Ricky Jay Doing Card Tricks

File under: That for which I am a complete sucker.

I Really Have To Learn

To read a little more carefully.


Because while story skimming, I just assumed this headline...





Was referring to this event.




Turns out the stories are actually quite similar.

Right down to the use of something called an "Exit Bag"

to make sure participants are completely suffocated.

The Comprehensive Jindal Volcano Protection Protocol:

"Hey, 'Canos, leave those kids alone!"

Gail Collins wonders why America's biggest moochers are the ones who brag the loudest about their mad fiscal responsibility skillz:

"
...
Absent any deep thoughts, the Republicans are going to complain about waste. The high point of Jindal’s address came when he laced into “wasteful spending” in the stimulus bill, and used as an example a $140 million appropriation for keeping an eye on the volcanoes in places like Alaska, where one is currently rumbling.

“Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.,” Jindal claimed.

I don’t know about you, but my reaction was: Wow, what a great stimulus plan. The most wasteful thing in it is volcano monitoring.

Louisiana has gotten $130 billion in post-Katrina aid. How is it that the stars of the Republican austerity movement come from the states that suck up the most federal money? Taxpayers in New York send way more to Washington than they get back so more can go to places like Alaska and Louisiana. Which is fine, as long as we don’t have to hear their governors bragging about how the folks who elected them want to keep their tax money to themselves. Of course they do! That’s because they’re living off ours.

O.K., I’m done.
..."

Bustednuckles takes the 20-foot industrial stoopid whacker to Governor Ginned-Up in an "Open Letter To Governer Bobby Jindal (R) Louisiana" here.

An Open Letter To Governer Bobby Jindal (R) Louisiana

After watching President Obama address the nation in a fairly forthright way, not all of it,by any stretch of the imagination,I am now watching Bobby Jindal try and rebut that and it is FAIL, 1.0.

Bragging about the response to Katrina is a clue, ya fucking idiot.

Refering to how awesome that response was about six times is a complete failure, just like the actual response.
The fact that New Orleans is still a fucking dumpster turned upside down, three years later?
Go Fuck Yourself and Shut Yer Fucking Pie Hole Dude.
Oh, Awesome Fucking Bonus Round!
The little fucking twit got his panties in a twist because there is some money in the fiasco for volcano monitoring and he just cannot see the wisdom of that and was OPENLY derisive of that funding.

Let me explain something to you, you stupid fucking idiot.

Ever heard of Hawaii?
I do believe that is one of the United States?
Like ,one of the last ones ?
HMMM?
I think, they have a few and I think, they tend to go off and , like, bury whole fucking towns?
Geeze, maybe it's just me.
Does the term Flatlander ever come up in conversations?
...

Go. Read. Now.

Art Stuff

Because sometimes the word-brain needs a day off.

Shorter Bobby Jindal:

When David Fucking Brooks calls the Republican response to President Obama's speech "insane" and "a disaster for the party" you know that somewhere out there the pickup truck driving Jesus to the Second Coming has just crossed a critical meridian.

But he did. And it was.

Governor Peewee's speech was a tragedy. A flop. A farce. The thousandth retread of the same, failed "Do nothing. Cut taxes. Government is the problem." drivel that drove us up onto the rocks in the first place.

And as sure as I'm sitting here, the same meatsticks who stood up and cheered Sarah Palin as the savior of the Conservative Movement will no doubt be saying by tomorrow that, at least in terms of content, it was the finest speech since Saint Crispin's Day from "Henry V".


Of course, that is assuming they have the slightest fucking clue about who and/or what St. Crispin, "Henry V" or Bill Shakespeare are, so let's just say I predict they'll rate is smack between Larry the Cable Guy holding forth on his travels through Intercourse, PA and the Talladega Nights Baby Jesus Prayer

on the scale of absolute oratorical awesomeness.


In Jindal's wingnut alternate history, every one of the historical milestones he cites as an example America at its finest -- a nation which "cast off the scourge of slavery, overcame the Great Depression, prevailesd in two World Wars (and) won the struggle for civil rights" -- were apparently handled entirely by the free market while the Big, Evil government just stayed the Hell out of the way.

And the defeat of "the Soviet menace" was accomplished by tax cutting the Commies back to the Stone Age.

Or something.

But this is who we are now; a nation divided between the largely sane people on the Left who would very much like for the various conflagrations left burning out of control thanks to 30 years of Republican policies to be put out even if that means a big, short blast of Big Gummint...and the millions of absolutely unhinged berserkers on the Right who believe what the fire really needs is More Fucking Gasoline.

None So Blind II

In which Andrew Sullivan is shocked to find that Republicans used their years running the country to wreck the country.

Sigh.

From his site (with emphasis added by me):

...
It is good to see the GOP pretending to be fiscally conservative again, but could any of them - just one or two apart from Ron Paul - concede that Bush and Cheney are the ones responsible for our current fiscal nightmare? They drove us so deep into the ditch that we have almost no fiscal lee-way to counter the kind of crisis they stumbled into at the end of their term. If we had retaied the fiscal health of the Clinton-Gingrich years into the new millennium, our range of possible actions right now would be far less dire.

Except since the beginning of time, the essence of politics has always been about deliberately depriving the opposition of as much choice and range of motion as possible. About deliberately forcing them down the path of your choosing by eliminating every other alternative.

How do you not know that?

For example, for the longest time Neoconservatives wanted to extend the American Empire into the heart of Middle East. So they used the crisis of 9/11 to gin up a pack of lies, roll 150,000 troops into Iraq, blow that country to atoms, fuel anti-American rage and terrorism where in never existed before, and then argued with a straight face that we could never leave Iraq….because of how fucked up everything was.

Or do you dirty terrorist-lovers want America to lose?!?

The whole object of the war was to strand us there; to arrange events so that no one could ever even whisper that maybe we should extricate ourselves from the Bush Clusterfuck without paying a fearful price. By mercilessly playing on the public's deepest fears and the Right's love of killing scary brown people, the Bush Administration would pitilessly cauterize every option except the never-ending occupation of Iraq and -- Bingo! -- the Neocons would have their Empire.

For decades, Conservatives have also been equally open and clear about wanting to smash the federal government and replace it with an unfettered, unregulated corporate feudal state. Because Gummint is Evil, Evil, Evil! So Conservatives rolled the Bush Administration into D.C. with all its ruthless, calculated bumpkinism like a political IED and detonated it. And Conservatives cheered as their Decider smashed and bankrupted every bit of government he could lay his hands on…applauded as he hog-slaughtered the “fiscal health” of its predecessor without a backwards glance…and now fanatically oppose any action to address out economic crisis that does not begin and end with more tax cuts.

Because Conservatives HATE the government. Or don’t you remember?

