Grand Old Police Blotter: More On Todd's Family Values Edition

Sharper than a serpent's tooth and crazier than a nut hatch is former Executive Director of the South Carolina G.O.P., Todd Kincannon, if Todd's father is to be believed:

Just before midnight on April 13, 2013, according to one incident report, an officer with the Simpsonville Police Department responded to a call from Kincannon's father, who said he wished to report an incident but did not want to press charges. The father (whose name has been redacted from the report) said that he had been woken up at 11:55 p.m. by his dogs barking because Kincannon was banging on the front door. Kincannon reportedly said that he had spilled Coca-Cola on his hands and needed to wash them. When the father followed him into the kitchen, Kincannon allegedly pulled a out a revolver, pointed it at his father, and screamed, "Get back, motherfucker, or I'll kill you." 

The father said that he tried to retreat, but his son pushed him against the front door twice and said, "Now I'm going to kill you, motherfucker." The father ran shoeless to another house and said that "he could see the red laser sight from Todd's handgun bouncing around as he was running," according to the report. 

Speaking to police, Kincannon's father said he and his wife had given Kincannon "large amounts of money in the recent past (including $35,000) to help Todd pay off student loans and to help him catch up on payments to the rental house" and that tension had arisen recently over inheritance issues after a family member passed away. An officer wrote at the time, "He advised that he's seen the weapon plenty of times in the past, especially when Todd put his own gun to his head and threatened to kill himself." Kincannon's father also said there was "a lengthy history of Todd verbally and physically abusing he and his wife."

Todd makes Erick Erickson look sane.

Law-Abiding American for Rand

For those dimwitted enough to believe that Poodle Paul's position against recording the telephone calls of "law-abiding Americans" represents some sort of libertarian vestigial tail, suck(*) on this:

“I have never argued against any technology being used against having an imminent threat, [or] an act of crime going on,” Paul said, referring to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and 50 dollars in cash I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”

If you smoke weed, Pot Paul has a wiretap for you.  If he had his druthers, Big Brother would be recording every homosexualist, abortion provider and political "radical" in the land. And worse.

The Poodle is a social Darwinist, to be sure, but he doesn't give two shits about your privacy if you're not one of the people who would subscribe to his old man's newsletter or build a child molesting religious compound in Waco.

*  "Suck on this" is a registered trademark of Tom "Fellatio" Friedman.

Jew for Rand

Said no one, ever.

Rand Paul '16: He Loved Big Brother

Sullivan To Readers: You Are All Mindless, Soulless Subhumans

Silly Sully comes out of hiding to talk about himself, one of many subjects of which he lacks any real knowledge.

"The truth is, I had to stop primarily because it was killing me," Sullivan said Sunday night at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan.
...

"I spent a decade of my life, spending around seven hours a day in intimate conversation with around 70,000 to 100,000 people every day, " Sullivan said. "And inevitably, for those seven hours or more, I was not spending time with any actual human being, with a face and a body and a mind and a soul."

It apparently never occurred to Sully (or the non-human "small editorial staff" who actually wrote his posts) that he could work five days a week, or less than seven hours a day.

But it's nice to see Sully admit that the readers who he was intimately conversing with -- without actual interaction -- lack minds and souls.  At least they have that in common with Sully.

Update:  Confidential to A.S.:  Patient: "Doc, it hurts when I do this." Doctor: "Don't do that."

Grand Old Police Blotter: Todds and Monsters Edition

North Carolina G.O.P. leader and family man Todd Kincannon tries to get his Germanwings, and fails:

[Kincannon's wife, Ashely Suzanne Griffith] went on to tell the deputy that, while Kincannon was driving the car in a Chick-fil-A parking lot at about 5 mph, she attempted to get out of the vehicle, but “James grabbed Ashely’s arm, squeezing it tightly, thus preventing her from exiting the vehicle,” according to the report. She told the deputy that she hit Kincannon’s arm several times in an attempt to escape, but Kincannon accelerated and she was unable to get out.

From the report:

Ashley continued to tell me she called her mother for help and attempted to call 9-1-1 with an open line in order for the dispatcher to hear James. While driving, James saw a police vehicle and ‘freaked out.’ James threatened he would drive the car into a concrete barrier if the cops became involved. In addition, James also threatened to kill himself if Ashely left. Ashely continued to tell me James has made several threats in the past to kill himself, her, and her family. Furthermore, Ashely said she has past incidents of domestic violence and threats of homicide/suicide recorded. I saw no visible injuries to Ashely, she provided me with a written statement, and was issued a victim’s pamphlet. It should be noted Ashely was trembling as she wrote her statement.

Todd says he was all hopped up on cough medicine at the time. Which doesn't explain either his past domestic terrorism and/or his well-documented history of general assholery. 

Maybe he's a secret Muslim.

Full Disclosure

I've never been tapped by Harry Reid.

Hoosier Hysteria, Anti-Gay Edition

A Lie Becomes The Truth

Steve M. demonstrates how a Jim Hoft lie gets traction, not just among the loons who read Jim Hoft but supposed non-loons as Andy McCarthy of National Review Online.

Would morons believe these lies if Jim Hoft didn't exist?  Most would, because they'd find another blog that circulated such lies. But anyone who claims legitimacy and cites Hoft as a source should be disqualified from professional standing and polite society until Hell freezes over.

Abused Children Grow Up To Be....

Just imagine the kinds of language Tuck and Buck use to describe Mickey Kaus.

Jesus Wept

PoliticHo is impressed only by the hardest hitting of the hummers:

Megyn Kelly Presses Ted Cruz: Can You Win?

