Physical violence towards women is ok, but dissing the guys isn’t.

Martin Bashir started his new show on MSNBC this afternoon. He ended it with an Editorial on the Charlie Sheen vs CBS cage match currently taking place in a very public forum by the delusional and extremely egotistical Mr. Sheen. It was spot-friggin-on. He brought to the forefront of the discussion how CBS has been willing, for years now, to tolerate Sheen’s violent speech and behavior towards the women in his life. It was only after Charlie verbally abused Chuck Lorre, the writer and the creator of Two and a half men, and other male executives that CBS finally pulled the plug on old Charlie.


Evidently Warner Bros and CBS have had no problem tolerating years of misogynistic behavior from their highest paid star..they just will not tolerate a public, verbal bitchslapping of the men involved with creating and producing the ‘hit’ show. What does that say about CBS and Warner Brothers?

Nothing good. But it does say volumes about how women are still viewed by men in the entertainment industry. For a short history lesson of Sheen’s violence towards women, an excerpt from a MS. magazine article in January of this year:

Currently the highest paid actor on television at an astounding $1.8 millionper episode, Sheen has a history of abusing women, usually coupled with substance abuse. In 1990, he shot then-fiancee Kelly Preston in the arm—an accident, but a frightening and weird one that seemed to only foretell the future. In 1997, he pleaded no contest after hitting then-girlfriend Brittany Ashland. His now-ex-wife, actress Denise Richards, left him in 2006 after claiming he’d threatened and abused her and their two young children. For allegedly threatening to kill his now-estranged wife Brooke Mueller last year, he plead guiltyto misdemeanor assault; he went to court-ordered rehab and a few months later, he was back to his usual repertoire: trashing a hotel room and frightening a woman companion so badly that she locked herself in the bathroom until the police arrived. And this week, Sheen landed in rehab…again.

I realize that it’s also up to the women in his life to get away from such a disgusting individual like Charlie Sheen, its not a one-way street.  Battered women’s syndrome is a complicated and sometimes controversial concept. I am also not implying that BWS applies to all of Charlie’s relationships, but it should be considered a possible rationale for why former wives Denise Richards and Brooke Muller would tolerate this man and his behavior on numerous occasions before they finally left.

In any case, Charlie Sheen’s bosses only tossed in the towel when the verbal attacks and threats were aimed at male executives. It’s a sad commentary on our society and how far we haven’t come with respect to how women are treated and/or valued. Misogyny is never pretty and should never be tolerated, no matter how much money the individual has or how highly valued his talents are. Charlie Sheen has been basically terrorizing women for years and received little more than a slap on the wrist. Hopefully this terrorist will get a clue, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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Tim Pawlenty is a few clowns short of a circus..

From ThinkProgress this morning, we get Timmy's pov on a Govt Shutdown:

Now, despite Boehner and Cantor’s insistence that no Republicans want a government shutdown to be on the table, prospective GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty is pitching his tent in the shutdown camp. 
ThinkProgress caught up with Pawlenty following his speech this weekend at the Tea Party Patriots Policy Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. Pawlenty declared that shutting down the federal government is “an option I think Republicans have to consider.”
The former Minnesota governor went further in the interview with ThinkProgress, declaring that the current shutdown showdown was a “line-in-the-sand moment,” the likes of which “are what we need.” Pawlenty called for a shutdown lasting a month or longer — “a dramatic month,” as he termed it — in order to force Congress to make tough decisions:KEYES: Governor, you said one of your biggest regrets as governor was not allowing the shutdown in Minnesota to last longer. Would you have that same advice for Republicans in Congress as they face a potential shutdown?PAWLENTY: I know these shutdowns always seem like they loom large, but in Minnesota, six months after, a year after, people looked back on it and could say, “it really didn’t have that big of a traumatic or dramatic negative impact on the state.”KEYES: And that’s how you think it would be at a federal level?PAWLENTY: These are hard to predict so we don’t know for sure, but a week-long or month-long or whatever it would turn out to be disruption isn’t the main point. The main point is we have a country that’s in deep trouble. We’ve got to get back to certain principles and responsibilities and starting with getting the budget balanced and if it takes a dramatic moment or a dramatic week or a dramatic month, those kinds of line-in-the-sand moments are what we need to get politicians back up against the wall and have them make the tough decisions. They all talk about making the tough decisions and never do.KEYES: So you would support a shutdown if it comes down to it?PAWLENTY: If it came down to it and it was between that and not getting the budget headed in the right direction, that’s an option I think Republicans have to consider.

This man wants to be President? Seriously asshole? Timmy put the T in Tool methinks...Watch him run his piehole below.

Hannity, Limbaugh and OReilly are all union members..

All three of the turdmongers above belong to, meaning they are members of, the American Federation Television and Radio Artists union (AFTRA), which is the AFL-CIO affiliate for television and broadcast workers.

All three have spent time bashing the shit out of unions and their workers since Scott Walker started his union-busting bullshit almost two weeks ago. From the Alternet link:

A report voted to the front page of Reddit Friday claimed that Hannity, Limbaugh and O'Reilly were union members, as well as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin called it the "stupid lie of the week," insisting that neither she nor the "other Fox News personalities being accused of 'hypocrisy' belong to the union." As one might expect, Malkin didn't know what she was talking about and the liberals were right (she herself, as just a frequent guest on the network, is not a member of the union).

A representative from Beck's camp denied the claim, but a source within AFTRA confirmed to AlterNet Friday that O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Hannity were indeed union members.When asked, AFTRA reps wouldn't state whether the three were members, but it did say in an official statement (see the entire statement below): 

"[N]otwithstanding the union's publicly stated position on a given issue, including the attack on public sector union members currently unfolding in Wisconsin and elsewhere around the nation AFTRA fully supports the First Amendment right to free speech of all Americans, including that of any AFTRA member who wishes to express an opinion that may differ from that of AFTRA." 

