First Draft

Rapture Rupture

As a confirmed atheist,  I think the single dumbest thing about evangelical Christianity is the rapture aka armageddon, which is not to be confused with carmageddon even if the two are equally stupid. The latest poll of GOP primary nutters voters is pretty darn interesting: not only is Michelle Bachmann in the lead nationally BUT PPP asked voters the following question:

This is patent nonsense but good news nonetheless: when the fake rapture happens, Sarah Palin will be whisked away to wherever the hell these dipshits go. Then we won't have to hear about her any more. That's almost enough to make me want to wait for the end of the world:

 

Pow, right in the kisser

The Murdoch hearing just got much weirder. A guy lunged at Rupe with a "foam pie" and his Missus rose to his defense. This may be the first and last time I'll say something nice about the Murdochs: Wendi Deng Murdoch rocks:

 

The Enemy of My Enemy Is Still a Ginormous Douchebag

Conrad Black, character witness:

There is no sense going on about Murdoch’s character. It would be very hard indeed to improve on the pounding Conrad Black, a former newspaper publisher and himself no paragon of virtue (29 months in jail on various charges), gave him recently in the Financial Times: “He is not only a tabloid sensationalist; he is a malicious myth-maker, an assassin of the dignity of others and of respected institutions, all in the guise of anti-elitism.” Prison has not dulled Black’s pen.

Black also likened Murdoch to Napoleon — “a great bad man.”

Oh, Uncle Conrad! That charming rogue. Isn't he just the cutest, all rapier-witted and derring-doing? Fucking gag me. Those are the nicest things anyone's ever said about Murdoch, first of all, and second of all, do we really think Conrad would be bagging on his erstwhile competitor if he didn't think it was the only way to get his sad old imprisoned ass some attention?

But hey, Cohen goes on to note, the Murdoch scandal is GREAT NEWS for newspapers!

The amazing thing about the current scandal is that at its heart is not some Web site or cable network or even a conventional broadcast property, but ink on processed pulp. The News of the World (now deceased), the Sun, the Times of London and the Sunday Times were Murdoch’s weapons. It was these newspapers that politicians and others feared. No TV outlet could come close.

The Murdoch imbroglio is a celebration of print.

How awesome is that? Thanks, dead guy! WHOO NEWSPAPERS! Somebody gimme my foam finger!

As much as I don’t like Murdoch and his brand of journalism, I thrill that what we are witnessing is a good, old-fashioned newspaper scandal.

Seriously, how do you get to be this much of a solipsistic garden weasel?

There is no sadness here, merely just deserts. “Rosebud.” “Hacking.” It amounts to the same thing.

NO SADNESS?

Also, can someone tell this twat that Citizen Kane was a movie? And that Hearst was not some charming character created for his amusement? These things were real, and playing around with them like they're paper dolls is disgusting.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about when I talk about the lazy bloodlessness of modern newspaper commentary. Everything that's happening here is a big joke to Cohen. It's like a movie! It's awesome for him and his colleagues! It's so cool, like something out of a history book! Nowhere does he acknowledge the real lives that were ruined, the real damage done through Murdoch's media of hate and fear.

He talks about Murdoch helping to create Margaret Thatcher, but it's just like a play to him. That people were affected, that people died, that people suffered, that's immaterial. Think of the drama! Revel in the spectacle! For God's sake, don't bother pretending you have a stake in the game. It's just a show, that's all.

A.

Fuck Yeah, Utah Dems!

The gay apocalypse is upon them!

A.

Hansen vs. This Asshole

Election day!

A.

Circus Ferret Is OUT

My mom sent me this over the weekend:

Circus art director Zhanna Lazerson told the Moscow Times: "We believe the creatures have fled because of their depression - the rain in Chita just doesn't stop.

"We found the monkey in a doghouse in the morning, and the two animals were cuddling in their sleep. But the search for the ferret and the parakeet goes on."

She said the escape has added to the animals' depression in the circus because the male parakeet was partnered on stage with a female parakeet who was now missing him.

