Quote of the Day: Still the Best edition

Nobody does it like Drifty:

After all Romney really is the perfect Brooksian Candidate: hollow, reprogrammable and rich. Where John McCain was willing to grit his teeth and bellycrawl to kiss Jerry Falwell's ass, the humanlike simulacrum named "Mitt" gives every indication that, if required to complete his Prime Directive, he would cheerfully disinter Falwell's mortal remains, dress them up in Nancy Reagan's 1981 inaugural ball gown and dance a tarantella with it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the Fourth of July.

Warning: Seriously demented Photochoppery at the link.

I really should leave this to the professionals.

David Brooks has become almost too easy a target, but when he comes up with an opinion of this level of idiocy, I just can't keep quiet. The only thing I can tell you is to keep your eye on Driftglass, TBogg, and John Cole today, as they are the Holy Trinity of Brooksiana.

Brooks is recognized among those who still have gray matter in their crania as being perhaps the most unfairly still employed man in America. I heard a colleague tell the other day of someone she used to work with -- a Ph.D. researcher -- who is working at a Target because there are no jobs for scientists. While visiting family in North Carolina recently, we encountered a wonderful waitress who is a veterinarian who can't find full-time work in her field, so she works part time in her field and supplements her income by waiting tables. She's back where she was in college, before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on education. These are people whose talents are being wasted -- thrown away by a Washington establishment that is willing to throw them in the garbage in their pursuit of absolute power (Republicans) or corporate campaign cash (Democrats).

But Brooks is still getting paid to write stuff like this:

The U.S. now seems to possess a 100-year supply of natural gas, which is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. This cleaner, cheaper energy source is already replacing dirtier coal-fired plants. It could serve as the ideal bridge, Amy Jaffe of Rice University says, until renewable sources like wind and solar mature.

Already shale gas has produced more than half a million new jobs, not only in traditional areas like Texas but also in economically wounded places like western Pennsylvania and, soon, Ohio. If current trends continue, there are hundreds of thousands of new jobs to come.

Chemical companies rely heavily on natural gas, and the abundance of this new source has induced companies like Dow Chemical to invest in the U.S. rather than abroad. The French company Vallourec is building a $650 million plant in Youngstown, Ohio, to make steel tubes for the wells. States like Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York will reap billions in additional revenue. Consumers also benefit. Today, natural gas prices are less than half of what they were three years ago, lowering electricity prices. Meanwhile, America is less reliant on foreign suppliers.

All of this is tremendously good news, but, of course, nothing is that simple. The U.S. is polarized between “drill, baby, drill” conservatives, who seem suspicious of most regulation, and some environmentalists, who seem to regard fossil fuels as morally corrupt and imagine we can switch to wind and solar overnight.

The shale gas revolution challenges the coal industry, renders new nuclear plants uneconomic and changes the economics for the renewable energy companies, which are now much further from viability. So forces have gathered against shale gas, with predictable results.

The clashes between the industry and the environmentalists are now becoming brutal and totalistic, dehumanizing each side. Not-in-my-backyard activists are organizing to prevent exploration. Environmentalists and their publicists wax apocalyptic.

Like every energy source, fracking has its dangers. The process involves injecting large amounts of water and chemicals deep underground. If done right, this should not contaminate freshwater supplies, but rogue companies have screwed up and there have been instances of contamination.

The wells, which are sometimes beneath residential areas, are serviced by big trucks that damage the roads and alter the atmosphere in neighborhoods. A few sloppy companies could discredit the whole sector.

These problems are real, but not insurmountable. An exhaustive study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded, “With 20,000 shale wells drilled in the last 10 years, the environmental record of shale-gas development is for the most part a good one.” In other words, the inherent risks can be managed if there is a reasonable regulatory regime, and if the general public has a balanced and realistic sense of the costs and benefits.

"A reasonable regulatory regime"? And just where in his Republican dreamland -- the one that's going to take place next November no matter what people who are actually allowed to use a voting machine decide, is this reasonable regulatory regime going to happen? And what is a "realistic sense of the costs and benefits" when one of the costs is this:

Two small earthquakes near Blackpool in northwest England earlier this year were probably caused by hydraulic fracturing, a technique of grinding underground rocks to extract natural gas.

