What would happen if YOU yelled at YOUR boss like this?

Teabagger Rep. Joe Walsh forgets for whom he works:



Now I know I get a bit cranky when I'm hungry, but then I'm not a United States Congressman. Color me skeptical when Walsh tries to explain his rant by claiming it's because he was in need of a pancake. That $132,329 in campaign contributions from banks and financial companies had nothing to do with it.

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Is It Friday Yet? edition

Well, I've already run over Maggie's tail with the chair casters, so today's not off to a great beginning. And to make matters worse, she insists on sitting on the floor in the same place. Life is like that around here sometimes as Maggie heads into her dotage, one that finds me trying, far too belatedly, to correct her incessant yowling before she get senile and it never stops.

So what's going on?

A week without Driftglass skewering David Brooks ls like a week without sunshine. (WARNING: Some seriously disturbing Photochopping to be found at the link.)

Once upon a time, two nice young men had a blog called Pandagon. Ezra Klein may have gone on to Pundit Stardom, but the OTHER original Pandagonist, Jesse Taylor, does a nice job of pointing out how Herman Cain's Say No Three Times in German plan will make people more expensive to employ. Can we say "Job-Killing Tax CUTS" now?

I really, really, really hate to link to anything at HuffPo, but this is a good one (and Amanda Terkel DID used to be with ThinkProgress): Scott Brown may have plagiarized his web site from Elizabeth Dole, but Herman Cain may have lifted his from Sim City. (More on this from Southern Beale.)

Michael J.W. Stickings blogs even earlier than I do, this time on Rush Limbaugh's War On Romney.

Laffy sets the record straight.

CheezWhiz: The Occupy movement need look no further than FDR's 1944 State of the Union address.

Some "Elsewhere" from the You Can't Make This Up file: The son of the late Bo Diddley, who carries his father's name, was arrested last night as part of Occupy Gainesville (FL), in Bo Diddley Park.

Rick Ungar on Congressional Republicans' relentless drive to kill women.

And on that same subject, I'll leave you with Congresswoman Jackie Speier from last night's Rachel Maddow Show, telling it like it is on the Republicans' war on women:

Forget the next world, in THIS world you're on your own*

On Friday Nate Silver wrote about the monetary cost of a storm like the one currently battering the east coast:

The procedure I have used to estimate economic damage — this is going to get a tiny bit technical — is to regress the logarithm of economic damage on three independent variables. The first two variables are the storm’s wind speed, and the distance of the storm from New York City, at its closest approach to Manhattan. The third variable is how many fatalities the storm caused in the Southern United States (these were significant in the cases of Hurricane Donna in 1960, Hurricane Agnes in 1972, and Hurricane Floyd in 1999), which is used as a proxy to segregate out damages caused in the South from those in the Northeast in the case of storms that made multiple distinct landfalls. The figures I am going to show you, therefore, reflect estimates of the economic damage to the Northeast from various types of hurricanes, including but not limited to the New York City metro region.

Click through to the article to see the full-size chart. But we are talking about $3.5 to $5.6 BILLION in economic damage from a storm just like this one. And that's just damage to the city, not to anywhere else. The numbers for damage in the range of this storm, by the time it's over, will be staggering. After wreaking havoc from North Carolina to Maine, it's almost unimaginable.



Of course thanks to Eric Cantor, whom President Obama lacks the courage to confront, we're all going to be on our own after this one, because King Eric refuses to give one dime of Federal aid unless it's offset by spending cuts elsewhere -- and presumably he's going to want those spending cuts to come out of Social Security and Medicare. So if you're, say, in your late fifties or early sixties, you might get federal aid to repair your house, but you're going to pay for it later on.



Even if you don't think you're going to need help because you have insurance, you might want to guess again, particularly if you do not have flood insurance (and most of us who don't live in a designated flood plain don't, though I am seriously reconsidering that).



And that of course brings us to Ron Paul, who thinks FEMA isn't necessary and we should go back to the good old days of the Galveston Flood:

Citing the Galveston hurricane in 1900 that obliterated much of the Texas coast, the libertarian-leaning congressman said Americans were able to rebuild their cities and put up a seawall without the federal government's help.

