Young male punk who got his job straight out of college via nepotism tells first female Speaker to get out of the way for a younger model

(h/t to Wonkette)

P-G Editorial: 'Obama must go: Dems needs a new leader after the debacle'

I think that this version makes as much sense as the Post-Gazette's (little to none):

PelosiObama must go: House Dems need a new leader after the debacle

November 05, 2010
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the recent midterm elections, the Republicans had ready labels to demonize many Democratic causes -- and one favorite label was "Pelosi." "Obama." The simple name took on a life of its own and was used as if to pre-empt all debate, the assumption being that the audience understood "Pelosi" "Obama" was an acronym for evil.

In real life, the most powerful woman in American politics and the most vilified was never evil. She remains a dedicated, smart, attractive 7049-year-old grandmotherfather with fivetwo children and eight grandchildren. As the first female speaker of the U.S. House African American President of the United States, she was not without faults, but she cut a historic figure that infuriated heris enemies beyond all reason.

For whatever cause, Nancy PelosiBarack Obama has aroused a visceral dislike in heris critics that goes beyond the fact that heris job has been to push an agenda that affronts conservatives. Perhaps it's because she is a wealthy, pro-choice liberal from San FranciscoChicago, the most liberalDemocratic of cities. Perhaps it's that a powerful progressive womanAfrican American man offers a special affront to some, especially as she offered a sharp and unflattering contrast to heris Republican predecessors, the unimpressive Dennis Hastert and the flaky Newt Gingrich George W. Bush.

Take your pick of reasons -- but you are still left with a hard-to-argue fact. Nancy PelosiBarack Obama has become a brand name, and not a flattering one for the Democratic Party. That's a problem for Democrats as they regroup after a disastrous election and a need to rebrand themselves to better appeal to voters. They can start with Nancy PelosiBarack Obama.

Clearly, heris time has come and gone. In acknowledging that, party members need not subscribe to the unreasonable stereotype of Speaker PelosiPresident Obama so cleverly pedaled by heris enemies. All that has to be done is to recognize reality and to thank herim for heris service. There was a big battle. She helped lead the charge. The charge failed. A new House leader must now take charge if President Barack Obamathe Democratic party is to survive in 2012.

Msr. PelosiObama has not declared heris intentions, saying questions about heris future will be addressed in caucusdown the road. Heris fellow party members should find a graceful way to insist she step down as their leader in the House.

It is true that the Republicans are masters of demonizing their opponents, and whoever takes up the challenge will be the next worst person around. But at least the Democrats should make the GOP spin doctors start over and have to work harder at it -- by picking someone who will play better in the nation's heartland.

Tell Pelosi you've got her back.
.

The Trib ReSmears

Hey, remember this media hoax? We started writing about it in February of 2007.

The "story" back then was about how Speaker Pelosi "demanded" the use of a bigger jet and "rejected" the jet her predecessor utilized. the P-G's own Ruth Ann Dailey had the "story" down cold.

Too bad it just wasn't at all true.

The request was put in by the House Sergeant-at-Arms and it was done, at least partially, for security reasons. The Bush Administration decided that the Speaker of the House (as well as all the other high ranking Congressional officials) fly on military planes. We live in a post-9/11 world and all that.

Well now that we're a week away from an election, Richard Mellon Scaife's "news" paper, the Tribune-Review republished some re-findings from their source on the story, Judicial Watch.

Heh-heh-heh. You know what comes next, right? When I wrote "their source", it had somewhat of a double meaning. You see, my friends, when you look at the funding for Judcial Watch, there's Scaife money as far as the eye can see.

According to the mediamatters, two of the foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife (Carthage and Sarah Scaife) have given a whopping $9 million to Judicial Watch over the last 13 or so years. More than all the other foundation donations combined.

So when I wrote "their source" I really meant it.

From Scaife's braintrust:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., treats the Air Force as her personal taxi service, taking her here, there and everywhere — all at taxpayers' expense.

Documents newly obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch show the speaker took 85 flights on Air Force aircraft from March 2009 through June 2010 — an average of more than one per week, with family members aboard two D.C.-to-California flights.

And:

Documents previously obtained by Judicial Watch show Mrs. Pelosi's peregrinations cost the Air Force — and taxpayers — more than $2.1 million over two years. Of that, more than $101,000 went for in-flight expenses including food and alcohol, such as liquor purchases for one Mideast junket that reads like a catalog of top-shelf brands.

Iwas curious about that flight. When did it happen?

Judicial Watch has it at May of 2008. The trip was for 5 days and went to Tel Aviv and Baghdad. And it was a CODEL (meaning a Congressional Delegation - ie NOT a personal trip). So why include it here? In an editorial complaining about Speaker Pelosi's use of military aircraft as a "personal taxi"?