Jesus, man, it was in all the papers. For years and years and years. C’mon and work with me here.

Unbridled loathing? “Booga-Booga; the Liberal Gummint is out to get you”? Hulk Smash? Starve the beast? Drown it in the tub?

On every radio and every teevee?

Ring any bells?

The text or subtext of a billion tons of Conservative direct mail campaigns?

The first paragraph of every Conservative phone-banking effort?

Ten seconds of every thirty-second Republican campaign ad?

The thesis statement of every wingnut begging letter and fundraiser?

The fucking Guanine and Adenine in your fucking political DNA?

And since hating government (and its Evil Liberal puppet masters) is THE central organizing principle of the Conservative Movement, how can it possibly surprise you that, as Iraq follows 9/11, Conservative policies and politicians have brought us to this moment.

That however many lies it may require and however much pain it may inflict on the public, Conservatives see economic collapse in America as a good thing. A righteous cleansing and path back to power. As their golden opportunity to finally, once-and-for-all curb-stomp the Evil Socialist Gummint into oblivion.

What comes after is a little unclear, but depending on which RSS feed you subscribe to, I believe we either get a 1,000 Year Randite Reich, or The Rapture.

None So Blind

As those who get paid not to see.

Breaking: Andrew Sullivan discovers the Right is stinky with Crazy Bad People!

Again!

From his site:

“I've posted about [Alan] Keyes's remarks before but the full text of what he's saying is truly disturbing. He calls Obama an "abomination." He says that "we have to stop him" or the US will cease to exist. He says that the military should think about not obeying their commander-in-chief because he is not rightly the president of the United States. It seems important to me that responsible, leading members of the Republican party, if there are any left, need to disown these remarks. The consequences of letting them stand are quite disturbing."

Really?

Well while Alan Keyes is undoubtedly about one CD short of a David Lynch retrospective, he in also without office, platform or power. In fact as far as I can see, about all that's keeping "Alan Keyes: Conservative spokesman" from becoming "Alan Keyes: All-day-subway-rider-who-screams-at-strangers-about-fluoridation" are several nice suits and a stipend from whatever fascist "think tank" pays his room and board.

On the other hand, Tom DeLay spent years using very real power to inflict very real damage on the United States while Conservatives cheered him on, so how exactly are Keyes' ravings any worse than any of the million, sociopathic rants delivered by "The Hammer" over the last quarter century?

Or Newt Gingrich counseling Republicans everywhere to incant "Democrats are traitors" every time they got near a microphone?

Or endless headlines about Vince Foster's “murder”?

The drug-smuggling Clintons?

The mass-murdering Clintons?

Bill Clinton the depraved rapist?

The Right hunting a President like wild boar for seven years because he was "in the way"?

...
Richard Mellon Scaife is a billionaire contributor to the Republican Party and right-wing think tanks, one of the most influential men behind the right wing today. Scaife has helped establish their biggest institutions and supported some of their most radical ideas.

Scaife was a primary source of money used to fund attacks against Bill Clinton during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky eras of his presidency. He has also been known to purchase mass quantities of conservative books (especially those published by Regnery Press) to push them up the bestseller lists.

Among the right-wing organizations substantially funded by Scaife are the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Judicial Watch, Cato Institute and a working group within his American Spectator publication called the "Arkansas Project," whose specific aim was to locate and create dirt on the Clintons in order to smear them, in hopes of removing Clinton from office.

People for the American Way estimates that the Scaife Foundations have channeled in excess of $340 million to right-wing groups over the last thirty years, more than any other individual.
...

How is Keyes’ bloody rag-waving any different than a Conservative media that cheerfully fed its deranged base a steady diet of secret Liberal government plots and black helicopters ?

Any different than the leaders of the Conservative Movement who had no fucking qualms about playing footsie with neo-Nazis and militias scum right up until one of their Aryan heroes took literally the "irredeemably evil Liberal government" venom that was spewing out of the mouths of Hate Radio and House Republicans every single day...and decided to blow up a Federal building?

Conservatism in America was not somehow captured, cruelly tortured and then killed by that vile George Bush in 2003; Conservatism was born fucked up and in sin and has been an unholy alliance between plutocrats, fascists and fundies since it toddled out of the cradle and decided that George Wallace was a cultural hero to be emulated instead of a cultural cancer to be excised. And your so-called “responsible, leading members of the Republican party” have been dining lavishly out on scurrilous, Wallace-and-Keyes-style lynch-mob-goading language since I was in high school.

It is no longer productive to pretend a cavalry of responsible grownups from the Right is going to arrive and scold and shame people like Alan Keyes into shutting the fuck up. Keyes isn’t capable of shame and Keyes isn’t the problem: he is merely the latest high-profile ugly symptom of a disease that the Right -- your Right -- has always nurtured and cultivated.

On the other hand, responsible grownups on the Left have already wasted decades of time and energy and money and adjectives trying to warn people like you about people like Keyes and the calamitous arc your movement was following by embracing people like Keyes. Because, Mr. Sullivan, your movement has always been built around pandering to lunatics like Keyes.

So we warned you.

And warned you.

Holy Fucking Venus on a Vespa, did we ever warn you.

And now we’re all rather hoarse and worn out from trying to shout past Limbaugh and Falwell and Reed and Robertson and Weyrich and Bauer and Schlafly for the last two decades to get through to you.

I know we’re not your audience, but you should know that while I personally think its great that you’re finally mastering political A-B-C’s and fractions and all, we on the Left got tired of waiting for people you to stop circle-jerking with bigots and monsters wearing dime-store Maggie Thatcher masks a long time ago.

A very, very long time ago.

Long enough that we now find your eager and evergreen astonishment each time you re-discover that the Right is being run by madmen to be tantamount to a 45-year-old man bragging that he’s aaaaalmost figured out how to use the Big Boy potty without making boom-boom on the walls.

So quit waiting for whatever crusading watchdogs in the press or in positions of power on the Right to come thundering over the horizon in the final reel: any such creatures are either long since hollowed out, sold out, dead, or never existed in the first place.

Instead, if you really want to do a public service, stop yelping about why Keyes is still allowed to flap him gums, and start answering the really interesting question.

To wit:

“What exactly is so deeply broken in people like Andrew Sullivan that they can delude themselves so long, so passionately, so disastrously and so self-destructively about the real nature a movement which, in the end, was never more than a cult of angry, paranoid rubes, well-funded demagogues and rapacious plutocrats?”

Oh Playmate

Come out and play with me
And bring your dollies three.
Climb up my apple tree,
Look down my rain barrel
Slide down my cellar door
And we'll be jolly friends
Forever more.


OK, Prime Minister Obama's Questions today really was quite remarkable.