Yup, thems was the good ol' days, yessirree:

The citizens of Houston knew a powerful storm had blown through and had made ready to provide assistance. Workers set out by rail and ship for the island almost immediately. Rescuers arrived to find the city completely destroyed. It is believed 8,000 people—20% of the island's population—had lost their lives. Estimates range from 6,000 to 12,000. Most had drowned or been crushed as the waves pounded the debris that had been their homes hours earlier. Many survived the storm itself but died after several days trapped under the wreckage of the city, with rescuers unable to reach them. The rescuers could hear the screams of the survivors as they walked on the debris trying to rescue those they could. A further 30,000 were left homeless.



So many died that corpses were piled onto carts for burial at sea.The dead bodies were so numerous that burying them all was not possible. The dead were initially weighted down and dumped at sea, but when the gulf currents washed many of the bodies back onto the beach, a new solution was needed. Funeral pyres were set up wherever the dead were found and burned for weeks after the storm. The authorities passed out free whiskey to sustain the distraught men conscripted for the gruesome work of collecting and burning the dead. More people were killed in this single storm than the total of those killed in all the tropical cyclones that have struck the United States since. This count is greater than 300 cyclones, as of 2009. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

There's a part of me that says, "Yes, let's let the Ron Pauls and the Eric Cantors of the world run things. Let's have the country run by people whose staffers call the police when their constituents try to get a meeting with them, and who charge $15 per question and who assume that everyone who lost his/her job because the CEO ran the company into the ground or outsourced everything to low-wage countries is a drug addict. Let's have a country where the people in this Daily Show segment are in charge:







The one problem with this is that once the teabaggers get a taste of the country for which they clamored, they'll scream bloody murder to have their programs reinstated. But it will be too late.



(For those who didn't get the title reference...)

And they say LIBERALS have no sense of humor?

Perhaps this is the definition of irony.

Back in the days when I was able to start my day with a good healthy dose of comedic cynicism with "Morning Sedition", Marc Maron would open the show with "Good morning geniuses, philosopher kings, working class heroes, progressive utopians with no sense of humor..." If you're familiar with the Maron oeuvre, you know that humorlessness on the left is an integral part of his work when he ventures into the political realm (which he doesn't do much anymore, since as he said on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend, political rage is just about being angry in your own head, something he's been workinig on with his WTF podcast, which is itself a kind of atonement for the way he treated people in comedy when he was a self-destructive asshole, instead of just the garden-variety asshole he is today.

But now Marc Maron finds himself with a notoriety he would have killed for a few years ago, because of an offhand remark he made during his appearance on Real Time -- one which for anyone who knows his work, is another example of the kind of raw, rip-your-head-open-and-dig-out-the-muck musings that are an integral part of his schtick.

I'll be the first to admit that Marc Maron isn't everyone's cup of tea. At one time I'd have said that you have to be a neurotic Jew with food issues and unresolved childhood self-loathing to really "get" what he does. But there are few stand-up comics who, after a radio show that lasted only a year and a half and ended over five years ago, has kept the show's fan base to the point of breaking down the wall between comic and audience. Whether it's his live stand-up shows or live WTF broadcasts, Seditionisti and WhatTheFuckniks shower him with gifts relevant to his chaotic life and cultural references -- vegan cakes, non-vegan cookies, full butterfat ice cream, and of course cat toys. There are always cat toys, because if you've followed Maron's career since three feral stray cats were dumped almost literally in his lap in Astoria, Queens in 2004, you know about Boomer the Dirt Cat (who the now-loathed ex-wife left behind and took the much nicer Moxie the Astoria Cat in their very bitter divorce), Monkey, and LaFonda, you know that he's a Cat Guy. And another thing the fans do is create the artwork that shows up now on WTF swag.

Marc Maron has this peculiar thing that he desperately wants to be liked, but he's suspicious of anyone who likes him. If you don't necessarily like him as a person (and he's far more accessible than most stand-ups are), you should at least appreciate his work. But the thing you have to realize about Marc Maron is that when he gets up on a stage, or puts on the headphones in his garage and starts a monologue, he's not doing it for you. He's doing it for himself, because without it he'll go slowly nuts just from living inside his own head. You either get that or you don't.

