Category: Wanker

Whiny Beoches

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The Republicans, yet again, complaining that their attempts to dismantle and privatize Medicare are bging called an attempt to dismantle and privatize Medicare:

House GOP budget star Paul Ryan is keeping up his offensive against Democrats who claim their victory in a New York special election Tuesday night was a rebuke of his budget plan that overhauls Medicare.

Democrats “are shamelessly demagoguing and distorting” Medicare, “trying to scare seniors and using this as a political weapon,” Ryan said Tuesday morning at the Peterson Foundation Summit in Washington.

Ryan appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier Tuesday where he blamed Democratic attack ads for the Republican loss, not the substance of his plan.

I understand you are a little objectivist Ayn Rand groupie, and so you believe that everyone thinks that government is pernicious and evil, even when it produces programs that outperform the private sector and benefit society, but the problem here is not that people are lying about your plan, it is that they are telling the truth.

Suck it up, bitch.

When You Elect a Contemptible Greedhead Criminal As Your Leader…

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At least when it’s clear that he is a crook and a liar, you clearly deserve to reap the whirlwind

Case in point, Florida Governor Rick Scott, who presided over Columbia/HCA while it was defrauding Medicare, and proceeded to take the 5th amendment around 75 times during the investigation.

And now it apopears that the dumb-ass voters of Florida are having a bit of buyers remorse:

Gov. Rick Scott is one of the least popular governors in America, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll that shows 57 percent of voters disapprove of his job performance.

Only 29 percent favor the job Scott is doing, the poll of 1,196 registered voters shows.

Scott’s job-performance numbers mirror public sentiment about the $69.7 billion state budget, which cuts schools, healthcare and programs for the environment. The poll finds that 54 percent of voters say the budget is “unfair” to someone like them, while 29 percent favor it.

Scott has praised what he calls the “jobs budget” as a way to get Florida’s economy moving. But despite the nickname, the budget will lead to more layoffs in the short-term because it eliminates nearly 4,500 state worker positions.

Tough titties, Floridians, you elected him, and you don’t have a recall law for state wide official, so for the next few years, it will suck to be you.

You Say It Because It’s True

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Noted African American studies professor Cornell West recently characterized Barack Obama as, “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats,” in addition to declaring that he the President has bought wholeheartedly into “the American Killing Machine.”

While there are a number of reasons why a man who was once one of Barack Obama’s staunchest supporters might have become disillusioned, and in the interview linked above, there does appear to be a sense of wronged entitlement, West complains about not getting phone calls answered and issues with the inauguration tickets.

Having relatives who have worked, or are working in academe, some at fairly rarefied levels, I can state with some level of authority that a sense of entitlement is rather endemic in this environment, particularly amongst those who ply their trade in the Ivys.

So, I do not find Dr. West’s opinion particularly surprising or worthy of note, but I do find the positively kraptastic response to this criticism amongst the intelligentsia and much of the liberal blogosphere to be interesting.

Karoli has a good survey of those responses, in addition to being a prime example of this idiocy:

I don’t understand what the goal is when it comes to Cornel West’s opinion. He says in that same interview that if the only backstop against fascism is Barack Obama, he’ll go with that. If the goings-on in Republican states and the United States Congress doesn’t convince you of that, then look to the Supreme Court’s future to understand what’s at stake. So why come out and call President Obama a tool of the oligarchs? It makes no sense, and is suppressive in nature and intent.

How about this: because it is the truth.

Whether it is Geithner and Summers and the banks, the quashing of even the most casual investigation of torture, the expansion of the surveillance state, the war on whistle blowers, etc., Cornell West’s statement is objectively true.

He is better than the current crop of Republican candidates, but so was Terri Schiavo when she was on a ventilator.

Indiana Winger Judges Repeal Magna Carta

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Yes, the foundation of British civil rights, and by extension of the United States, has been ruled invalid by the Indiana state Supreme Court, who have upended the 900 year old precedent, and ruled that police have the right to Illegally enter your home:

Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

Why? Because the cop is always right:

“We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said. “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

It appears that these wankers never read the part of the Constitution that says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

So, a medieval peasant, living under King Edward I (Longshanks) in Coventry in 1300 has more civil rights than an American living in Indiannapolis.