Teddy and the Cruzers

Fifty seven years ago, Senator Joseph McCarthy died of cirrhosis of the liver in the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. 

Or did he?

What's Worse Than a TED Talk?

Did Liberty University provide a safe space for those forced to attend Ted Cruz's announcement that he is running for President?

Kaus Inadvertently Speaks The Truth

"...Roger Ailes is the most handsome man in the world...." -- MKUltrahack, March 22, 2015.

Release The a1c

Sure, Scott Walker's fabrications about fingering Ronald Reagan's Bible are interesting, but they don't put anyone's health or life at risk.

Not so with Mike Huckabee's promotion of a diabetes cure in which he declares himself a "Former Diabetic."  Diabetics can suffer serious consequences if their blood sugar is not well-controlled. By, for example, forgoing insulin and relying on a quack cure.

Now, I'm no Bill Frist, but ... something ... tells me that if Huck was ever a Type II diabetic, he still is. Boy looks like he can glaze donuts with his piss.

This is serious stuff.  Huckabee is now selling snake oil without his usual freedom of religion get-out-of-jail card.  Some responsible outlet (with an actual audience) should be investigating this, and not just laughing at it.

Of course, Huck could prove he is a former diabetic with a single a1c test. But he won't.

More On Mickey Kaus

Mickey Kaus has now posted at Kausfails.com the posting that got him Tucker-canned from The Daily Caller.  It's even stupider that I imagined.

Kaus grouses that "immigration amnesty supporter" Rupert Murdoch won't incessantly bash immigrants on his property, the Fox News Channel.  (The slaphead's slim sampling for proof is limited to the one show he wakes up to watch key-word search transcripts of, The Kelly File.) Why, Megyn Kelly never made the evils of immigration the top story in the month and a half Kaus hate-watched the show.  It's almost as if Murdoch wasn't giving enough airtime to promote a view he doesn't agree with.  Who could have imagined?

Kaus can't suss why FNC would ignore immigrant-bashing when such bashing appeals to FNC's Obama-hating base.  It doesn't occur to him that FNC's viewers will tune in no matter the cause of the channel's Obama-bashing, so the channel has the incentive to promote a more telegenic and exciting cause to bash the Kenyan usurper. Perhaps Kaus could get some undocumented workers to dress him in orange and behead him on digital -- surely that would dominate the cycle!  But those selfish assholes are too busy working to make breaking news.

Kaus simpers that the insufficient level anti-amnesty coverage is "a proven pro-anmesty posture."  ("The absence of animus," &c...., apparently.)  So-called family values Obama-haters surely would like for FNC to program more anti-homo-themed Obama-bashing. (Kaus might enjoy that too, especially if the homos were immigrants.)  But Kelly's failure to lead with the President's LGBT-friendly rhetoric at Selma, or the beefs of a breeders-only baker, doesn't mean Kelly, or FNC, is pro-equality.

So Kaus is out of work, left to search for an immigrant-hater with deep pockets -- at least deep enough to pay some fraction of the pittance Carlson was paying him -- to keep him as he's accustomed.  Since the blogging thing isn't working out for him, maybe some sort of manual, non-union labor will suit.  Good luck, Mickey!

(No link to Slappy.)

Kaus Fails Again

Mickey Kaus, the slapheaded slug who leaves a trail of failure in his greasy wake, all while keeping up a patter of constipated, self-righteous drivel, was sacked yet again today. This time the hack was sacked for being too far right for the loons at the far right hate site The Daily Caller.

"It's pretty simple," Kaus said in an interview, "I wrote a piece attacking Fox for not being the opposition on immigration and amnesty -- for filling up the airwaves with reports on ISIS and terrorism, and not fulfilling their responsibility of being the opposition on amnesty and immigration.... I posted it at 6:30 in the morning. When I got up [they don't call him Kaus Hackula for nothing - ed] , Tucker had taken it down. He said, 'We can't trash Fox on the site. I work there.'"
....
Kaus says when he told Carlson he needed to be able to write about Fox, Carlson told him it was a hard-and-fast rule, and non-negotiable.  [Para.] "He said it was a rule, and he wouldn't be able to change that rule. So I told him I quit," Kaus explained.

Mickey's needs are simple.  He needs for FOX to broadcast his pet hates.

I don't know what's more disturbing, Kaus' pretense that he thought Tucker Carlson had ever any integrity, or his pretense that he, Kaus, ever had any integrity.  It's almost as if that Kaus doesn't understand that FOX and The Daily Caller are commercial enterprises designed to separate rubes from their money, not charity wards for the unwashed boobs who stop by Kausfiles for their daily hate.

Kaus is now blogging on cardboardsign.com, next to one of the 305's many metered off-ramps.

Me, I can't wait for Howard Kurtz to give Tucker Faye 15 minutes to defend himself against the wild-eyed radical Democrat, Kaus.  

Drunken Bigots In The Morning

On this morning's Drunken Joe, Republican tosspot Joe Scarborough sobered up long enough to condemn an anti-Semitic organization and demand that its leaders be held accountable.  In fact, the spluttering sot was so filled with righteous rage that he almost commited an act of elder abuse against the befuddled Mike Barnicle.  Then he demanded that this video (full text here) concerning the incident be shown:

Oh wait. No he didn't.  The sot and his fellow dolts, Barnicle, Heillman and Ratner, pretended not to know about GOP anti-semitism.  Drunken Joe was talking about a story in which some UCLA students on a student government board asked a Jewish potential nominee for another student government position whether she could be unbiased, the board appointed the nominee to the position, the questioning students apologized to the appointee and to the Jewish community for asking her the questions, and the chancellor of UCLA condemned the questions. 

