September 1, 2010
GEORGE WASHINGTON : FOUNDING HERMAPHRODITE
By Elvis Dingeldein.
When it’s time to change my Garage Band name (right now it’s Cackle of Rads), I’m so going with George Washington’s Cameltoe. See, I’m doing some research for a New Project I’m Excited About This Week But Will Ultimately Abandon Because I Have The Attention Span of a Four Year-Old, and while browsing some paintings of His Excellency I’ve noticed that few artists could manage rendering his impressive frame without a noticeable cameltoe. Could it be that the Father of Our Country had a mangina?
YOU DECIDE!
Continue reading "GEORGE WASHINGTON : FOUNDING HERMAPHRODITE"
Filed under: cameltoe || Elvis Dingeldein || George Washington || history
Posted By Elvis | September 1, 2010 2:45 PM | Comments (7)
BITCHIN' PHOTO THING OF THE DAY
By Elvis Dingeldein.
When I'm Galactically Bored I'll spend a half hour or so browsing the incredible Flickr stream of White House photographs, which I still can't believe they allow. But today I have a new favorite thing to do when I should be working: NASA COMMONS PHOTOS, HUZZAH!
Here's one of my favorites, an amazing shot of the Apollo 11 launch:
What I love about this photo on the NASA Flickr stream is that some Astronerd annotated the little foamy cloudburst around the rocket's second stage thusly: "Prandtl-Glauert singularity creating the shock collar around the Saturn V's second stage." Oh my GOD that's awesome Nerd Talk!
Be sure to check it out. H/T Super Punch.
Filed under: awesomeness || Elvis Dingeldein || NASA || pictures
Posted By Elvis | September 1, 2010 1:15 PM | Comments (1)
The Vanity Fair Profile of Sarah Palin
I'm going to be late for everything today because I can't stop reading this new profile of Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair.
The obvious money quote:
...anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath.
For example, Palin evidently has an insane temper.
Warm and effusive in public, indifferent or angry in private: this is the pattern of Palin’s behavior toward the people who make her life possible. A onetime gubernatorial aide to Palin says, “The people who have worked for her—they’re broken, used, stepped on, down in the dust.” On the 2008 campaign trail, one close aide recalls, it was practically impossible to persuade Palin to take a moment to thank the kitchen workers at fund-raising dinners. During the campaign, Palin lashed out at the slightest provocation, sometimes screaming at staff members and throwing objects. Witnessing such behavior, one aide asked Todd Palin if it was typical of his wife. He answered, “You just got to let her go through it… Half the stuff that comes out of her mouth she doesn’t even mean.” When a campaign aide gingerly asked Todd whether Sarah should consider taking psychiatric medication to control her moods, Todd responded that she “just needed to run and work out more.” Her anger kept boiling over, however, and eventually the fits of rage came every day. Then, just as suddenly, her temper would be gone. Palin would apologize and promise to be nicer. Within hours, she would be screaming again. At the end of one long day, when Palin was mid-tirade, a campaign aide remembers thinking, “You were an angel all night. Now you’re a devil. Where did this come from?”
I'm only about a quarter of the way through, and I'm sure there will be more bits of awesomeness.
UPDATE: She apparently didn't know who Margaret Thatcher was:
Early in the 2008 campaign, when John McCain’s aides discovered that Alaska-size gaps existed in Palin’s general knowledge (among those previously unreported: she had no idea who Margaret Thatcher was), they from time to time would give her some books to read in hopes of improving the candidate’s learning curve.
Filed under: Sarah Palin
Posted By Bob Cesca | September 1, 2010 10:53 AM | Comments (22)
Don't Worry. History Will Note the Iraq Blunders
The president's address last night was appropriate and dignified -- as good as it gets for summarizing the end of a seven-year mistake. How else do you button up the end of a successful fix to a phenomenal blunder? We should never have been there in the first place, but we managed to get out of it. Okay, then, let's move forward.
In terms of the Bush/Cheney legacy on this thing, they still deserve nothing but our collective scorn and shame. Why should they get any sort of kudos for this? The Bush administration's last moves on the war (the surge, the troop drawdown, etc.) had everything to do with cleaning up their own serious fuck ups. Do we suddenly applaud people who lied and cheated and were responsible for countless deaths -- just because they snapped to attention at the very end? I hope not.