It’s “highly probable” that fracking, as the process is known, at the Preese Hall-1 site caused the quakes, U.K.-based shale explorer Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. said in a report published today. The geological circumstances were “rare” and the strongest possible tremor, of a magnitude of 3, wouldn’t be a risk to safety or property on the surface, it said.

Do YOU want to rely on a Republican regulatory climate in the face of this:



Look, I live in a town where my neighbors finally got their power back yesterday. I have colleagues from Connecticut who aren't expected to have their electricity back until Sunday. I understand how dependent we are on energy. But risking mass contamination of drinking water and relying on corporate executives' assessments of safety should hardly give us confidence in their assessment of long-term and short-term risks of this practice.

Fracking is being done by corporations, one of them being Halliburton. Does that make you feel all warm and fuzzy? It shouldn't. These companies are about making a profit, and energy companies in particular have shown little inclination to have concerns about safety. Just like the rest of the companies that are determined to suck everything they can out of this country, then leave a polluted, smoking shell behind and find someplace else to plunder, these companies should not be trusted.

That David Brooks think they should is just another example of why no one should take him seriously.

Excuse me, but it turned violent when police shot Scott Olsen in the head

Actual headline from today's New York times online:



That's the spin from the so-called liberal media.

Here's what's actually going on:

Oh fer God's sake....

Actual headline at Foxnews.com:



I'm with Zandar on this one:

...whenever the right pulls out ACORN to try to discredit anything, they have automatically lost the argument.

Rick Perry is starting to make George W. Bush look like Stephen Hawking by comparison

Just when you thought Rick Perry couldn't seem any dumber, he comes up with this gem in PARADE, the throwaway rag chock full of ads for cheap slippers and "Amish-made" electric heater enclosers that comes with your Sunday newspaper:

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?
I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.
I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?
I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

And?That came up.

And he said?
He doesn’t think it’s real.

And you said?I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.

Now I know that PARADE is hardly the reading of people with significant amounts of gray matter in their crania, and I know that it's taken seriously by exactly the kind of people who buy reverse mortgages from Fred Thompson on late-night TV, but for Lynn Sherr, who used to be an actual journalist, to bring up the birther issue is even more beyond the pale than for Rick Perry to leave the door open. I mean seriously, is he afraid he might lose the Orly Taitz vote?

Oh wait....never mind.

Tuesday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

TWO honorees today. First, John Cole again, though I really ought to stop reading Balloon Juice if it's going to make me do things like go to the liquor store next to the Trader Joe's and spend eight bucks on a bottle of Southern Tier Pumking -- and I don't even LIKE beer most of the time, drinking only a sip or two of Sam Adams scrounged occasionally from Mr. Brilliant when the Jets are stinking up the joint on the TeeVee; or a tiny Kölsch beer with colleagues when I'm in Germany.

Anyway, he didn't write the beer post, so he gets today's award for this money quote:

All that is left now is for Chuck Todd and David Gregory to explain how this is a failure on the part of Obama. And no, I am not watching the damned debate tonight.

Second, the Almighty Driftglass, with some truly frightening Photochopping as he takes on Bobo again. Drifty has a fundraiser going, if you want to throw him a few shekels. But save some for #OWS.

This is the problem, right here

"America's best reality show" -- that's the subheading of Newsweek's cover story this week about the race for the Republican presidential nomination. As Chris Christie continues his will-he-or-won't-he fan dance and Michele Bachmann continues to spout whatever batshit crazy pops into her head and the right wing pundit/money axis works frantically to dismantle the Perry Monster that they themselves created, it's perhaps tempting to write about this contest the way you would musings about whether Coach or Ozzy will be able to stay in the game, and whether the producers will be able to keep a lid on the clearly psychopathic Brandon Hantz before he rapes and machete-murders the Evil Temptress Mikaylah for having the audacity to wear a bikini in the south Pacific and make his Christian wee-wee tingle.