Unfortunately, appearing on a popular show like Real Time means that this weekend Maron was out of the comfort zone of people who still miss Lawton Smalls and the Presidential Palm Pilot and who remain hopeful that Current will somehow put WTF on television. And now he's Public Enemy #1 on the right for an offhand remark he made (2:33 into the video below) about hoping Marcus Bachmann (who's widely reported to be a closet case, which of course, as Stephen Colbert would say, makes it "fact-esque") takes out all his rage and anger about his closeted existence into the bedroom with his wife, GOP Republican presidential candidate Michele, and has "hate sex" with her.

Watch for yourself:

I'm waiting for the feminist blogosphere to weigh in with trigger warnings and all the rest of the fragile flower baggage that comes with framing your entire life and entire being around having been a victim of rape at one time. But so far it's mostly on the right that the outrage is taking place, which is hilarious because for a year and a half, Marc Maron was on terrestrial radio for fifteen hours a week during morning drive time, being FAR more inflammatory to the right wing than an offhand remark on one episode of a show on premium cable, and the right never bothered to listen and never uttered a peep. But let him muse for ten seconds about something that probably goes on in many bedrooms around the country (incluing probably many Republican bedrooms), and the right goes nuts.

What's funny is that the right, often justifiably, has poked fun at the political correctness of the left. What you don't see in the video clip is Marc Maron explaining how he gave up talking about politics because of the humorlessness of the left, and how he'd say something and someone would say he didn't really get into the concerns about the transgender community. For decades the right has railed against political correctness, saying vile and hateful things about Hillary Clinton and Michele Obama and Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic high-profile women. But let a comedian make an offhand remark about a Republican woman, and they go nuts.

What Marc Maron does by digging into his own head is take us to places that most people don't want to go. He rips aside the curtain of American hypocrisy and pokes fun at it, and he does it without Jon Stewart's need to be nice. It's what all the great stand-up comics of the last half-century have done. It's what Carlin did, it's what Pryor did, it's what Lenny Bruce did. Maybe you've never had "hate sex". But you can bet your life that all the people on the right who are having the vapors today have. And if they haven't, they sure as hell want to.

Well, Mr. Bolling, that's because you are an idiot.

Warning: Your cranium may combust at this:

Oh yes he did (1:31 in):

"We can certainly say between 2000 and 2008, I don't remember ANY terrorist attacks on U.S. soil during that period of time."

Mr. Bolling, let me refresh your memory:



Oh yes, I forgot. In Super Magic Fox News Revisionist History Collapse Time, that happened on Clinton's watch. (So did the Iraq War. And I think the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby may have as well. Super Magic Fox News Revisionist History Collapse Time works that way.)

(h/t)

Mitch McConnell doesn't think you should be able to vote unless it's for people he likes

Why does Mitch McConnell hate America?

The time has come for a balanced budget amendment that forces Washington to balance its books. If these debt negotiations have convinced us of anything, it’s that we can’t leave it to politicians in Washington to make the difficult decisions that they need to get our fiscal house in order. The balanced budget amendment will do that for them. Now is the moment. No more games. No more gimmicks. The Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We’ve tried persuasion. We’ve tried negotiations. We’re tried elections. Nothing has worked.

In other words, Mitch McConnell wants to overthrow the government and institute one in which he gets everything HE wants.

Again, I ask: Why does Mitch McConnell hate America?

(via)

And in case your brother-in-law who's been out of work for 2-1/2 years and can't wait to vote Repubicans back in, or your friend's mother who just can't trust a black man, or your co-worker who thinks Republicans will straighten everything out right quick want to know about the party they support, McConnell, who has already been on record as saying his only priority is to make Barack Obama a one-term president, reiterated his agenda today:

McConnell said that at this point the GOP had two choices: Either make a bad deal — from their perspective — with Obama or take the country into default, which, McConnell suggested would do even more damage to the party. He compared the situation to 1995, when the GOP forced a government shutdown.

“We know that’s going to happen. Just like we knew shutting down the government in 1995 was not going to work for us,” he said. “It helped Bill Clinton get reelected. I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected.”

Today in WTF

No, not Marc Maron's terrific podcast (though you should check it out if you haven't already), but just general What the Fuckness: Ben Stein on why Dominique Strauss-Kahn could very well be right that "she asked for it":

1.) If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn't he ever get charged until now? If he has a long history of sexual abuse, how can it have remained no more than gossip this long? France is a nation of vicious political rivalries. Why didn't his opponents get him years ago?