From the NYT:

...
MR. BIDEN: Mr. President. I want to begin by thanking all of you for being here today.

Represented in this room -- with notable exceptions of some of my old friends -- represented here in this room the finest minds in the country, representing a wide range of views across the political, ideological and academic spectrum.

And today we're asking you to help us begin to tackle the challenges of our nation's long-term fiscal situation. We explore -- we are going to explore how we got where we are and begin to debate where we need to head. And we hope this summit will help generate a healthy debate, because we truly believe that the best course is -- to arrive at the best answers -- is to have that debate.

It won't be easy, to state the obvious. I think we all know that we've inherited unprecedented budget deficits, and this has made all the more difficult the nearly unprecedented economic challenges the country is facing today.

So the problem will not be solved overnight. That's news to no one in this room.

But we want to be clear: As we take the steps that we must to get through the crisis we're in now, we will not lose sight of the long term. We will not lose sight of the need to tackle unmet needs for health care reform, to deal with the energy policy that we need, and so many others challenges that are going to determine what the 21 century looks like.

We must be direct with the American people about the budget difficulties and the choices we have to make, and we should be straightforward with them throughout this whole process.

I've always believed that in the toughest moments we are presented with the greatest opportunities as a nation. There is no question this is a very tough moment. But it's also a real opportunity to both put our economy back on track and restore fiscal responsibility. That's why we need all of you.
...

When the video becomes available you can judge for yourself, but this business of calling on opposition members on-camera and in real-time and letting them say whatever they wish? Starting with your bitterest rival? Taking the time to e-x-p-l-a-i-n things? Making sure the process was open, all the stakeholders had a place at the table, and afterward the spotlight was available to anyone who wanted to speak up?

Amazing.

Of course if you've been to any sort of corporate or policy "summit" before (and I have attended far more than my fair share of both), the trappings and methodology looked very familiar, but as a tool of governance and public dialogue, I haven't seen anything like it since I don't know when. And using it as a lead-in to his joint session of Congress national address tomorrow night -- where the President can now point out individual participants by face, name and comment to underscore the serious with which he takes the business of presiding over a democracy -- was especially inspired.

So a pretty damned good, substantive exercise in its own right, but when viewed against the backdrop of the kinds of preening, smirky, mumblefuck antics that passed for discourse during the previous Administration

it was positively masterful.

And so moving forward...

1. Because it has become metabolically incapable of processing real news and genuine discussions about policy, look for the the Mainstream Press to hype the event using its typical stock of Word Wrestling Federation-inflected descriptors.
2. Look for the wingnut media to describe it as everything from a "stunt" to a "failure".
3. Look for lot more of this from this White House over the next eight years.

Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

“Hot governor-on-governor stimulus action” Edition.

On “Face the Nation”

Same show as everywhere else: people are mad that some bad person somewhere might get bailed out, and the aforeshadowed

hot governor-on-governor bidniz.

On “Meet the Press”

Florida’s, very tidy, very tanned, Republican governor, Charlie Crist: Gimme the money.

David Gregory: But Republican small gummint tax cu….

Crist: Gimme the money.

David Gregory: But….

Crist: Gimme the fucking money.


On “Fox News Sunday” Govs. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.

Chris Wallace: You, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, might not take the money. Why?

Mark Sanford: First, cuz it sounds like old time Stalinist grain quotas…

And with that pathetically predictable regurgitation of the "Obama = Commie" talking point by yet another Conservative toady, we’re off to the fucking races.

Jennifer Granholm: This is about real people trying to survive, not some fucked up philosophy.

Pawlenty: Well, it’s not the bill I’da written. We are a major, net subsidizer to the federal gummint unlike some people, so, uh, let me at that Big Gummint teat!

As a loyal Republican, what Timmy was desperately trying to avoid saying was “unlike the Red State Big Gummint Welfare moochers who bleed cash away from their prosperous, Blue State benefactors” Minnesota sends more to D.C. than it gets.

Mark Sanford: This is all the same kinda short term thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.

No, asswipe; 28 years of Reagnomics and seven year of catastrophe in Iraq danced us into this mess. But Republicans would rather see children starve and small businesses fail than ever let those heretical truths pass their lips.

Granholm: Actually, President Obama said he’s going to present a plan to cut the deficit in half.

Mark Sanford: Well, sure, every President says their gonna lower the deficit, but none of them actually do it, so this has been a regular refrain for the last 25 years.

Rendell: Actually, asswipe, there was a President ten years ago who did lower the deficit. But he was a Democrat, so I guess they doesn’t teach that version of history in the fucking Republican madrassa where you learned that Saint Ronald Reagan built the pyramids and split the atom.

driftglass: Republicans lie as easily and unselfconsciously as my cat cleans her naughty parts.

Sanford: Much of this money is already being wasted!

On the subject of trying to repair failing mortgages…

Sanford: The idea that a judge would stick his filthy, Commie nose into a private contract between private parties is worse that nine Hitlers!

Rendell: Actually, asswipe, judges do that now with second mortgages. And we have to do it, because as bad as it is, if we don’t fix this now then the whole system will crash.

But of course, bringing the whole system down and reducing America to a lawless wasteland of poor people ruled by the whims of unregulated megacorporations has always been the Republican end-game.

Pawlenty: Bewaaaare the heavy hand of Gummint!

On the subject of possibly saving the imploding banking industry by nationalizing some of it in some form …

Sanford: With all due respect to the federal government, the idea that the same people who ran the Katrina mess would come in an run a federal bank is worse that 17 Hitlers.

Rendell: Yeah, but those fuckers are gone.

Wow. Just...wow. Because for the infinitely-reprogrammable, all-hard-drive-and-no-RAM wingnuts, the last 20 years just never happened.

They never elected George H. W. Bush.

They never screamed that Bill Clinton's presidency was illegitimate from Day One. They never cut his legs out from under him five minutes after he sent troops to Kosovo (fFrom this aggregation site:)

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush


"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99


"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

...

"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

-Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

...

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)


"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)


"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

-Michael Savage


"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

-Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

-Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)

No, the mouth-breathers who screamed this drivel (and so much more) the loudest year after year after year now conveniently remember none of it. For them, the past just never happened; Fox News and Hate Radio abolished it.

Clinton never balanced the budget, reformed welfare or created surpluses...all after he raised taxes.

The Right never cheered for his impeachment and lapped up every monstrous lie puked up by Hate Radio.

They never elected and then re-elected George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and then goose-stepped along behind them off of one cliff after another.

Instead we get wingnut leadership caste flakes like Sanford, roughing out a whole, new version of history on the Great GOP Kvetch-A-Sketch. A wholesale rewrite of yesterday wherein some misty, faraway "federal gummint" run by God-knows-who fucked up and let New Orleans drown.