The answer is obvious, doncha think? It's a smear, pure and simple. Bought and paid for by Scaife money and pushed feces-like into the public discourse by Scaife's editorial page.

Nancy Pelosi has last laugh

Nancy Pelosi has last laugh:

Critz beats Burns (and his magic buttons).

TV Ad Depicts Cartoon Nancy Pelosi Being Tortured

Scenes from Right Change's
"The Attack of the 50-Foot Pelosi" TV Ad:

Have we become so inured to all the violent imagery and talk being directed towards Democrats that we can accept seeing a cartoon depiction of the Speaker of the House being hit multiple times with laser-like beams and writhing in pain in a TV ad and simply shrug it off?

The commercial is by a group called Right Change (Pittsburgh City Paper's Chris Potter has background on them here) and it's part of an $83,000 ad buy in the Pittsburgh and Johnstown media markets.

Titled "The Attack of the 50-Foot Pelosi," it's pro Republican Tim Burns in the special election race for the late US Rep. John Murtha's seat. According to Right Change, "The ad uses new technology for political ads with humor and cutting-edge animation."

I'm so glad that "new technology" was used to depict torturing (possibly to death) an elected official. I'm guessing that "humor" is to be found because it's an animated piece that has a (straw man) monster.

Of course there's nothing really new in describing a strong woman as a "monster." It's actually pretty old hat even by South Park standards (Barbra Streisand was made into a mechanical Godzilla-like monster on the show over a decade ago).

I'm guessing that it was deemed perfectly acceptable to depict Nancy Pelosi WRITHING AND SCREAMING IN PAIN because she is a "monster" from San Francisco.

Ha ha!

But I don't accept that.

What's next?

A cartoon Pelosi being shot with cartoon bullets spilling cartoon blood?

Would that be alright?

Is it somehow more acceptable to try to kill the Speaker of the House with magical Tim Burns buttons than with guns?

Can you imagine the uproar that would be had over an ad that had similarly depicted Sarah Palin (or even George Bush or Dick Cheney)?

Now here's where I fully admit that I have not personally seen this ad on the air and that I only heard about it because my sister, Gina, saw it aired multiple times on KDKA TV and she was floored by it and kept telling me to check it out.

I called KDKA today hoping to ask someone there what standards they had for the ads they run. (Obviously they have some standards. They wouldn't run ads that, say, contain nudity or profanity. )

Someone at the station had to view the ad and approve it. (I once knew a woman who worked for NBC whose sole job was to make sure that their ads didn't conflict with their network programming content -- no diet product ads after a story on famine, for example.)

I was eventually directed to a woman who I assume is in their advertising department who said that I could not quote her and who hung up on me. Nice! (Yes, I gave my full name and identified myself as a blogger.) She seemed to think that my beef should be solely with the ad agency and the account and not the station.

Well, I've been blogging for nearly six years now and in all that time and in all my Photoshops I have managed to somehow never depict an elected official -- or anyone else for that matter -- being lasered and screaming in pain, and yet a television station has no problems broadcasting this on the public airwaves.

If you have a problem with this -- if you haven't been numbed to the outrageousness of it -- maybe you might want to consider calling KDKA and telling them that it is not acceptable to torture any politician -- even a cartoon one -- in a television commercial.

Their switchboard number is: 412-575-2200 (It rings for a very long time).

UPDATED: Heard it (was out of the room) on WTAE TV (local ABC affiliate) this morning: Main desk at 412-242-4300, Email here

Caught part of it on WPXI TV (local NBC affiliate) last night: Phone: 412-237-1100

Finally, here's the full ad in all its gory:

UPDATE: I just saw it on air on KDKA (5/14/10, 4:44 PM).

UPDATE 2: Heard it (was out of the room) on WTAE TV (local ABC affiliate) this morning: Main desk at 412-242-4300, Email here

Caught part of it on WPXI TV (local NBC affiliate) last night: Phone: 412-237-1100

Saw it three times on KDKA TV on yesterday's afternoon news.

UPDATE 3: LINKS TO THIS POST:
Shakesville "Oh My Aching Sides" (by Melissa McEwan)
A Spork in the Drawer "Not-So-Random Question" (by Spork Incident)
Crooks and Liars "Mike's Blog Roundup" (by Bluegal)
Politics Daily "Pelosi Takes the Heat: 'If I Were Not Effective They Wouldn't Care About Me'" (by Melinda Henneberger)
.

HCR Passes

HRC passes House.

Rethugs effort to recommit fails.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi gavels bill.

President Barack Obama speaks.

