Porn Star Stormy Daniels to Challenge David “Diapers” Vitter?
Via TPM: “I defy you not to be charmed.”
And the fact is daniels IS charming. And funny: listen to her basically call Vitter a pervert, saying “I guess the biggest difference is I’m open with my sexual activity“, and then say he should be in jail, saying “i might be a porn star, but at least i haven’t done anything illegal. And I guess the big question is not just ‘why is David Vitter in office’ but ‘why is he not in jail’? I think he’s setting a horrible example…if they think thart I’m a better choice, what does that say?”
You go Stormy Daniels, you GO!
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman
I refuse to get breast implants. Tacky.
i DO, however, need a new mouse, as the little track ball in mine has trouble actually moving.
In Which Daily Kos Readers Colectively Fellate Rahm Emmanuel
The comments here are hilarious: seems the commentors at daily Kos think Rahm Emmanuel is the hottest thing since Brad Pitt, and then they get mad when a dick like me points out that Rahm is more than a bit oif a douchebag.
I mean, what can one say to comments like:
he is killer handsome. Strange, I don’t react that way very often, but he has this brazen, brash look about him, although he is a little short.
He looks like the quintessential bad boy. The guy your father just hated to see walk through the door. We all know one - handsome, but not classically so, brash, but not too brash, and with just the right amount of charm, but with that air of dangerousness.
The guy you’re never quite sure about - is he going to kiss your hand, or break your arm?
One thing for sure - you sure don’t want to cross him, because you know if he decides to get you, you’re well and truly gotten.
….the guy I always fell in love with. And married.
Ohhhhhh, yessssss (tingle, tingle).
…and on and on. For this guy:
There are a few more things that mysteriously did not make their way into what purported to be a comprehensive piece on the President’s Chief of staff:
• Conversations Rahm Had with Rod Blagojevich over his House seat which were taped by the FBI but not addressed in Greg Craig’s memo on White House contacts, the fact that he is mentioned in Fitzgerald’s complaint against Blagojevich as “President-elect Advisor” or that this will almost certainly continue to haunt him as the case against Blagojevich proceeds.
• How Rahm as head of the DCCC infuriated immigration rights advocates by haranguing congressional candidates to “move right” on immigration, pushed Heath Shuler into putting forward the enforcement-only SAVE Act and then strong armed freshmen into co-sponsoring it, or how it triggered a revolt of the Hispanic caucus on the House floor that he’s now trying to repair in the wake of Hispanic support for Obama in ‘08.
• Rahm’s predilection for giving unfortunate press conferences, including the one in 07 where he hailed the passage of the Supplemental as “the beginning of the end of the President’s policy in Iraq,” saying it “ends the blank check on more troops, more money and more of the same, and it begins the notion that we have to have a new direction to Iraq that has accountability” (see YouTube). …
• Republicans attribute their ability to hold formation against the stimulus bill to their universal hatred of Rahm, making him a strange choice for Chief of Staff in a White House that has committed itself to bipartisanship. Anybody ask how the President felt when Rahm held a press conference saying his commitment to bipartisanship was just for show, a huge mistake they’d never make again, and even though they’re still a few votes shy of 60 Democrats in the Senate henceforth the Republicans could all kiss his ass?
A lot of lefties like to call Daily Kos “Big Orange” because of its color scheme. For this particular post, I think “Big Sticky Bleachy Smell” is more fitting.
Shorter Barney Frank: “I Sure Hope My Constituents Are Stupid.”
Apparently, it was gossip site TMZ that broke the stroy of northern Rock’s big party on the taxpayer’s dime:
A bank that received $1.6 billion in bailout money just spent a fortune last week in L.A. hosting a series of lavish parties and concerts with famous singers … and TMZ cameras caught it all.
Northern Trust, a Chicago-based bank, sponsored the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club in L.A. We’re told Northern Trust paid millions to sponsor the PGA event which ended Sunday, but what happened off the golf course is even more shocking.
Northern Trust flew hundreds of clients and employees to L.A. and put many of them up at some of the fanciest and priciest hotels in the city. We’re told more than a hundred people were put up at the Beverly Wilshire in Bev Hills, and another hundred stayed at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Still more stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey and others at Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica.
Go visit TMZ for videos of Sheryl Crow and Chicago (ugh) and photos of swag bags from Tiffany’s, all paid for by you and me thanks to the bail handout from Congress.
This brings me to barney Frank, one of the architects of the bailout, and who knows better than anyone that there was nothing legislated to mandate how the bailout money was to be spent (compared to, for example, the strict mandates the auto industry has to meet). This was confirmed to me 20 minutes ago by a staff member at his office: there were no mandates, no benchmarks to meet, no legislation spelling out appropriate and inappropriate use of OUR MONEY. Nothing: the republicans and democrats, in a moment of bipartisan beauty, voted to simply fork over piles of cash to Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Northern Rock, and countless others.
