Wow...she really IS just an aging high school mean girl

Michael Joseph Gross, who used to LIKE Sarah Palin, changed his mind after talking to people who have actually had dealings with her:

Ah, yes, THAT'LL solve the country's problems -- elect a cruel, hostile, vindictive, atttention-seeking, willfully ignorant pathologically lying Heather as president.

Meanwhile, back at the Outrage Corral

I can't believe that people who are out of work, scared about their jobs, on the bring of foreclosure, and terrified about their future, are eager to give the keys to the kingdom back to guys like John Kyl:

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working."

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl.

Maybe it's time for Arizona to start thinking about "rightsizing" John Kyl. Tonight on Countdown, Chris Hayes, looking like a Delta pledge after a particularly rough night, said it all:

We are all lazy, shiftless welfare queens now.

It isn't even the tyranny of the minority anymore

The dysfunction of the Senate isn't even about the tyranny of the 42-seat Republican minority anymore. Now a single Republican Senator for whom ideology and the desire to topple Barack Obama trumps everything can send hundreds of thousands of the unemployed a step further down a road to ruin from which they may never be able to return:

Jim Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky, is single-handedly blocking Senate action needed to prevent an estimated 1.2 million American workers from prematurely losing their unemployment benefits next month.

As Democratic senators asked again and again for unanimous consent for a vote on a 30-day extension Thursday night, Bunning refused to go along.

And when Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) begged him to drop his objection, Politico reports, Bunning replied: "Tough shit."

Bunning says he doesn't oppose extending benefits -- he just doesn't want the money that's required added to the deficit. He proposes paying for the 30-day extension with stimulus funds. The Senate's GOP leadership did not support him in his objections.

And at one point during the debate, which dragged on till nearly midnight, Bunning complained of missing a basketball game.

"I have missed the Kentucky-South Carolina game that started at 9:00," he said,
"and it's the only redeeming chance we had to beat South Carolina since they're the only team that has beat Kentucky this year.

Poor Jim Bunning. He had to miss a college basketball game rather than debate whether hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs can continue to pay their bills and put food on the table.

Funny how Jim Bunning didn't care about deficits when he introduced a bill authorizing George W. Bush to invade Iraq based on a bunch of trumped-up horseshit. He didn't care about deficits when voting for the Bush tax cuts. But when it comes to help for Americans who need it, he's on the wrong side every single time:

* 2005 -- Voted WITH the credit-card industry on the bankruptcy bill.

* 2005 -- Voted WITH oil companies by giving them more tax breaks.

* 2006 -- Voted FOR higher deficits by extending the Bush Tax Cuts.

* 2007 -- Voted AGAINST children by opposing S-CHIP.

* 2008 -- Voted AGAINST helping people facing foreclosure.

* 2009 -- Voted AGAINST women by opposing the Ledbetter Act.

* 2009 -- Voted AGAINST children again by opposing S-CHIP.

* 2010 -- Voted AGAINST reducing the debt by opposing the Debt Commission.

Kentucky, the state which for some bizarre reason sends this guy back to the Senate every six years, has the 4th lowest per capita income. Only Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas are worse off. More than one in ten Kentucky workers is unemployed. And yet Jim Bunning opposes help for his own constituents (if you want to assume that the citizens of Kentucky are still his constituents, which is doubtful).

As the New York Times noted yesterday, Bunning didn't care about the impact of unemployment compensation on deficits while George W. Bush was in the White House. His "come to Jesus" moment on deficits seems to have miraculously coincided with the inauguration of a Democratic President:

Senator Bunning once cared about the unemployed. When the benefit was due to expire in November, he joined a unanimous vote to extend it until the end of February. “Kentucky has been hit hard by the current economic downturn,” he said at the time. It still is, but Mr. Bunning refused to consider the extension unless it was paid for with funds from the fiscal stimulus plan. For years, Mr. Bunning didn’t seem to have a problem with blowing up the deficit for the Iraq war and tax cuts. Now he’s a deficit hawk when it comes to average Americans.

This is the cancer that has infected the Republican Party. For them ideology trumps everything. If it takes destroying the country to regain power, they're perfectly willing to do so, even if what they end up presiding over is a hollowed-out, burnt-out shell of a nation. It's ALL about ideology. It's ALL about power.

I'd be tempted to say that if the citizens of Kentucky are stupid enough to bote for guys like Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell, then they deserve to be put out of their homes and hungry. But I live in a district with a Congressman, Scott Garrett, who was an "Udeology Über Alles" adherent long before it was fashionable -- and this district keeps sending him back to Congress because they either still think Marge Roukema is their representative, they aren't paying attention and reading the truth behind his "I'm working for you" mailings sent every month at our expense, or they are registered Republicans and here in New Jersey, our ballots encourage party-line voting. This year it looks like the Democrats aren't even going to bother to field a candidate.