And regarding these points, I don't understand why we expect President Obama to enumerate all of that Bush history every time he talks about Iraq. The president took the high road last night, and it fit the "turn the page" theme of the address. It was dignified and historic. Time to move on.
There are different roles for different levels of the political discourse. I'm fairly certain the president understands the dynamics of a movement and he personally doesn't have to break out the red meat in every speech, mainly because there are people like you, me and thousands of others who have it covered. What's appropriate for us to cover might not be appropriate for the president to cover. As disjointed as the modern progressive movement might seem, we're all part of a team with roles to play.
So, no, the president didn't bitch about the Bush administration the way we might talk about it on Twitter or on various blogs. And thank goodness for that.
Meanwhile, don't worry, history will take note of the Bush blunders. Likewise, history will take note of the countless other times the president has discussed the mistakes of the Iraq War.
Filed under: Bush Legacy || Iraq || President Obama || President Obama Accomplishments
Posted By Bob Cesca | September 1, 2010 9:22 AM | Comments (13)
Glenn Beck Lied to his Flock
During his lawn concert the other day, Glenn Beck told his congregation that he visited the National Archives where he "held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington."
Turns out, that's not entirely true.
Beck did receive a special VIP tour of the archives, arranged by an as-yet unidentified member of Congress. During that tour, he did get a peek inside the "legislative vault," which isn't open to ordinary visitors. But Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper insists that Beck didn't lay a finger on any precious documents, much less George Washington’s inaugural address. That would be a major violation of policy. "Those kinds of treasures are only handled by specially trained archival staff," she explains.
Way to "restore honor," Beck.
This isn't earth-shattering news, but it's indicative of the larger scam that Beck is getting away with.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | September 1, 2010 8:36 AM | Comments (8)
Morning Awesome
Full Metal Disney
NOT SAFE FOR WORK and Awesome Hall of Fame Nominee
Filed under: Awesome || Awesome Hall of Fame || Movies
Posted By Bob Cesca | September 1, 2010 6:09 AM | Comments (1)
August 31, 2010
All of the 90s Mayhem, Without the Prosperity
Krugman spells out the consequences should the Republican take the House:
We already know part of the answer: Politico reports that they’re gearing up for a repeat performance of the 1990s, with a “wave of committee investigations” — several of them over supposed scandals that we already know are completely phony. We can expect the G.O.P. to play chicken over the federal budget, too; I’d put even odds on a 1995-type government shutdown sometime over the next couple of years.It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too. The 1990s were a time of peace and prosperity; this is a time of neither. In particular, we’re still suffering the after-effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and we can’t afford to have a federal government paralyzed by an opposition with no interest in helping the president govern. But that’s what we’re likely to get.
Imagine all of that crap from the 1990s -- the nonsensical investigations, the impeachment, the ridiculous debates about school uniforms and midnight basketball, the government shutdown -- all piled on top of economically perilous circumstances. That's a Republican House majority.
If you're into endorsing an extended round of unserious GOP grabass, by all means, go into the voting booth growling and raging about communism and deficits and lean on the button for Republicans. If not, tell anyone who will listen to wise the hell up and do the smart thing.
Filed under: Election 2010 || Republicans
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 31, 2010 6:16 PM | Comments (33)
New Left Media at the Beck Concert
This is a brilliant and unfiltered cross-section of the Beck tea party people. Another home run for Chase Whiteside at New Left Media.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Ground Zero Mosque || Immigration || Teabaggers || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 31, 2010 3:32 PM | Comments (26)
Some Background on Beck's 'The Blaze'
On his radio show today, Glenn Beck revealed the inspiration behind his new Huffington knockoff site, The Blaze.
According to Beck, The Blaze is named after an 18th Century daily publication issued by a pudgy, cross-eyed Calvinist preacher named George Whitefield, arguably the founder of the American evangelical movement.