I’m thinking that these guys got their law degree from either a Cracker Jack box, or from the Christian Broadcast Network University (now called Regency University).

Newt or Spay Your Presidential Candidate*

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Yes, the “disgraced former Speaker of the House” Newt Gingrich is officially running for President:

Newt Gingrich is entering the 2012 presidential race as a familiar face — a 20-year veteran of Congress who served a polarizing turn as House speaker before assuming a career as a prolific political commentator and author.

But Gingrich, who officially announced his White House bid Wednesday, is bringing a decidedly different approach to this contest than he did to his previous stint in public office.

In his speeches and campaign appearances, Gingrich is expected to lay out a political vision that intertwines fiscal and social conservatism, drawing from a newfound interest in religion he has infused into his work in recent years.

It’s a message he’s expected to make Friday at the Georgia Republican Party convention in what advisors are billing as his formal announcement speech, an address that will marry the concept of American exceptionalism with an emphasis on God-endowed rights.

“American exceptionalism with an emphasis on God-endowed rights” appears to mean sleeping around on your wife and dumping her when she gets cancer, or MS, while attempting to impeach Bill Clinton for getting a blow job in the white house.

I’m beginning to think that I need to add a tag, Clown Show to my list of standard tags to descripe the ‘Phant Presidential field this year.

 *Credit goes to JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for coming up with this bon mot.

Do You Want Some Cheese With That Whine?

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So, after voting to abolish Medicare, the Republican freshmen have sent a letter to Obama demanding that the Democrats not beat them up over this:

Politicians usually don’t begin press conferences with an admission of guilt.

But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday, when freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) called on the president to condemn the scare tactics Democrats have used against Republicans on Medicare — the same type of attacks Republicans used against Democrats throughout the 2010 campaign that helped put many of the GOP freshmen in office.

“We’ve all been guilty at one time or another of playing partisan politics with key issues facing our country, but now is the time to hit the reset button,” Kinzinger said, as if to pre-empt accusations of hypocrisy coming from Democrats. “As a freshman class, we have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and … not continue the petty politics we’ve seen in the past.”

Last year, as a candidate, Kinzinger sang a different tune: He criticized the Democratic health care overhaul, saying it would amount to $500 billion in cuts over 10 years, removing 4 million patients from Medicare and putting 15 million on Medicaid, according to local news reports.

I’m sorry, but if these guys are not strong enough to defend themselves from a 72 year old constituent with blue hair, how can they be expected to protect us from bin Laden Saddam Hussein Fidel Castro anyone more threatening than the Easter Bunny?

You know the attacks against the rat f%$#s are different from the death panels, because they are true, which has counted for something in the United States since the days of John Peter Zenger.

Why do House Republicans hate America?

Can Someone Please Primary Steny Hoyer

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The moron is talking about means testing Medicare:

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) offered cautious support Tuesday for the idea of adopting further means-testing of Medicare and Social Security to help shore up the finances of both programs. But the devil, he said, will be in the details.

“I don’t want to get into means testing until we look at specific proposals,” Hoyer said at his weekly Capitol briefing in response to a question from TPM. “Generally speaking, we do, as you know, have certain means testing in both Medicare and SS at this point in time. … I think clearly we’re going to have to make both of those programs sustainable over the long run, and I think to some degree it would be clearly appropriate to look at — without endorsing any specific proposal — the insuring that the least well off are protected and to do that look at the best off … in terms of what level of support they get.”

First, if you cut off the top ½%, you don’t save any money, and if you cut off any more than that, and you destroy the program, which makes it bad policy.

Then you have to follow that up with the fact that the Republicans are killing themselves with this, but good old Steny feels the need to give them an opportunity to point at the Dems and say, “See, they are trying to cut your Medicare!”

Is he trying to lose?

Actually, considering him, he might be.  I think that he figures that he becomes the Dem leader in the House if Pelosi does not get back the House in 2012, so he wins by the country losing.

Another Shanda Before the Goyim

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Click for full size


The original


Der Tzitung


De Voch

Not one but two Heredim (black hat ultra Orthodox) publications, Der Tzitung and De Voch photoshopped Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and and White House aide Audrey Tomason out of the iconic picture of staff watching the progress of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.