The ferret is less missed, with Ms Lazerson calling him a "terrible glutton, idle to the core".

That description could fit any one of mine easily, though if Riot escaped, he wouldn't hang around for food. He'd be down the road in a heartbeat, trying to hitch a ride to Vegas. 

A.

$17,000 Per Year

Until they're paid like movie stars and quarterbacks, you can't convince me they can ever make enough money:

Yet the three million professional, long-term home caregivers today are faced with a rapidly aging Baby Boomer population and a lack of adequate support, compensation or respect. Yesterday in Washington, the National Domestic Workers Alliance held what they called a Care Congress, an event where they introduced a campaign to “transform long-term care.” The campaign is designed to push legislative changes to Medicare and Medicaid—creating jobs by increasing the amount of money eligible people can spend on at-home care and allowing a rapidly aging population to avoid institutionalization.

The women (and it was nearly all women) who cared for my grandmother in her last years deserved every penny they earned and then some. Grandma had family who visited almost every day, but there were people in her assisted living and nursing homes who saw their shitty, mean kids once a year, if that, and their nurses and aides were the only friends they had in the end.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - "Shut it down" edition

Good morning, gentle people.

Well, I'm not sure on how to present this one as humour - it's not terriby amusing.

These morons really do want to cut of everyone's nose to spite their face. They want to jump off the ledge - rope around their waists, with America  tied to the other end..

TARP’s Shadow: Why Tea Partiers won’t listen to the establishment, even as a debt crisis looms
City Journal ^ | 15 July 2011 | Nicole Gelinas

Posted on Saturday, July 16, 2011 12:44:38 AM by neverdem

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a warning on the debt-ceiling hike. “Let’s get on with writing the bill,” she said. “I don’t need to see markets drop 400 points. But Republicans may need to see markets drop 400 points.” Pelosi remembers September 2008, when the House, then controlled by the Democrats, initially voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Stocks plunged 778 points. Only after her caucus felt the visceral terror of an impending depression was Pelosi able to cobble together votes to counter Republican opposition.

If the House goes to the wire this time, there will be plenty to fear. A Treasury default would be worse than the financial crisis of 2008. The world economy is built on Treasury securities. Companies around the globe use them as collateral for overnight loans so that they have cash to pay workers as they wait for their own payments from other companies. Because this collateral is so safe, the lenders who make the overnight loans don’t have to worry about the borrowers. The key is that Treasury bonds are supposed to be risk-free.

But nothing is risk-free. If and when the market discovers this about Treasury bonds, the consequences will be dire. Companies short of cash would shed workers. Global asset selloffs could send the slow-brewing Eurozone crisis into multiple defaults, and European governments would struggle to protect their own financial institutions from panic. The fear of default could spur companies around the world to hoard more cash in anticipation, slowing the economy down. In the past week, a parade of leading financial figures has sounded the alarm—Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, JPMorgan Chase honcho Jamie Dimon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, and former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers among them.

 And that’s precisely the problem. Tea Party freshmen and their supporters hold this establishment in contempt. Implicitly invoking TARP, as Pelosi did when she mentioned a stock-market crash, won’t scare them; it will only embolden them. It would be one thing if Tea Party adherents merely believed that a default wouldn’t spell disaster; in that event, the GOP freshmen would figure out the truth soon enough. The problem is that many Tea Partiers consider TARP such a terrible idea that they would have chosen to brave a worse financial disaster instead. Today, they think that a market cataclysm would be better than another “sellout” vote. House veteran and GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann set the pace in last month’s GOP presidential debate: “I fought behind closed doors against my own party on TARP. It was a wrong vote then. It’s continued to be a wrong vote since then.” As the defeat of Utah senator Bob Bennett in 2010 showed, party voters are unforgiving of Republicans who supported TARP. A debt-hike vote will follow Republican candidates in their primaries next year.