The modern iteration of Calvinism, by the way, is the basis for Christian Reconstructionism, a seriously disturbing effort to replace the Constitution with biblical theocratic law. Oh, and it's worth mentioning that Whitefield was staunchly pro-slavery. In fact, when slavery was outlawed in Georgia, Whitefield successfully lobbied to have it reinstated in 1751, arguing that it was crucial to the economy. He's good people. Inspirational!
Does all of this sound familiar?
And so we get Glenn Beck's The Blaze.
Adding... No. I didn't Photoshop the drawing of Whitefield.
Clarification... In response to a couple of emails -- this is NOT a joke post. Whitefield is real, he was really cross-eyed, he was really a Calvinist slavery supporter, that's an actual drawing of him, and Beck insists that The Blaze is inspired by Whitefield's daily pamphlets.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || History || Religion || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 31, 2010 1:46 PM | Comments (14)
A Majority of Republicans Are Crazy
This is just staggeringly dumb, while also being a solid indicator of the unseriousness of the modern Republican Party. The latest Newsweek poll via Sam Stein:
A majority of Republicans believe that President Barack Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world," according to a survey released on Monday. [...]A full 14 percent of Republicans said that it was "definitely true" that Obama sympathized with the fundamentalists and wanted to impose Islamic law across the globe. An additional 38 percent said that it was probably true -- bringing the total percentage of believers to 52 percent.
If you're an independent voter who's planning on voting for Republicans this year, think it over long and hard. You'd be voting for a slate of candidates who have no plans for the economy, who would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit in the form of handouts for the super rich (handouts which, by the way, won't grow the economy), who would endlessly investigate every aspect of the president's underpants in a McCarthy-style witch hunt, and who believe in wild conspiracy theories injected into the mainstream by con-men and extreme far-right paranoiacs. You might believe the Democrats are ineffectual or whatever, but weigh these options carefully.
Filed under: Election 2010 || Polls || Religion || Republicans
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 31, 2010 11:36 AM | Comments (15)
Beck Takes On the Huffington Post
Beck’s new site is called TheBlaze.com, and will be edited by Scott Baker, formerly of Breitbart TV and host of “The B-Cast”. [...]People will inevitably make the comparison to Arianna Huffington – whether Beck’s role as figurehead behind the site will make The Blaze into a conservative Huffington Post. “The one thing pretty clear around Mercury [Beck's company] is that Glenn is not short on ideas or hesitant on input,” Baker said. “His input is already evident in how the site looks, and that’s what will continue. It will be a continual flow of tips and suggestions and encouragement.”
The site is live here, complete with advertisements from the con-men at Goldline. The banner headline for the lead story is evidently not a joke:
EXPLICIT POETRY GPS PHONES HELP ILLEGALS
Huh?
At this point, Glennbeckistan is almost entirely self sustaining. News from "The Blaze," entertainment from GlennBeck.com, food from Survival Seeds and gold from Goldline. A Beck fan could survive on nothing but Beck for, like, a year now -- wrapped within the warm, blankety epistemic closure of the Beck empire.
Adding... Just noticed something about The Blaze's orange fire icon.
I thought it looked eerily familiar.
Glenn Beck is with the terrorists! IEEEEEEE!
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 31, 2010 9:08 AM | Comments (11)
Morning Awesome
Black Drawing Chalks - "My Favorite Way"
Directed by Marck Al
Filed under: Animation || Awesome || Music
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 31, 2010 6:08 AM | Comments (1)
August 30, 2010
Americans Want Investigations, Inaction
Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.
So apparently 51 percent of Americans believe that Darrell Issa investigations of the president and a paralysis of all other congressional business will create jobs and spur robust economic growth.
Actually, these people think they're voting to 1) punish the Democrats and 2) do something about the economy when, in reality, they're going to punish everyone with more Reaganomics -- deregulation and trickle-down bailouts (tax cuts) for the super rich. In the most immediate sense, a renewal of the Bush tax cuts alone would amount to a $3 million handout to each of the 120,000 wealthiest Americans -- money that would expand the deficit and never trickle down to anyone.
They just don't understand. It's basic math. It's basic history. But what should we expect when most of the angriest Americans don't know the difference between TARP and the Recovery Act.
Adding... Newsweek doesn't believe Democratic prospects are so awful.