AFTRA also said in a separate statement that some staff at local Fox affiliate stations are represented by the union. According to its Web site, AFTRA "is a national labor union representing over 70,000 performers, journalists and other artists working in the entertainment and news media." 

It "negotiates and enforces over 300 collective bargaining agreements that guarantee minimum (but never maximum) salaries, safe working conditions and health and retirement benefits." Republicans in Wisconsin voted early Friday to strip public union workers of their collective bargaining rights. 

In the same segment where O'Reilly blamed government financial woes on union benefits, he not only said he was an AFTRA member, but that his membership had benefited him in the past. "On a personal note, I'm a member of a union, AFTRA, and when I was working at 'Inside Edition' some years ago, the King World company tried to renege on pension benefits," said O'Reilly. "AFTRA took them to court and the case was settled. If the shop had been non-union, we might have been stiffed."

Hypocrisy anyone? These guys are so full of shit their eyes better be brown. 

The middle class, it’s their fault!

Demonizing the middle class seems to be a rather stupid-ass way to fix state budgets, at least on the political side of the coin, but the rightwing Republicans are doing just that and making it work for them. One would think the elected Democrats would love to have this fight, but so far...they are saying very little, at least on the national level. From Robert Reich:

The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises. Unions didn’t cause these budget crises — state revenues dropped because of the Great Recession — but Republicans view them as opportunities to gut public employee unions, starting with teachers.

Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio’s Republican governor John Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated legislature. New Jersey’s Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, “I’m attacking the leadership of the union because they’re greedy, and they’re selfish and they’re self-interested.”

The demonizing of public employees is not only based on the lie that they’ve caused these budget crises, but it’s also premised on a second lie: that public employees earn more than private-sector workers. They don’t, when you take account of their education. In fact over the last fifteen years the pay of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to private-sector employees with the same level of education – even including health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don’t have generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than $45,000, the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of $19,000 a year. (emphasis mine)

Nothing the rightwing governor's are attributing to the unions and their workers is true.  So, why aren't the nationally-elected Democrats addressing these lies in the national media? Why is it being left to the state Democrats to deal with these lies and obfuscations from the rightwing Governors?

This should be a national debate, but it isn't. I do not understand why Obama, Reid, Pelosi and all the rest of the Congress critters are mute. It's maddening to say the least. Whatever their logic, it isn't working as the rightwing nutters have the media in their court.  I am sick of seeing Chris Christie's mug on the national news slamming hardworking middle class state employees. He continues to scream about Social Security even though the fund is solid until 2035 at the earliest and currently contributes nothing to either the state or national budget woes. In fact, NJ has no one to blame but themselves for the public pension liabilites they currently are drowning in. From CNN:

To figure out how such a wealthy state (with a median household income of $65,933, New Jersey ranks No. 1) dug itself into this hole, set the clock back almost 20 years.

In 1990 the country was hit by a recession, and the new Democratic governor, James Florio, responded with a wildly unpopular $2.8 billion income and sales tax increase to balance the budget. Two years later, facing another budget shortfall, he turned to the state pension system for help. With almost unanimous support in the legislature, he pushed through the Pension Revaluation Act of 1992.

We'll spare you the minutiae of pension accounting and just say that the law permitted the state to recognize investment gains in the fund more quickly than under previous rules. It also lifted the projected rate of return on the fund's investments to 8.75% from 7% (since lowered to 8.25%). These "adjustments" had a big impact: According to an official Benefits Review Task Force report published in 2005, they allowed the state to cut its pension contributions by more than $1.5 billion in 1992 and 1993.

Republican Christine Todd Whitman, running on a tax-cutting platform, defeated Florio in the 1993 governor's race. To help pay for her promised tax cuts, Whitman, like her predecessor, turned to the pension fund. In 1994, at her urging, the legislature adopted another pension "reform" act that allowed her to reduce state and local contributions to the plan by nearly $1.5 billion in 1994 and 1995, according to the task force report. Florio's and Whitman's accounting changes were "the one-two punch from which the retirement system has never recovered," says Douglas Forrester, who was the assistant state treasurer under Kean.

Instead of nailing the former Republican governor Whitman and the Democrat Florio, Christie is using the time-honored tradition of blaming everyone else, but the guilty, for NJ's monetary problems. The fact is NJ has had this problem for decades and some, not all of the governors ignored it or tried to quick-fix it using smoke and mirrors.

The Obama administration and the current crop of Congressional Democrats have to step up and point out the fallacies in the rightwinger's arguments. It's time to back your state brethren on the national stage...stop letting them languish and flail about. Do not let the media and the rightwing nutters control the discussion as it only serves their own political interests, which is all they care about anyway.

Allowing the rightwing Republicans to attack the middle class is unconscionable on every level. Allowing them to pit public sector vs private sector workers is pure bullshit. The election cycle isn't anywhere near us at this point, but the extreme rightwing Governors are laying the groundwork now for 2012. If the Democrats wait much longer to address the lies and bs being spewed daily, they serve no one.

Call it what it is: Demonizing hardworking middle class public servants who make less than their private sector counterparts is contemptible and should be called out as such. It isn't just the teachers, as Governor Scott the tool Walker states daily, it's all sectors of public employees being drawn and quartered by the right, from sanitation workers to secretaries and all workers in between.

Get off your asses Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the Congress Critters, and fight as hard as the workers in Wisconsin have been fighting for weeks now. It's the least you can do. Anything less is not acceptable and downright fucking disgusting to this voter.

Roger Ailes is a big, fat Liar!

Of course many of us on the left already know this fact, but to see it in print over at the NYTdoes make my little black heart go all aflutter! From the NYT writeup:

But now, affidavits filed in a separate lawsuit reveal the identity of the previously unnamed executive: Roger E. Ailes, chairman of Fox News. 