And now that "same" gummint is going to take all your hard-earned munnies away from you and give it to...wait for it...wait for it...poor, brown people who cheated their way into homes they couldn't afford.

Shocking, no? That somehow, some way -- whatever the crisis and whatever its real causes -- even after being in charge of every branch of government at virtually every level, it will forever be an article of faith among the Pig People that all problems are the fault of poor, brown people, Liberals and an Evil Gummint over which the Republicans have never had an ounce of control.

Sanford: Bailing out the auto industry is a mistake because the auto industry has refused to change anything ever!

Granholm: We’ve made major reforms in the last several years. Huge givebacks. Massive restructuring. Loss of 400,000 jobs. There’s a big report that explains this all in detail. Have you even read it?

Shorter Sanford: As a Republican, I never bother with facts; they're annoying and make my ass look fat.



On ”The Chris Matthews Show”

Chris Matthews: Limbaugh always “sounds like he’s had a really big breakfast.”

John Heileman. Bobby Jindal is a really smart guy who is getting pushed deeper and deeper into the crazy camp. His state’s got a two billion dollar deficit, but he’s saying that he’s not taking any of the stimulus money. Let’s see how that works out for you when you run for re-election.

Heileman. The Republican base fucking hates Charlie Crist for all the reasons we think he’s sensible.

Welcome to Liberalville!


On “This Week”

George Stephanopoulos and Ahnuld Schwarzenegger

talk past each other.

Stephanopoulos: So in 2003 you won by mocking Gray Davis for doing exactly what you’re now doing. Don’t you owe him an apology?

Schwarzenegger: Abzoludely nod.

Stephanopoulos: But you ran like a fucking manic against taxes. You ran on tax cuts forever. No exceptions. No equivocation. And now you’re raising taxes to meet a crisis. Which was exactly what Davis did.

Schwarzenegger: But ziz is divverent.

Stephanopoulos: How?

Schwarzenegger: Because I hate zee taxes and zo fort.

Stephanopoulos: But so did Davis.

Schwarzenegger: Qvit azking me zees qvestions. Id maiges my bullsheed processors overheed.

For the rest of the interview, Ahnuld will repeat over and over again that “there iz no divverence betveen zee Republican party and zee Democratic party”.

Except of course when Ahnuld wanted to play Governor: then Democrats were girly-men who want to tax you into the Stone Age, and Republicans are real men who love The Vaterland America.

And zo fort.

Stephanopoulos: Your fellow Republican governor Mark Sanford would rather do without this stimulus money and let the backwards, inbred losers who elected him rot.

Schwarzenegger: Vell, iv Zanford don’t want id, zen give id do me.

Schwarzenegger: I don’t think zere is any divverence between zee Republican party and zee Democratic party. Because zay are alvays vighting and zo fort.

Like every other Republican, Ahnuld was perfectly happy with ranting, hysterical partisanship…as long as all the artillery was coming from his side of the field. As long as Republicans were winning elections with Limbaugh shrieking hate on the radio, Falwell shrieking hate from the pulpit and Gingrich hate shrieking inside the Congress – and as long as Democrats continued to be stupid enough to pretend that they could play nice with these thugs – people like Ahnud were perfectly contented with the status quo.

Were pigs-in-shit happy with the world as it was…right up until it all fell apart.

Right up until

Ahnuld and all of the other millions of happy, brainwashed Rightards were de-fucking-lighted with the hyperpartisanship as long as it was entirely one-sided. As long as the scope and scale of Republican failure, criminality and outright treason could be covered up by snarling at the media and calling critics un-American. As long as the Left had no means of fighting back.

But once millions of Liberals finally found a way around the Centrist DLC cowards who were selling the Party of Roosevelt off piecemeal to monsters? Found their voices, took on the Limbaughs, the Falwells and Gingriches directly, and started winning again?

Suddenly, the wingnuts are all up in arms about how uncivil “everyone” is.

Suddenly…

Schwarzenegger: You have to go beyond zee prinziples and ask vat is right for zee people.

Stephanopoulos: But you believe in massive public spending. Green energy. Global warming. You’re pro-choice. Pro gay-rights. So why are you still a Republican?

Schwarzenegger: It doesn’t really matter iv you’re a Republican or Democrat! People need zee infrastructure and zo fort. Vee are public servants. Vee need zee roads and zee schools. Vee need to rebuild America.

Yes we do. And accomplishing these important ends would be a lot easier were it not for the fact that Republicans don’t believe in any of that shit.

Schwarzenegger is a Republican because Enron, Bush and the rest of the oil industry wanted a Big Oil sock puppet governing California. So the engineered a fake energy crisis, gave Schwarzenegger a jillion dollars and rolled him into California like a tank battalion.



But now Enron is gone, Ken “Five Angels” Lay

is dead, Cheney will spend the rest of his wretched life steering clear of international cops and war crimes tribunals and Bush is finally and near-universally acknowledged to have been a miserable catastrophe.

And so -- Surprise! – six short years after running as a Bush Republican and five years after delivering a keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, Ahnud “Opportunism Incarnate” Schwarzenegger has suddenly decided to effectively start Zee Ahnuld Party.

To declare that there is no difference between the anti-science homophobes who brought you the Iraq debacle, the drowning of New Orleans, the shredding of the Constitution and the smash-the-Gummint-to-save-plutocrats school of public policy…

…and the people who opposed all of that.

In the end, Ahnuld remains a Republican, based on the only measure that has remained as constant as the North Star: the sheer scale of his genuine enthusiasm for shamelessly-and-in-real-time jettisoning any principle right in front of you the minute it stops buying him votes. The sheer volume of the “facts” he pulls completely out of his ass on camera when he needs “proof” to prop up his laughably hypocritical gibberish.

And, in the end, there will always be just enough fuckwits abroad in the land to elect clowns like him over and over and over again.

Later, Stephanopoulos discovers the key to shutting George Will up and cramming him back into the goofy-grumpy-grandpa role for which he was hired: stick an economist on his left side who has already beaten him to his knees twice, stick another economist on his right side, and then talk about the economy.

And the results

look like this (h/t FDL)

Big Fucknozzle Trade Show

hits D.C. this week.

For all nine-minutes of bullshit, faux-introspection chin-music that came from the Right about change, future and vision after they got hog-slaughtered in the last two elections, if you want to know what is really at the corrupt, oozy heart of the American Conservative movement (and its filthy little avatar, the Republican Party) look no further than their ideological trade show: the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC.

How do I know?

'Cause Dick Cheney tells me so (from the CPAC website):

“CPAC has consistently over the years championed those ideas that have made America great: limited government, free enterprise, low taxes and a strong national defense."