As Democrats prepare for considerable losses in the November elections, there’s reason to believe the party in power may not be headed for the bloodbath it might expect. According to a new NEWSWEEK Poll, President Obama’s approval rating—47 percent—indicates that the party is better off this year than Republicans were in 2006, when the GOP lost 30 House seats, and than the Democrats were in 1994, when they lost 52 House seats.
I should note here that my post had more to do with the ass-backwards ideas of some American voters and less to do with any predictions of the actual outcome of the election.
Filed under: Deficit || Economy || Election 2010 || Jobs || Polls || Stimulus
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 7:47 PM | Comments (13)
The Incredible Inedible Egg
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Food and Drug Administration investigators have found rodents, seeping manure and even maggots at the Iowa egg farms believed to be responsible for as many as 1,500 cases of salmonella poisoning.FDA officials released their initial observations of the ongoing investigations at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms on Monday. The two farms recalled more than half a billion eggs after salmonella illnesses were linked to their products earlier this month.
Whenever I read about discoveries like this, I wonder whether or not the free market would handle it the same way. And the answer is a resounding "not a chance in hell."
ht Ashby
Filed under: FDA || Food || Food Reform
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 6:49 PM | Comments (9)
We Don't Need to Use Beck's Tactics
The wingnut outrage of the day happens to be one I kind of sympathize with. Apparently a Huffington Post contributor wrote an item today which offered a $100,000 reward for either Glenn Beck's phone records or (barf) a Glenn Beck sex tape. The editors at Huffington Post wisely removed the piece.
You know my views on Beck and his ongoing scam. But this post crossed the line. Personal lives should be off limits. Not only does it violate this very basic rule, but it knocks us off the high ground and makes our "side" look just as bad as when Beck and others stalk children and noncombatants, or when they mock the president's daughters.
It's just bad form. We ought to be able to debunk what Beck says and expose the shady aspects of his professional life without reaching into Beck's own bag of dirty tricks.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 5:33 PM | Comments (11)
A Mormon Leading a Christian Revival. That's Rich.
A conservative Christian friend of mine posted this today:
I get very uncomfortable when I see Christians go to a Glenn Beck rally where Beck is invoking God. Whatever we have in common with him politically, Mormons are decidedly outside of Christianity.
I honestly believe that most of Beck's fans don't know about his Mormonism.
Steve Benen pulled a similar observation from Christian Newswire:
Glenn Beck promotes a false gospel. However, many of his political ideas can help America.Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values. Mormonism is not a Christian denomination but a cult of Christianity.
Of course, both my friend and the Christian Newswire are wrong about the politics and the "Judeo-Christian values" thing (Natural Law was the major foundation for the Constitution), but the religious pegging of Beck falls in line with the Christian view of the LDS.
So when Glenn Beck talks about President Obama's notion of Christian theology being a "perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ," I can only respond to Beck by asking, "When you said that on Fox News Sunday, were you wearing your magic underpants?"
Adding... By way of clarification, and prompted by a reader who happens to be Mormon, I want to underscore that my "magic underpants" joke above was more of a tweak of the Christian perception of Mormonism as a bizarre cult, and not necessarily my own views. In other words, I find it strange when accusations of religious "perversion" are lobbed around between different sects of Christianity (or whatever religious groups) as though one is more even-keeled than the other. Anyway, it always gets a little dodgy when a nonbeliever sticks his head into a fight between two religions, which is one of the reasons why I don't write about it much.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 4:14 PM | Comments (15)
Worst Persons in the World
While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems.For 40 days after a piece of equipment critical to the refinery’s operation broke down, a total of 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including the carcinogen benzene, poured out of the refinery.
Rather than taking the costly step of shutting down the refinery to make repairs, the engineers at the plant diverted gases to a smokestack and tried to burn them off, but hundreds of thousands of pounds still escaped into the air, according to state environmental officials.
Neither the state nor the oil company informed neighbors or local officials about the pollutants until two weeks after the release ended, and angry residents of Texas City have signed up in droves to join a $10 billion class-action lawsuit against BP. The state attorney general, Greg Abbott, has also sued the company, seeking fines of about $600,000.