(snip)

 Nicole Gelinas, a City Journal contributing editor and the Searle Freedom Trust Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is a Chartered Financial Analyst and the author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington.

1 posted on Saturday, July 16, 2011 12:44:41 AM by neverdem

Pretty sobering stuff - and a pretty accurate assessment of how clinically insane the teabaggers are.

So what's their reaction?

.

To: neverdem

The Democrats propose to tear down the Washington Monument. The Republicans counter with a plan to do it in three stages. They settle on a “bipartisan” plan to do it in two stages. That’s the Washington, DC way in the age of the two-legged Republican/Democrat socialist beast.

2 posted on Saturday, July 16, 2011 12:53:09 AM by EternalVigilance (The tea party was and is about the right to govern ourselves, according to natural right.)

That's one strawman....

.

To: neverdem

A Treasury default would be worse than the financial crisis of 2008.

For who? Those of us living in the bombed out aftermath are already eating squirrel for supper a couple of times a week. They gonna kill the squirrels?

The nation and the financial system needs a tonic to clean out the dreck.

Then, we can begin, again, older, wiser, and poorer. You know, the way humans learn things, for a short time.

/johnny

4 posted on Saturday, July 16, 2011 12:58:37 AM by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)

One Galtian nutcase who eats squirrels and is squatting in the forest somewhere ( but curiously, still has internet access )

.

To: neverdem

Shut

It

Down

8 posted on Saturday, July 16, 2011 1:13:19 AM by Left2Right (Starve the Beast!)

And one New Great Depression cheerleader.

Shut what down, exactly? The entire Military? The FAA? The FBI? The entire banking system, when all the banks go under and there is no more FICA?

These mental midgets will be the first ones to scream when their bank accounts disappear.( their SS and Medicare checks stopping will just be icing on their cake of Armageddon)

The last time the Federal Government shut down it yanked $800 million out of the economy in six days.

.

To: jimmygrace

He might choose not to service the debt on purpose.

The Cloward-Piven/Soros strategy: Maximum Chaos

It’s definitely a real possibility

13 posted on Saturday, July 16, 2011 1:35:34 AM by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Happiness)

....and one whack-job who grudgingly acknowleges that Maximum Chaos (sounds like a death metal band) would ensue if the economy crashed and burned, but it's Obama's Fault(tm), and indeed, his grand design.

.

I don't think you can talk to people like this. I think the best you can hope for is to sedate them and sequester them, where they can no longer be a danger to themselves and others.

.

 

.

Actual funny stuff after the jump.

.

Framing the Internet for Murder

The Internet killed the newspaper star:

National news chains arose because the barriers of entry to printing, promoting and distributing a newspaper were so high. You needed printing presses, trucks, a telemarketing team, and an advertising and promotions budget. Oh yeah, you needed content, too, which meant hiring reporters and paying syndication fees for state, national and international news and features.

Corporations brought a load of capital to the table, and could leverage economies of scale in the purchase of newsprint, equipment and syndication deals. The could employ national sales staffs to sell ads across communities to regional and national chain retailers. And they could centralize telemarketing, IT support and even newspaper (and later website) design.

Over time, more and more locally owned papers sold out to the chains, as the chains amassed vast fortunes to buy out family-owned papers where the next generation decided to cash in rather than fight on alone in a consolidating industry.

But in the late 1990s, the Internet blew all those advantages away.

Actually, what happened is corporations began sacrificing actual local news coverage in favor of bigger and bigger profit margins. There's nothing inherently evil about a newspaper chain, even a national one, provided its papers still serve their readers and have the interests of the community at heart. Does your boss being in Sacramento automatically have a detrimental effect on coverage of Baltimore? If your boss is an idiot who doesn't know where his bread's buttered and can't pick up the phone, absolutely.

As is true with so many things, the problem isn't location, it's morons. Greedy, lazy morons who wanted to swim around in giant piles of money like Scrooge McDuck and place bets that said piles would continue to grow forever. When they didn't, said lazy morons tried to make them grow by decimating the very thing they sold to make the money in the first place. As coverage got worse and worse, and readers got less and less for their money, they started looking around for alternatives.