Not exactly a anti-semitic whisper campaign which causes a suicide and no consequences for its perpetrators.  Which drunken bigots know of, but must pretend does not exist.

IOKIYADR.

Ron Phony-A Just Can't Quit Fake Top Dems

Ron Phony-A's e-mailbox is once again clogged with moist missives sent directly from the FOX News Channel green room. So "Many" senior Dems are hopping mad at Secretary Clinton for using a personal e-mail address as Secretary of State that Ron can't name them all. 

Or any of them.

They're so top-pissed that only the release valve of Ron's confidences prevents them from speaking publicly (or, possibly, buying sniper rifles).

Many senior Democrats are angry, though not yet mad enough to publicly confront the Clintons. "This story has legs as long as the election," said a Democrat who has worked on Capitol Hill and as a presidential campaign manager. "She will be tripping over this crap until the cows come home."

Another presidential campaign veteran who held a Cabinet-level post in Bill Clinton's White House fretted out loud about the fact that the former first lady is breezing toward the Democratic nomination.

"We can't have a coronation when she's handing Republicans an inquisition," the Democrat said.

Hmm... how many "Cabinet-level" Dems fret exactly like Maureen Dowd?

Answer: Not including Ron Phony-A? None.

Did G.O.P. Anti-Semitism Cause A Suicide?

I'm not understanding this story from Missouri:

Let’s set the table for what is destined to be an emotional, and highly impactful, week ahead for the Missouri GOP.

The centerpiece of the next seven days will be Tuesday’s funeral for former state Auditor Tom Schweich in his hometown of Clayton.

A Republican party leader starting a vile whispering campaign against an opponent in his own party? Dog bites man. A Republican anti-semitic whispering campaign? Dog eats dog food.

But why would that possibly cause someone to kill himself? Did Schweich want to be governor so much that the thought of losing was too much to bear? Of Missouri? Did he believe that the rumors would cost him his party's nomination? Would a man taught to fight anti-semitism by his grandfather fold in the face of an anti-semitic attack?

The connection between the two events is tenuous at best. This post-mortem article portrays Schweich as a little too intense for his own good, but not unstable. (It also has the instigator denying any improper motive or intent.)  Most likely Schweich either had other, more serious problems or. possibly, he shot himself accidentally.  Whatever the cause, it's very tragic for the man's family.

Posted Just So I Can Beat Everyone To The Most Obvious Tabloid Pun Ever

Two Girls, One Cop

Media Putz

Those -- if any -- who are still pretending that Howie Kurtz still retains any integrity haven't seen this morning's Media Putz.

This morning, CNN's Reliable Sources played audio of Bill O'Reilly which destroyed the sexual predator's credibility with his own words.  (Transcript not up yet; report on the O'Reilly audio here.) At the same time, the Putz was re-reading FNC's press releases (literally) and pretending that O'Reilly had addressed his lies on his own program.  

Putz's self-clowning would be tragic except for the fact that Putz never had credibility to begin with.  

Howard Kurtz, Motherflacker

Let's see Howie the Putz spin this one:

In his 2012 best-selling non-fiction [sic] book Killing Kennedy, O'Reilly writes on page 300 that as a "reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian ... that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly."

O'Reilly repeated this lie on FNC, so he can't blame the dude who actually wrote the books.

Howie's greatest sit-n-spins: 

I've said O'Reilly dispute boils down to semantics. Christian Sci Monitor called '82 Argentine protest "battle zone"

The perils of professional flackery, indeed. Must be hard when you've hit rock bottom and there's nowhere left to go, Howie.

Rubbin' Update

Here's the rub parlor that Schock used for a fundraiser, according to reports.

It's no bondage-themed nightclub of Michael Steele infamy.  It's also in Baltimore, not in Peoria.  And since it has only three therapists, charging $130 per 90 minutes of rub, it must have been a long and boring fundraiser.

Schock and Massage

I'm schocked... schocked! to see that the G.O.P. is using rubbin' as a 'raiser:

The donor planes include an Italian-made Piaggio twin-engine turboprop owned by Todd Green of Springfield, Illinois, who runs car dealerships in [Representative Aaron] Schock's [(R-IL)] district with his brother, Jeff. Todd Green told a Springfield newspaper that Jeff - a pilot and campaign contributor - and Schock have been friends for a long time.

The AP found that Green's plane traveled to at least eight cities last October in the Midwest and East Coast, cities where Schock met with political candidates ahead of the midterm elections. His Instagram account's location data and information from the service FlightAware even pinpointed Schock's location on a stretch of road near one airport before Green's plane departed.

Campaign records show a $12,560 expense later that month to Jeff Green from a political action committee associated with Schock, called the "GOP Generation Y Fund." That same month, the PAC paid $1,440 to massage parlor [sic] for a fundraising event.

There are at least fifty rub joints in Peoria, according to Yelp. Prices generally range from $20 for a chair massage to $125 for a full hour's rubbin', tip not included. So anywhere from 10 to 72 constituents got the glad-hand treatment in exchange for raisin' green to fill Schock's coffers.

Whether this story has a happy ending is anyone's guess.

Dowd's Ghostwriter Rewrites History

Maureen Dowd's latest attack on Hillary Clinton is framed as an attack on JEB (not Jeb).  It takes her five paragraphs to bash Secretary of State Clinton

Like the Clintons, the Bushes drag the country through national traumas that spring from their convoluted family dynamic and then disingenuously wonder why we concern ourselves with their family dynamic.

Without their last names, Hillary and Jeb [sic] would not be front-runners, buoyed by networks of donors grateful for appointments or favors bestowed by the family.