2.) In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category? Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind.

3.) The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

4.) Did the prosecutors really convince a judge that he was a flight risk when he was getting on a flight he had booked long beforehand? What kind of high-pressure escape plan is that? How is it a sudden flight move to get on a flight booked maybe months ago?

5.) Mr. Strauss-Kahn had surrendered his passport. He had offered to stay in New York City. He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Did he really have to be put in Riker's Island? Couldn't he have been given home detention with a guard? This is a man with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level, to put it mildly. Was Riker's Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn't he earned slightly better treatment than that? Any why compare him with a certain pedophile from France long ago? That man had confessed to his crime. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has not confessed to anything.

6.) People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker's is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it's done.

7.) In this country, we have the presumption of innocence for the accused. Yet there's my old pal from the Ron Ziegler/ Richard Nixon days, Diane Sawyer, anchor of the ABC Nightly News, assuming that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty. Right off the bat she leads the Monday news by saying that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is in Riker's... "because one woman stood her ground..." That assumes she's telling the truth and he's guilty. No such thing has been proved and it's unfortunate for ABC to simply assume that an accusation is the same as a conviction. Maybe he's in jail because one person didn't tell the truth. I don't know one way or the other, but I sure know that there has been no conviction yet.

8.) In what possible way is the price of the hotel room relevant except in every way: this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that's what it's all about. A man pays $3,000 a night for a hotel room? He's got to be guilty of something. Bring out the guillotine.

Let's go down the list, shall we?
1) Perhaps because he's a very powerful guy? Or because it's is extremely difficult to get a rape conviction, especially in Europe, where in 2006 France had a conviction rate of only 25%, despite the fact that reported incidents had seen a steady rise over 15 years. With 75% odds against conviction, can you blame women for deciding not to bother?

2) This sounds like code for "Only black people commit crimes". But as Randall Munroe notes, Paul Bernardo was an economist. The name Paul Bernardo doesn't ring a bell? Here's what HE did. And again: He's an economist. James Urbaniak has more criminal economists.

3) Where does one even begin with this one? I've written before about what happened to me in college. I chose not to define myself as a rape victim, but today what happened would qualify as rape. There do not have to be life-threatening weapons for there to be rape. Fists and the ability to twist a person's arms so they can't fight back works just fine. And as for "un-intimidated", well, that's the most insulting of all. What Stein is saying is that a REAL rape victim would have gone home, taken a shower to get rid of all evidence, and then, when it's too late to get any evidence, reported the crime. Perhaps this woman was "un-intimidated" enough to report the crime because she comes from a country where rape is rampant. But I guess Stein would say that since she was used to it, it's not a crime.

5) Stein bemoans that a man of such power and prestige is held at Riker's Island after surrendering his passport. Has Stein ever heard of the Hudson River? Is he aware of how big a country this is? It would not be difficult for Kahn to hop a ferry to New Jersey, take a Greyhound to Florida and hop on a friend's boat -- and out of the country. Not saying he would, but surrendering a passport doesn't mean shit for a determined sociopath.

6) Stein talks about how he loves hotel maids (maybe too much...is that why he's coming to Strauss-Kahn's defense?). He loves them the way Trump gets along with "the blacks" -- by stating such and then talking about those who were "complete lunatics", robbing him blind. I guess if the woman Strauss-Kahn assaulted had been a wealthy socialite, it would have been OK to put him in Rikers. But because this woman is "just" a hotel maid, the perp should be allowed to walk around.

7) Regarding the presumption of innocence: There are tens of thousands of people in jail even as I write this, who have not yet been convicted of any crime. They are held for various reasons. Why should this mean be treated any differently?

8) When all else fails, play the class war card. I guess because Strauss-Kahn could afford a $3000/night hotel room, he doesn't have to play by the same rules as someone in the same income level as, say, the victim in this crime.

Ben Stein's essay tells us more about him than about either of the people involved in this case. And what it tells us is that Ben Stein is a repulsive piece of shit.

Wingnut Response Thread

So what do you think the wingnut response will be to the killing of Osama Bin Laden on Barack Obama's watch?