Things were going to hell regardless. The Internet just made sure readers and reporters had somewhere else to turn when they did. But the Internet isn't some kind of magical cure-all where you just set up a web site and the money faucet turns on:

One journalist could publish to an entire community, or the entire world, without having to pay for presses, trucks or newsprint. One journalist could link to all the state, national and international news and features his or her readers wanted, without having to pay for expensive syndication rights. One journalist could leverage social networks (even before Facebook and Twitter) to publicize his or her work, without having to pay for advertising or a promotion team. Open source and online instant publishing solutions allowed that individual journalist to create and manage interactive news without having to pay for huge IT and design teams. And national ad networks such as Google's AdSense gave independent publishers who were savvy enough to make that system work access to lucrative national ad buys.

Emphasis mine. You know why Politico is so well-known? Because they HIRED PUBLICISTS TO MAKE THEM FAMOUS. You know why everybody knows what HuffPost is? Because Arianna had celebrity friends to get the word out in influential forums. Making a successful go of things takes a lot of work in old-fashioned businesses like marketing and promotion. The Internet makes the content creation and distribution easier, but you still need promotion to get readers and dollars, and the way I know that is that I am not writing this from my private island in the Caribbean.

A.

Saturday Night Music: This Summer

This Summer is on Squeeze's Ridiculous album, which sank without a trace despite being one of their most interesting discs. This tune opens with one of Chris Difford's finest couplets: "Brain engages mouth. Mouth expresses thought."

 

 

Weekend Question Thread

What did you once want to do when you grew up, and do you do that now?

I don't know why I ever thought I could be an Olympic figure skater, I mean, even as a child I was about as coordinated as a drunk bear falling down a hill.

A.

Arlo Guthrie joins Solidarity Singers

From Bluecheddar:

Arlo Guthrie gave a concert in Madison last night. I heard that all proceeds were donated to a fund to recall Republicans in Wisconsin. Friends asked me more than a few times to tweet Arlo and beg him to also come and sing with them at the Capitol.

And he did, leading the Solidarity Singers in This Land is Your Land.....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other WI news, GOP recall candidate David VanderLeest may have found his campaign slogan:

 "I don't smoke rocks, and that's the truth."

Education breeds hope

It’s a little thing, but it gives me hope.

When I went to cast my ballot Tuesday, the community center was rather clogged with people. When you live in a town that’s about the size of a Milwaukee high school, that’s a bit strange.

I bristled a bit when I got near the front and saw the giant sign that said, “Be prepared to show your Wisconsin ID.” I thought about making a huge scene, but The Midget was with me, the line was a bit long and I was bound and determined to cast my ballot against a fake Democrat.

I ended up showing my ID three times. I’m not sure I needed to on that third run, but, again, I wasn’t about to let an obstacle like failing to show a piece of plastic stop me.

The chances of the fake Dem winning were remote, which was why this whole crowd thing felt strange. Then, I got my ballot and I figured it out: The school district had put its bond referendum out there again.

A few months ago, I wrote about the stupidity of people who aren’t willing to pay ANYTHING for ANYTHING, especially when it comes to schools. In this case, the ballot asked for slightly less than last time to patch holes in roofs and fix infrastructure problems. If approved, it would raise more than $1 million and cost each taxpayer about $9 per $100,000 of assessed property value.

I looked around and recognized some of the people from my area. They were the same people who had donned red T-shirts and supported Randy Hopper at the parade last week. Hopper himself was there and he stopped by my car to talk to the mayor. All I could think was, “This asshole is touching my car. He’s touching my car. Resist the urge to scream or ask him if he found a new place to live.”

(Funny aside: Hopper’s people were getting all the cheers when they walked the route, The Missus said. Jessica King, the Dem running against him, was getting almost no love. My mom, who drove up from Milwaukee to see me roll down Main Street at 3 mph, saw King walking the route, screamed like a schoolgirl in support and ran out to shake her hand. “Beat this guy,” she said. I love my mom.)