In Dowd's mind, receiving blow jobs from an adult intern is as traumatic as illegal wars, hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, torture as national policy, war profiteering and the destruction of the economy. (That's not a joke; it's a statement of fact, confirmed endlessly in Dowd's drivel over the past decade.) And in Dowd's mind, Hillary was getting blown too.

Dowd correctly asserts that JEB is not responsible for his brother's crimes, but is responsible for seeking counsel from GWB's criminal co-conspirators. (Dowd gives an inexplicable pass to bin Laden family bag man and happy Jew-fucker James Baker.)  But then she inexplicably ejaculates:

If he wants to reclaim the Bush honor, Jeb [sic] should be holding accountable those who inflicted deep scars on America, not holding court with them.

How can there be any Bush honor to reclaim when it was the President Bushes who were -- as well as employed -- the war criminals in the first place?  How could citizen JEB hold accountable the war criminals in any event?  And when has Dowd ever demanded actual accountability from any Bush, ever? 

Dowd repeats the canard that GWB was merely stupid rather than both evil and stupid, arguing that cronies of Bush the Elder, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, "absconded" with GWB's presidency.  (GWB as the real victim of Iraq was the same tale Dowd told in 2012, and she's recycling that tale now.)  She also claims Paul Wolfowitz was merely a naif. None of these bogus beliefs could restore "Bush honor," even if it had ever existed.

Dowd excuses the Bushes' crimes by psychobabbling about dysfunction where greed, malice and corruption easily explain everything.  And she believes that suction and torture are equally evil.

A Greasy Kind of Love

Rudy Giuliani loves America in exactly the same way that Bernie Kerik and Judith Regan love America:  

Certainly, that is what happened in 2001, when Ms. Regan had a messy affair with Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner and aide to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City (then a future presidential hopeful).

At the time, Mr. Kerik was writing a memoir for ReganBooks, and he spent months hooking up with his mistress/publisher in an apartment near ground zero that had been reserved for use by 9/11 rescue workers.

All of which was revealed in hilarious detail during Mr. Kerik’s unsuccessful bid for Homeland Security chief in 2004. It didn’t exactly put Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News and a close friend of Mr. Giuliani’s, in a good position. (Mr. Kerik and Mr. Ailes declined requests to comment for this article.)

The kind of love that picks your pocket and leaves nothing but a greasy stain. 

Up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

In a blatant attempt to steal traffic from alicublog, Roger Ailes announces its predictions for the winners of the 2015 Academy Awards, aka the "Oscars."  To make this feat seem even more impressive, I have seen almost none of the films or performances nominated, and my predictions are based almost solely on my intimate knowledge of show business phonies and accounting fraud.

(By the way, Oscar, Oscars, and gold-plated vibrator are in the public domain and can be used by anyone for any purpose, at any time. For free. Legally.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)

Best Mot Picture:   Boyhood
Best Director:  Richard Linklater
Best Actress:   Julianne Moore
Best Actor:      Michael Keaton
Best Supp Actress:  Patricia Arquette
Best Supp Actor:  J.K. Simmons
Best Orig Screenplay:  The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Adapted Screenplay:  The Theory of Everything
Best Cinematography:  Birdman
Best Animated Feature:  Big Hero 6
Best Foreign Lang Film:   Leviathan
Best Documentary:   Last Days in Vietnam
Best Everything Else:  One of the nominees 

You could take these predictions to the bank, except the banks are closed on Sunday. 

A Clown, A Turd and 9-11

Rudy Guiliani.

Buh-Bye O'Reilly

This story will never go anywhere if O'Reilly is smart enough to keep his trap shut.  If O'Reilly says nothing, his silence will confirm the truth but he'll never be challenged.  If he's stupid enough to open his yap and repeat his lies today, he may actually hang himself.  

But he's not stupid. 

In the past, O'Reilly lied about his sexual predation, paid millions to silence his victim (and probably paid FOX's legal costs too) and FOX just rode it out.  

The predator will keep quiet, and his apologists will too, because they know O'Reilly won't back them up if they vouch for the scumbag. Howard Kurtz likely has already made an orange jumpsuited appearance in the fat man's office, on his knees, promising that he won't say shit.

Pre-Posting Update:  I'm completely wrong. O'Reilly really is that stupid.

Batman and Hawkins

There's a lot to ridicule in this post by John Hawkins, who "hired" one of his site's contributors, "Jay Batman," to research how much money given to "big name" wingnut PACs actually went to candidates or candidate advocacy. Apparently the Godamn Batman wrote "a 170 page report" that we don't get to read (perhaps because it's just screen printouts from OpenSecrets.org), but in which the GDBM concluded that many right-wing PACs are stone cold ripoffs.

In other words, dog bites man.

Bulbs dim and bright have picked up on the story.

Among the "big name" offenders Screamin' Jay Batman fingers are a draft Ben Carson PAC which has no affiliation with Carson and thus sucks $$$ away from Carson's own PAC (not investigated), Sarah Palin's SarahPAC, Madison Project, which attacks wingnut candidates from the right, the "Tea Party Army" (total expenditures, $25,000) and a couple of anti-immigration PACs that couldn't manage to scrape up $325,000. If you suspect Hawkins or his "partner" -- who had previously worked or "dealt" with three of the 17 studied PACs and reportedly is involved with her own (not investigated) PAC(s) -- might have a hate-on for some of the hand-picked PACs they criticize, I'm afraid I couldn't disabuse you of that notion.

Hawkins also negates his premise that he investigated "17 conseravative PACs" by asserting that one of the 17 -- the second most fiscally responsible one, per Hawkins' metric -- accepts money from unions, and is therefore "generally hostile to conservative Republicans."

