even if he weren’t a public figure, this would be laughed out of court, because, in the United States, the truth is always a defense against accusations of libel and slander.

As a public figure, there is no evidence of malice or a reckless disregard for the truth in this.

Also, considering how the DCCC did no November 4, why the f%$# would Limbaugh, who is Republican to his core want to force the Democratic party to change its strategy?

Seriously Rush, take one for the team, and man up.

Tommy Franks Needs to Apologize to Douglas Feith

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Because it appears that the good Mr. Feith appears not to be the dumbest guy on the f%$#ing planet.

Rather, it appears everyone at Breitbart’s research/fact-checking department are way stupider:

Members of the conservative media are attempting to scandalize President Obama’s Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch by suggesting she was involved in the Whitewater investigations of the 1990s. However, the Loretta Lynch that played a bit role in Whitewater — an investigation into fraudulent real estate deals that did not include any wrongdoing by the Clintons — is a different person than Obama’s attorney general nominee.

According to a November 8 Breitbart.com article by Warner Todd Huston, “few are talking about” the fact nominee Lynch “was part of Bill Clinton’s Whitewater probe defense team in 1992.” Huston pointed to a March 1992 New York Times article that “reported that Lynch was one of the Clintons’ Whitewater defense attorneys as well as a ‘campaign aide.'” And in a November 9 article Huston’s colleague, Breitbart.com Senior Editor-at Large Joel Pollak wrote, “The connection to Whitewater ought to provide additional fodder for Republicans during Lynch’s confirmation hearings”:

The connection to Whitewater ought to provide additional fodder for Republicans during Lynch’s confirmation hearings. It is odd that Obama chose someone so close to the Clintons–or perhaps not, given the prominent role played by Clinton insider John Podesta in the second term of the Obama White House. Lynch has been rewarded throughout her career for her political loyalty–not an unusual path up the career ladder for federal prosecutors, but certainly one that will allow the GOP, as well as Obama, to raise the political stakes.

Because it is so easy to confuse the two:

Morons.

That place must have even been more dysfunctional before Andrew Breitbart drank himself.

Bush with a Tan

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Obama is escalating in Iraq:

President Barack Obama has approved doubling the U.S. military force in Iraq and allowing troops to venture beyond headquarters already established in Baghdad and Erbil, in an escalation of the U.S. effort to defeat Islamic State extremists.

………

The president’s approval to send as many as 1,500 personnel is in addition to 1,600 he previously authorized, 1,400 of whom are in Iraq today protecting U.S. facilities and assisting the Iraqi military. Troops that have been confined to Baghdad, the capital, and Erbil in Kurdish northern Iraq now will be permitted to train and advise Iraqi forces at a number of Iraqi military facilities, according to a White House statement.

This of course, not going any sort of escalation, they promise:

“U.S. troops will not be in combat, but they will be better positioned to support Iraqi security forces as they take the fight” to the Sunni extremists, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said today in the statement.

  • Double the troops.
  • Double the exposure to possible violence.
  • Double the possibility that one of them will be taken captive.

Nope, no escalation here.

Pig Felching Rat Bastards of the Day

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Ford Motor Company, who fired about 100 workers by robocall over this weekend:

Nearly 100 workers at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant got a robocall on Halloween telling them their services were no longer needed and they were terminated.

It wasn’t a trick or a morbid prank.

Dozens of workers missed the call or didn’t believe it, so they showed up to work Saturday anyway, according to an autoworker who wished to remain anonymous. They found their ID badges had been disabled and were told by security they had been fired.

“As part of our normal business process, we’ve temporarily adjusted our workforce numbers at Chicago Assembly Plant,” Ford Motor Co. said in a statement.

Remember what I said about honey and rabid wolverines?

HR at Ford should get this treatment too.

Chickensh%$s on the World Stage

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As you are no doubt aware, anonymous sources at the White House called Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu a Chickensh%$.

There was a minor sh%$ storm over this, but reaction was, and is, “But he IS a complete chickensh%$?”