It appears that they consider even a photograph of a woman to be too sexually salacious.

It just proves that medieval hyper-religious nut-jobs are not limited to al Qaeda, or the talibaptist whack jobs, but includes fellow Jews.

As my brother is wont to say, “Schwer zu Sein a Yid.”  (It ain’t easy being a Jew.)

H/t Failed Messiah.

Making the Teabaggers Look Good

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It turns out that there is a group of people who are less well suited to running government than the Teabaggers, it is the current government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Case in point, some of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s aides have been charged with sorcery:

Close allies of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being “magicians” and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds”.

This is a level of political dysfunction that just boggles my mind, particularly in the 21st century.

This is why the Neocons are wrong about us taking down Iran.  The only thing that preserve this clown show is an external military threat.

If Your Allies are People Who Are Bigots

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And  you engage in neocolonialism masquerading as protecting dark people, in this case, the citizens of Libya, your allies will not support you, because bigots are stupid, so unless you say, “We are bombing Libya to give their oil to our energy conglomerates,” explicitly, they will not support you.

Case in point, Silvio Berlusconi and his racist buddies in the Northern League:

Italy’s belated decision to join the military campaign against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has brought fresh political woes for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, with opposition to the bombing threatening to sink his fragile coalition.

Senior figures in the Northern League want an end to Italian air strikes only a week after they began following a personal plea by US President Barack Obama to Mr Berlusconi. Parliament will vote on the Northern League motion to this effect later today.

The xenophobic coalition partner says the bombing will provoke a wave of illegal immigration from Libya to Italy’s southern coast, and is demanding Mr Berlusconi set a date to end the raids. Umberto Bossi, the pugnacious Northern League leader, had threatened to bring down the government if parliament was not allowed to vote on the issue. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, another Northern League figure, predicted the government would fall if the bombing was not stopped.

Considering his road to power, I find that is one of the most schadenfreude rich stories I’ve heard in a while.

The phrase, “Hoist with his own petard,” comes to mind.

Pass the Popcorn, Wikileaks Again

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Wikileaks has now released about 700 documents on what is going on in the Guantánamo Bay gulag, and the picture is one of a completely incompetent and immoral process.

Cases in point:

Given the totality it’s not the documentation, it’s not surprising that the New York Times strongly condemned the whole process:

The internal documents from the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, published in The Times on Monday were a chilling reminder of the legal and moral disaster that President George W. Bush created there. They describe the chaos, lawlessness and incompetence in his administration’s system for deciding detainees’ guilt or innocence and assessing whether they would be a threat if released.

(emphasis mine)

It is refreshing to see the editorial page of the “paper of record” excoriate our gulag in the Caribbean, but unfortunately, they don’t go further, and ask why there have been no prosecutions of the lawless incompetent torturers.

Schnorers

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Do you want to guess?

Is it in Missippi, or Alabama, or maybe Arkansas?

Nope, it’s in New York State, just an hour from Times Square. It’s Kiryas Joel, which has a mind boggling 70% poverty rate: (number 2 only has a 56% rate)

The poorest place in the United States is not a dusty Texas border town, a hollow in Appalachia, a remote Indian reservation or a blighted urban neighborhood. It has no slums or homeless people. No one who lives there is shabbily dressed or has to go hungry. Crime is virtually nonexistent.

And, yet, officially, at least, none of the nation’s 3,700 villages, towns or cities with more than 10,000 people has a higher proportion of its population living in poverty than Kiryas Joel, N.Y., a community of mostly garden apartments and town houses 50 miles northwest of New York City in suburban Orange County.

About 70 percent of the village’s 21,000 residents live in households whose income falls below the federal poverty threshold, according to the Census Bureau. Median family income ($17,929) and per capita income ($4,494) rank lower than any other comparable place in the country. Nearly half of the village’s households reported less than $15,000 in annual income.

About half of the residents receive food stamps, and one-third receive Medicaid benefits and rely on federal vouchers to help pay their housing costs.

Kiryas Joel’s unlikely ranking results largely from religious and cultural factors. Ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic Jews predominate in the village; many of them moved there from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, beginning in the 1970s to accommodate a population that was growing geometrically.

Normally, I am not inclined to tell people that they need to get off their asses, and get a real job, but in this case, I’m going to say get off your asses and get a job.