What is more, the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discusses her relationship with Mr. Kerik. 

It is unclear whether the existence of the tape played a role in News Corporation’s decision to move quickly to settle Ms. Regan’s lawsuit, paying her $10.75 million in a confidential settlement reached two months after she filed it in 2007. 

Depending on the specifics, the conversation could possibly rise to the level of conspiring to lie to federal officials, a federal crime, but prosecutors rarely pursue such cases, said Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia University law professor and former federal prosecutor.

Sadly, old Roger will most likely not be charged with a federal crime..but it must be embarrassing for Rupert and his main minion to see all this in print. The hamsters at Fox immediately blasted out a statement that, true to form, spins Ailes and his lying thusly:

In a statement released on Wednesday, a News Corporation spokeswoman did not deny that Mr. Ailes was the executive on the recording.

But the spokeswoman, Teri Everett, said that News Corporation has a letter from Ms. Regan “stating that Mr. Ailes did not intend to influence her with respect to a government investigation.” 

“The matter is closed,” Ms. Everett said. 

Ms. Everett declined to release the letter, and Ms. Regan’s lawyer, Robert E. Brown, said the News Corporation’s description of the letter did not represent Ms. Regan’s complete statement.

Still, it is a nice little comeuppance for the head turdmeister at Fox to be outed so publicly.
Judith Regan is the journalist, and I use that term loosely when describing her, that tried to pen the OJ tell -all entitled “If I Did It”. Her fall from grace is also legendary. Two peas in a pod, is a term that comes to mind when describing Ailes and Regan.

Andrea Mitchell v Jon Stewart: Who lobbed softballs for Rummy?

Hands down it was Jon Stewart. I didn't watch TDS last night, I dvr'd it, but after a couple of minutes watching it this morning, I really don't have anything good to say about Stewart's cough..interview of Rumsfeld. Softball city is how I see it.

On the other hand, Andrea Mitchell's pummeling of Rummy on her MSNBC show a couple of days ago was pretty damn good. She fired question after question at him, and didn't give him time to even come up for air. When he tried to blow off a question from her, she came right back at him tossing facts at him that backed up her assertions.

Stewart on the other hand, looked like a hand-picked Faux Noise comrade.

Nice going Jon. When did you start pitching for the other team?  Perhaps I expected too much of Stewart. Mitchell on the other hand, was better than I expected.

Scott Walker:Koch Whore & King of the Douchenozzles.

Thanks to Dave @DaveSplash.com for the audios. I have been laying in bed listening to bits and pieces of this convo all day on MSNBC. I fucking love it. Yes, I am still sick...but I digress.

Busted Scotty! You are so fucking busted you bag of batshit.





I love you Ian Murphy from BuffaloBeast.com! If you really want to know wtf is really going on w/Wisconsin's budget, ProPublica.org has a great piece on it here. They won a Pulitzer prize for their investigative reporting btw..so go read it..now!

It also made my day to hear that the Obama DOJ will no longer support that fucking bullshit known as DOMA. Carry On folks!!!!! ;) I am feeling better today than I have in a friggin week.

UPDATE: Did dumbass Gov Scotty Walker break the law during his phone call w/Ian/David Koch? We can only hope.

The R's are batting 1000.00 lately..

When it comes to attacking women's health needs and going after the working class..man, those douchenozzles on the far right are hitting them outta the friggin park lately.

Of all the things Planned Parenthood does..abortions take up a whole three-fucking-percent of their work. Yet, Mike The Fuckwit Pence and his toadies have managed to tar and feather them with the broadest paintbrush imaginable, pushing thru a bill/amendment that eliminates all their funding. Talk about fucking retarded. These jive-ass mutha fuckas will have you believe they are doing Gawd's work, yet the truth is this: They will actually drive up the number of abortions given in this country by wiping out Planned Parenthood.

But don't let the facts get in the way of their fuckery..oh hell no. Congress Critter Jackie Speier tells us that the assholes in the GOP need to stop demonizing women who have had legal medical procedures:

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Then we have the dolt who governs the state of Wisconsin. Jesus-friggin-Christ is he really that stupid or just hoping to hell the rest of america is? His thinly-veiled attack on unions is the biggest cheapass shot taken yet and I stand up and salute those Democrats that fled the state and have to now sit on their hands in Illinois hoping this fuckwit comes to his senses and gets a grip on reality. No one is going to sit by and let this fucktard take away their bargaining rights. No one. Not without a fucking fight.

Did he really think it was going to be a walk in the friggin park on that point? I know the Democratic Party is a bunch of fucking babies but we aren't talking about elected nitwits..we are talking about hard-working Americans that have children to feed, cars to gas up,driveways to shovel out when it snows and mortgages to pay.

Being sick and stuck in bed, the only thing I can do, besides sleep and bitch, is watch tv. I don't know what is making me sicker...the shit I see going down in Wisconsin or the assholes in the House trying to sell me a bag of bullshit about Planned Parenthood and their wicked friggin agenda of abortions for everyone, on demand, all the time...etc..etc..etc.

It simply amazes me how fucked up the people who are elected to govern are. How they would screw their neighbors to death for what amounts to nothing but a ball sac of bullshit. It's all about Power for them. Nothing more, nothing less...Power..the ultimate aphrodisiac for the idiots on the right.

Then, there is the Koch Brothers money involved in this fuckery too. Americans for Prosperity my ass.

All I want is to be able to breathe without the aid of a machine...and quit watching tv at this point. The shit is down right fucking depressing.

I also want Mike Pence to go straight to hell, do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars. Same goes for the asshole Governor of Wisconsin.

It was started by a Doctor...

Dr. Jeremy Krock is a children's anesthesiologist and avid baseball fan. He has always had an interest in history, specifically the local history of Ardmore, MO. When he learned that one of the Negro Leagues best known players, Jimmie Crutchfield, was buried in the same cemetery as his family members, he went looking for the grave, to pay his respects.