He’s a guy with no morals or vision who cannot look past the next election.

Then again, in the least surprising news of so far this week, email have leaked revealing that, despite their contemporaneous denials, the Obama administration was intimately involved in the firing of Shirley Sherrod:(Background here)

A 2010 e-mail from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says his department was “waiting for the go-ahead” from the White House before accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod, according to newly released documents, despite Obama administration assertions that her ouster was Vilsack’s decision alone.

The e-mail, which was made public Friday in an ongoing federal court case over the matter, shed more light on the evening of July 19, 2010, when the USDA hastily asked Sherrod to resign after a video showing her making supposed racist remarks surfaced on a conservative Web site. Her dismissal turned into a racial firestorm after it became clear that the video had been edited and her remarks were meant to tell a story of reconciliation.

Both the White House and Vilsack have repeatedly said that the agriculture secretary made the decision to ask for Sherrod’s resignation without White House input. The e-mails, along with earlier e-mails obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act in 2010 and 2012, make it apparent that Vilsack wanted Sherrod to leave the department and ordered her resignation. But a newly released e-mail sent by Vilsack himself suggests that he was awaiting a decision from White House officials on how to proceed.

“She has offered her resignation which is appropriate,” reads an e-mail from the initials “TJV” to Dallas Tonsager, then the USDA undersecretary of rural development and Sherrod’s boss. Vilsack’s middle name is James. “The WH is involved and we are waiting for the go-ahead to accept her resignation. I suspect some direction from WH soon.”

Israel has a chickensh%$ Prime Minister, and the US has a chickensh%$ president.

Anyone who is surprised by either of these facts has been living under a rock.

History Repeats Itself, First as Tragedy, then as Farce.

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After having seized defeat from the jaws of victory in her race against Scott Brown for Senate in 2007, it looks like Martha Coakley is about to turn over the Governor’s Mansion to the Republicans:

National Democrats are haunted by memories of Martha Coakley’s unforced stumbles and missteps in 2010, which cost them a U.S. Senate seat in one of the country’s bluest states.

 Four laters later, the Massachusetts attorney general might be about to blow another major contest: The race to succeed Deval Patrick as governor.

 With two weeks left to go, a new poll by WBUR, which tracks the race weekly, found Coakley trailing for the first time against Republican Charlie Baker, a former health care CEO who served as secretary of finance and health under Gov. William Weld in the 1990s.

 It’s still a close contest: Baker has 43 percent while Coakley has 42 percent, well inside the poll’s 4.4 percent margin of error.

 But the troubling sign for Coakley is that Baker appears to be gaining steam down the stretch after consistently trailing throughout the campaign.

I was a bit alarmed when Coakley got the nomination, seeing as how she had run the worst campaign this side of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in 2002.

I’ve always had this suspicion that the Democratic Party establishment in Massachusetts discovered that they preferred having Speaker of the state House, and the President of the state Senate as the most senior Democrats in the state, and as such, they have subtly worked to make Republicans governor.

It’s what I call the Iron Law of Organizations Institutions, where people will work for power within an organization at the expense of the power of that organization.

Worst Constitutional Law Professor, Ever

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Note that FBI Director James Comey was specifically chosen by Barack Obama, and the President’s behavior to this point has indicated a strong bias toward the position that, “You don’t need to worry about privacy if you have nothing to hide.”

Thus I see Comey’s request for sabotaging the security of computers and mobile devices by requiring back doors to be a position explicitly supported by the whole administration, and as the saying goes, the Cossacks work for the Czar:

FBI Director James Comey has launched a new “crypto war” by asking Congress to update a two-decade-old law to make sure officials can access information from people’s cellphones and other communication devices.

The call is expected to trigger a major Capitol Hill fight about whether or not tech companies need to give the government access to their users’ data.

“It’s going to be a tough fight for sure,” Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the Patriot Act’s original author, told The Hill in a statement.

He argues Apple and other companies are taking the privacy of consumers into their own hands because Congress has failed to pass legislation in response to public anger over the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.