I filled out my ballot and checked off the “approve this funding for the love of God and all that is holy” box. Truth be told, I didn’t have a self-interest stake in this ballot. In the fall, The Midget was going to Catholic school, so she’d be out of the district. However, I believe we ALL have a stake in education. When one of Hopper’s drones called me to push poll last week, I hung in there until the question on “which of these things matters most to you?” I picked education. It does matter. I finished the poll to make SURE that the message got across.

When I got home after a late meeting, I checked my Twitter feed and found the tweet: Third time’s the charm. The people of my fair city had approved the measure by a 57-43 margin.

I don’t know if the people just got worn down or if the “heavy Dem” turnout might have swayed the issue. All I know is that in this quiet little hamlet, you can’t throw a rock down the road and not hit two Republicans. You will more easily find a muskrat in your backyard than a Democratic supporter. And yet the people out here found it in themselves to say, “This isn’t a political issue. We all could use more cash. However, it’s $9 for most of us so sack up and pay it for the good of our children.”

We might never be on the same page for most things, but it was a little thing and it gives me hope that some people can be reached if we speak well enough.

Friday Guest Catblogging: Gris Gris bags it

I'm giving Oscar and Della a break this week: being an internet rock star is exhausting. Here's a picture of my friend Wendy aka Elspeth Ravenwind's cat Gris Gris who is trying to adjust to life in Southern California after livin' large in Texas:

Friday Ferretblogging: Sleepy Claire Edition

A.

Malaka Of The Week: Orrin Hatch

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is another pol who belongs in the malakatude hall of fame and now he's compounded this status by dragging Thurston Howell through the mud:

How dare you drag America's favorite fictional millionaire into this? Mr. Burns? Sure. But the only fictional magnate whose voice was inspired by Franklin Roosevelt? Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?

   

NOLA Billboardmania

NOLA news of the weird comes in all forms. Here's a snap of one of the weirdest billboards I've ever seen courtesy of my friend Karen Gadbois:

 

He Is -- The Most Incompetent Speaker in the World

From Album4

His tears could fill the Marianas Trench. He once had an awkward moment. Then another. And another. Rachel Maddow has more. (Note: the transcript isn't up yet, but eventually it should be here.)

All kidding aside, I actually fine Boehner the least odious of the bunch...but that's kind of like finding herpes the least odious STD. He reminds me of an asshole boss, but one who tends to cut out early for golf or happy hour, leaving you alone to get your work done. Eric Cantor's an even less charming Tucker Carlson if that's possible, a prissy little tattletale who rats you out to your parents, your teacher, to whoever he can, and Mitch-the-turtle-McConnell is just plain creepy. I'd seriously consider jumping out of an upper floor window if ever caught alone in the same room as him.

You Bought It, You Broke It

Cole on the need for the Beltway press to prop up lunatic Republicans:

There simply is no reason on earth to have this debate any more, except that it serves the needs of assholes like Ross Douthat and David Brooks and other members of the conservative “intelligentsia.” If we all recognize that the conservatives are nuts and their ideas are disastrous, they would lose their respectable media/beltway credibility, and you can’t have that happening.

There is not now nor is there likely to be in the future significant money to be made telling the actual truth about anything with any kind of feeling at all. There is, however, a fuckton of cash being shoveled into the bank accounts of hucksters who believe in nothing higher than their next paycheck, who think all of politics is a big ironic joke, and who pretend that hipsterish detachment is some kind of principled stand.

I can't tell you how many speeches I sit through from these assholes in a year, and every last one of them thinks they're better than anyone with an actual passion for anything at all, just BECAUSE BASICALLY. They practice disinterest and proclaim it dispassion, confusing glib amorality with actual analysis. The things going on in the world shouldn't be chronicled as though they don't matter, by people who will keep making a living no matter how the earth burns down around them. I have so much less quarrel, I can't even tell you, with actual partisan commentary than I have with our Very Serious Men of Journalism who can't seem to comprehend that people will die based on the decisions our Beltway press covers as if it's a fucking baseball game.