But this is what it's become, hasn't it? In a contest that's seen one freak after another throw a hat into the ring, it's tempting to liken them to some of the worst characters on reality television. The problem with so-called "serious journalists" treating it that way (and it's questionable whether anyone writing for the Daily Beastified Newsweek can still be considered a serious journalist) is that in the sheer freakshowiness of it all, it's easy to forget that the office being sought is that of the most powerful leader in the world -- a leader of a country and a world that is currently dealing with huge problems with which it requires both mind and guts to deal. When you turn this into Survivor: Reagan Library or Real Rich Guys of the Texas Oilfields or D.C. Idol, it's all to easy for some nitwit to end up with a job that's confounded far greater men than any of these lunatics currently running on the GOP side. Reality TV is for media whores. When we put the fate of the nation into people like this, we accelerate our already alarmingly fast pace down to oblivion.

OOH, Shiny!

During the last few weeks, as we've watched first Michele Bachmann anointed by the Washington punditocracy as Palin-with-a-brain, and then watch them fall in (and quickly out of) love with yet another dimwitted Texas governor in cowboy boots, it's struck me just how much this presidential race on the GOP side really IS, as Jon Stewart so accurately said last week, a race for the mayoralty of Pundittown.

It's not that the press falling in love with someone else every five minutes is anything new; we saw it in 2004 when Howard Dean made the cover of Newsweek when he was surging, and once it looked like he could actually win the thing, they covered a a rally he held after the Iowa caucuses in which he was trying to lift the spirits of his dispirited campaign workers and conveniently turned the volume down on the crowd noise to make him look like a madman. We certainly saw in in 2008, where the choice of a wife of a former president with whom their relationship was already tumultuous, and a black freshman Senator, for the Democratic nomination, had them so confounded they didn't know what to do. We also saw it when the guy they've been in love with for years, John McCain, selected an attractive bubblebrain to be the potential backup to a septuagenarian cancer survivor.

But this year the fickleness of the punditocracy has reached the point of ridiculousness, because whom they love can turn on a dime, and often on a daily basis. And this year, for some reason, they're like teenaged boys with a double standard -- they love their chosen one until he puts out (i.e. declares candidacy) and then suddenly the one they pursued for so long doesn't look so good anymre. As long as Rick Perry wasn't running, he was the Coveted One. Then after he declared, the press covered his cammpaign with the fervor of a fifteen-year-old who's still huffing the euphoria of those first few nights in the back seat of a car...until Perry offered up the equivalent of a fart during sex, and then suddenly the Pursued and Won One became just another failed candidate.

So now, as has happened before whenever the punditocracy gets restless, their attention turns to New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, which is striking only because they seem to have skipped over the logical next choice for their affections, Herman Cain, who trounced all others in the Florida straw poll last weekend. After all, if Michele Bachmann became Chuck Todd's next choice for the presidency after winning the Iowa straw poll, who shouldn't Herman Cain get some lovin' after even MORE decisively winning Florida's straw poll? Gee, I wonder why....

So off they go, chubby-chasing Chris Christie. What they forget is that as recently as June, Christie's approval rating in the state where we actually have to deal with him was just 43%:

Respondents objected to a variety of Christie’s policies, with 65% opposing his cuts in education spending, 58% opposing his removal of a surcharge on the state’s highest earners, and 51% opposing the cancellation of a planned tunnel to New York.

Christie’s favorability rating is now at 43%, while teachers, whom he tussled with on benefits and pay, are at 76%. “Teachers I know got laid off because of him,” said one respondent. “He’s not in favor of the average working person.” That view seemed pervasive: 68% believed Christie stands with the business community, while just 22% said he sides with “ordinary New Jerseyans.”

Now he's up at 54%, which these days is a perfectly fine rating, but still means that almost half the state doesn't like what he's doing. The Star-Ledger may think that Christie's tough stands with the unions accounts for his popularity, but as a denizen of New Jersey, I can tell you that the improvement in his ratings can be attributed to just six words, uttered as Hurricane Irene was approaching our coastline: "Get the hell off the beach." There isn't a person in this state who didn't applaud him for cutting right to the chase. He also gained respect from even those of us who disagree with him when he had the guts to call someone who was asking about protection from sharia law "crazy." These are Christie-the-regular-guy at his best. The problem is that the flip side of Christie-the-regular-guy is Christie-the-bully and Christie-the-hothead. Everyone seems to have forgotten that while he did a great job before and after the hurricane, he kind of HAD to, since he was off on vacation during last winter's blizzard.