But he couldn't find it. There was no headstone or even a grave marker for Jimmie Crutchfield. He laid in an unmarked grave. One of the most famous people to come out of Ardmore MO was in an unmarked grave.

Dr. Krock created a fund to place markers on the graves of all the greats from the Negro Leagues. He started with Jimmie Crutchfield's and so far the fund has placed grave markers on  20 graves. The fund is called the Negro League Grave Marker Project.

Not that it matters, or should..but Dr. Krock is a white man. He has taught his two young sons to respect people of color and their accomplishments as well. He has taught them the history of the Negro Leagues, and those that paved the way for greats like Willie Mays, Ricky Henderson and so many others. A quote from one of his sons, a very wise 16 year old named Spencer:

"Everyone should be treated equally, and they really weren't back then," said Spencer Krock, 16. "In some cases, there were Negro League players that had more talent than some in the major leagues. I think it's important to recognize that everyone has potential." 

It made my day to read that quote from a child. I am sicker than hell, but it made me feel a whole lot better. To read the entire ESPN piece on Dr. Krock and his fund check out this Outside The Lines story. It will make you feel good, I swear it will. For once, I ain't bitching..so it must be worth the trip to that link. To learn more about the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project, check out their website here. If you can spare a few bucks for the cause, bless you.

Debbie Schlussel: What hate and evil sounds like.

Actually Debbie is more than a batshit crazy. She is an evil, disgusting hot mess of hatred, jealousy, racism, bigotry and even toss in a side of misogyny. Oh yeah..you don't have to be a male to be a misogynistic bag of shit.

Lara Logan was covering the Egypt uprisings the day Mubarak stepped down, she was brutally raped and beaten in Liberation Square. She owes her life to a group of Egyptian women and soldiers that rescued her from a crowd of males that had separated her from her film crew so they could beat and sexually assault her. The story should end there, but it doesn't.

Back here in the US, numerous assholes in the media took to writing various pieces that attacked the victim. I will not link to those pieces directly because I refuse to give those fucking assholes anymore publicity than they have already received. Slate has a write-up here on the most heinous of them, which includes Debbie Schlussel's disgusting blog post. Debbie's piece is by far, the most horrific of them all. If you aren't familiar with this friggin wingtard, her wiki page is here. Let me save you the trip...she is a far right nutter that thinks all muslims and generally all brown people are horrible and should be shot and killed on sight. This is a bit of irony as her father was the son of immigrants...but I digress. From the Slate link, a short blurb on Debbie's take regarding Ms. Logan's brutal rape and beating while she was doing her job:

And the ever-heinous Debbie Schlussel was quick to jump on her regular line of racism, noting how the assault happened in a "country of savages," because that never ever happens anywhere else, and it's never committed by light-skinned people! She then twisted the knife by going after Logan herself, saying, "So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows... How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the 'liberation.'" Debbie Schlussel, what's it like to be so liberated from the burden of having either a mind or a soul?

One of the idiots, a male, that ran his piehole about what happened to Lara Logan was forced to resign his fellowship at NYU when no one laughed at his supposed joking about her situation via Twitter. This asshole was left of center politically which shows that ignorance isn't always right of the center.

Schlussel calls Logan’s rape a liberation, as a disgusting play on words. How callous and cold-hearted is that? I can not wrap my mind around that phrase. I can not understand how a woman can use that phrase when describing another woman’s brutal raping.

People refer to Schlussel as a pundit. I think of her as a brain dead bag of shit who is consumed by hate and self-loathing and like Rush Limbaugh, will say anything to get her face front and center in the news. For sick fucks like Schlussel and Limbaugh, any press is good press.

So, as Debbie Schlussel sits in her warm and cozy home in Detroit and talks shit about Lara Logan, one can only wonder if she would have what it takes to go into a war zone and report like Logan has done time and time again. Somehow, I don't think that evil, soulless cunt would..in fact..I would bet my last dollar she couldn't.

 I know I couldn't.

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John Boehner sucks as Speaker of the House.

I will be taking a short leave of absence kiddies as I am sick as the proverbial dog. So watch this lovely video from Rachel's show about what a worthless fuck John Boehner is.

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And his math sucks ass too. Don't you just love how the Rethugs look like the friggin Keystone Cops so far in this Congress? I know I do!!!!!! ;) Fucking morons.

Omar Suleiman- Torturer-in-Chief

I always had a feeling that Omar wasn't any better than Mubarak, because Mubarak picked him. DemocracyNow tells us that he isn't. From their link:

During his televised speech on February 10, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak delegated some of his presidential authority to handpicked Vice-President Omar Suleiman. Professor Lisa Hajjar of the University of California, Santa Barbara chronicles Suleiman’s record, including his role in the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, his close ties to Israel and his personal involvement in the torture of prisoners.

Obama wants to cut LIHEAP, energy assistance to the poor

Isn't that a quaint idea? From the NationalJournal:

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget will cut several billion dollars from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people, officials briefed on the subject told National Journal. 

It's the biggest domestic spending cut disclosed so far, and one that will likely generate the most heat from the president's traditional political allies. Such complaints might satisfy the White House, which has a vested interest in convincing Americans that it is serious about budget discipline.   

One White House friend, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier today that a Republican proposal to cut home heating oil counted as an "extreme idea" that would "set the country backwards." Schumer has not yet reacted to Obama's proposed cut. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., declared: “The President’s reported proposal to drastically slash LIHEAP funds by more than half would have a severe impact on many of New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens and I strongly oppose it." A spokesman for Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., declared similarly: “If these cuts are real, it would be a very disappointing development for millions of families still struggling through a harsh winter.” 