$600,000?! Really?! Why don't they just send BP to its room without supper? As with most corporate criminals, the punishments never match the crimes. But, of course, upping the penalties and regulations would be a sign of the socialist Obama apocalypse.
Filed under: BP || Climate Crisis || Environment || Oil Drilling || Worst Person
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 2:51 PM | Comments (3)
The Glenn Beck Con Job
While it's fun to play the crowd-size game, the real numbers we should be investigating when it comes to Glenn Beck are the dollar figures.
How much did the event cost? We don't know. Will Bunch, in The Backlash, writes about an early estimate of $2 million, half of which would be financed by Beck himself. But who knows at this point? The entire theme of the event has since changed.
There's also the Kennedy Center event on Friday, in addition to the massive expense of renting half of the National Mall for a day, plus equipment, talent fees, security, travel and so forth. Sarah Palin alone charges $75,000 for a speaking engagement. What's the total amount of the overhead?
How much did Beck claim to raise for the SOWF charity? He says it's $5.5 million on his website, but the website also notes in the fine print that all donations will go towards financing the event first before being donated to SOWF. So is the $5.5 million over and above the cost of the event? In other words, did Beck seriously raise the entire overhead plus $5.5 million for the charity? That's a lot.
The skeleton key in all of this is obviously Beck's history of doing business with shady sponsors. Goldline, also documented in Bunch's book, has scammed countless Beck followers out of their money. One in particular wanted to buy $5000 in gold, but only received $3400 in actual gold. The rest of her "investment" went to fees and the overvalued price she paid Goldline for the coins. So this Beck fan would have to see a huge increase in the price of gold just to break even.
Meanwhile, the Survival Seeds people, another major Beck sponsor, are snake-oil salesmen. Their previous business was being investigated by the FTC for outrageous claims about the diet properties of a ridiculous gunk that oozes from rocks in the Himalayas (see also Himalayan weight loss).
Follow the money.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 1:17 PM | Comments (4)
Good News for 2012
Republicans love Sarah Palin, but the rest of the country doesn't. By a large margin.
According to the new survey from Vanity Fair and CBS News' 60 Minutes, only 1 in 4 of all adults thinks Palin is qualified to be commander-in-chief while 60 percent say she is not.By a narrow 47-40 percent margin however, Republicans do feel Palin has the right stuff to be president.
This could mean that she wins the nomination (I think she will) and get destroyed in the general.
And Oliver Willis notes an oddity in the poll:
2% in this poll think Sarah Palin is a Muslim.
Where's the birth certificate? What's her real middle name?
Filed under: Election 2012 || Sarah Palin
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 10:29 AM | Comments (25)
Beck the Televangelist
The lawn concert on Saturday turned out to be a massive Christian revival -- complete with financial bilking (but that's a different story). And there was a lesser known event Friday night at the Kennedy Center called "America’s Divine Destiny" that was even more religious than the concert itself. At this event, Beck established what, exactly, he was selling.
“We are 12 hours away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. It has nothing to do with this city or politics, it has everything to do with God Almighty.”
...So please give generously. Wow. That's amazing. How exactly is he expecting to do this? He might as well have said, "We're 12 hours from pooping rainbows and flying a rocket ship to the chocolate galaxy." It would have been equally as realistic. But that's the money-maker. Promising huge things to people who are vulnerable to believe. Exploiting their naiveté.
The weirdest aspect of Beck as a televangelist is that he's a Mormon. Most of the evangelical community, and many Christians, believe that Mormonism is a cult.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Religion || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 8:46 AM | Comments (9)
Morning Awesome
The Von Bondies - "Pale Bride"
Filed under: Awesome || Music
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 30, 2010 6:08 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2010
Second Stimulus
Laura Tyson is a member of the Obama administration's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and she wrote an op/ed for the New York Times titled "Why We Need a Second Stimulus."
Two forms of spending with the biggest and quickest bang for the buck are unemployment benefits and aid to state governments. The federal government should pledge generous financing increases for both programs through 2011.
Let's get going. Tyson is referencing the following multipliers (or similar numbers):
Naturally, they have to stick it hard to the deficit-reduction fetishists. But the polls are on the side of a second stimulus (by large margins) and the economic climate makes another stimulus mandatory.