Like George W. Bush, this is a guy who charges full speed ahead, certain of the correctness of every move he makes, every word that comes out of his mouth. But it's one thing to tell people who think it'd be fun to stand in the pounding surf during the hurricane not to be assholes. It's quite another when someone with a complete lack of internal word filter is handling delicate discussions with, oh, say, Pakistan.

There is video after video after video of Chris Christie saying he's not ready ot be persident. We agree. But the siren song of GOP apparatchiks who embraced the Teabag Monster and now are completely unable to control it, and the flowers-and-candy being offered by a smitten Washington punditocracy, may be impossible for him to resist. So I suspect he will run, and he'll have a joyful few first dates, until he farts. Then they'll find another girl about whom to fantasize.

Well, then, let's just hand her the presidency right now

So a comedian tactlessly told a joke about "special needs children" at a Sarah Palin event, and the very same "lamestream media" against which Palin rails all the time is having the vapors. Well, then....someone did something that might offensive to Sarah Palin. Let's just call off the election and anoint her Queen-for-life, then. After all, it's the least we can do, just in case her feelings were hurt.



John Cole is right. We ARE the dumbest country in the world.

How we know that Rick Perry's ascension to the presidency has already been decided

We knew that the media were already in love with Rick Perry. Even though we've already had a theocratic moron from Texas with a full head of hair and a glad-handing manner and cowboy boots in the White House, one who took control of a country with a surplus from eight years of peace and prosperity and wrecked it with tax cuts and wars that go nowhere, the men of the media loves them some good hair and cowboy boots. And it wouldn't matter if Barack Obama were somehow able to get unemployment down to 4% in the next fourteen months, these guys want them some cowboy and they're going to get it.



Bear witness:

Let's repeat David Gregory about four minutes in, shall we?

You know, Perry talked about potentially seceding from the union. You think that's extreme. Well people on the other side think that introducing health care reform for the whole country is akin to European

And there you have what passes for punditry: Talking about the possibility of secession is EXACTLY THE SAME as thinking that people who are poor should have the same right to health care as the rich do.



Coming next: Rick Perry's saying that there's nothing we can do to fix things other than to just pray to Jesus is the very definition of strong leadership.



There's nothing to do with David Gregory except throw our hands up in the sky, say "Hasa diga eebowai", and link to some Driftglass Photochoppin' here and here.

Funny how Charles Rangel's ethics violations were flogged for weeks but you don't hear a peep about this one

Remember Mean Jean Schmidt? She's the vile wingnut who defeated then-netroots darling Paul Hackett for Ohio's 2nd Congressional district seat in 2004.

Well, the very same House Ethics Committee that gave a "public admonishment" to Rep. Charles Rangel for ethics violations has found that Mean Jean has taken bribes from some shady sources.

Howie Klein:

Schmidt hasn't had any impact at all in Congress and is widely considered an embarrassment and one of the least influential members of the House. The only other thing she's known for is her dogged opposition to the legitimate aspirations of the Amenian-American community. Schmidt, a dim bulb, isn't exactly someone would expect to even know anything about Armenia or Armenians. But she has been taking bribes from shady Turkish sources and helps run their anti-Armenian efforts. Friday the House Ethics Committee issued their report on her corruption, but decided not to recommend expulsion or arrest, claiming, in effect, that she was too dumb to know she had violated House rules. You have to be pretty dumb to not know taking bribes is against the rules... and the law.

The report is here.

It may very well be that Jean Schmidt is too much of a moron to know that what she did was unethical. And getting the vapors over Congressional bribes is kind of laughable right now, when the Koch brothers are openly buying Tea Party members of Congress. But the issue for me is one of spin -- that when a Democrat is accused of ethical lapses, or found to have committed such lapses, it's flogged in the media for weeks. But when it's a Republican, even as insignificant a Republican as Jean Schmit, it lands in the Friday news dump and you don't hear a peep about it.

Move over, George W. Bush, there's a new smirking fratboy in town

This is priceless. Watch Dylan Ratigan take that smirking punk Luke Russert to the woodshed:

You can bet your next paycheck that Ratigan got a good hard dressing down from the NBC suits for daring to question the Spawn of Timmeh.