– Vice President Dick Cheney

“CPAC has never been more important!"

– Amb. John Bolton

“… A showcase of the heart and soul of American conservatism”

– Los Angeles Times

“CPAC is the preeminent yearly gathering of conservative activists."

– The Washington Post

And since bullshit walks and money pays the piper and calls the tune, who finances this freak show? Who lays out genuine coin of the realm for this three day Course in Wingnut Miracles, and what do those sponsors believe is the real problem with America?

The American Conservative Union: who believe that OSHA, commies and liberals are destroying America.

Accuracy in Media: who believe that liberal control of the media is destroying America.

Advocacy Ink : who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Alliance Defense Fund: who believe that non-Christians, queers, unregulated vaginae and porn are destroying America.

American Civil Rights Union: who believe that militant atheists are destroying America.

American Federation of Senior Citizens: who believe that liberals are destroying America.

American Future Fund: who believe that non-Limbaugh-approved thoughts are destroying America.

American Service Council, Inc.: who believe that "socialized oil" is destroying America.

American for Tax Reform: who believe that taxes are destroying America.

Americans for Limited Government: who believe that Evil Gummint things are destroying America.

Americas Majority: who believe that non-Judeo Christian morals are destroying America.

AT&T: who believes that iPhones are destroying America.

Black Republican PAC: who believe that the 99.7% of African Americas who are not self-loathing enough to join the GOP are destroying America.

BMW Direct, Inc.: who believe that not hiring BMW Direct is destroying America.

Campaign for Liberty: who believe that any and all regulations of corporate interests are destroying America.

Capital Research Center: who believes that ACORN and labor unions are destroying America.

Catholic Family Caucus: who believe that people who point out their site is full of broken links are destroying America.

Center for Individual Freedom: who believe that people who point out that a site festooned with screaming eagles, flags and links to wingnut causes and spokesmodels is hardly "non-partisan" are destroying America.

Citizens in Charge Foundation: who believe that non-plebiscite-based Gummint thingies are destroying America.

Citizens United: who believe that things that don’t smell like Reagan's underpants are destroying America.

Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute: who believe that smelly liberal feminists are destroying America.

College Republican National Committee: who believe that "unions and leftist interest groups" are destroying America.

Competitive Enterprise Institute: Site offline, which can't be good for competitiveness.

Concerned Women for America: who believe that non-"Biblical values" are destroying America.

Congress of Racial Equality: not sure who they believe is destroying America, but its leader has great love for that pallet-truck-o-wingnut-crazy, Alan Keyes.

Congressional Effect Management: who believe that "the negative effects of Congressional deliberation on investor wealth" are destroying America.

Council for America: No site available, so America must remain dangerously uncounselled.

Culture 11: who seem to believe that doctrinaire wingnuts and plutocrat asswipes like virtually everyone else at CPAC are destroying America.

David All Group, LLC : who believe that the wingnut widget gap is destroying America.

David Horowitz Freedom Center: who believe that "All conservative action groups agree that" "the tenured radicals who have taken over America’s universities" are destroying America.

Eagle Forum: who believe that liberals, Messicans, a lack of ballistic missiles, non-Christians, queers and unregulated vaginae are destroying America.

Eberle Associates, Inc.: who believe bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

FairTax: who believe that the 16th amendment and its commie fellow travelers are destroying America.

Family Research Council: who believe that non-Christians, queers, unregulated vaginae and "ultraliberal judges" are destroying America.

Freedom Alliance : who believe that non-bomb-first/ask-questions-later policies are destroying America.

FreedomFest: who believe that not jamming the words "freedom" or "liberty" into every fucking sentence fragmentis destroying America.

Freedom's Defense Fund: who believe that "the radical left and their elitist allies in the mainstream media" are destroying America.

FreedomWorks: who believe that taxing rich people and evil gummint are destroying America.

Google: who believe that Yahoo and YouPorn are destroying America.

Hasan Family Foundation: who seem pretty cool.

Hispanic Leadership Fund: hard to tell but I'm guessing that if vouchers, free trade and tax cuts will save America, then unions and liberals will doom us all.

House Conservatives Fund : who believe that taxes, gays and non-Reagan-approved "conservatives" are destroying America.

HowObamaGotElected.com: who believe that the Evil Liberal Media who destroyed Sarah Palin and brainwashed America into voting for Obama are destroying America.

HSP Direct LLC: who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Human Events: who believe that ideas that haven't passed through the colons of ""Robert Novak, Michelle Malkin, L. Brent Bozell, Terence Jeffrey, Bruce Bartlett, Thomas Sowell, David Limbaugh, Oliver North, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, etc." are destroying America.

Intercollegiate Studies Institute: who very probably would believe that people who point out that a site that's a tossed salad of commentary and books about "traditional values", liberal "tyranny", Conservative though, and the wit and wisdom of Robert Bork is hardly "non-partisan" are destroying America.

Intermarkets, Inc.: who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation: who believe that taxes and regulations are destroying America.

Jim Worthing Productions: who believe that bad musical production values are destroying America.

John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs : who believe that all the usual suspects are destroying America.

Judicial Watch: would probably believe that people who point out that a site with a "Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2008 list that includes

1. Barack Obama for his "alliance with the sleazy ACORN operation's 'voter registration;" and 'get out the vote' efforts" and his "corrupt dealings with convicted felon Tony Rezko and unrepentant terrorist William Ayers"
2. Hillary Clinton for, among other things, "paid sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom, cattle futures fraud, and stealing White House furniture"
3. Some unwhitewashably-convicted Republican criminals like Ted Stevens thrown in for "balance"

but cannot seem to find the time or column inches to include war criminal, traitors and terrorists like George Bush and Dick Cheney really shouldn't be calling themselves "non-partisan" are destroying America.

Legacy List Marketing: who believe that out-of-date GOP mailing lists are destroying America.

Let Freedom Ring: Watch their ad
and then take a wild fucking guess at what they think is destroying America.

Libertarian Party: who believe that not letting wingnuts smoke pot is destroying America.

Liberty University School of Law: Hmmm. Jerry Falwell's Holy Fundy Law School? Let's take a moment and try to guess where it will come down on every single fucking thing.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research: who very likely believe that people who point out that "Conservative think tank" is semantically equal to "Lemming 10K Cliff's Edge Fun Run to find a Cure for Death by Deceleration Trauma" are destroying America.

Media Research Center: who believe that the Sekrit Liberal Media Cabal are destroying America.

National Rifle Association: who believe that any opposition to a person's right to keep and bear ballistic missiles just like the Founders intended is destroying America.

National Right to Work: who believe that any attempt to organize working people out of debt peonage is destroying America.

National Taxpayers Union: who believe that any attempt to tax the beneficiaries of work class debt peonage is destroying America.