Once a government official becomes entrenched, he controls his own message, because voters simply do not pay attention to what their so-called representatives in Washington are actually doing. We can shrug our shoulders at the Kentuckyans who seem to think that electing someone who votes against their interests every time won't be relevant once they get invited into the Club of the Rich that Ronnie Reagan told them they could get into if they Just Work Hard Enough (never noting that most of those in the Club of the Rich got there through inherited money or by being nothing but middlemen), or at the New Jerseyans who still think they're voting for Marge Roukema even though it says "Scott Garrett" on the ballot -- except that their delusion affects us all.

No wonder John McCain likes Sarah Palin

She's a mean-spirited, nasty piece of work -- just like him. From the Anchorage Daily News, January 27, 2008:

The governor's appearance on KWHL's "The Bob and Mark Show" last week is plain and simple one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I've ever seen from a politician.

Anchorage DJ Bob Lester unleashed a vicious, mean-spirited, poisonous attack on Senate President Lyda Green last week while our governor was live on the air with him.

When we played the tape on my show the day after it happened, we received 130 calls. Even some Palinbots were disgusted.

[snip]

Early on in the conversation before Palin started to crack up, Lester referred to Sen. Green as a jealous woman and a cancer. Palin, who knows full well Lyda Green is a cancer survivor, didn't do what any decent person would do, say, "Bob, that's going too far."

But as the conversation moved on, Lester intensified his attack on Green.

Lester questioned Green's motherhood, asking Palin if the senator cares about her own kids. Palin laughs.

Then Lester clearly sets the stage for what he is about to say by warning his large audience and Palin. He says, "Governor you can't say this but I will, Lyda Green is a cancer and a b----." Palin laughs for the second time.

[snip]

But there is more. Lester then describes Green's chair as big and cushy. A clear reference to the senator's weight. Palin laughs a third time. She's just having a grand old time.

Palin was clearly enjoying every second of Lester's vicious attack on her political rival.

But it gets worse.

Lester asks Palin point blank: "Do you have any idea of what you did, to make Lyda Green dislike you, hate you?" How does Palin respond? Does she do the right thing? What you would expect from a mature leader, a governor and say, "Bob, Lyda doesn't hate me."

No, she responds like a 13-year-old and says, "Um, you know once and a while I try to figure that out but I can't figure that out."

The Palin camp says the governor did call Green and apologize. That was the right thing to do. But the governor's statement shows the apology a half-hearted one.

The statement in part reads: "The Governor called Senator Green to explain that she does not condone name-calling in any way and apologized if there was a perception that the comment was attributed to the Governor."

But there's strong evidence Palin did condone Lester's name-calling. At the end of Lester making fun of Green as a mother, calling her a cancer, twice, and saying she has to go; after calling the senator a b----, making fun of her weight, and accusing Green of being jealous and hateful; after all of that, Lester ends the conversation offering to visit Palin.

How does Palin respond? "I'd be honored to have you."

The statement released by the governor's office also called Palin's action bad judgment.

But bad judgment is when you stay up late the night before a big test, order steak at a Chinese restaurant or wear blue jeans to a black tie affair.

What the governor did was wrong.

Not only did she sit by and watch a decent public servant get thrashed in front of tens of thousands of people, she actually enjoyed it.

This is our governor, for goodness sake.

And if John McCain has his way, she will be the Vice President of the United States.

Listen for yourself:

But of course John McCain is going to see nothing wrong with this, given his track record:

(giant super-sized h/t)

John McCain's health care plan

I know we're all buzzed on Joe Biden -- his passionate speech; his self-deprecating humor, his ridiculously cute family, and his even more ridiculously cute mother. And we're all full of euphoria about the history that was made tonight, and about how tonight we saw the Good Clintons instead of the Narcissistic Clintons. I know we want to savor the moment and revel in it for a 24-hour party, culminating in Barack Obama's acceptance speech tomorrow night. After all, tonight we came a bit closer to that "promised land" that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King talked about over forty years ago.

But we have so much work to do. The ugly spectre of racism still exists, and we have to somehow find a way to get through to people that the consequences of electing John McCain are more dire for their future than any Fear of a Black Planet ever could be.

And here is just one example of why this work is critical. Because this is an example of the kinds of people who would be advising John McCain (emphasis mine):

Almost one of every four Texas residents – 24.8 percent – were uninsured in 2006 and 2007, based on an average of the rates for those two years. That's up from 23.9 percent for 2004 and 2005.

The national number also increased a bit for the two-year period to 15.5 percent. However, looking at 2007 by itself, the percentage of uninsured in the country fell from 15.8 percent in 2006 to 15.3 percent in 2007. (State percentages were given only for two-year periods.)

California still has the highest number – not percentage – of uninsured residents at 6.7 million, compared with 5.7 million Texans. The Texas number is up from 5.5 million in 2006.

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, as Senator Biden would say, is John McCain's health care plan. You're not uninsured, you're just "differently categorized in terms of payment source."

We can do better.

We must do better.

The future of this country and the world hangs in the balance.