Even worse than I could have imagined

Over at Balloon Juice comes this additional factoid about Minuteman Zealot, Family slaughtering asshole JT Ready...he knew how the Michelle Malkins, Drudges, and Instapundits of the world work in plotting his final act.

The Arizona Republic reported the victims were Ready’s girlfriend, her daughter, the daughter’s boyfriend and the daughter’s 18-month-old baby. Ready still somehow managed to use the event to blame immigrants even after his death. A posting on his Facebook page appeared hours after the massacre took place.

“Reports are unconfirmed that a cartel assassination squad murdered JT Ready and several of his friends and family this afternoon in Gilbert Arizona,” the posting said. “This page’s admin will keep you updated of the situation as soon as possible.”

What is a better trending topic than "creepy" and "illiterate?"

About that rapture thing...

Just so you know

The next right-wing jackass who wants to bomb Iran because they are in league with Al Qaeda here is the status of their relationship in the Spring of 2011 from the soon to be fishfood Osama bin Laden:

The third section discusses al-Qa`ida’s relationship with Iran and Pakistan. With respect to Iran, the documents show that it is an antagonistic relationship, largely based on indirect and unpleasant negotiations over the release of detained jihadis and their families, including members of Bin Ladin’s family.

This, of course, is what policy analyst who give a shit have been saying for more than a decade...Neo-Cons, not so much.

The Rapture, or hell, a giant meteor, cannot come soon enough

I know that handy little things to make life easier are nice and important but really?

Tired of getting your hands all greasy when greasing up a baking dish or pan before putting it in the oven? Maybe you want an easier way to butter your toast in the morning? This hack takes an old—and very clean—roll-on deodorant container, some melted butter, and a little patience and gives you an actual roll-on butter pen, perfect for all of your fat-making needs.

You are too lazy to take a butter-knife, slice off a hunk of butter and put in in a hot pan and then shake it around? Really?

How about this...he stands up and says "You assholes really have some goddamned nerve"

Like Obama would ever deign to say such a thing...but a person can dream.  What a self-satisfied prick:

One of the guests raised his hand; he knew how to solve the problem. The president had won plaudits for his speech on race during the last campaign, the guest noted. It was a soaring address that acknowledged white resentment and urged national unity. What if Obama gave a similarly healing speech about class and inequality? What if he urged an end to attacks on the rich? Around the table, some people shook their heads in disbelief.

Yeah, uh, how do I put this diplomatically.

Oh yes.

"Fuck you, you fucking fuck"

Isn't this pretty much the 24/7 speech of the Romney campaign anyhow?

I wonder if Newt Gingrich woke up this morning

And decided he's going to run for President of the next available country.  Maybe Mexico?

I guess it beats "Waste Management"

I know few people give a crap in this country about the football that actually uses the feet almost exclusive, but I'll take my petty ironies where I can get them.

One of the more famous teams in a now decrepit league, the Scottish Premier League, are the Glasgow Rangers...or simply "Rangers". Due to a sport that competes for players internationally and with no monetary controls (free market baby) and a collapsing TV contract (because while people love soccer, they don't love Scottish soccer) they are bankrupt and in administration where they are either bought or collapse.

So who rides to the rescue to get this team out of the ditch?  An American Tow Truck tycoon.

It is like Downton Abbey where everyone is an in-bred cousin of Branson.

I guess it beats Bain Capital.

Self-centered much?

John Cole has Andrew Sullivan summarized in one pithy post.

I had to settle simply for video.

What a fucked up movement

For at least the second time in the last couple years one of these gun-crazy, right-wing Arizona border obsessives has managed to shoot and kill an entire family including an 18-month old child
(but I bet this ass was "pro-life"!).

Modern 'Murica

Well clearly this makes absolutely all the sense in the world:

In the politically-charged and likely protest-filled streets of Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention in August, water guns will be strictly prohibited. Concealed handguns, on the other hand, will be perfectly legal...

Specifically no...

...super soaker" water guns, sticks, poles, portable shields or glass bottles.

No "portable shields"...you take that bullet in the body the way God and the Second Amendment intended.

[cross-posted ... in part ... at Firedoglake]

Here's what I get from Barack Obama, young man about town

One -- at 22 he was far more smooth and sophisticated than I have ever been in my 47 years.

Two -- he's a significant upgrade over Commander Codpiece at any age as well.  Shall we ever recover from love poetry where his most demanding rhyme scheme is words that go with "Lump"?

Anyone who's pet name for their wife is "Lump" should not only not be President but should never ever have their penis in anything other than their right hand.

"Not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company" part ad infinitum

Look who recently stated:

Murdoch said that The Sun was the purest representation of himself anyone could find in the press: "if you want to judge my thinking, look at the Sun."

And he is undoubtedly correct...as look at the Sun today, mocking England's newly named Manager for the national soccer team:

Making fun of someone's speech impediment on the front page of your prestige paper.