“While Director Comey says the pendulum has swung too far toward privacy and away from law enforcement, he fails to acknowledge that Congress has yet to pass any significant privacy reforms,” he added. “Because of this failure, businesses have taken matters into their own hands to protect their consumers and their bottom lines.”

“If this becomes the norm, I suggest to you that homicide cases could be stalled, suspects walked free, child exploitation not discovered and prosecuted,” he said last week.

Comey is asking that Congress update the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), a 1994 law that required telephone companies to make it possible for federal officials to wiretap their users’ phone calls.

It’s a back door, much like the infamous Clipper chip, and the greatest effect of such a change would be to allow cyber-criminals to access your data, your machines, and your identity, because if they cripple security in the interest of law enforcement, criminals will avail themselves to the same technology.

Not this Sh%$ Again!

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The so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels are complaining that actions against ISIS are aiding the Assad regime:

But the Syrian president’s ability to continue to attack his enemies without interference is fuelling anger amongst mainstream opposition supporters. “Syrian warplanes used to shell us two or three times a week but now they target us every day thanks to the coalition forces,” Faris Samir, from Harm in the northern Idlib region, complained on Thursday.

 “We are losing martyrs and many get injured but no one pays any attention. Now the Syrian army is taking areas bombed by the coalition forces after the Islamic factions withdraw. I have to say that the coalition military campaign is in the interest of the Syrian regime and against the Syrian people.”

I offer the “mainstream opposition”* a hearty f%$# you.

Get your war on if you want, but the actions against ISIS have nothing to do with your goal of overthrowing Assad.

I would argue that the gross incompetence of the “mainstream opposition”, which created an opening for sectarian governments to ship foreign Jihadis to Syria aid was a major contributing factor in the creation of ISIS.

Seriously.  Go f%$# yourself.

While we are at it, let us remember the advice of Machiavelli:

A prince should therefore be slow in undertaking any enterprise upon the representations of exiles, for he will generally gain nothing by it but shame and serious injury.

The Free Syrian Army should be viewed through this lens.

*Not sure how moderate these folks are. That whole martyr quote sounds like a dog whistle to religious extremists.

Never Stop Your Enemies from Stepping on Their Own Dicks

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If you ask me, and you’re not asking me but I’m saying so anyway, Georgia has suddenly become the most interesting Senate race in the country. It was mighty interesting during the Republican primary, but then slipped in status as the race devolved into a plain vanilla case of the Republican Business Robot holding a safe lead over the Centrist Democratic Robot. The Centrist Democratic Robot’s Robotic Centrist Democrat campaign strategy leaked, and the Republican Business Robot used it predictably to tar the Centrist Democratic Robot as a Terrorist ISIS Mexican Democratic Robot — the worst kind of robot there is.

But now, things — things are happening. The Republican Business Robot, David Perdue, apparently went on the record some years back describing how he’s spent “most of [his] career” outsourcing. This was in response to a direct question asking him, “Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?” It’s unambiguous and it reinforces the central attacks on both Perdue and Republican economic priorities. It is the sort of thing on which a late-stage move can be made.

It’s not complicated. You, Michelle Nunn’s campaign, make an ad quoting directly from the deposition. “Q: Can you describe your experience with outsourcing?” “A: Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that.” You just take this dialogue and cut the ad and then make like 10 more and show them all on every channel, for a month. Hey, look at that:

Perdue’s defense? That he is proud of his sending American jobs overseas:

U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue said Monday he is proud of outsourcing he has done in his career as a corporate executive, pushing blame for lost jobs back on Washington.

Perdue, a former CEO for Dollar General and Republican nominee to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss, was stung by his own words last week in an article on Politico.com. The Washington political news website quoted Perdue from a 2005 deposition where he said he “spent most of my career” outsourcing.

“Defend it? I’m proud of it,” he said in a press stop at The White House restaurant in Buckhead. “This is a part of American business, part of any business. Outsourcing is the procurement of products and services to help your business run. People do that all day.”