Today, Barney Frank is hoping that grandstanding and sternly worded letters will fool his constituents into forgetting exactly who it was that passed a bill that essentially gave away $700 billion dollars to the banks that caused all of our problems to begin with. Read it and weep laugh derisively:
Mr. Frederick H. Waddell
President and Chief Executive Officer
Northern Trust
50 South LaSalle
Chicago, IL 60603Dear Mr. Waddell:
We are dismayed and angered to learn that Northern Trust recently spent millions of dollars on a PGA golf tournament sponsorship and associated parties at the same time it has taken over $1.5 billion in federal stabilization funding under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. According to published media reports, your bank not only sponsored the Northern Trust tournament at the Riviera Country Club, but also hosted clients and employees at places like the Beverly Wilshire and Ritz Carlton hotels and gave away Tiffany souvenirs. If this is accurate, we are demanding you take corrective action.
At a time when millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, businesses and consumers are in dire need of credit, and the government is trying to keep financial institutions – including yours – alive with billions in taxpayer funds, this behavior demonstrates extraordinary levels of irresponsibility and arrogance.
We insist that you immediately return to the federal government the equivalent of what Northern Trust frittered away on these lavish events. Federal taxpayers should not and will not stand for such abuses, and we will insist that any future Treasury support for Northern Trust be conditioned on a thorough reform of your company’s policies and practices.
We look forward to your reply and immediate reimbursement of these funds.
Sincerely,
Reps. Barney Frank, Carolyn Maloney, Brad Sherman, Dennis Moore, Wm Lacy Clay, Stephen F. Lynch, Brad Miller, Al Green, Gwen Moore, Paul W. Hodes, Keith Ellison, Charles Wilson, Bill Foster, Andre Carson, Mary Jo Kilroy, Steve Driehaus, Alan Grayson, Gary Peters
Honestly, does it get more deceitful than that? Barney Frank voted for a bill that gave away billions of dollars, no strings attached, and now he is strutting around, feigning outrage like Captain Renault in “Casablanca”, shocked to discover there’s gambling going on.
Memo to Massachusetts: Barney Frank thinks you’re stupid.
Maureen Dowd Writes Something Good For Once.
I am no fan of Maureen Dowd, but every once in awhile everyone’s favorite bitter spinster gets off a good one:
The entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern Trust of Chicago, which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and filet mignon dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags.
“A rep from the PGA told us Northern Trust wrote one big, fat check in order to sponsor the event,” TMZ reported.
Northern No Trust had a lavish dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday with a concert by Chicago (at a $100,000 fee); rented a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport on Thursday for another big dinner with a gig by Earth, Wind & Fire, and closed down the House of Blues on Sunset Strip on Saturday (at a cost of $50,000) for a dinner and serenade by Sheryl Crow….
The bank cloaks itself in a philanthropic glow while wasting our money, acting like the American Cancer Society when in fact it’s a cancer on American society.
It asserted that it earned an operating net income of $641 million last year and acted as though it did Americans a favor by taking federal cash.
I would ask Northern No Trust: If you’re totally solvent, why are you taking my tax dollars? If you’re not totally solvent, why are you giving my tax dollars to Sheryl Crow?
if only she wrote like this all the time and didn’t waste so much space on John Edwards hair or Bill Clinton’s penis or Howard Dean’s marriage, Dowd would be almost tolerable (but still weak tea compared to Jane Hamsher whose rapier wit, sharp elbows, highly attuned bullshit meter, and superlative writing skills scare the living shit outta me.
David Brooks
I linked to this earlier, but it’s really worth watching David Brooks go ballistic about Jindal.
A Minor Point
Cross posted at Oxdown Gazette
Casey Kasem Bobby Jindal, last night:
Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?
AHEM:
In the case of Iraq, instead of raising taxes to pay for the war, the current Bush administration is cutting them, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal deficit. The Bush administration has raised the ceiling on the national debt from $5.95 trillion in 2001 to $9.62 trillion in 2006, an increase of over 60 percent in five years. All this debt must eventually be repaid by taxing us, our children and our grandchildren.
Why this flight from financial reality? No politician likes to raise taxes. The Bush Administration has made cutting taxes a policy hallmark and has vigorously opposed any discussion of raising any taxes.
Before it invaded Iraq, the White House disavowed its treasury secretary, John Snow, who estimated the war would cost $100-200 billion. The administration argued that the war would cost only a few tens of billions of dollars, hardly enough to get excited about. Since then, the administration has funded the war through annual supplemental requests instead of regular budget appropriations, effectively hiding the war’s cost.
Did we need the Iraq war? Was Saddam Hussein responsible for 9/11? Was Sadaam Hussein an ally of bin Laden, or was he an enemy? Was Saddam Hussein an ally of radical Shi’ites and Iran? Was Saddam Hussein a theocrat?