I'm just glad someone in the White House is talking publicly about more spending.
Filed under: Deficit || Economy || Jobs || Stimulus
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 29, 2010 8:51 PM | Comments (16)
Mosque Opponents Torch Site
Not the Park51 site, but the location of the mosque in Tennessee.
Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.
Vigilantes using terrorism to fight what they perceive to be terrorism. I never thought I'd write this but George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani need to go on television and urge the far-right to ease off this issue. Enough is enough. These are possibly the only two men in America who might be able to get through to the freaks who want a holy war against Islam.
Filed under: 9/11 || Ground Zero Mosque || Religion || Republicans || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 29, 2010 11:50 AM | Comments (18)
87,000 Suckers
Like any good faith-healer revival, Glenn Beck exploited and scammed thousands of people out of their money yesterday using common televangelist tricks of the trade, vague inspirational poster buzzwords and the American troops.
I'd be shocked if there weren't at least a few thousand suckers leaving Washington right now asking themselves, "Um. What was that?" From what I've read, nothing was accomplished except for a massive stroking of Beck's ego. Was there anything in Beck's speech that hasn't been said on his shows a dozen times over? In fact, between the 87,000 people in attendance and the 81,000 or so Ustream viewers, there were far fewer people watching yesterday's concert than a typical episode of his TV show -- on a bad day.
In other words, he could have accomplished the same claptrap on his show, and done so with a larger audience. Yesterday's concert was merely an extended episode of the TV show without the chalkboard, googly-eyed sarcasm and Nazi imagery -- there was no unique message, no grand announcement. Nothing. And so, again, what was accomplished?
Perhaps the Special Operations Warrior Foundation donations?
It turns out that everyone who donated money yesterday were tricked. Shocker. All of the estimated $5 million in donations are earmarked to pay for the event first and the troops get the leftovers. So most of that money pays for Beck's ego-stroking and if there's any money that falls into the seat cushions of Beck's limo, well that money goes to the SOWF. Nice.
How do we know this? The fine print buried at the bottom of the official Glenn Beck website:
"All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place August 28, 2010. All contributions in excess of these costs will be retained by SOWF."
Suckers. Courtesy of Heather at C&L;, here's Beck getting all weepy about a $600,000 donation which ostensibly would go to the troops, but actually will help pay for the concert.
There needs to be a full accounting of the cost of the event and how much money was actually donated to the SOWF. Beck is claiming all of the $5 million raised was donated.
With your support and help we were able to raise more than $5-million dollars for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.
But clearly the fine print tells us something else. What was Sarah Palin's fee? What was the fee to rent the land from the (evil progressive) National Park Service? What was the real amount of the donation to the SOWF?
Of course none of that would matter to Beck's disciples who would probably blame Woodrow Wilson.
If you have an opportunity to pick up the underrated Steve Martin movie Leap of Faith (Debra Winger and Liam Neeson are also quite good), you should definitely check it out in the context of Beck's scam. There's also a recent documentary called A Question of Miracles about faith-healers, featuring the king of all grifters, Benny Hinn. I've posted both parts of the doc after the jump...
Continue reading "87,000 Suckers"
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 29, 2010 7:43 AM | Comments (26)
Morning Awesome
The Empire Strikes Back - The Silent Film Version
Filed under: Awesome || Star Wars
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 29, 2010 6:07 AM
August 28, 2010
America Wants More Stimulus
The just-released Newsweek poll:
"Which one of the following do you think should have the higher priority for policy-makers in Washington right now:37% Reducing the federal budget deficit
57% Federal spending to create jobs
6% Don't know
Can we cut the shit with the deficit hooey now?
Filed under: Deficit || Economy || Jobs || Polls || Stimulus
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 28, 2010 7:30 PM | Comments (10)
Lawn Concert Open Thread
I'm going to be sporadically away from the internet today, so just in case, here's an open thread for you.
A couple of fun links in preparation for the wingnut faith-healer revival at the Lincoln Memorial.
How MLK fits into Glenn Beck's chalkboard
And here's the source for Beck's speech today.