That's certainly handy at judging Rupert's thinking.

BTW, Roy Hodgson speech impediment or no, can speak five languages -- which is a quintet more than Sean Hannity.

What's the bigger scandal

The fact that self-proclaimed "everywoman" Ann Romney was wearing a $900 t-shirt -- or that this particularly hideous t-shirt costs $900?

Seriously, what does that depict, parakeet 69ing?

At least Edwards got a decent haircut for his extravagance.

Maybe in Europe

Krugman is, of course, right that austerity was a horrible idea and has been shown to be so in practice and is getting rejected now in Europe.

But in the United States, I fear, not so much. Without quality economic reporting from our 24/7 talking heads and our business cable networks focused solely on the portfolios of the 1% we have not yet been so educated. The Republicans will not rest until its gated communities versus the rest of us.

Another Republican victory for intolerance

Last week I wrote about the Romney press operative who should never have been hired because, well, even among press flacks he's a well-known asshole.

Oh, he's also gay -- and the GOP base cannot have that.

Rubin adds that “officials from the Romney campaign and respected Republicans not on the campaign contacted Ric Grenell over the weekend in an attempt to persuade him not to leave the campaign.” Grenell was upset that there was no public statement of support for him “by the campaign and no supportive social conservatives were enlisted to calm the waters.”

So again, he had to resign because he is gay. As opposed to not being hired in the first place because again, he' an asshole -- but of course those are the qualities that made him a perfect Romney team member:

 Former Reuters reporter Irwin Arieff told HuffPost that Grenell "often lied," adding that he was the "most dishonest and deceptive press person" he'd worked with in over two decades on the job.

Hey look 1913 called

People dumb enough to be entrapped by the FBI unite!

Five alleged anarchists have been arrested after a months-long sting operation, charged with plotting to blow up a bridge in the Cleveland area, the FBI announced Tuesday.

What, were they tired of being juggalos?

Which is the greater line befitting FoxNews from an authoritive agency

Is it?

"Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company"

Or is it?

[Fox News] is "wholly without merit, both factually and legally."

Virginia is for lovers, you leave that shit at the border when you visit Tennessee

Tennessee, the land that time, humor and rationality forgot has passed themselves another mighty fine piece of ledge-ooh-slay-shin:

The Tennessee Legislature on Friday sent a bill to Gov. Bill Haslam’s desk that, according to the Tennessean, would require sex-ed classes to “exclusively and emphatically” promote abstinence and ban teachers and outside groups from promoting “gateway sexual activity.” The bill defines “gateway sexual activity” as: “sexual conduct encouraging an individual to engage in a non-abstinent behavior.”

No kissing, no hugging, no looking and of course...

Self-Awareness Watch...

Oh boy, here we go, John McCain:

(Y)ou know the thing about heroes, they don't brag

Which is either hilarious...or quite accurate considering this is a guy whose "Auto"-biography is all about portraying himself as a selfless (and not at all self-promotional) hero who deserved to be elected President in 2008 for that reason alone.

Sounds like the right guy to run the American right-wing though...

The British Parliament gives Rupert and company a gigantic "Fawkes You!":

“We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company”

Re-branding

In a bizarre story, (what else is there with this guy anyway, other than weird or frightening stories?) Osama bin Laden thought that al-Qaeda had an image problem (ya' think?) and thought a name-change, or rebranding would help.

There's nothing in the story that says what he was thinking of changing it to, but I'm going to guess, "Qwikster".*



(*oh a little something for us nerds)

The Chemical War on Women

When we last saw short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump he was embarrassing America in Scotland by declaring wind-power the worst thing that ever happened to that country. 

Somehow a nation that had to deal with the Romans, the Vikings, the English, the black death, starvation -- and when not starving -- haggis,  laughed at him.

Trump the self-proclaimed self-made man inherited only two things: four-hundred million dollars and no sense of shame -- so he returned to this country to be laughed at further. 

Surely when you see Donald Trump you look at him and say, now there's a man who knows a quality women's perfume...an "ewww" de toilette if you will:


And just think, if Trump somehow floats himself as a Vice Presidential nominee he can talk about how he's the best smelling potential running mate.  Which is yet another moronic statement because we all know that would be Chris Christie.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Or as Karl Rove and Mitt Romney would say...

Obama's quite a disappointing underachiever!

Untouched by Irony, but definitely touched by bullshity

Old Man John McCain, who spent most of the 2008 campaign saying he "had a secret plan to get Osama Bin Laden" that Obama did not not, is now angry that Obama is claiming credit for a decision to kill Bin Laden that in the past Mitt Romney had no interest in making.

Which is rather rich, in and of itself. But considering that other Republicans are now whining this...knowing that their standard-bearer deliberately trumped up terror warnings in 2004 to curb any momentum Kerry had from the Democratic National Convention, this is rather rich.