The answer to all of these questions is NO. In fact, Saddam Hussein was a bulwark against radical Shi’ite Islam, and fought a war against Iran because he feared the spread of Shi’ite insurgency in his own country. Hussien was a secular Arab nationalist. If anything, the US should have enlisted Hussein in the fight against al Qaeda, because the bloodthirsty dictator would have gladly eaten people like bin Laden alive, Idi Amin style.
So no, the Iraq War was not necessary, and what the US did by refusing to fund the war with increased taxes was to “ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need.”
Asshole.
Bobby Jindal Has a Future Alright
Maybe David Brooks is disappointed in Bobby Jindal, but not me: he has a wonderful future.
He’s a perfect replacement for Casey Kasem, host of “America’s Top 40″.
Here’s Jindal:
And here’s Casey:
Phawker: Marijuana Legalization Actually More Popular than the GOP
Pot is more popular than Republicans:
The first poll, conducted last week by Rasmussen Reports, has 40 percent of Americans in support of legalizing the drug and 46 percent opposed. The second, conducted in January by CBS News, has 41 percent in favor of legalization and 52 percent against. And a third poll, conducted by Zogby on behalf of the marijuana-rights advocacy group NORML, has 44 percent of Americans in support of legalized pot and 52 percent opposed.
here’s a helpful chart:
Now maybe i’m just a crazy liberal, but it’s pretty easy to see that pulling a few bongloads is way more popular than any of these people. And for your reference:
John “Spray-tan” Boehner
Crazy pothead
Even if you don’t smoke weed, the fat guy with the wheelbarrow looks like a barrel of laughs. Advantage: potheads.
Mitch “orville redenbacher” McConnell represents Kentucky one of the leading cannabis producers in the US
A naked hippy chick, who probably has a big bag of weed under her headband.
Even if you don’t smoke weed, the hippy chick is more fun. Plus, she’s naked. What, you’re gay and don’t care for naked ladies? OK, well what if i told you Mitch McConnell is a self-loathing closet case who hates you as much as he hates himself?
Advantage: naked pot-smoking hippy chick.
Obese oxy-contin addict with a sex tourism problem?
or
Physically fit world champion Olympic swimmer?
Advantage: pot smoking athlete.
Mean drunk responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and who let 9/11 happen on his watch and who did nothing while New Orleans drowned and who shredded the constitution to spy on you and who federalized the country’s public schools and who presided over the collapse of the US economy (for starters)?
Or a nugget of kind bud, which helps you to kinda sorta forget all the shit that bush is responsible for?
i think the advantage there is clear, but in case you’re high, the kind bud wins.
As for the Congressional republicans, I’m not even going to bother finding a group shot of that gallery of rogues: i’ll just point out it has included folks like Rick “man-on-dog-and-oh-yeah-I’m-ripping-off-a-PA-school-district” Santorum; Larry “I am not gayI just have a wide stance” Craig; Norm “I don’t live with my wife i wonder why” Colemen; David “I am so NOT closeted so stop saying that” (NSFW) Dreier; Mark “where the boys are” Foley; David “diapers” Vitter; and John “That One! That one!” McCain, among others.
Deadheads and Phish heads may hit you up for that miracle ticket, and may crash on your couch for a few weeks too many, but at least they don’t send your kids to Iraq to die, destroy the economy, put your folks in the poorhouse, and laugh gleefully while a major American city is destroyed by floods.
Final Score: Pot 100%, Republicans bupkes.
Let’s legalize the shit already and start taxing it.
California Considers Marijuana Legalization: When Will Philly and PA Wake Up?
Tom Ammiano wants to effectively legalize– and tax — California’s trade in cannabis.
AB 390 “would remove all penalties in California law on cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, or use of marijuana, natural THC, or paraphernalia for persons over the age of 21,” Ammiano’s press secretary Quintin Mecke told the San Francisco Weekly…
“California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana,” he said.
Mecke suggested taxes on the trade could amount to $1 billion according to advocates.
And I’d bet that’s a conservative estimate.
“With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense,” Ammiano said at a morning news conference at the state building on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco.
Estimates value the state’s crop of marijuana at $13.8 billion, double that of the vegetable and grape markets combined. Nationwide, it may be the fourth largest cash crop, behind corn, soy and hay but ahead of wheat.
If passed, the law wouldn’t just generate new revenue, it would SAVE money too, by taking pressure off California’s overextended and inhumane prison system, freeing up the police to pursue actual dangerous criminals, and allowing otherwise productive citizens to enjoy a relatively harmless vice without risking prison, the loss of student loans, and a truncated career brought on by incarceration.
Will Philadelphia and Pennsylvania EVER wake up?
Not a chance: our legislators are stupid, old, narrow-minded, and short sighted.