No, you know what? I take that back. They cover baseball as if it matters. To a ridiculous point, sometimes, but truly, I'll take some emotional investment in an outcome where I can get it in our commentary these days.

It's tempting to blame this, as we good liberals are supposed to blame everything, on Bush, and certainly some of it does date back to when 9/11 happened and our press collectively declared that New Belligerent United America was so gonna kick Old Complicated Fucked-Up America's ass in the History Olympics and weren't we all longing for Something To Give Our Lives Meaning. The problem with hitching yourself to a wagon like that, though, is that you have to have the stones to make it stick. You can't just turn around a decade later and be all, "Republicans have some STUPID ASS PEOPLE UP IN THIS HERE NOW" and go back to actually parsing things out. Especially when there is zero financial incentive to do so, and the narrative has already been memorized.

(I mean, you can, nobody actually cares, but that would force you to give up the idea that you're Protecting the Realm from the Dishonorable Hordes of Those Who Give a Shit, and we can't have that.)

A.

Rick Perry meets Ted Nugent

There's a must read story at Salon by Justin Elliott about Rick Perry's ties to a pro-Confederate group in Texas. The Sons of Confederate Veterans *used* to be dedicated to preserving Civil War history and yadda, yadda, yadda. It's now dedicated to defending the indefensible: the Lost Cause itself.

Anyhoo, the thing that interested me the most, naturally, was the news of the weird aspect of the story. Wackadoodle washed up rock star Ted Nugent performed at Perry's 2007 inaugural clad, not in his trademark loin cloth, but in a Confederate flag shirt. That was groovy with Perry's peeps but if he runs for President they may have to do some backpedalling. I'm not sure how well the stars and bars goes over in New Hampshire, Iowa and the mountain West even among wingers.

I know I've already asked y'all a question today but this picture screams out for a CAPTION THIS contest:

I happen to like peas

President Obama's recent culinary reference in the endless debt ceiling death dance really tickled my fancy:

"It's not going to get easier. It's going to get harder. So we might as well do it now: pull off the Band-Aid, eat our peas. Now is the time to do it. If not now, when?"

Congressional Republicans are clearly our national boo-boo so the Band-Aid bit works for me although I suspect the folks at Curad winced at this reference.

I, however,  beg to differ when it comes to peas. I like the little green suckers in whatever form they come; unless they're mushy from being cooked to death. In my case, the proper phrase would "eat our cauliflower."

What about y'all? What's your duty food?

 

Real Dems Beat All of Fake Dems

Can't believe I'd ever write that title.

Thanks WI GOP for totally wasting the taxpayers  money on these elections.

PORTAGE, Wis. -- State Rep. Fred Clark joined five other Democrats who won primary races on Tuesday and move on in their bids to recall six Republican state senators.

 With nearly all precincts reporting in the state's 14th state Senate District, Clark, D-Baraboo, picked up 14,989 votes, or 67 percent of the vote. He defeated Rol Church, who got 7,281 votes, or 33 percent.

 Church, a so-called "fake Democrat," was the candidate the state Republican Party ran in the primary to buy time for incumbent state Sen. Luther Olsen to campaign.

 All of the Republican-backed candidates in the Democratic primaries lost by more than 2,500 votes, and many got only half as many votes as the real Democrat.

 The Republicans' strategy to run the placeholder candidates backfired as voters turned out in high numbers, Clark said. He said it's "game on" for the Aug. 9 general election.

We Need To Shame the Sluts More to Prevent Men from Cheating

Okay, look. If you are fucking married guys and you or the marrieds are lying about it to people other than yourselves, you are probably making some life decisions that need further evaluation. This is not some kind of pro-infidelity statement on my part, saying that this is utter horseshit: 

Yes, many people feel sympathy for the wives. But consider how high-profile adulterous affairs play out in the media: The shamed husband and father is dragged into the public square, generally now before cameras, for a well-deserved “stoning.” And the “other woman” is escorted on stage by a team of publicists, lawyers and other handlers who turn her into a celebrity.