The takeaways are (1) Hawkins is not to be trusted, even when he's telling some part of the truth and (2) don't flush your money down SarahPAC or any org with Tea Party in its name.

Update: At RedState (no link), Oly, Son of Olaf, says Hawkins' report is great, except for its criticism of the PACs upon whose teats Olafson suckles. For Olafson, a dollar spent on Olafson is never wasted.

Roger On The Road

Spent a night last week at a hotel that actually had a landline phone attached to the wall next to the toilet in the bathroom.  Whoever thought that that was a good idea?

I umderstand that this was not entirely uncommon twenty-five years ago, before cell phones, but whoever thought it was a good idea twenty-five years ago?

I wouldn't touch that thing if I was dying of a heart attack on the crapper.

Happy Valentine's Day

From Roger Ailes, your part-time lover.

Those of you who don't follow Roger Ailes on Facebook missed this romantic gem:

Russians are Red
Stalin is too
Let's Comintern
Me, and then you

It falls apart if you realize that Stalin was a Russian, so don't think about that. 

Republican Family Values: Three Tons of Some Edition

"But [Rep. Blake] Farenthold [(R-TX)] did admit that he was propositioned by a woman to be part of a 'threesome.'”

The proposed threesome involved Farenthold, the woman and a wafer-thin mint. Or, more realistically, the woman proposed a threesome between Farenthold, Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee.

Representative Farenthold is being sued for gender discrimination in an action alleging sex sexual harassment and gender discrimination. Of course his response included a dubious attestation as to his sexual attractiveness.

Rods and Sods

Dim-bulb Rod Dreher sniffs:

Clarence Thomas tells the truth:  a majority of the US Supreme Court has probably made up its mind already on gay marriage, before they hear the first oral argument.

Leave aside the fact that in 95-plus percent of cases, federal appellate judges have made up their minds before hearing oral argument.  Ignore Roddy's grammatical incompetence. The fact is that the justices who have already made up their minds on marriage equality include Pubes Thomas, Fat Tony Scalia and Sammy "The Bullshit" Alito. 

What really chaps Roddy's ass, and not in the good way, like his daddy used to, is not prejudgment.  No, it's his belief that a majority of justices believe equal protection means equal protection. He's not bent out of shape that Scalia waived his "Constitution Hates Fags" placard twelve years ago.  He's just sore that his privilege might no longer be enshrined in law.

Rod's already got his hammer out so he can be the first to nail himself to his cross if the decision doesn't go his way.  

The More You Know

The real tragedy of the Brian Williams story is that MoDo had to preempt her planned column detailing her experimentation with S & M, tied to the theatrical release of 50 Shades of Grey, in order to rub out 500 words on the death of serious journalism.  

The Andrew Sullivan Decade and a Half, Part 2: Bush Lied, Sully Complied

Vile Sully, September 30, 2002:

So at a crucial juncture in American diplomacy, this Democrat [Congressman Jim McDerrmott] is saying that Bush is a liar and a cheat – and in Baghdad! The only word for this is vile.

Vile Sully's post is entitled "Whose Side They Are On." 

The truth:  Bush lied. 

Update 2/9:  Corrected date from 2012 to 2002. But technically I was right, because 9/11 changed everything.

The Nightly Schmoe

Regular readers of this blog -- both of them -- will know that my esteem of Brian Williams was never very high. I labelled him a talking wigstand long ago in the previous decade, back when Howie Kurtz was fawning over Williams and Bob Somerby was less "we -- as in you -- liberals suck" all the time.

So I couldn't care less what NBC does with Brian Williams, who got caught blowing his own horn. It's hilarious to see wingnuts portray the Limbaugh-loving cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq as a left-winger.  But whether NBC keeps Williams for profit's sake or cans him in response to demands by wingnuts who care nothing about the truth matters not to me.

The Andrew Sullivan Decade and a Half, Part I: Genocide Is Painless

As Andy Sully spends the next few months blogging about his retirement from blogging, let's review some of the deeply rational thoughts he'll be withholding from us:

From Time Magazine, August 2006:

There is something terribly sick within the Muslim mind at this moment in history. It is Nietzsche's ressentiment, but with God re-attached. We should indeed fear these people for the hideous carnage they can wreak for the sake of their God. But we should never let our fear overwhelm our contempt for them - their sickness, their evil, their petty insecurities, their inability to live meaningful lives and their attempt to assuage this by murdering others in God's name. Yes, they evil [sic]. But they are also pathetic, miserable excuses for human beings.

This is the mind of a man -- because each human being has her or his own mind -- who believes (whether he admits it or not) that the only thing wrong with ISIS is that its members don't kill themselves after they slaughter every Muslim living.

The Wonder Bread Years

Meeeegan McArdle waxes dishonest about having to live among the poors, in an article entitled "When Bread Bags Weren't Funny."  McBargle starts out talking about Joni Ernst's bags, but then switches to Noonan's bags.  She then writes, with her usual slight of dishonesty::

I am a few years younger than Noonan, but I grew up in a very different world -- one where a number of my grammar school classmates were living in public housing or on food stamps, but everyone had more than one pair of shoes.... 

Joni Ernst, who is just a few years older than me, had a much more affluent childhood than the generation that settled the prairies, and more affluent still than the generations before them. But in many ways, she was much poorer than the people making fun of her on Twitter, simply because so many goods have gotten so much more abundant.

A few, a few! ... Gesundheit.

A few seconds on Google will tell you that McBargle is actually 22 years younger than Peg, and only 2.5 years younger than Ernst, despite McBargle's construction to the contrary. One difference is more than 8 times the other.  The difference between Nooners and McBargle is the difference of a generation.