"Obama's Waterloo." NOT.
.

Quick Shot

From today's Trib Thursday Wrap:

Records released this week show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent nearly $3,000 in taxpayer dollars on flowers between June and October. Flowers sure are nice and purty. But should taxpayers be picking up the tab? We think not.

Perhaps, but let's look at some real reporting. From Newsweek:

On its face, three grand sounds like considerable dough, especially for something as disposable as fresh flowers. But is it really that much? Pelosi’s Capitol Hill office isn’t your average dentist’s waiting room. She has a massive setup in the Capitol with dozens and dozens of staffers. Broken up over four months, that’s really just about $750 per month, or $25 a day, which is barely the cost of lunch for two in the House cafeteria, if you skip dessert. Your Gaggler has admittedly never planned a wedding, but would venture that some bigger affairs around Washington can burn through three grand's worth of flowers in about two hours. It also merits mentioning, as Pelosi’s office does, that the Speaker holds a lot more ceremonial events than other members.

Then there's this from the Politico:

[Pelosi's] offices defended the charges, saying the Speaker’s office holds more ceremonial events with visiting dignitaries than other congressional offices. They also use a local florist, and about a third of her flower expenses this quarter were for Jack Kemp’s funeral.

So let's redo the math. If a third of the expenses were for Republican Jack Kemp's funeral, that leaves $2,000 spread out over 4 months, or $500 per month or about $17 bucks a day.

Is the Trib really wasting its time complaining about the Speaker's $17 per day flower habit when it could be circle-jerking again on Climate change?

Ooops wait, they're doing that too:

Hudson Institute scholar Dennis Avery reminds that Der Spiegel, the German magazine, tried to warn the world of climate change research fraud more than two years ago -- but nobody listened. Asks Mr. Avery, "Must we wait for the huge new energy tax to be imposed by the Congress before we take the evidence of climate fraud seriously?"

No mention of the million dollars in Scaife grants (from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife) that went to the Hudson Institute in the last 3 years:

• $220,000 in 2008 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation
• $340,000 in 2007 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation
• $200,000 in 2006 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation
• $50,000 in 2008 from the Carthage Foundation

You see, my friends, when Richard Mellon Scaife grants such a steaming pile of money for the support of a think-tank and then his editorial board touts the research from that think tank as a credible source of information, he playing both sides; creating the news and then reporting on it.

But the $17 bucks a day for Washington DC flowers is an outrage! An outrage I tell you!

Uppity!

Apparently, it's not only our first black President who is "uppity". Our first female Speaker of the House also needs someone to "put her in her place."

Times were so much better when negroes and little ladies knew their place.
.

Amazing. Simply Amazing

Did Speaker Pelosi really call the protesters at Townhall meetings "Un-American"? I heard it on Joe Scarborough this morning so, you know, it has to be true.

Except it's not.

Then there's Richard Mellon Scaife's braintrust at the Tribune-Review. Unbelievable what they did today.

But let's start with Pelosi. Here's exactly what she wrote at USAToday:

Let the facts be heard

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades. [emphasis added]

You see that? Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Not protesting the debate but making sure the debate doesn't happen - that's the "un-American" part. Keep that in mind whenever you read or hear that she called protesters un-American. She didn't.

And yet here's how it shows up on the editorial page of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

And utterly despicable is that they characterize as "un-American" average citizens who are rising up in outrage to protest perhaps the greatest attempted shafting in America's history.

But that's par-for-the-course for the Scaife braintrust. But the fun part starts with the next paragraph:

Prior to Monday, Mrs. Pelosi had even intimated that those opposed to the government takeover are Nazis. So much for the "civility" for which she wails.

Really? She called them Nazis?

Of course not. Here's the clip. She was making the point that the protests are "astroturf" (ie "fake" grassroots) and then says that the protesters are bringing "swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care."

Heck, even Rush Limbaugh found a photo of a swastika at a health care debate. Give a listen:


Perhaps it was this photo:

But obviously Rush doesn't get the symbolism. By crossing out the swastika, what do you think the protester was saying? She was protesting against what she saw as Nazism - in the health care plan. She was calling the plan Nazism.

And yet it's charged that Pelosi is calling the protesters Nazis, when in fact (at least according to the photo Rush describes) it's the protesters who are calling the health care plan Nazism.

But here's the kicker. What do you think Scaife's braintrust does after (incorrectly) ridiculing Pelosi for calling people Nazis? That's right, they call her and the Obama administration Nazis:

Here's a quotation for Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer to contemplate:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

These are the words of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Sounds a lot like what Obama & Co. and all its thugs are engaged in, doesn't it?

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Because sexism is dead

.