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 28, 2010 9:47 AM | Comments (52)
Morning Awesome
MST3K Saturday - "Mitchell"
Filed under: Awesome || MST3K
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 28, 2010 6:01 AM
August 27, 2010
Tomorrow's Glenn Beck Book Launch
Just a reminder to Glenn Beck fans who are planning on attending tomorrow's lawn concert: "restoring honor" and all of the inspirational poster slogans found in this video are merely incidental.
When Beck first announced the August 28 event, it was meant to launch "The Plan," which is also the title of his forthcoming book.
And that's what it's all about. It's very likely a big promotional event for his book. It's like those car dealership mailers announcing that you've won up to a $1000 -- but it's actually just a scam to fish you into the dealership, and the up to $1000 is just a rebate on a purchase.
UPDATE: It turns out I'm mostly correct here. Via Linkins:
(The event was originally billed as the unveiling of a new Beck book called "The Plan," which would outline steps to take over the next 100 years to "restore our great country." That was later scrapped for a vague focus on restoring honor.)
And -- whoops -- "The Plan" evidently has another meaning in DC's black community.
In their 1981 book "Perspectives of Political Power in the District of Columbia," Charles W. Harris and Alvin Thornton write that many blacks believe that at some point around the mid-1970s, whites made a decision to return to the District. "Some blacks refer to the situation as 'The Plan' -- a strategy by whites to 'repossess the city,'" they wrote. "Again, whether or not any such overt decision was made by whites in this regard, the result was the same -- a gradual uprooting of blacks, circumstantially forcing them out of the District."
Filed under: Glenn Beck || Glenn Beck is a Faker || Wingnuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 27, 2010 10:00 PM | Comments (1)
Speaking of Fire
New record for the climate crisis!
Overall July 2010 was the second-warmest on record, next to 1998, and this June was the warmest on record, NOAA says. July was the 305th consecutive month with an average global temperature above the 20th-century average. The last month with below-average temperatures was February 1985.
305 consecutive months. And the climate/energy bill is dead.
Filed under: Climate Crisis || Environment
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 27, 2010 8:37 PM | Comments (2)
Firing the Heroes
Maybe extending the tax cuts for Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will solve this:
Fire departments around the nation are cutting jobs, closing firehouses and increasingly resorting to “rolling brownouts” in which they shut different fire companies on different days as the economic downturn forces many cities and towns to make deep cuts that are slowing their responses to fires and other emergencies.Philadelphia began rolling brownouts this month, joining cities from Baltimore to Sacramento that now shut some units every day. San Jose, Calif., laid off 49 firefighters last month. And Lawrence, Mass., north of Boston, has laid off firefighters and shut down half of its six firehouses, forcing the city to rely on help from neighboring departments each time a fire goes to a second alarm.
But Hussein Obama has to stop spending, spending, spending and stealing from our children's children. Instead, we should leave them vulnerable to horrible burning deaths. We must restore honor! Flag! Founders! Pie! Lawn chairs!
Via John Cole -- for the second time today.
Filed under: Economy || Jobs || Stimulus
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 27, 2010 7:25 PM | Comments (2)
Super Stupid
With the economy rapidly weakening, some senior Democrats are having second thoughts about raising taxes on the nation's wealthiest families and are pressing party leaders to consider extending the full array of Bush administration tax cuts, at least through next year.
First of all, the Democrats aren't planning on "raising taxes." Bad reporting. The Republican expiration date for the tax cuts will take effect. That's all. The Democrats are under no obligation to "extend" or perpetuate a deadline that the Bush administration and the congressional Republicans established nine years ago. None.
But the most frustrating thing here is the Democrats acquiescing once again to a nonsense Republican meme. Extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent will not stimulate the economy and will only spike the deficit by $670 billion.
If anything, why not use that $670 billion in deficit spending on actual stimulus -- an investment that'll return more than a dollar in stimulus for every dollar spent, instead of losing 48-cents on the dollar with the Bush tax cuts?
I guess that makes too much sense -- the notion of a good investment. Simple math and economics.
Filed under: Democrats || Economy || Stimulus || Tax Cuts
Posted By Bob Cesca | August 27, 2010 6:46 PM | Comments (9)
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