(I guess now I have to start a new blog, "Sweet Jesus I Hate Luke Russert." =sigh=)

(via)

Sperm does not carry the ability to do journalism

It does, however, seem to carry the self-satisfied, smug, I-Got-This-Job-Because-My-Dad-Was-Revered-At-NBC gene:



(via)

Time for the New York Times to dispatch McKinley again

I for one would love to see James C. McKinley spin this rape to "the bitch asked for it":

Two Memphis boys, aged 7 and 9, alleged to have raped a 2-year-old girl last August were placed in protective custody on Monday.

Shelby County Juvenile Court Magistrate Dan Michael turned the boys over to the state's Department of Children's Services after the prosecution asked that they be put in custody for treatment rather than punishment.

The boys' attorneys, James Sanders and Samuel Jones, had both asked that the boys be allowed to receive rehabilitative services from the state while in their own homes.

Sanders, who represents the 9-year-old, said there were "clearly no winners" in the situation.

"You've got a victim who certainly is going to probably bear the scars of this incident for years to come," he said.

"And you've got two young, alleged perpetrators who are going to have to carry the burden of this offense with them for years to come.

Wait. Maybe he wrote this Reuters story too. After all, the REAL victims of rape are the perpetrators, right?

Sorry, Mr. McKinley, no redemption for you.

Earlier this month, James C. McKinley, Jr., a "journalist" at the New York Times, wrote this article about a horrific rape of an 11-year-old in Texas. The article rightly drew criticism because if it's apparent embrace of the She Asked For It excuse.

In today's paper, the Times has obviously decided to give McKinley a chance to redeem himself by writing an update about the case, and he has failed miserably. For this article does little to reverse the tone of his first article. Excerpts below, with commentary by Yours Truly:

Court documents and dozens of interviews over several weeks with the girl’s family, her friends and neighbors, as well as those who know the defendants, provide a more complete picture of what occurred as well as a deeper portrait of the victim. What begins to emerge is the nightmarish ordeal of a young girl over two and a half months involving an eclectic group of young men, some with criminal records, who shared a powerful neighborhood bond.

Maybe you should have sought that "deeper portrait of the victim" before writing the other article, instead of buying hook, line, and sinker that she was a slut who asked for it -- remember, this is an 11-year-old we're talking about -- from the kind of people who would defend nineteen boys who raped her.

The Cleveland police and the local district attorney have released little information about the alleged rapes and the evidence, and their silence has allowed rumor and speculation to flourish. Judge Mark Morefield of State District Court issued a broad order two weeks ago prohibiting law enforcement officials, defense lawyers, potential witnesses and relatives of the girl and defendants from speaking about the case to reporters.

And you reported that rumor and speculation on the 8th of March. That's lazy journalism, Mr. McKinley. Perhaps you should seek employment with News Corp. And if there's a news blackout, why are you in Cleveland, Texas AGAIN, other than for selfish reasons pertaining to your own feeble attempt at journalistic redemption?

The girl, a sixth grader whose parents are immigrants from Mexico,

Oh, well...if she's a Mexican, that excuses everything, right, Mr. McKinley? Why is her nationality relevant?

It is unclear from the affidavits if the younger Mr. Ellis was there the night of Nov. 28. But the girl said that a cousin, Timothy D. Ellis, 19, was there, and ordered her to strip, telling her that he would “have some girls beat her up” and would not drive her home if she refused, the affidavits said.

The affidavits said the girl told investigators that she then “engaged in sexual intercourse and oral sex” with several of the men present, among them Jared G. McPherson, 18, a high school basketball player, and Jared L. Cruse, also 18, who has since been charged with robbing a grocery store in the next county.

During the sexual assault, the girl said, she heard Mr. McGowen call someone on the phone and invite him to the house to have sex with her, the affidavits said. Four more men whom she did not know arrived.

This is where the kind of people who would defend the rape of an 11-year-old start talking about "consent." First of all, if threatening to leave you someplace, or having other kids beat you up, isn't coercion WHEN YOU ARE ELEVEN YEARS OLD, I don't know what is. Second of all, I question whether "engaging in sexual intercourse" is exactly what the girl said, or if this is how police in a Texas community when dealing with the rape of a Latino child are wording a deposition in order to put doubt in the heads of possibly racist jurors.