In a letter to Obama, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote, "We simply cannot afford to cut LIHEAP funding during one of the most brutal winters in history. Families across Massachusetts, and the country, depend on these monies to heat their homes and survive the season." 

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion. The proposed cut will not touch the program's emergency reserve fund, about $590 million, which can be used during particularly harsh cold snaps or extended heat spells, three officials told National Journal.

This doesn't sit well with me. Hitting those that can least afford it is bullshit on a stick. WTF is wrong with cutting the Pentagon's damn budget? He gave the rich an incredible tax cut and everyone knows they didn't fucking need it. This really is wrong on every level. 

When the power goes out in Bako

It was a five cat night in Bakersfield as the temperature got down to 37 degrees. Yesterday afternoon between 1:30- 2pm, I was sitting at the computer when a very loud bang shook the house and scared the cats and little ole me. At the very same time, everything electrical went out.

It stayed that way until 3:30am. It wasn't so bad at first, I sat and listened to the sounds of the hood, people screaming at each other, the dulcet tones of fire trucks and police sirens. The tweeker's next door playing Ozzy at full blast.

Wait..how in the hell can they be playing Ozzy at full blast???

I went flying over to their place and inquired as to their power situation since two transformers had just blown up. They had full power they said, through their toothless grins. Evidently they were on a different power grid than the rest of our block.

Fucking great. I asked them to either close their windows or turn that shit down, I wasn't in the mood to hear Ozzy right then as I didn't have any electricity and I wasn't tweeking my ass off like they had been doing for the last 36-48 hours.

They complied with my request. It might of been the clenched teeth or the look in my eyes, I dunno and I don't really care. I came back into the house and cursed how I had never kept my laptop battery charged correctly and that now it was a worthless hunk of metal.

I started texting friends and family. After they tired of me bugging them, I looked for something to read. Realizing I hadn't purchased a book in over a year, I gave up that idea quickly as I couldn't find it. I took the chihuahua, Goliath for a walk. I played with the cats for an hour until one of them tried to open up a vein. By then, it was getting dark.

Dark is really dark when you have no lights.

So I grabbed a flashlight I had dug out earlier in the day and looked around for candles again. All I found were some friggin tealights. Tealights are those damn tiny-assed candles that come in tin holders that don't light up shit. The cats thought I had found them some new toys and they commenced trying to bat the suckers around that I had lit and put on my desk and night stand.

I blew the worthless things out. When the sun goes down, the temperature starts dropping. I started putting more clothes on. I started cursing the gawds of electricity and PG&E(Pacific Gas&Electric). I then called PG&E and asked for an estimate of when they were going to have everything back up since we hadn't seen any of their guys at or near the blown out transformer yet and it was 6pm, 4 hours after the big bang.

Around 2-3am he said. I went off on the guy. He hung up on me. A transformer on a telephone pole is the size of a  house trashcan, like one you typically have in the kitchen. We all called them immediately to tell them the location of the blown transformer so they wouldn't waste hours trying to figure out where the problem child was.

I then called one of the local tv channels, asking if they had any information. They said only 44 homes were still without power. Great, that meant only our block was still in the dark and I live in the ghetto. This means the power company could give a rat's ass when we get power, which explained why no one was working on our pole yet.

Fuckers...

I took my little flashlight and began walking back into my domain, the back of the house, and looked for my little bag of nature's medicinal. Found it!  Used it.

Took a nap with the cats surrounding me like a furry blanket. When I awoke I grabbed my little flashlight and walked back up to the front of the house. The Ball n' Chain was watching TV. I looked to the back of the house from where I had just emerged and yes it was still black.

He had taken a long extension cord to the neighbors next door (its a duplex) and was running a lamp, his satellite box and his TV off their power. After telling him to stay as far away from me as possible(that cold he has that I do not want), I sat up there for awhile watching something stupid, conversing about how cold it was and sending him regularly outside to get updates from the PG&E crew that was standing around looking up at the telephone pole like they were waiting for their fairy godmother to fly up and fix it at any minute.

Needless to say, it was a very long, very cold night. I kept reminding myself that people in Haiti would love to be able to plug into their neighbors electricity and watch something stupid on their TV and have a lamp they can turn on at will.

That thought alone kept my bitching and complaining to a minimum.

Keith Olbermann going to Current TV

One of the worst kept secrets appears to be that former Countdown host Keith Olbermann is now headed over to cable’s Current TV. From the NYT:

Keith Olbermann, the former top-rated host on the news channel MSNBC, will announce his next television home on Tuesday, and people on Monday familiar with his plans pointed to a deal with the public affairs channel Current TV.

Mr. Olbermann, his representatives and executives from Current TV declined to comment on the move, but they did not deny that the channel, which counts former Vice President Al Gore as one of its founders, will become at least one partner in Mr. Olbermann’s future media plans.

One of the people with knowledge of the plans said Mr. Olbermann would have an equity stake in Current TV. The people insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized by their employers to comment in advance of the official announcement.

On Monday a public relations agency hired by Mr. Olbermann scheduled a Tuesday morning conference call for an announcement about his next job. “He and his new partners will make an exciting announcement regarding the next chapter in his remarkable career,” the agency wrote in an e-mail.

 Current TV has set up a presentation with advertisers for Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan to announce its future plans. The channel may be betting on Mr. Olbermann to put it on the cable map. The low-rated five-year-old channel needs the help. Targeting young people, it originally subsisted on YouTube-style submissions and video journalists. More recently it started producing and acquiring traditional television series, like repeats of “This American Life.”

I like Current TV and do watch it, but it’s not a channel that all people have access to. Olbermann has a phone conference set up this morning with the media shortly. More info when it becomes available.

UPDATE: KO will serve as Current's Chief News Officer and have a one hour show sometime late this spring according to his phone conference. His website is already up at Current and can be viewed here. From their Press Release:

In addition to executive producing and hosting a new nightly primetime news and commentary show, Olbermann will also serve as the company’s Chief News Officer and will have an equity stake in Current Media.