New York State Conservative Party: who believe that poor people, liberals and so forth are destroying America.

Pajamas Media/TV: who believe that those who mock the omniscient genius of Joe-the-Plumber/War Correspondent/Economic Analyst are destroying America.

PM Direct Marketing: who believe that anyone threatening to raise the price of wingnut junk mail is destroying America.

Politics Magazine: who believe that people who don’t get that politics is just a fucking business -- like farming, or plastics -- are destroying America.

Radio America: I don't know exactly who Radio America thinks is destroying America, but I'm guessing that any outfit which gives six hours of air time smack in the middle of every weekday to a stone sociopath like G. Gordon Liddy would have a list of America destroyers that wouldn't be too hard to figure out.

RegularFolksUnited.com: who believe that "elitists (yes, they are on both sides of the aisle) pretending they were doing things to help 'regular folks'" (while drooling over all thing Reagan and pumping out post after post about the Evil Left) are destroying America.

Save Our Secret Ballot: who believe that organized labor is destroying America.

Shirley & Banister Public Affairs: who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Strategic Campaign Group: who believe that poor "Republican Campaign Consulting Management" are destroying America.

Susan B. Anthony List/Team Sarah: who believe that unregulated vaginae are destroying America.

Terra Eclipse: who believe that misaligned synergisms in the paradigm-shifting topography. Of new media. Platforms. Or something. Are destroying America.

The Heartland Institute: who believe that anti-tobacco and global warming kooks are destroying America.

The Heritage Foundation: who believe that The Left and all the lefty things we do are destroying America.

The Leadership Institute: who believe that a shortage of conservative leaders who understand the misaligned synergisms in the paradigm-shifting topography. Of new media. Platforms. Or something. Are destroying America.

The Poker Players Alliance: believes that regulations on internet gambling are destroying America.

The Republican Majority is a password-protected site. Hehehe. Big tent my ass.

The Washington Examiner: believes that those wacky liberals are destroying America.

The Washington Times: believes that the infidels who do not yet recognize the Most Reverend Sun Myung Moon's godhead are destroying America.

Townhall.com: believes that those who will not take advantage of their fabulous of one FREE copy of Ann Coulter's latest steaming slop bucket of bile and viper-head soup for every 12-month subscription to Townhall Magazine are destroying America.

Tradition, Family, Property: believes that the failing and "discredited" Theory of Evolution, Teh Gay and those damned unregulated vaginae are destroying America.

TV Watch: who believe that swill on the tube are destroying America.

Vernon K. Krieble Foundation: who believe that people who refuse to let the Free Market run buck wild are destroying America.

Victory Solutions LLC (whose website is currently and unironically down) believes that barriers to technologically-empowered the Right are destroying America.

Young America's Foundation: who believe that frivolous youth who are not "preserving and protecting Ronald Reagan’s Western White House—Rancho del Cielo—and using this historic presidential property and our newly renovated Reagan Ranch Center in downtown Santa Barbara, California, to pass on to future generations the ideas and lasting accomplishments of this great American President" are destroying America.

Young Americans for Freedom: who believe that Evil Gummint things are destroying America.

Youth For Western Civilization: who believe that Godless liberal multiculturalists who want defile to flower of our Southron Womanhood are destroying America.

And so, like any other catastrophically failed business being run by inflexible, third-generation, inherited-wealth-rich/brain-poor imbeciles, the GOP is absolutely incapable of coping with the fact that it’s core product is now less popular than road-kill-on-a-stick in the marketplace of ideas.

Because baby, to everyone Left of Genghis Khan, the headlong-into-the-abyss direction Party of God has been monstrous obvious for years now (from the late Steve Gilliard in 2005):

A note to our conservative friends:

WE TOLD YOU SO

Ever wonder why New Yorkers detest George Bush?

Because we experienced his incompetence up close and person. We knew this guy was full of shit, absolutely full of fucking shit, after they started to play games with the funding and gave Wyoming terrorism money. We knew he was an assclown then.

We thought DC 9/11 was a comedy, because the Bush we saw hid in AF One like the scared bitch that he is.

But did you listen?

Fuck no. Until last week, Ann Coulter was calling New Yorkers cowards for not endorsing Bush's folly in Iraq.

We have been screaming for two years that Bush and his team sucked. That they had no clue. They sent soldiers to be wounded in Iraq without armored anything. And you idiots cheered him on from the safety of your keyboards. We told you he was fucking up Iraq. But no, we supported Saddam, we were racist, we blamed America.

You say this isn't about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn't an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox's talking heads liars ON THE AIR.

CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.

Instead of hearing what we had to say about Bush, you called John Kerry a coward, mocked Max Cleland, blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton. You enabled Bush into this mess and now you're shocked?
...

Instead of growing, learning or adapting, the same moral flatliners at the helm of the GOP have been staring at this arc of catastrophe year after year and using their media and money to hammer home the same mantra over and over again:

This. Can. Not. Be. True.

Like Big Finance and Big Auto, the Party of God has fallen.

And fallen.

And fallen.

Have fallen from Pepsi to Diet Shasta


to Sam’s Choice Mountain Lightning.

To a boutique/nostalgia political-market loser that no one but double-wide dwelling Confederate States of America Re-enactors will swill.

So, like every other flailing, trust fund wannabe-J.P. Morgan with too much dough and not enough sense, the GOP is now doubling-down on its worst ideas

‘cause that’s the way Daddy built the franchise!

Ignoring the fact that They Are The Fucking Problem, the brain-wizards on the Right – cursed with far too much power and not a lick of common sense – continue to fall like Lucifer, screaming louder and louder on the way down that it was all the fault of the fucking unions. Or taxes.

Or foreigners.

Or liberals.

Or wild vaginae.

Or gays.

Or atheists.

Or Darwin.

Among all the earnest mole rats that pay to put on this farce -- among all their pathetic sites encrusted with screaming eagles, garish flags, glowing crosses and Reagan-on-black-velvet paeans to the delusions of their youth -- you'll not find a single idea that hasn’t been as dead as disco for 20 years.

Not a single bogey man that wasn’t already long in the tooth back when drunken fiasco Joe McCarthy was using them to terrorize a different generation of Americans into giving up their freedoms.

And so, like every other gold-plated imbecile CEO, since the problem can’t possibly be as simple as your product sucks ass and kills people, it must be...marketing.

Which means we have reached that Exciting Moment in their death-spiral where the Party of God cries out for Madison Avenue to save them from oblivion and from being forced to face their own dead hearts and crippled souls, and they start drawing high-priced, jiggly-vocabularied consultants and marketing parasites

like a dead coyotes draws flies.

UPDATE: Welcome C&L visitors.