Four of the defendants are charged with continuous sexual abuse of a young child. The rest are charged with a single count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14. Both felonies carry a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. In Texas, a child under 17 cannot give legal consent and, as in most states, ignorance of a child’s age is not a legal defense.

I repeat: This is sexual abuse of an 11-year-old. I'm sorry, but in most cases, even an adult woman with full control of her faculties does not consent to being gang-raped over a period of time, no matter how many porn movies one watches that show this as being something women like. But note how McKinley continues to leave the door open for the "She wanted it" defense.

The small house where the girl lived is on a dusty road on the outskirts of town, about 10 miles from Precinct 20. There were chickens in the yard and a trampoline out front, where her father sometimes slept during the afternoons. She lived there with her parents, two older sisters who were in high school and a younger brother.

A 36-year-old cousin of the girl, who lived next door, said her family was in dire economic straits since Juan stopped working. The water and electricity had been cut off at times in recent months.

"Stopped working." It isn't until two paragraphs later that we find out that the father isn't working because he has health problems, and even when we do, there's a tone of Immigrant Gaming the System:

Juan injured his back in November 2009 and has not held a steady job since. A diabetic, he receives disability checks of $700 a month. His wife, 42, was told last year that she had a mass in her brain, and a doctor had said it should be removed, friends said. She suffers frequent headaches and fainting spells. His wife, 42, was told last year that she had a mass in her brain, and a doctor had said it should be removed, friends said. She suffers frequent headaches and fainting spells.

And here's the topper: The girl has been put into foster care:

Two months ago, when the arrests started, the state Child Protective Services placed the girl, who had also received threats, in a foster home. “They told her it was best that they take her away from this town,” Ms. Lopez said.

A case worker has informed Juan that he and his wife must attend family therapy sessions to regain custody. Juan said he was despondent at the prospect of losing his daughter permanently. He said that she was doing well but that she was still fearful. “You can see she’s not happy,” he said. Then he added, “She will never recover from this.”

If this family were white, and had a rebellious child who was gang-raped, do you think for one minute that the child would be removed from the parents? Hardly.

This article contains little new about this case. It seems written solely for the purpose of trying to rehabilitate the journalistic career of a man whose obviously prurient interest in the case and clear understanding of why a bunch of boys would think a rebellious girl from an economically disadvantaged family is fair game for them, makes him seem a bit of a perv. Is there any reason why, if the Times felt an update barely three weeks later was warranted, they couldn't find someone, perhaps even a female journalist, to cover the update? Why is Mr. McKinley allowed to try to restore his career literally on the back of an already-exploited child?

Exactly what Jon Stewart was talking about

As if it weren't bad enough that C-SPAN, without missing a beat, went right from Jon Stewart's impassioned speech to their subtitled phone numbers for Republicans, Democrats and Independents, it seems that Politico can't tell the difference between Beck's rally and today's rally.

Lost in the relentless coverage of a lunatic in Florida and the Thrilla in Wasilla...

While teabaggers were out there enjoying the 9/11 attacks all over again (it IS wingnut Christmas, after all), something that ought to have gotten the attention of every teabagger whose job was outsourced during the last decade and a half got ZERO coverage here at home:

President Barack Obama today underlined his determination to end tax incentives for companies that create jobs overseas, saying he will provide a generous tax credit to companies that create more jobs in the US.

Amid indication that outsourcing could become a hot issue in the November elections, Obama said the tax breaks should go to companies that create jobs in the US and not overseas.

"One of the keys to job creation is to encourage companies to invest more in the United States. But for years, our tax code has actually given billions of dollars in tax breaks that encourage companies to create jobs and profits in other countries,” Obama said in his speech on economy at Cleveland, Ohio.

The President said he was determined to change that. "I want to change that. Instead of tax loopholes that incentivise investment in overseas jobs, I'm proposing a more generous, permanent extension of the tax credit that goes to companies for all the research and innovation they do right here in America," Obama said with Ohio Governor Ted Strickland standing by his side.