There is a danger in fame and infamy being synonymous.

We are, as a society, a long way from making such women wear a scarlet “A.” But it was not so long ago that the community of mothers was organized and vocal and got fighting mad at women who were a danger to their families.

Our society needs similar values today.

Back then, women who preyed on other women’s husbands were shunned, shamed and excluded, not made into media darlings. They were publicly pointed out as “those kinds of women” to young girls as examples of what not to become, and to young boys as the type of women not worthy of their attention.

Mothers knew that these women were as much predator as they were prey. That’s why they were called ‘‘home wreckers” in polite company and worse when the kids were not in earshot. These angry mothers, while rightly holding their husbands and the fathers of their children to the pledge of fidelity, realized what would happen not just to their families but also to society if this type of behavior were celebrated rather than confronted.

Yes, we have a trivial, starfucking society of freakazoids askeered of missing the Next Big Trend and therefore lionizing everything they see regardless of its actual news value. And people hurt each other and then we all get to hear about it and feel like we get to have opinions on people's marriages. None of that is anything that is going to be changed by yelling BOO YOU WHORE at some girl.

The men are escorted into the public square for a stoning because they're ones who fucked up. How hard is this? They're the ones who said, "I will marry you and at the very least not put my penis in other ladies," and then failed to live up to this spectacularly low standard. If we're going to shame anybody, it certainly shouldn't be the "home wrecker" who "stole" some nice lady's husband. It should be the fucking idiot who banged the waitress.

(I believe this the way I believe that in breathing in I take in oxygen: The only surefire way to make sure some lady doesn't steal your husband is to not marry a total dipshit. Whether that means you negotiate the terms of your relationship to include doing other people, or it means you promise not to do other people and just take the occasional cold shower and remind yourself that you don't get to boink everyone you have chemistry with, it still something YOU have to do. You can't depend on other people not to be hot around you, not to tempt you, not to flaunt their charms at you or your partner. People will always try to fuck with you, because people are like that. The only thing you can control is who you are and what you do.)

All that fortune cookie advice being said, I long for the day when we don't parade either mistresses or stupid horny dumbasses around and talk over the intimate details of their dick pix and love children, because it's none of our goddamn business how anybody else gets through the day. That attitude would go a long way toward correcting the lionizing of people behaving badly, much farther than standing in the street stapling construction paper A's onto women.

A.

Who's minding the political store?

I'm not as hard on Barack Obama as many of my readers and colleagues are. I *knew* that he was a centrist whose room to manuever would be crimped by the horrid economy. BUT the White House's eerie inability to do politics and govern at the same time drives me batshit:

Top Democrats in charge of keeping the Senate in Dem hands and maintaining the political health of the party — DSCC chair Patty Murray and messaging chief Chuck Schumer — have privately expressed frustration that deep Medicare cuts risk squandering the major political advantage Democrats have built up on the issue, people familiar with internal discussions say.

Senators Murray and Schumer, along with other Dems like Debbie Stabenow and Mark Begich, have warned against deep cuts in recent leadership meetings, a source familiar with the meetings says, another sign of the unrest that the possibility of serious entitlements cuts is creating among Congressional Democrats.

“We shouldn’t be giving away our advantage on Medicare,” said a source familiar with Murray’s thinking, in characterizing her objections in private meetings. “We should be very careful about giving away the biggest advantage we've had as Democrats in some time.”

“For the first time in the past two and a half years we have an unmitigated advantage on a single issue where our entire caucus is united,” the source continues. “This is a case where the whole morale of our party was lifted by the fact that we were taking the fight to Republicans.”