Also dishonest is McBargle's assertion that Ernst grew up poorer than the people making fun of Ernst on Twitter, who, for all McArdle knows, are Ernst's age or older and grew up without the annual farm subsidies that Ernst's family recieved.  McArdle is comparing the imagined wealth of Ernst's critics today to Ernst's financial condition as a child, as if Ernst died in her ninth year.

And let's not mention McBargle's pretense of attending school with children from the projects, except to note that McBargle attended the Riverdale Country Day School (current annual cost for K-12: $45,600). (Perhaps she'd claim that she was forced to attend class with charity cases  -- "I said 'a number," not how many" -- who had the nerve to take a free ride in first class even though they had two pair of shoes to their names.)

What McBargle really gets wrong, however, is why Ernst and Nooners spoke about bags. It wasn't, as McBargle insists, to remind us "how much poorer we used to be" or "the immense difference between [prior generations'] living standards and ours." Ernst told her story as preface to the claim that "These days though, many families feel like they're working harder and harder, with less and less to show for it," as if the olden days were Nirvana compared to now (or since Obama ruined the economy). Nooners likewise used the story to illustrate how America -- and Americans, by which she means Americans who lunch with millionaires -- suck now.  Ernst and Nooners weren't telling their constantly bitching wingnut audiences to quit bitching because things are so much better now.

Bottom line:  McArdle will always be a joke.

Bong Hits For Jeb-us

No one is surprised that Jeb Bush was a member of the Old Choom Network. And a small businessman to boot.

We know Rand smoked Paul Pot, and the munchies certainly would explain Chris Christie.

Mike Huckabee undoubtedly smoked corn tassels and drank from a jug marked "XXX," and Ben Carson could write his own prescriptions.

Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio were totally straight edge.

A Note To Andrew Sullivan's Readerss

Good news!  Your subscriptions to The Dish are fully transferable to Roger Ailes.  Just calculate the balance of your Dish subscription and send that amount to this blog. 

Roger Ailes members will have an exclusive first look at our forthcoming post, "The Andrew Sullivan Decade and a Half."

Subscribers can e-mail the proprietor for payment details.

Chait's Peach or, Hack vs. PC

Jon Chait's latest New York Magazine thumbsucker raises some serious questions.

His thesis is that it's illiberal to critique and criticize the speech of others from a liberal perspective. 

Did you know that there is no outlet from which Bill Maher can express his viewpoints freely?  What's more, it seems that Condoleezza Rice can no longer venture an opinion in polite society, as if she was no better than the many thousands of innocent Iraqis she personally helped to silence permanently.  

Have you heard? Christine Lagarde, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Bob Birgeneau have been forcibly relieved of their tongues and fingers and ability to blink in Morse Code, all by the infernal machinery of disagreement and protest. It's true! 

It's a shame that space limitations left Jon unable to recount the gruesome ends of George F. Will, Larry Summers and Bill Cosby, all of whom now lie silent as the grave.

After those preliminary reveals, Chait gets down to most insidious case of all. In the greatest detail, Chait reveals a private Facebook group in which a handful of writerly types got snippy with each other, feelings were hurt, and two victim-members of the group complained to their pal, Chait, who took it upon himself to manplead the victims' case to the world. Because if a members-only group of nameless elites cannot private message each other free from the crushing yoke of liberal piety, Western civilization itself cannot survive. 

A cynic might suggest that Chait wrote his piece less out of concern for the fate of modern discourse and more from a desire to experience the same kind of microaggressive hard-on Mickey Kaus experienced when he made public some juicy Journolist threads.  But such a critique would be politically -- as well as factually -- correct and therefore must never be spoken, in the name of free speech, amen.

Peggy Noonan Too Wore Bread Bags.

She wore them at the other end of her body.

Mr. Cub

Thank you, Ernie Banks.

I Smell A Class Action Lawsuit

It only could have been more hilarious if the kid's name was Horst Schitt.

P.S.  No one could ever have seen this coming.

Ron Paul Paul Craig Roberts Matt Welch: Nuts of A Feather

Over at Libertarianism for Idiots, Matt Welch simultaneously kisses Ron Paul's ass and sorta chides Père Paul for promoting on his (Paul's) website the Paul Craig Roberts assertion that L'Affaire Hebdo was a false flag operation. Purportedly protecting the brand, Welch sniffs:

Bad arguments – including/especially any from me or the staff of this magazine – do not deserve a free pass merely by dint of being ideologically simpatico.

Funny, but I don't recall Welch correcting his own lie contained another Paulsucker from 2007:

When conservatives feel comfortable mocking the victims gunned down by Clinton-era attorney general Janet Reno's FBI in Waco, Tex., in 1993, it suggests that a complacent and increasingly authoritarian establishment feels threatened.

Welch of course is doing what he criticizes fellow nut Paul Craig Roberts for: falsely accusing the United States government of killing innocent victims. 

Janet Reno was not attorney general or in charge of the FBI when Welch's bro, Dave Koresh, and his followers gunned down the federal agents lawfully serving search warrants, as Welch surely knows.  None of the later killings at the Davidian compound were from FBI or government guns.

Welch and Roberts are from the same delusional sewer, and they should remain there, together.

Update: Welch's reference in his post today to "the television show I co-host" is a little dated. I'd like to think FOX Business Channel showed some journalistic integrity, but there isn't a first time for everything. Guess I'll have to credit the majesty of the marketplace for Welch's well-deserved shitcanning.

Whaddya Know

Moveon.org was right. 

Allegedly.