But of course why let coverage of something GOOD that Obama wants to do get in the way of relentlessly flogging the ravings of a religious lunatic or endless discussion of whether the President's response about said lunatic was adequate.

87,000 does not an American majority make

The media have really enjoyed painting the Tea Party movement as some kind of national, majority sea change in attitude, a revoluationary force bound and determined to change our government. Of course as lazy as the media has become, if a few thousand people stood on a street corner screaming that the second coming of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is nigh, Chuck Todd would talk about how the President ignores the FSM-ers at his peril.

So this giant groundswell took to the Mall in Washington DC today -- all 87,000-ish of them.

The population of the United States is 310,110,640. About 228,000,000 of these are adults. Of those, 87,000 showed up to demonstrate their support for Glenn Beck today. That is 4/100 of one percent of the American adult population, or about the attendance at two Mets games at Citi Field, if the Mets were playing something resembling credible baseball.

So can we please stop talking about these people as if they represent some huge sea change in American attitudes, and leave them to their 'zines and e-mail spam where they belong?

(LGF has photos.)

Julian Assange; Hero or Rapist? Sheesh!

This is the oddest thing. I was scanning my email today and I read an urgent report from last night from CNN's urgent news report service, that Julian Assange, of Wikileaks fame, had been charged with rape in Sweden. I was sort of taken aback but figured I'd look into it today and see if its some ginned up attempt at discrediting him for lack of anything else to do about stopping Wikileaks. Interestingly, not 10 posts later was another special CNN report saying something to the effect of 'oh never mind, the charges have been dropped'...huh?

It appears that Assange is hiding out in Sweden, where the main set of Wikileaks servers are located, because of their laws protecting journalists, while the likes of Michael Moore call him a hero and raise money for his defense. According to the San Francisco Chronicle two women who knew each other, one in her 20's and one in her 30's, came forward and charged him with rape and molestation, but the refused to file official reports....huh? They supposedly knew all about the wikileaks issue and were "afraid of his power"...huh? I'll be looking for them both, weeping on Larry King, looking for their own reality show. Apparently all charges have been dropped and this is just another strange blip in this story, which which would make this guy either a patriotic folk hero or a war criminal/rapist....huh? Assange responded on Twitter thusly:

the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.

According to Reuters, Co-workers have said that they were expecting the attacks and that they were all purely to discredit Wikileaks content. But Wikileaks is well beyond being just about Julian Assange and anyone who doesn't realize that is a fool.

I believe that what he has done for this country in his brave publication of documents that have definitely made him a target, and his strong stand on continuing this work is no less than patriotic and brave. The information in the documents stands as the real testament of its own worth and lacking a real press in America these days, this guy has done us a huge service.

I also know that when the powers that be are at the end of their collective ropes and can't stop something like this, they resort to this sort of discrediting of those who, at one time, might have been the Woodward and Bernsteins of this war. The playing field is so different and our information network is huge and global, but this feels to me like duct tape left over the lock on a door at the Watergate Hotel.

Michael Moore is raising money for Assange's defense and encouraging us to support him. Of course, even the floated hint of this sort of sexual impropriety could ruin not only that support, but also his life. Its a chance that you take when you go up against the big boys, and I'm sure that Assange was well aware that they would try everything to stop him. But this is so heavy handed as to seem almost like a private extortion attempt by some local assholes. It would be truly sad if this was the work of the CIA, as the SF Chronicle suggested, because if that's so then we need to pump more training into our intelligence divisions.

I hope to see more on this as it unfolds; its too good for the tabloids not to pick up. My advice to Mr. Assange is to keep your head down and, as someone smart recently said to me, draw a line around yourself, close your doors, and just stay inside until things die down.
Godspeed.

RIP Coco...you cant get there from anywhere...still working on it...

The stupidest (sic) fucking man on the planet says....

...that the roots of anxiety, of the rage emanating from the flyover states, is because not enough white males from their ranks are getting into Harvard. Because i2in the South and the Midwest, the very same people who decry Eastern liberal elites and send their kids to schools where they teach that God created everything in six days, really, really, really secretly want their kids to go to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.

Funny, too, how that resentment doesn't extend to lazy, shiftless legacies like George W. Bush.