The deposition was taken as part of a lawsuit in the bankruptcy of Pillowtex, a failed textile company where Perdue was CEO in 2002 and 2003. In remarks Monday, he attempted to draw a line between his business decisions and Washington policies.

Yeah, this is going to go over to all those folks who lost their jobs in the textile industry.

There is a peculiar kind hubris that is a part and parcel to the American management class.

They cannot allow themselves to admit that what they do is not a heroic John Galtesque exercise, because once they do that, the fact that they are parasites (moochers) becomes inescapable.

Wall Street: It F%$#s the Airlines Even Worse than the Airlines F%$# the Airlines

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Aviation Week, in reporting a leadership change at JetBlue, notes that much of the impetus for removing the current CEO was because he was too passenger centric: (paid subscription required)

When the JetBlue Airways Board of Directors decided not to renew CEO Dave Barger’s contract but instead elevate airline President Robin Hayes to the top spot, it implicitly endorsed a view held by many on Wall Street that the carrier, while profitable, lags too far behind its rivals.

Barger, an original JetBlue executive, took over in 2007 after the board determined the carrier’s visionary founder, David Neeleman, struggled at running day-to-day operations. Barger quickly fixed the operation, helping it recover from a devastating “valentine” that was delivered on Feb. 14, 2007, when the airline failed to properly prepare for and react to an ice storm that hit the New York area. But like Neeleman, who insisted JetBlue be more refined than its competitors, Barger kept the focus on the customer, preferring not to add baggage fees or seats to aircraft even when most other U.S. carriers adopted both practices.

His resistance to some revenue-generating ideas may have been Barger’s downfall. Despite signaling in recent months he might remain at JetBlue, Barger will be replaced on Feb. 16 by Hayes, a former British Airways executive vice president for the Americas. Hayes is not talking revenue—he has not been saying much at all—but Wall Street analysts say they are hopeful JetBlue will start acting more like competitors. In arguing this summer for a CEO change, Cowen & Co. analyst Helane Becker wrote: “JetBlue is an overly brand-conscious and customer-focused airline, which has resulted in lagging fundamentals.”

………

“What I see Dave Barger doing is leading the company through difficult times and not going into bankruptcy,” says George Hamlin of Hamlin Transportation Consulting. “If there’s something wrong with that, I am living in a strange world.”

(emphasis mine)

If you are wondering why flying sucks wet farts from dead pigeons, just look at this.

“Activist investors” have decided that JetBlue gives an excessively positive experience to its customers, and this must not be allowed to stand.

Please, Someone ……… Anyone Make it Stop

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At about 1:30

I understand that the right wing in general, and Caribou Barbie in particular, find the Obama administration to be a veritable font of mendacity.

That is the nature of politics these days.

However, when Sarah Palin says that “Truth is an endangered species at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue, I just want to bang my head until I lose consciousness.

Seriously.  This woman has me aching for the quiet competence of J. Danforth “Dan” Quayle.

But she still is a force in right wing politics, so I still have to pay attention.

Kraptacular Kris Korbach Kaves Kravenly

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I don’t know who got pictures having sex with a billie goat, but the Kansas secretary of state has capitulated on the withdrawal of the Democratic candidate for Senate, and will send out absentee ballots without a Dem in that race:

In an apparent reversal, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office is instructing election officials in the state to send out overseas military ballots without Democratic Senate nominee Chad Taylor or any other Democratic Senate candidate listed.

Kobach spokeswoman Samantha Poetter confirmed to TPM that the ballots would be sent out by Saturday, the deadline under state and federal law.

“Our ballots are going out without Chad Taylor (or any Democratic candidate) for U.S. Senate,” Poetter said. “They’ve been ordered to send them out as soon as possible.”

TPM obtained a copy of the official order sent to local election officials.

“The list does NOT contain the name of a Democratic nominee for United States Senate,” the order said. “There are three candidates, Randall Batson, Libertarian, Greg Orman, independent, Pat Roberts, Republican.”