Heterosexuality is incompatible with military service and national security.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Another Hannity Hero In Hot Water

Right-wing hero George Zimmerman was arrested for domestic assault.  Again. This time he allegedly threw a bottle of wine at his girlfriend. 

No word on whether the selection was a Duck Commander '15 or a vintage Bela Varga.  

Here's hoping Zimmerman's next adult beverage, and many ones thereafter, is Pruno.

I Am Just A Rich Boy

And my scalp is always cold
I hate on Dems 'n foreigners
For minumum wage, not relevance
Suck up to Tucker Carlson
Tell lies and jest
Stilted prose I write that no reads
I am a loathsome pest

Kaus 2016!

Who's This Jesus Charlie I Keep Hearing About?

Some Frog comedian, apparently.

Gohmert v. Yoho v. Boenher

The Night of the Long O Vowel Sounds begins.

Three wingnuts enter; one wingnut leaves.

If you strike at the king, you must first have your fundraising apparatus in place to fleece the rubes.

This, my friends, is what the Scalice brouhaha is all about, at least within the Republican Party.  

I Shart Huckabees

Open your wallets, suckers.  Huckabee's back in business!

Who Would Have Guessed That A White Supremacist Friend of David Duke Would Lie?

My faith in humanity is lost.

And One Day Closer to Death

Please remember to put 2015 on any checks you send to this blog.  Preferably with a dollar sign in front and .00 after.

Thank you, and enjoy the show.

Credit Where Credit Isn't Due

This TPM headline is misleading:

Sean Hannity Wants Boehner Out As Speaker After Scalise Revelations

Hannity wanted Boehner out "before Scalise revelations," because he thinks Boehner isn't ideologically pure. This isn't ancient history, people. 

Cliven Bundy's pal Hannity would speak at David Duke's Klavern Khristmas Kavalcade if the price was right.  He certainly wouldn't criticize an ally for doing it.

Likewise, the fools saying "even Erick Erickson" is skeptical of Scalise's ignorance defense fail to realize that Tubby Blubberson cares only about purging the G.O.P. of imagined squishes like Boehner and replacing them with Full Mental Jackasses who hate women, gays and evolution with all their hearts.

#OverIt2014

Room Temperature responded "Steve Doocy's i.q."

The Other True Meaning of Christmas

The only thing that can stop a violent and allegedly cheap father with a gun is his 14-year-old son with his father's gun:

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said, “The young 16-year-old was very upset because he claimed that the rest of his friends, either got a car or a pickup for Christmas. All his father provided for him was a fishing rod.”

The father struck the boy on the head with a baseball bat. A 14-year-old brother got involved and went out to the family vehicle to retrieve a shotgun that was kept in the trunk.

“The young 14-year-old boy discharged the weapon. He discharged it twice. The second time he hit his father in part of the face and part of the shoulder.”

Apparently, the 14 year old is the only one being charged, despite daddy's braining the ungrateful older son with a Louisville Slugger. Given the demographics of Bayview, Texas, it seems that either the elder's son Christmas expectations were unrealistic or his friends lived in more affluent communities.  In any event, the 14 year deserves some sort of Eddie the Eagle Award for having dead-eye aim.

Update: In a conflicting account, the father was also charged with assault and both father and older son were treated for injuries.

The True Meaning of Christmas

Gov. Jerry Brown continued his practice of forgiveness on Christmas Eve by issuing 105 pardons, mostly for people who have been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses and burglary more than a decade ago.

The pardons issued Wednesday included a Stanislaus County man sentenced to three years’ probation in 1986 for taking expensive wine out of a wine cellar and drinking it.  Michael Joseph Moradian Jr. has since “lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen,” Brown wrote in his pardon.

God bless us, everyone. 

Hokiday News Dump

Tanned Teabag Darrell Issa (R - CA) plays an extended variation on the Friday afternoon news dump -- the afternoon before a five-day holiday weekend news dump:

WASHINGTON — An 18-month congressional investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s mistreatment of conservative political groups seeking tax exemptions has failed to show coordination between agency officials and political operatives in the White House, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Of course, Teabag True Believers won't let facts get in the way of a good spite fap. They'll keep lying to each other for decades to come. On this subject and many others.

Rudy Guiliani Is A Lying Sack of Shit

Longer.

From The Website of A Convicted Felon and Thought Leader

“One of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America”
-President of the United States GEORGE W. BUSH

(No link to the felon)

Grand Old Police Blotter: Grimm's Fairytale of New York Edition

Move over, Eric Garner.  The Libertarian movement has a new, more sympathetic victim of big government to champion:

Representative Michael G. Grimm, a Republican from Staten Island who was easily re-elected to his third term in Congress last month despite a pending federal indictment, has agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of tax fraud, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

A former Marine and agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who first ran for office as a law-and-order corruption fighter, Mr. Grimm, 44, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a plea hearing, according to the docket sheet in his case, which provides no further detail. His trial was scheduled to start Feb. 2.
...

The indictment against Mr. Grimm alleged that he essentially kept two sets of records and provided his accountant with doctored books, leading to inaccurate tax forms being filed with the government.

Prosecutors said Mr. Grimm concealed more than $1 million in gross receipts for the restaurant and failed to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee wages, thus fraudulently lowering his federal and state tax payments. 

If it wasn't for oppressive state and federal laws requiring the payment of income tax, Mr. Grimm would still be in Congress today.

Meet Your Liberal Media: Jackass In The Box Edition

There once was a wank from Nantucket:

Some were convinced Gregory was still distracted. In the spring, when NBC remodeled the Meet the Press offices, Gregory went on a shopping spree, according to a person familiar with the transaction. Just as the program was in chaos and his job was on the line, he redecorated with a new glass desk, an Hermès leather box, and other extravagant items totaling thousands of dollars, according to the source. A person close to Gregory denies he bought an Hermès box, “as good of a tale as that might be.”