I'll start:

"How DARE he keep children awake on a school night delaying his remarks!"

"He kept Americans, some of whom lost loved ones on 9/11, waiting while his speechwriters told him what to say."

"This is George Bush's victory. After all, it was he who started the war in Afghanistan."

"This proves Obama is a Muslim. Obviously other Muslims turned Bin Laden in."

Post your own projections and overhearings in the comments.

POST-SPEECH UPDATE: It's doubly sweet that this has happened on Codpiece Day. And kudos to Obama for NOT giving credit to George W. Bush, who let Osama Bin Laden go at Tora Bora and barely six months after the 9/11 attacks, was saying this:

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oy. Ida Siegel, reporting from lower Manhattan for MSNBC, just referred to "Obama" being dead. Barack Obama has been president for over two years already. You'd think people would know how to pronounce his name by now.

People are starting to wake up

Of course it's closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, but it's better than nothing. New tea bagger Congressman and former reality show contestant Sean Duffy held a town Hall recently and few were buying his Koch bros./Paul Ryan talking points:

More videos from thos town hall of informed Wisconsin citizens who recognize a line of crap when they hear it here.

While he's at it, let him pray for God to rain dollar bills on his state

I'm sorry, but since wingnuts get to pound their chests and say that they don't want their tax dollars paying for abortions (and have the government do their bidding), I think I should get to say that I don't want my tax dollars paying to rebuild the homes of citizens who elect governors who talk about secession and then beg for federal help to fight wildfires in their state.

Now Texas Governor Rick Perry is hedging his bets. In case the feds say no, he's going to a higher authority:

WHEREAS, the state of Texas is in the midst of an exceptional drought, with some parts of the state receiving no significant rainfall for almost three months, matching rainfall deficit records dating back to the 1930s; and

WHEREAS, a combination of higher than normal temperatures, low precipitation and low relative humidity has caused an extreme fire danger over most of the State, sparking more than 8,000 wildfires which have cost several lives, engulfed more than 1.8 million acres of land and destroyed almost 400 homes, causing me to issue an ongoing disaster declaration since December of last year; and

WHEREAS, these dire conditions have caused agricultural crops to fail, lake and reservoir levels to fall and cattle and livestock to struggle under intense stress, imposing a tremendous financial and emotional toll on our land and our people; and

WHEREAS, throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer; it seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this devastating drought and these dangerous wildfires;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto signed my name and have officially caused the Seal of State to be affixed at my Office in the City of Austin, Texas, this the 21st day of April, 2011.

Where's Burt Lancaster when you need him?

Does Perry ever think to ask his Great White Alpha Male in the Sky why, since Texas is such a God-fearin', gun-totin' state, wildfires and hurricanes even happen there?

Piss off Fox. Buy something from J. Crew

I'm not a J. Crew shopper. Frankly, I don't think much of their stuff, at least not from what I've seen on their web site; I don't care that Laurent Hutton DOES model for them. Usually you'll find me on the sale pages of J. Jill or the 30% off all clearance pages at Coldwater Creek. But tonight, I'm making a statement against idiocy by buying a shirt from J. Crew. In fact, I'm buying two. Want to know why? Here's why:

Use code MUSTHAVE to get 30% off all clearance through tomorrow night.

Time to stop giving your eyeballs to Huffington Post

I suppose we should have known, given how effortlessly Arianna Huffington went from being a right-wing conservative to being a liberal. We thought it was the persuasive powers of Al Franken, from the "Strange Bedfellows" bit that they did on the old Craig Kilborn-helmed Daily Show. But no, it was just opportunism.

From Veracity Stew:

Bloggers have been coming and going very rapidly over at Huffington Post since Arianna Huffington sold out to AOL last month. There has been mounting speculation about the death of the once liberal-leaning HuffPo in light of editorial changes. Well, we can now confirm that the old HuffPo is dead and something hideous is sprouting in its place. We know this because of the revelation today that right-wing extremist Andrew Breitbart is now blogging for Huffington.

And what has Breitbart chosen to write about in is premiere post? His friend James O’Keefe.

The latest James O’Keefe success story against NPR has taken a predictable pattern — panicked press releases and firings, followed by denunciation of O’Keefe in a belated attempt to discredit him. Naturally, conservatives are crowing about it, but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media.