They will be going out with some sort of disclaimer about the courts possibly ordering a new ballot, but this I really don’t see this particularly likely.

Here is hoping that this entire mishugas will serve to turn off the voters, Korbach is up for reelection, and the race is close.

Charlie Pierce Makes Chuck Norris his Bitch

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It appears that Mr. Norris, aficionado of martial arts, coarse acting, and promulgating historical myths, accuses President Jimmy Carter of appeasing the Ayatollahs in Iran.

Charlie pierce is having none of it:

You know what appeasing the ayatollahs looks like?

 Promising them if they hold the hostages, they’ll get a better deal from another president. Unfreezing the assets almost as soon as you take the oath. Secretly selling them advanced weaponry because you had use for the profits of this illegal arms sale to fund an illegal war.

 That’s what appeasement looks like.

 And that wasn’t Carter.

 That was the next guy.

That is an epic take-down.

Needless to say, I am adding Mr. Pierce to the serene order of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off.

Moderate Syrian Rebels, My Ass

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Guess what, our pet rebels in Syria have made a non-aggression pact with ISIS:

Syrian rebels and jihadists from the Islamic State have agreed a non-aggression pact for the first time in a suburb of the capital Damascus, a monitoring group said on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the ceasefire deal was agreed between IS and moderate and Islamist rebels in Hajar al-Aswad, south of the capital.

Under the deal, “the two parties will respect a truce until a final solution is found and they promise not to attack each other because they consider the principal enemy to be the Nussayri regime.”

Nussayri is a pejorative term for the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

Obama’s war just lost one of its cornerstones.

There is no credible moderate rebel force in Syria, and Obama’s truly Kafkaesque suggestion that Syrians firing at planes bombing them would be considered a hostile act, he has, “Vowed to retaliate against President Bashar al-Assad if Syrian forces shot at American planes,” won’t solve that.

ISIS beheaded the journalists and that aid worker because they want to entangle the United States in yet another war in the hope of bleeding us dry, and Obama, and the “bomb everything” caucus, have proved remarkably accommodating to their plans.

Andrew Cuomo is Such a Classy Guy

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As expected, Andrew Cuomo won the primary, though Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu did a lot better than expected, polling at about 35%, far more than the 20% that was anticipated, so it was a bit of a black eye for Cuomo, and pretty much ensures that he will not be the VP pick in 2016.

Cuomo did not even bother having a victory party continuing his policy of not acknowledging Ms. Teachout’s, but he topped this when we found out that Zephyr Teachout unable to call him to concede because he refused to give her a number to call:

As expected, Governor Andrew Cuomo won New York’s Democratic primary on Tuesday night, but the success of his Mean Girls–esque strategy of ignoring rival Zephyr Teachout is still up for debate. With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Cuomo had 61 percent of the vote to Teachout’s 35 percent (with comedian Randy Credico at 4 percent). That’s not exactly the landslide Cuomo was looking for, and the governor embarrassed himself through his ridiculous efforts to avoid acknowledging the Fordham Law School professor, even when she was standing two feet away from him.

Apparently, Cuomo kept up the act straight through primary night. He did not hold a victory party (which would have suggested he participated in a primary), and Teachout was reportedly unable to concede to the governor with a phone call, as he wouldn’t give her his number.

 Really classy, Andy, really f%$# classy.

Chuck Todd is Toast

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On Meet the Press yesterday, newly minted host Chuck Todd interviewed Barack Obama.

It did not go well:

As he says, you’ve got to be on it, paying attention to every word. Watch him nail Chuck for missing four separate mentions of Syria before telling the President he hasn’t heard him mention Syria.

Chuck Todd has just sounded the death knell of his gig as a host.

I give him 6 months.

Hostility and criticism is one thing, but I do not think that NBC News can deal with his being a punch line.

It’s not gonna end when Letterman retires, because Stephen Colbert is replacing him.

It’s kind of like Joe Biden said, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11,” of Rudy Giuliani.