The new show will air live weeknights in primetime beginning later in 2011. 

"Nothing is more vital to a free America than a free media, and nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news produced independently of corporate interference," said Olbermann. "In Current Media, Al Gore and Joel Hyatt have created the model truth-seeking entity.  The opportunity to partner with Al, Joel and Mark Rosenthal makes this the most exciting venture in my career." 

“Keith Olbermann is a gifted thinker, an amazing talent and a powerful communicator, and having him tap Current as his new home is exciting and very much in line with the core vision we founded this network on:  To engage viewers with smart, provocative and timely programming,” said Al Gore, Chairman and co-founder of Current.  “In a world where there are fewer and fewer opportunities to hear truly distinct, unfettered voices on television, we are delighted to provide Keith with the independent platform and freedom that Current can, and does uniquely offer.” 

Alrighty then!!!

Bill-O the clown-Worst interviewer on the planet.

Yesterday, whilst I was awaiting the start of the Super Bowl and of course the commercials, my telly scared the shit out of me when it filled with the vision of Bill O'Reilly. I thought I was having flashbacks from some bad acid I took back in the 70's for a brief second, then I saw President Obama and heaved a sigh of relief.  Now, I won't call Bill-O the clown a journalist because that jackass is as far from that word as you can get. Hell, my cat Scooter Lee is closer to a journalist than Bill-O, but I digress.

So, Bill-O was an interviewer Sunday and that jackass couldn't of done a worse job. No one on the face of the friggin planet could of, even Tweety, aka Chris Matthews, who sucks daily when it comes to interrupting the people he is interviewing couldn't of done a worse job. My mother couldn't of done a worse job and she is the queen of interrupting.

Forty-three-fucking-times O'Reilly interrupted Obama. 43! I mean, seriously...wtf asshole? And the questions were stupid in the way he asked them for christs sake, because he didn't really ask Obama questions... as he made them statements of fact. Sweet Jaysus Bill-O are you stupid or just acting the part you mental midget? Anyway, enjoy Lawrence and Howie ripping into BillO.

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Keith Olbermann has presser set for tomorrow 11am

From TVNewser:

Former MSNBC “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann has been the subject of much speculation across the interwebs, much of it asking where he will be heading next.

Look for the speculation to end tomorrow, as Olbermann is planning to announce his next career move in a conference call slated for 11 AM ET.

With the news that HuffPo has sold out to Corporate Media, well AOHell is sort of media, wonder if this all ties in...

Lawyers,Guns and Money:Iran Contra and the Teflon President.

Today is Saint Ronnie's birthday. The man who probably had Alzheimer's whilst he was President of the United States was: a charismatic speaker but a lousy actor, had zero background or education to become President and to our country's detriment, surrounded himself with lousy military, financial and economic advisors. Yet the GOP, and those that control them, the rightwingtards, idolize this man.  The Palinista's lionize him as if he was the second coming of JC himself. They forget the facts and they rewrite history when it comes to Saint Ronnie of Cali.

Now, lets go back in the time machine and recall some memorable moments in history about St. Ronnie of Cali. First, from Joe Conason, about the Lebanon attack that saw captured American's and the subsequent deaths of 241 soldiers the republicans never talk about..and that little thing called...Iran-Contra:

Between 1984 and 1986, the Reagan administration tried to free American hostages in Lebanon from their Shiite captors, not by confronting the terrorists militarily but by negotiating with their presumed Iranian sponsors. By then, Reagan had already retreated from Lebanon, withdrawing the Marines after the terrorist bombing of their Beirut barracks had claimed 241 American lives. 

Around that same time, the White House concocted a pretext to invade the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, which distracted public attention from the American humiliation in the Middle East. 

Instead of retaliating against Iran or any of the organizations that claimed responsibility for the Lebanon attack, Reagan approved a secret initiative to improve relations with the Iranian leadership by shipping advanced missiles to them. The immediate objective was to get the Iranians to lean on Hezbollah in Lebanon to release a group of six American hostages. Seeking to advance the discussion, National Security Advisor Robert (Bud) McFarlane visited Tehran, carrying a Koran and a cake as tokens of Presidential esteem. Meanwhile, the profits from the arms transactions—which were conducted by private citizens working with White House and C.I.A. personnel—were diverted to finance the contra rebellion in Nicaragua.

Saint Ronnie of course blamed those he hired to do his bidding for this fucked up mess. This kids, came to be known as the Iran Contra scandal and cost a few neocons their jobs among other things..it cost Saint Ronnie nothing as he used the time honored phrase..I do not recall (Alzheimer's anyone?).. a lot. Bush the First pardoned a shit load of these fuckers. Interestingly...the GOP crowd never talks about these dark fucking days of lies and more lies and dirty deeds done dirt cheap by those in the Reagan administration, many who went on to bigger and better things. From the George Washington University link above:

 In this connection, it is worth noting that Poindexter, although he refused to implicate Reagan by testifying that he had told him about the diversion, declared that if he had informed the president he was sure Reagan would have approved. Reagan's success in avoiding a harsher political penalty was due to a great extent to Poindexter's testimony (which left many observers deeply skeptical about its plausibility). But it was also due in large part to a tactic developed mainly by Attorney General Edwin Meese, which was to keep congressional and public attention tightly focused on the diversion. By spotlighting that single episode, which they felt sure Reagan could credibly deny, his aides managed to minimize public scrutiny of the president's other questionable actions, some of which even he understood might be illegal.(emphasis mine)

Twenty years later, the Iran-Contra affair continues to resonate on many levels, especially as Washington gears up for a new season of political inquiry with the pending inauguration of the 110th Congress and the seeming inevitability of hearings into a range of Bush administration policies. 