The frustration on the Senate side is mirrored on the House side. Sam Stein reported on Friday that DCCC chair Steve Israel privately vented his frustration that serious Medicare cuts would hamper his ability to recruit good Dem candidates to challenge House GOP incumbents. And a number of Dem challengers have already launched their campaigns by alluding to the GOP’s unpopular Medicare plan, a reminder of just how central top Dem strategists want it to remain through 2012.

Preserving Medicare is both good policy and good politics. Instead of standing forthrightly on this issue, the administration hints that it's being devious in putting Medicare on the table. Is anyone buying this? President Obama is a classic earnest goo-goo whose lack of guile also drives me batshit. Bill Clinton had gynormous flaws but he was devious when it was advantageous. And I say devious in the best sense of the word: beneath his patrician goo-goo exterior FDR was devious as hell.

This is often a problem when Democrats control the executive branch: they think that one *should* take the politics out of governing when they're inseparable. That's what the Carter administration did and it didn't work out very well did it?

The Godfather of Gospel

Herman Cain is fast becoming my favorite oddball, quirky minor Presidential candidate this time around. He also sings Gospel music and his latest recording is online.

Speaking of singers, James Brown was not only super bad, he was also known as the Godfather of Soul. Guess that makes Herman the Godfather of Gospel.

Good God, y'all.

Imagine the Debates. Just Imagine Them.

There's not enough crack to keep the van running, people.

A.

NYFD Joins Canvass in WI

Members of the NYFD are helping to GOTV for recall elections here in WI.

UPDATE: Here is a breakdown of the recall elections.

Up All Night

These Night Lives stories are outstanding. A reporter colleague once did a similar story, about people who worked during the holidays, like gas station attendants and people in the county morgue, and it's the kind of piece that does what newspapers can do very well: Chronicle the day.

This is a particularly good one:

The voice on the other end tells her about other private, painful matters, about realizing that he’s lost everything. The voice tells her about the knife.

“It sounds like you’re feeling worthless, insignificant, that people would be better off without you,” Haley says, setting up a pivot. “What’s kept you going?”

She absorbs the catalogue of woe, one “mmhmm” at a time, her heart rate quickened but steady, her eyes following her note-taking. Haley is 25. She lives in Gaithersburg. She just got her master’s in professional counseling from Liberty University. She has worked at CrisisLink, a crisis hotline for suicide prevention based at the Arlington Urgent Care Center, for a year and a half.

“I’m concerned about your safety,” she says. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

Suicide-related calls between midnight and 8 a.m. — Haley’s shift — were up 90 percent from 2009 to 2010. America tosses and turns in the wee hours, when there are fewer distractions, when dark nights of the soul climax in last-ditch dialings of 1-800-SUICIDE.

“I’d like you to be alive for your family. . . . I’m hearing how miserable you are.”

A.

Hacked Off

The News International phone hacking scandal gets juicier, nastier and crueler by the hour. The late, unlamented tabloid News Of The World was not the only offender. The Sun was obsessed with getting dirt on former Prime Minister Gordon Brown including family health issues that were irrelevant to his job performance:

Confidential health records for Brown's family have reached the media on two different occasions. In October 2006, the then editor of the Sun, Rebekah Brooks, contacted the Browns to tell them that they had obtained details from the medical file of their four-month-old son, Fraser, which revealed that the boy was suffering from cystic fibrosis. This appears to have been a clear breach of the Data Protection Act, which would allow such a disclosure only if it was in the public interest. Friends of the Browns say the call caused them immense distress, since they were only coming to terms with the diagnosis, which had not been confirmed. The Sun published the story.

This is loathsome even for the Murdoch press. It has the ironic effect of making one sympathetic to the unwarm and unfuzzy Brown who is best known for his temper tantrums and political intrigues.

The one good thing that could come out of this is that Rupe's spell over British politicians could be broken but I somehow doubt that anything at Fox News in the US will change as a result of this scandal. It would be great if Rupe finally got his comeuppance but I suspect he'll throw some of his lackeys to the wolves and keep on keeping on.

Can We Execute Them?

Corporations and the death penalty.

A.