And the gimp mask was a gift from Karl Rove.

Because Michael Medved and Ed Koch Were Otherwise Engaged

Chuckles Todd solidifies his reputation as a tool:

But not everyone is happy. I'll be joined by Florida Senator and possible Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio. I'm Chuck Todd, and joining me to provide insight and analysis this morning are MSNBC's Chris Matthews, former Bush White House political director Sara Fagen, former Democratic governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, and Breitbart news columnist John Nolte.

Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Bonus toolery from Sony's shyster:

DAVID BOIES: ... If the N.S.A. had invaded people's privacy like this, people would have been outraged.

3218.69 Kilometres

Even The Liberal The New Republic

As Leon Weiseltier starts his new job writing the "Maureen Dowd" column for The New York Times, here's a reminder about The New Republic whose checks he was happy to cash, or, at a minimum, roll into smaill paper tubes.

They Lost It At The Movies

I can't be bothered to run in circles, scream and/or shout about Sony's decision to pull Pineapple Express II: Bros Before Chos from the movie theaters that refused to show the stoner comedy in the first place.  It's not like we've been denied a Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill laff riot or The Hangover Part IX.  I'd wager there are already three major studio productions scheduled for release in 2015 which feature Asian stereotypes and loveable homophobe protagonists who face having to suck fast-acting poison from each others' dicks in order to survive but don't actually do it.

Why don't I care, you probably don't ask?  First, North Korea's denial of involvement in the matter is the first real evidence I've seen of North Korea's involvement. And even if North Korea was involved in the Sony hack -- a matter of no national security concern whatsoever regardless of the source -- that doesn't tie North Korea to the threat against moviegoers.  There is absolutely no rational reason to believe that North Korea -- a fascist state which brutalizes its own citizens -- would start targeting American movie patrons.  The threat is a matter of public concern and should be investigated.  But how Sony or movie theaters choose to react to that threat isn't a test of free speech or The Nation's Resolve, or anything other than one's ability to spout cliches misattributed to Voltaire at the jerk of a knee.

The incident has also given libertarian morons another chance to praise the creators of Team America: World Police, in which another Korean dictator was used as the excuse for racist dialect comedy.  Being an unfunny asshole doesn't make you a hero -- trust me.

Now It Can Be Revealed

Ross Douthat reveals the secret of The New York Times' decision to employ him:

Over a long enough time horizon, every publication falls into grave errors -- moral, intellectual, both.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) December 6, 2014

Teabagging Lives

In case you were wondering, Erick wore the old ones out chewing on them.

Dear Mollie Hemmingway

This is why everyone thinks you're a moron.

Jesus Loves Me, Fuck You Hos

Last week, from GOP mouthpiece Elizabeth Lauten:

How I did on Twitter this week: 7 Mentions, 146K Mention Reach, 15 Replies, 6 Retweets. How'd your week go? via http://t.co/ZoxN5epJ55
— Elizabeth (@DCGopGirl) November 25, 2014

This week, Lauten decided to up her mentions by taking some teenagers to task for not loving pink, green and pearls. That casual shit don't fly in the Junior League and the D.A.R, you no class b****es.

Ms. Lauten, who is in her mid-30s, formerly worked for the Godly Joe Walsh (R-IL), and John McCain, under whose tutelage she perfected her technique. She now runs a p.r. shop called Audeamus (pronunced "Adumbass" in a Southern accent) and works for some peckerwood Congressman from Tennessee. But she's learned from her recent experience -- specifically, she learned to hide behind God's skirts and make her insults available on a "friends only" basis.

Update (12/1):  Lauten is out of her job, while John McCain remains employed.  FOX News Channel would have scooped her up already, but for the fact she fails (the other) Ailes' first test for a female job applicant. 

Update II (12/1):  Bonus fun from the Smoking Gun: "Lauten, pictured above, was arrested in December 2000 for misdemeanor larceny, according to court records. Lauten, then 17, was collared for stealing from a Belk department store in her North Carolina hometown. Because Lauten was a first-time offender, her case was handled via the District Court’s deferred prosecution program, which resulted in the charge’s eventual dismissal after the future scold stayed out of trouble for a prescribed period."

Wingnut! Don't shoot!

An American Carol

.@Reuters Photo: Police form a line in the street under a holiday sign in Ferguson, Missouri -@BuzzFeedNews pic.twitter.com/95jnav2Lm3
— Mic (@micnews) November 25, 2014

Chuckie's In Love

For his sake, I hope Nate Silver can -- and does -- demand a retraction for this:

Nate Silver even singled out Todd as one TV pundit who was elevating campaign coverage.

Meanwhile, from the same article, the least shocking sentence ever written:

On a range of issues, from the stimulus to healthcare reform to Syria, Todd weighs in on how the process looked, while devoting barely a second’s thought to the policy’s merits.

That's because weak-chin Chuck hasn't ever had a thought about a policy's merits. It's not that he's incapable of understanding ideas and their consequences.  It's that he doesn't give a shit about policy. Only losers need policy.  As long as Chuckles has skybox access, where he can chat up his paymasters and his fellow fat and pasty thought leaders about sports scores, the possibility that a policy might lead to a thousand deaths or the denial of fundamental rights for Todd's fellow citizens won't enter his misshapen little head. 

Objectivity demands ignorance. 

The Mercury Lining

If only the hack Kaus had endorsed more Republicans.

Warning: Link goes to a hairless nut.