The Curta Mechanical Calculator

For the Luddite in your life who needs something niftier and more portable than their

Iron Felix.


From Hubpages (with a twit/tip to Aaron for pointing the way):

For years Curta calculators enjoyed a cult status among collectors, and as recently as in 2003 they were featured in William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" book. However, I daresay, not featured enough. This marvel of mechanical engineering should be given more exposure, especially given the bizarre and spooky circumstances of its origin.

Read more of the remarkable story here.

Nanosenator's Excellent Adventure

Nears its denouement.

Three weeks ago...

Reid top advisor Darrel Thompson named Burris temporary chief of staff.
By
Lynn Sweet
on January 30, 2009 4:36 PM

WASHINGTON--Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) top senior advisor, Darrell Thompson will be serving as the temporary chief of staff to Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.)

Thompson knows the Land of Lincoln; in 2004, he was chief of staff for Barack Obama's U.S. Senate campaign. Thompson remains a Reid senior advisor.


"As the Leader of the U.S. Senate, I will do all that I can to support the success of Senator Burris and that begins with detailing one of my most respected senior staff members," Reid said in a statement. "Darrel's institutional knowledge combined with his strong relationship with Members and staffs in both the Senate and House, will undoubtedly serve Senator Burris well."

"We have spent the last two weeks evaluating chief of staff candidates and are looking forward to having someone on our team with Darrel's Illinois experience and knowledge and passion for helping solve the important issues facing our state and nation," Burris said in a statement.
...

And three weeks later?

Run Away!

Roland Burris' chief of staff quits

By Rick Pearson and John Chase at 3:57 p.m.

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris’ chief of staff has quit, another signal of the mounting pressures facing Burris amid calls by top Democrats in Illinois for him to step down.

Darrel Thompson was detailed three weeks ago by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to serve as Burris’ chief of staff, a move that some Democrats saw as an effort by the leadership to help try to keep a watchful eye on the novice junior senator from Illinois. Thompson had been chief of staff for Barack Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign.
In his resignation announcement, Thompson said he would resume his full-time duties in Reid’s office as a senior adviser to the Senate majority leader.
...

Meanwhile, back in the Land of Lincoln, the job of cleaning up the 300-mile-wide corruption, pay-to-play skidmark left behind by Governor Shakedown continues with this Exciting!Development!

Quinn hires aide who worked for Rezko, Blagojevich
Governor names longtime friend who formerly worked for the convicted Blagojevich fundraiser

By Monique Garcia

Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday installed as his chief operating officer an appointee of ousted predecessor Rod Blagojevich who also has close ties to convicted fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

The decision to name longtime friend Jack Lavin as one of his top aides raised eyebrows with some who said it might send a message of politics as usual in Illinois.

"Certainly he comes with some baggage that we have to be very sensitive about at this moment in our state's history, but personally I want to work with everyone right now to make sure we get through the very serious problems we're facing," said Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno of Lemont. "I can only hope the governor has fully vetted his association and knows full well that they won't in any way, shape or form interfere."

Lavin served as Blagojevich's director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity after Rezko recommended Lavin for the post. Lavin once worked as the chief financial officer for Rezko's food-related business and took more than $12,000 in donations from Rezko's firm while toying with a run for elected office in 2001.

A Quinn spokesman would not comment on Lavin's ties to Blagojevich and Rezko, but said the governor has "the utmost confidence in him."
...

Sigh.

There are Four Rules in Illinois Politics:

1. There is a club.
2. You're not in it.
3. You do not talk about Fight Club.
4. You Do Not talk about Fight Club.

Job Search Continues

Briefly tried my hand at loafing.

Turns out you need plenty of dough and a union card to make a go of it.

Traveling The Countryside

In pursuit of noble labor, so light posting for the next few days, and a little traveling music.

And don't forget Winona!

Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

"A Moviola Full Of Mousies" Edition

On “Fox News Sunday” , the same old thing: Chipper little cartoon characters

roaring out Teutonic Goth Metal.




On “Face the Nation” Barney Frank sings, sings, sings!

(h/t Pearl)


On “This Week” Lindsey Graham was his

usual help self.



It has been fascinating-if-unsurprising over these last two weeks to watch the berserker rodents left at the bottom of the Republicans barrel try to navigate between their gutless fealty to Rush Limbaugh and the unflinching spotlight that the new, charming and articulate President shines on them.

It is a new Proscenium arch to frame the same, sad reality that we on the Left have been desperately trying to explain to terrified, fence-straddling moderates forever. That 25 years of full-throttle, Hate Radio-Atwater-Falwell-Gingrich-DeLay-Rove-driven politics has left nothing inside the GOP but “Limbaugh Republicans” and one or two freakish outliers.

We warned you. God knows, we warned you, over and over and over again. And now the Party of Lincoln is ruled by a bigot who openly declares he wants the President to fail. Whose fondest wish is an American fallen into a new Dark Age of poverty and ignorance because that would be great for his ratings.


On “Meet the Press” David Gregory facilitates a conversation

about dogs and evil.


On ”The Chris Matthews Show” Matthews and Katty Kay listen to Andrew Sullivan explain about the future of leisure Beltway dilettante politics and how surprisingly expensive

lifestyle Libertarian bondage apparel can be.

Thought For Today

After leading us -- limping and wounded -- away from the precipice of economic disaster, over the next eight years President Obama's hardest job is going to be the reclamation and rehabilitating of a gibbering, toxic scrumfuck called the Republican Party.

Corrupt (Ex-)Governor Update XIV

Jesus, Roland, not here!
(Original, untainted photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images North America)

Just drop it in the plate

on the way out.

From the Sun Times:

Blago hit up Burris for cash
EXCLUSIVE | In his third sworn version of events, senator confirms pitch for donations

February 14, 2009
BY NATASHA KORECKI AND DAVE MCKINNEY Staff Reporters

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother solicited U.S. Sen. Roland Burris for up to $10,000 in campaign cash before Blagojevich named Burris to the coveted post -- something Burris initially failed to disclose under oath before an Illinois House impeachment panel, records and interviews show.

Burris (D-Ill.) acknowledges being hit up for the money in a new affidavit he has sent to the head of the House committee that recommended Blagojevich be removed from office.

The affidavit is dated Feb. 5 -- three weeks after Burris was sworn in to replace President Obama in the Senate.

Burris -- who did not give money to the Blagojevich campaign fund in response to the previously undisclosed solicitation -- provided a copy of the sworn statement to the Chicago Sun-Times Friday in response to questions about his contacts with the Blagojevich camp about fund-raising.

Burris acknowledged having three conversations with Robert Blagojevich, who headed the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund -- and one of those was likely recorded by the FBI.