Yes, folks -- this is what HuffPo has come to -- giving Andrew Breitbart a podium to defend a sniveling little rat-faced git who ought to right now be a prison bitch for a 350-pound mass murderer.

I vowed to stop linking to HuffPo when it was sold to AOL. Now I refuse to even read it.

(via Melina)

Thoughtcrime

And people said I was being overly dramatic when I started saying that women would soon have to send their used tampons to the government for inspection to determine if they had allowed fertilized eggs to not implant. Soon, abortion will be a crime. CONSIDERING abortion will also be a crime. In Iowa, it already is:

Life can't get much worse for Christine Taylor. Last month, after an upsetting phone conversation with her estranged husband, Ms. Taylor became light-headed and fell down a flight of stairs in her home. Paramedics rushed to the scene and ultimately declared her healthy. However, since she was pregnant with her third child at the time, Taylor thought it would be best to be seen at the local ER to make sure her fetus was unharmed.

That's when things got really bad and really crazy. Alone, distraught, and frightened, Taylor confided in the nurse treating her that she hadn't always been sure she'd wanted this baby, now that she was single and unemployed. She'd considered both adoption and abortion before ultimately deciding to keep the child. The nurse then summoned a doctor, who questioned her further about her thoughts on ending the pregnancy. Next thing Taylor knew, she was being arrested for attempted feticide. Apparently the nurse and doctor thought that Taylor threw herself down the stairs on purpose.

According to Iowa state law, attempted feticide is an trying "to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy." At least 37 states have similar laws. Taylor spent two days in jail before being released. That's right, a pregnant woman was jailed for admitting to thinking about an abortion at some point early in her pregnancy and then having the audacity to fall down some stairs a couple of months later. Please tell me you find this as horrifying as I do.

(via)

Great minds think alike

Jill Filipovic writers over at RH Reality Check:

Dear Rep. Franklin,

I applaud your efforts to support the rights of zygote citizens of Georgia by criminalizing miscarriages and investigating every instance of fetal death as a potential crime. The bill you are trying to pass is clear that the Georgia State Assembly knows that life begins at the moment of conception, and that any fertilized egg that dies is a human death that we should all grieve. I couldn't agree more, and I would like to help.

As I'm sure you know, more than 50% of fertilized eggs --Georgia citizens! -- naturally don't implant, and are flushed out of the body during menstruation. I am personally concerned that my own murdering woman-body may have flushed out some human beings, and I may have flushed them down the toilet without knowing that I was disposing of Georgia citizens in such an undignified way. This must be remedied. I would like to be sure that I am not killing any more Georgia citizens -- and that if I am, they are able to receive a proper funeral and not a burial at sea, and that our state police can dedicate valuable time and resources to investigating their deaths.

To that end, I attach a picture of my latest used tampon. I am preserving this tampon, as well as all of my other tampons, pads, feminine hygiene products and soiled panties from my current menstrual cycle, so that the Georgia State Police can come collect them as evidence. I would also be happy to drop the specimens off at your office, should you want to examine them yourself.

Please let me know if I can make an appointment to give you these items. Or, since I appreciate that you are a very busy man, please let me know when the police will be by my home to collect them, as my next cycle is rapidly approaching and they are starting to smell. I cannot keep them in my refrigerator for much longer.

Thanks for all the work you do to further the pro-life cause.

Funny....disgusting...and I said it first -- in 2005, 2006, and last Saturday.

I call dibs.

And when one of these nutballs finally does it, conservatives will say that their incendiary rhetoric had nothing to do with it

Another dispatch from Teabag America, in this case Athen, Georgia:

At Rep. Paul Broun’s town hall meeting on Tuesday, the Athens congressman asked who had driven the farthest to be there and let the winner ask the first question.

We couldn’t hear the question in the back of the packed Oglethorpe County Commission chamber, but whatever it was, it got a big laugh. According to an outraged commenter on the article, the question was, when is someone going to shoot Obama?

I’ve asked Team Broun whether that was indeed the question and haven’t gotten an answer. The commenter accurately described the questioner and the circumstances, and no one has disputed his account.

Update: Broun’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed that the question was indeed, who is going to shoot Obama? “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” she said.