Obama is claiming some credit for something that actually did happen -- not creating some fictional "shit your pants on pain of death" bullshit.

Oh, something for Fox & Friends

To deal with awkwardly.

One theory is that homosexual urges, when repressed out of shame or fear, can be expressed as homophobia. Freud famously called this process a “reaction formation” — the angry battle against the outward symbol of feelings that are inwardly being stifled. Even Mr. Haggard seemed to endorse this idea when, apologizing after his scandal for his anti-gay rhetoric, he said, “I think I was partially so vehement because of my own war.” 

It’s a compelling theory — and now there is scientific reason to believe it. In this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we and our fellow researchers provide empirical evidence that homophobia can result, at least in part, from the suppression of same-sex desire.

The Orange Man tells you all you need to know

About how Republicans feel about all 99% of us:

CROWLEY:Do you think that someone who is as wealthy as he is, who has had as much privilege as he is, has a hill to climb to overcome that?

BOEHNER: No. The American people don’t want to vote for a loser.

Nobody wants to vote for a "loser", like you Mr. and Ms. voter.

Oh, that's not good

I imagine if you are behind in the polls there might be worst news to come out, but you'd have to think about it for a while:

A left-wing political website, Mediapart, claims to have documentary evidence that Mr Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign received 50m euros ($66m) from the Gaddafi regime.

The document - dated 2006 and written in Arabic - appears to have been signed by the then Libyan foreign intelligence chief Musa Kusa.

It refers to an "agreement in principle to support the campaign for the candidate for the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a sum equivalent to 50m euros."

Sarkozy denies this with the classic retort that he didn't like Gaddafi a few years later...which, of course, is the defense a series of American Presidents could have made about Saddam Hussein.

Maybe the message to the world's despots is, there's no honor among western politicians when it comes to bombing for poll numbers. Keep that in mind Koch Brothers.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

USA! USA! USA!

Huzzah, the Republicans have really won!

Shake that Etch-a-Sketch

The man who coined that phrase provides a perfect example of it -- rewriting history in 180 degree swaths:

Top Mitt Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom vowed that President Obama's auto bailout was the GOP presidential hopeful's idea...

 Fehrnstrom's Saturday comments marked a different drawing on the auto bailout than what Romney penned in a November 2008 New York Times op-ed. Headlined "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,"

Maybe some more people should look into this?

Boy, when it comes to "sound" decisions nobody ever fucked it up like the Bush II Administration:

Iron Man, whose unit also developed original intelligence on al-Qaeda targets, which determined that the "most likely buildings to be attacked in the U.S." were the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, claimed JFIC was told to stop tracking Bin Laden, suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, and members of the Taliban some months prior to 9/11.

"Iron Man"? Was Cheney's real Secret Service moniker "Nick Fury"?

Negative editorials from the Washington Post to follow

Good, now go after them for the population at large:

In front of thousands of service members, President Obama today signed an executive order aimed at protecting veterans from for-profit educational institutions trying to "swindle" and "hoodwink" them instead of providing the education they deserve.

Yeah, about that

Yesterday John McCain took to the Senate floor and shook his fist in the air at the sky and proclaimed there is "no Republican War against Women". Meanwhile in reality: The Violence Against Women Act was renewed by a vote of 68 to 31.

The 31 votes against looked like this, obviously all Republican and naturally...:

But it got Cheney's calcified rocks off so...

There's a reason so many people condemn torture because it is ineffective and it is...y'know...torture:

A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh "enhanced interrogation techniques" the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.

People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.

It is pathetic that the Republicans did not join in this report, but then many of them are little Cheney's themselves.

A little common deception amongst friends

Oft-mentioned potential VP nominee Marco Rubio is, by Republican standards, a moderate on immigration. Perhaps in large part because of a portion of his family's history he may not wish to dwell on. It seems that his maternal grandfather came to the United States illegally during the Batista Regime. Three years later when Castro came to power he saw an opportunity and went back to Cuba to try to take advantage.

Three years later, and now disaffected, the same grandfather hopped on to an airplane for the United States without a visa.  Once here, he was adjudicated to be in the United States illegally.  However, he remained in the United States and gained legal residency in 1967 -- by lying about when he came to the country, saying it was 1965. In other words, an illegal aliens -- in Antonin Scalia's words "a virtual bank robber."

These facts are at variance with what Rubio long has claimed as his background -- though he himself, obviously, is an American citizen (I won't even demand the long-form certificate), he embellished his family's history -- even more than usual -- and made it a political tool for his ascension.

But the most telling aspect of this is how Marco Rubio's story would play out were his family not historically from Cuba, but Mexico. You know, like Mitt Romney's family.

Oh never mind, they are both Republicans. They weren't born in an exotic, non-American place like Hawaii.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]