Burris' statement offers the third version of events he has given about his discussions concerning the Senate seat, to which Blagojevich appointed him in late December, after Blagojevich was hit with federal corruption charges that included an allegation he tried to sell the Senate appointment.

...

And so, in the spirit of our looming Depression, to the tune of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" and with apologies to Yip Harburg and by Jay Gorney...

Rollo, Can You Spare Some Green?

Family contacts made me
King of statewide pay-for-play
And so we copied the mob.
When there was backs to kick
Or hicks to slick
I was always there, right on the job.

Family contacts made me
King of statewide pay-for-play
With big balling skrilla ahead,
Why should I
Be standing in line
Hitting up Rollo for bread?

Once I bilked the railroads
The Trib I'd dun
Making bank for my party machine.
Once I bilked the railroads
Now it's gone
Rollo, can you spare some green?


Once I had the power 'cause I was a Son
Cheat and chisel and scheme
Once I had the power,
Now it's done.
Rollo, can you spare some green?

Once in jogging suits
Gee I looked swell
Full of that "Fuckin'-A you'll be givin' me some".
Millions of bucks for the son of Dick Mell
Yes I was the kid with the comb!

Say don't you remember?
They called me Gov;
Governor Hair-Like-Velveteen.
Why don't you remember?
Wherez da love?
Say Rollo, can you spare some green?

Once in jogging suits
Gee I looked swell
Full of that "Fuckin'-A you'll be givin' me some".
Millions of bucks for the son of Dick Mell
Yes I was the kid with the comb!

Say don't you remember?
They called me Gov;
Governor Hair-like-Velveteen.
Say don't you remember?
Wherez da love?
Rollo, can you spare some green?

Carnac Sees

Many, expensive process re-engineering, content-reimagineering and Black Belt Conga-line Trust-fall Quality Cheese-Moving con artists consultants in your future.

Many, many.

From the NYT via Tom Tomorrow:

Newsweek Plans Makeover to Fit a Smaller Audience
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

...
Newsweek is about to begin a major change in its identity, with a new design, a much smaller and, it hopes, more affluent readership, and some shifts in content. The venerable newsweekly’s ingrained role of obligatory coverage of the week’s big events will be abandoned once and for all, executives say.

“There’s a phrase in the culture, ‘we need to take note of,’ ‘we need to weigh in on,’ ” said Newsweek’s editor, Jon Meacham. “That’s going away. If we don’t have something original to say, we won’t. The drill of chasing the week’s news to add a couple of hard-fought new details is not sustainable.”

...
Editorially, Newsweek’s plan calls for moving in the direction it was already headed — toward not just analysis and commentary, but an opinionated, prescriptive or offbeat take on events.

The current cover article argues that America’s involvement in Afghanistan parallels the Vietnam War, and a companion piece offers a plan for handling that country. Newsweek also plans to lean even more heavily on the appeal of big-name writers like Christopher Hitchens, Fareed Zakaria and George Will.

Starting in May, articles will be reorganized under four broad, new sections — one each for short takes, columnists and commentary, long reporting pieces like the cover articles, and culture — each with less compulsion to touch on the week’s biggest events. A new graphic feature on the last page, “The Bluffer’s Guide,” will tell readers how to sound as if they are knowledgeable on a current topic, whether they are or not.
...”

I'm sure after a massive cash infusion and a dredge bucket of Old Raj, Chris Hitchens would write you several lively sentences centering on the title of your magazine -- "Newsweek" -- that would all spiral together in a very arch and pointy way to underscore the primal hilarity of a magazine called "Newsweek" deciding that reporting on the

News

of the

Week

no longer had a place in its awesome, new business strategy.

It would be winter-leaf dry and make two separate references to semiotics.

At which time George Will would wrinkle his little, wet nose, mutter something about the "wages of gin" and dash off a very poignant counterpointy piece somehow relating the fate of "Newsweek" to the media martyrdom of Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Will would then wait until he believed all the other "Newsweek" employees had gone home to begin weeping manful and nearly-silent tears over the fate of the Black Sox.

"Poor, poor Shoeless Joe," he'd whisper, guiltily sipping a dram of Hitchens' gin from a $75 commemorative "Newsweek" mug, hundreds of crates of which still stand gathering dust on the loading dock. He would righteously smash the mug in the corner in a gesture he'd believe in that moment to be very Prussian and underscoringly dramatic.

One of “Newsweek”’s many hundreds of custom-made Roombas would react to the sound, dutifully whir across the floor, and begin cleaning up the mess.

Will would uncrate another of the delicate, blue porcelain mugs with “I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world. -- Henry R. Luce” inlaid in gold leaf on one side, and “In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. -- Hunter S. Thompson” on the other, pour himself another two fingers of pilfered gin, and continue his fussy, boozy slog down glory road.

With his mutant, bat-like hearing, Fareed -- who had stayed late himself to rack up some 1-900 calls free on "Newsweek"'s dime –- would be able to clearly make out Will's sobbing, muttering and glass-shattering coming from the "Newsweek" break room, the same way he can hear with teeth-grinding clarity every time Hitchens and Will make one of their private, little "Fez" jokes at his expense three offices away.

Choosing to avoid the risk of an awkward confrontation and yet another hour-long tirade about designated hitters from the maudlin old weirdo, Fareed would then opt to leave via the rear fire stairs instead of taking the elevator.

One flight down he’d discover Hitchens, passed out and wheezing like a 300-lb asthmatic tree frog on poppers, with a Treasurer Luxury White cigarette ashed almost down to the filter still smoldering in the finger-crotch between his "J'accuse" and his "Fuck you" digits.

"Hitch", he'd whisper, toeing his supine colleague. "Hiiiitchy Poo."

Nothing.

Considering the factors at hand -- one dead-drunk fop on the fire stairs, one weepy drunk wallowing in baseball nostalgia up in the "Newsweek" kitchenette and further cutbacks still hanging Sword of Damocles-like over them all -- Fareed would ask himself one, vital question: "What would Royko do?"

The answer comes like a thunderbolt.

First, off come Hitchens' $800 Ferragamo loafers to be tossed over the handrail and watched as they fall in satisfyingly straight lines down and down, story after story, until finally dwindling and disappearing into the darkness of "Newsweek"’s vast wine cellars.

Second, out comes Fareed’s Sharpie and in big, block letters he carefully writes "Shoeless Joe Was A Fucking Fag!" across Hitchens’ promontory forehead.

Third, Fareed skips down the rest of the stairs two at a time, whistling a jaunty little tune he picked up at David Fucking Brooks' kegger party over weekend and has not as yet been able to flush out of his head.

Last, on his way out the door, he hits the fire alarm.

"Fez wins, fuckers," he says to the night. "Fez wins."