For at its heart Iran-Contra was a battle over presidential power dating back directly to the Richard Nixon era of Watergate, Vietnam and CIA dirty tricks. That clash continues under the presidency of George W. Bush, which has come under frequent fire for the controversial efforts of the president, as well as Vice President Richard Cheney, to expand Executive Branch authority over numerous areas of public life. 

Iran-Contra also echoes in the re-emergence of several prominent public figures who played a part in, or were touched by, the scandal. The most recent is Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense (see below and the documents in this compilation for more on Gates' role). 

This sampling of some of the most revealing documentation (Note 1) to come out of the affair gives a clear indication of how deeply involved the president was in terms of personally directing or approving different aspects of the affair. The list of other officials who also played significant parts, despite their later denials, includes Vice President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, CIA Director William J. Casey, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, and numerous other senior and mid-level officials, making this a far broader scandal than the White House portrayed it at the time. 

In that connection, what follows is a partial list of some of the more prominent individuals who were either directly a part of the Iran-Contra events or figured in some other way during the affair or its aftermath:

• Elliott Abrams
 - currently deputy assistant to President Bush and deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy, Abrams was one of the Reagan administration's most controversial figures as the senior State Department official for Latin America in the mid-1980s. He entered into a plea bargain in federal court after being indicted for providing false testimony about his fund-raising activities on behalf of the Contras, although he later accused the independent counsel's office of forcing him to accept guilt on two counts. President George H. W. Bush later pardoned him.

• David Addington
 - now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, and by numerous press accounts a stanch advocate of expanded presidential power, Addington was a congressional staffer during the joint select committee hearings in 1986 who worked closely with Cheney.

• John Bolton
 - the controversial U.N. ambassador whose recess appointment by President Bush is now in jeopardy was a senior Justice Department official who participated in meetings with Attorney General Edwin Meese on how to handle the burgeoning Iran-Contra political and legal scandal in late November 1986. There is little indication of his precise role at the time.

• Richard Cheney
 - now the vice president, he played a prominent part as a member of the joint congressional Iran-Contra inquiry of 1986, taking the position that Congress deserved major blame for asserting itself unjustifiably onto presidential turf. He later pointed to the committees' Minority Report as an important statement on the proper roles of the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

• Robert M. Gates
 - President Bush's nominee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld, Gates nearly saw his career go up in flames over charges that he knew more about Iran-Contra while it was underway than he admitted once the scandal broke. He was forced to give up his bid to head the CIA in early 1987 because of suspicions about his role but managed to attain the position when he was re-nominated in 1991. (See previous Electronic Briefing Book)

• Manuchehr Ghorbanifar
 - the quintessential middleman, who helped broker the arms deals involving the United States, Israel and Iran ostensibly to bring about the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon, Ghorbanifar was almost universally discredited for misrepresenting all sides' goals and interests. Even before the Iran deals got underway, the CIA had ruled Ghorbanifar off-limits for purveying bad information to U.S. intelligence. Yet, in 2006 his name has resurfaced as an important source for the Pentagon on current Iranian affairs, again over CIA objections.

• Michael Ledeen
 - a neo-conservative who is vocal on the subject of regime change in Iran, Ledeen helped bring together the main players in what developed into the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in 1985 before being relegated to a bit part. He reportedly reprised his role shortly after 9/11, introducing Ghorbanifar to Pentagon officials interested in exploring contacts inside Iran.

• Edwin Meese
 - currently a member of the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, he was Ronald Reagan's controversial attorney general who spearheaded an internal administration probe into the Iran-Contra connection in November 1986 that was widely criticized as a political exercise in protecting the president rather than a genuine inquiry by the nation's top law enforcement officer.

• John Negroponte
 - the career diplomat who worked quietly to boost the U.S. military and intelligence presence in Central America as ambassador to Honduras, he also participated in efforts to get the Honduran government to support the Contras after Congress banned direct U.S. aid to the rebels. Negroponte's profile has risen spectacularly with his appointments as ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and director of national intelligence in 2005. (See previous Electronic Briefing Book)

• Oliver L. North
 - now a radio talk show host and columnist, he was at the center of the Iran-Contra spotlight as the point man for both covert activities. A Marine serving on the NSC staff, he steadfastly maintained that he received high-level approval for everything he did, and that "the diversion was a diversion." He was found guilty on three counts at a criminal trial but had those verdicts overturned on the grounds that his protected congressional testimony might have influenced his trial. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Virginia in 1996. (See previous Electronic Briefing Book)

• Daniel Ortega
 - the newly elected president of Nicaragua was the principal target of several years of covert warfare by the United States in the 1980s as the leader of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front. His democratic election in November 2006 was not the only irony -- it's been suggested by one of Oliver North's former colleagues in the Reagan administration that North's public statements in Nicaragua in late October 2006 may have taken votes away from the candidate preferred by the Bush administration and thus helped Ortega at the polls.

• John Poindexter
 - who found a niche deep in the U.S. government's post-9/11 security bureaucracy as head of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program (formally disbanded by Congress in 2003), was Oliver North's superior during the Iran-Contra period and personally approved or directed many of his activities. His assertion that he never told President Reagan about the diversion of Iranian funds to the Contras ensured Reagan would not face impeachment.