Kiryas Joel is a hole in the map created by cynical New York politicians in order to pander, and since then it has been used to suck up various welfare payments, so that able bodied residents could game local government for handouts.

Judaism is very clear about this:  Studying is good, but there is also an obligation to work and support a family.

Buck Foeing

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The National Labor Relations Board has Boeing locating the 2nd assembly line for the 787 in South Carolina was part of illegal union busting activity:

Boeing illegally put its second 787 Dreamliner assembly line in South Carolina in retaliation for strikes in Washington and should be required to build the line in Washington, according to a potentially groundbreaking National Labor Relations Board complaint (pdf) filed Wednesday.

NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon filed the complaint after investigating a charge that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union District 751, bargaining unit, backed by the national union, filed on March 29, 2010. A board administrative law judge is scheduled to hear the case on June 14.

Seriously, since Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas, and the failed McDonnell Douglas management team ended up running the company, they have consistently failed in ways that stun me.

First, they were big enough assholes that they got engineers to go out on strike and stay on strike, then they f%$#ed up the bidding on the next gen tanker twice (the first time was when they bribed an official to cut them an unconscionable lease deal), and now they have been so arrogant to get the normally hapless NLRB to unload a can of whup ass on then.

If I were a Boeing shareholder, I would be agitating to make sure that no one who ever worked at M-D from holding a senior management position at the Everett Chicago based airframe manufacturer.

What a Pathetic Excuse for an Advocacy Group

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I was watching Maddow, and she had Terry O’Neill, the President of NOW on to discuss the spate of anti-abortion laws coming out of the wingnut legislatures, and O’Neill basically said that she would not challenge these laws, despite their being illegal under existing precedent, because they are afraid that the currents supreme court will simply overrule Roe V. Wade.

So, because victory is not certain, she, and her organization, will win a court challenge, they have decided not to fight for abortion rights at all.

Conceding defeat is not an alternative to losing.  If you never contest the issue, you lose.

In conceding the battle in this way, not only do you allow states to criminalize abortions, but you prevent any meaningful political dialogue from anyone but the women hating nut jobs.

They are conceding defeat in the face of a possible defeat, and anyone who sends them money is an idiot.

Alan Greenspan, STFU!

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Ayn Rand’s most successful apostle* is back at it again saying that regulations are causing all of our financial problems, and gives us this bon mot:

The problem is that regulators, and for that matter everyone else, can never get more than a glimpse at the internal workings of the simplest of modern financial systems. Today’s competitive markets, whether we seek to recognise it or not, are driven by an international version of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that is unredeemably opaque. With notably rare exceptions (2008, for example), the global “invisible hand” has created relatively stable exchange rates, interest rates, prices, and wage rates.

With notably rare exceptions, Abraham Lincoln enjoyed the play Our American Cousin.

As Paul Krugman observes, the level out outright cluelessness shown here is mind boggling, though the best response comes from Henry Farrell, who holds a “With notably rare exceptions,” contest that is hysterically funny.

*No, really, he actually hung out with her and was a part of regular meetings in her apartment.

Quote of the Day

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Immelt is thus an odd choice to head up such a council. It would be like Obama appointing Wall Street insiders like Larry Summers and Timmy Geithner to head up his economic advisory team, or guys from Goldman Sachs to head up the financial regulatory agencies. Oh, wait…

Urantian Sojourn in response to Barack Obama’s appointment of GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, as head of the White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

I’m beginning to wonder whether Barack Obama sits in the situation room of the White House basement, stroking a white Persian cat, and wondering how to f%$# with all of us.

What a Whiny Bitch

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Truly pathetic, but at least


We get a kick ass poster

Wisconsin Republican Congressman, and former Real World reality TV star, Sean Duffy, is caught on tape complaining how tough it is to make ends meet making only $174,000 a year, about 3 x that of the average citizen of the Badger State.

What’s more, once people started seeing the tape, the Republican Party of Polk County, where he gave the talk, started demanding that the recording be removed, claiming copyright infringement.

Not only is he a whiny bitch, he’s a stupid whiny bitch, because they just insured that every half-assed hack with a keyboard and a spell check, like yours truly, will go and reproduce the tape, and the story, until the heat death of the universe.