• Otto Reich
 - President George W. Bush's one-time assistant secretary of state for Latin America, Reich ran a covert public diplomacy operation designed to build support for Ronald Reagan's Contra policies. A U.S. comptroller-general investigation concluded the program amounted to "prohibited, covert propaganda activities," although no charges were ever filed against him. Reich paid a price in terms of congressional opposition to his nomination to run Latin America policy, resulting in a recess appointment in 2002 that lasted less than a year. (See previous Electronic Briefing Book)

Such a list of who's who wouldn't you say? Jaysus-friggin-Christ! Aren't some of those names real friggin familiar? They went on to screw up even more than they did in Ronnie's administration, some of them killing even more and more Americans than were killed on Saint Ronnies watch. Like The Big Dick Cheney, Robert Gates and John Negroponte. 

http://skypape.wordpress.com/2008/10/

Ah yes,  the Teflon President was exactly that. And his underlings got off as well. Why are the Democrats never that lucky you might ask? Well..I ask that too my friends..I ask that too.So when the GOP crowd starts crowing today about the wonders of Saint Ronnie, just start low but keep getting louder and louder, chanting the following:


Iran-Contra..Iran-Contra....You didn't fool me..You didn"t fool me...Iran-Contra...Iran-Contra..You didn't fool me mutha fuckas, you didn't fool  me. 

It will eventually get on their last friggin nerve and they will either shut the fuck up or leave the room. Hopefully by the time the SuperBowl starts.

Federal Judge orders halt to budget cut ending food benefit for immigrants.

Every state in our country is having budget problems, this is not news. But a Federal Judge ordering the State of WA to cease and desist a budget cut which would literally take food out of the mouth’s of legal immigrant children is news. From the Seattle PI:

A federal judge has temporarily stopped Washington from eliminating food benefits for thousands of legal immigrants, after the state was planning to whack the program to save $7.2 million.

The cut had been scheduled to take effect Tuesday.

The Department of Social and Health Services had planned the cut to help balance the current dismal state budget. By dropping the program, the state was also expecting to save an additional $45 million in the next budget cycle, which faces a massive $4.6 billion deficit.

DSHS’s plan called for eliminating state food aid to 14,000 poor, legal immigrants who don’t qualify for federal food stamps, mostly because they haven’t lived in the country long enough. The move prompted Columbia Legal Services to file a federal, class-action lawsuit last month, alleging the cut is unconstitutional.

Last week, U.S. District Court Marsha Pechman imposed a temporary restraining order against the state. In a ruling issued Friday, Pechman wrote that the food program provides legal immigrants a vital resource, which, if eliminated, would create an “irreparable harm.”

“While the public’s interest is served by conserving the resources of the state, the need to the Plaintiff and class members is extreme and substantial. Plaintiff’s and class’s suffering ‘is far more compelling than the possibility of some administrative inconvenience, or monetary loss to the government,’ ” Pechman wrote, citing a previous court case.

Will the right call this judicial activism? I call it compassion and having a moral compass. Who in the blue hell thinks it is ok to cut out food benefits from a budget for families that are here legally? Violating the ‘Equal Protection Clause‘ should of been a clue to these mindless fools right out of the gate as well, because they were not going to cut those benefits for anyone born here. Sounds like ignorance with a healthy side of bigotry and/or racism to me.

This just makes you wonder about the IQ level of those we elect to public office, doesn’t it? I know it makes me wonder…

For $36 you can read Rumsfelds lies and excuses.

Lawrence O’Donnell, in the video below, gives us a few examples of the various lies and obfuscations between the covers of Donald Rumsfeld’s new book, Known and Unknown. Before we get to the video, I would like to take a few shots, from a past writeup, at the man who’s hold on the truth was tenuous at best and at times..well, stunningly non-existent:

In 1984 Donald Rumsfeld hugged Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and with a big toothy grin, shook his hand vigorously. 19 years later, on Rumsfeld’s watch, Saddam was pulled from a hole in Tikrit and arrested. The Donald’s legacy will be forever tied to Saddam Hussein in one way or another.

President Bush said the following about Donald Rumsfeld the day he ‘retired’ as Sec. of Defense: “This man knows how to lead, and he did. The country’s better off for it,” The president called Rumsfeld “one of America’s most skilled, energetic and dedicated public servants.”

Excuse me if I don’t buy what the President was selling. Rumsfeld was the main architect of the occupation of Iraq, also known as the Iraq War. I will not be the one to judge Bush’s Secretary of Defense. History and his God will do that. The President tried to paint a rosy picture today of Rumsfeld’s role in the Iraq war.  Rumsfeld virtually had no plan after the invasion of Iraq, and our troops payed a heavy price for his lack of foresight. Rumsfeld was asked what the worst day of his time in office under Bush43 was. His response: the day he saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Not the hundreds of deaths of American soldiers, that the exposure of torture, that he was aware of, finally saw the ugly light of day.

Up to the bitter end of his reign, Rumsfeld was still chirping about the importance of ‘winning” in Iraq. Speaking to a gathering of employees 10 days before he left office, Rumsfeld defended his record on Iraq and Afghanistan and warned of “dire consequences were we to fail” in the war.

Yet, he still thinks the press didn’t give him his due, give him a fair shake. He shed a tear or two today at his final public appearance. There are still millions of tears to be shed by mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands and wives of soldiers who will be forced to clean up Donald’s mess and deal with his inadequacies as the top military leader, our Secretary of Offense, as it were. Perhaps his God will deal with Rummy on a different level. I do not see that happening here on terra firma. Here, his legacy is nothing to be proud of..not now, and not in the near future.

Robert McNamara came to grips with his legacy, years after the Vietnam War was over. He wrote a book about his involvement with sending over 58,000 American soldiers to their deaths. He was interviewed for the documentary “Fog of War” and spilled his guts, even insinuating he could be a “war criminal”. Some how, I just don’t see Donald Rumsfeld ever coming clean like that. I think he will go to his grave denying he did anything wrong with regard to the Iraq War.

I hope I am wrong, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I knew the day would come when this delusional, arrogant man’s book would hit the shelves. I will not read it as I am sure it will give me nightmare’s of the Iraq war, the outright lies that led us into that war and that we lost over 4,400 soldiers for nothing but those lies,  all over again.

That he tries to rewrite history and cleanse his soul simply boggles my mind..but then I consider the source and it all makes sense, as his ilk never owns their mistakes. They blame others or they just deny, deny, deny.

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