Here was Broun’s response:

The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

He then segued into Republicans’ budget proposal.

Got that? It's at a point now where a Republican Congressman doesn't even express outrage at a question about shooting the President of the United States. Three or four signs at a Wisconsin demonstration of fifty thousand equate Scott Walker with the worst despots in history, and the media goes into a frenzy of "Both Sides Do It." But on the right, it's perfectly OK to treat a question like this as simply "inappropriate."

Asking a Congressman when he stopped beating his wife (when he hasn't) is inappropriate. Asking a Congressman who is going to shoot the president is outrageous -- and should be treated as such. Even John McCain, who whored himself in the worst way to these people in 2008, finally drew the line at "I don't trust him...he's an Arab." Today Republicans don't even flinch when someone talks about shooting elected officials of the other party.

They'd make keeping kosher a crime too, except that they like their bagels too much

I wonder what other religions' practices they're going to make a crime in Tennessee:

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who's practicing it.

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.

A dozen other states are considering anti-Shariah bills, and there's a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma over one.

Dispatch from the "And these guys get PAID for this???" file

Rush Limbaugh thinks Michelle Obama is overweight.

Glenn Beck thinks reform Judaism is like radicalized Islam.

Under proposed legislation in Georgia, if you have a miscarriage, you will be investigated

I've been saying for years that by the time Christofascist Zombie Brigade is done, you'll have to send your used tampons to the government for inspection to make sure there are no fertilized eggs in them.

Proposed legislation by Georgia state representative Bobby Franklin goes far beyond banning abortion:

According to this law, any human intervention other than delivering a living fetus is a crime. Every physician must make an equal effort to save the life of mother and fetus, but if the fetus does die after such an effort, it isn't a crime. It allows an exception for spontaneous abortion AKA miscarriage--but only if there is no human intervention involved.

That banging sound you hear is me beating my head against the stone wall of sheer stupidity.

It goes on to state that any attempt to remove a fetus from the mother except to facilitate a live birth is murder. The doctor MUST do everything to save the life of both fetus and mother, but if the fetus doesn't survive despite this, it's not a crime. Abortion is now a form of murder.

I can see so many issues with this bill.

There are situations where you can't save the life of both fetus and mother.

* What if the woman learns that she has cancer and must terminate the pregnancy in order to get treatment? No exception for that in this bill.

* What about a case where the woman is hemorrhaging, the bleeding can't be stopped and the doctor must save her and abort the fetus? No exception for that.

* What if she has a partial miscarriage, and is bleeding heavily. Must she wait until her body naturally ejects the dead fetus, even though carrying a dead fetus can lead to septic shock? Doesn't sound like there's an exception for that.

* What if it's an ectopic pregnancy? You cannot save the fetus and the mother in such a case.

* What if the woman is told she's carrying an anecephalic fetus with only a brain stem which will be non-viable outside the womb? Must she carry that fetus full-term?

It gets worse. Franklin wants to create a Uterus Police to investigate miscarriages, and requires that any time a miscarriage occurs, whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated. If the woman can't tell how it happened, than those Uterus Police can ask family members and friends how it happened. Hospitals are required to keep records of anyone who has a spontaneous abortion and report it. Yup, we've been waiting for someone to suggest this--and Franklin has.

Here is the bill, and here is the Uterus Police clause, from section 2.14:

Preparation and filing of reports of spontaneous fetal death shall be as follows:
(1) When a dead fetus is delivered in an institution, the person in charge of the institution or that person's designated representative shall prepare and file the report;
When a dead fetus is delivered outside an institution, the physician in attendance at or immediately after delivery shall prepare and file the report;
When a spontaneous fetal death required to be reported by this Code section occurs
211 without medical attendance at or immediately after the delivery or when inquiry is
212 required by Article 2 of Chapter 16 of Title 45, the 'Georgia Death Investigation Act,' the proper investigating official shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall prepare and file the report within 30 days; and
(4) When a spontaneous fetal death occurs in a moving conveyance and the fetus is first removed from the conveyance in this state or when a dead fetus is found in this state and the place of fetal death is unknown, the fetal death shall be reported in this state. The place where the fetus was first removed from the conveyance or the dead fetus was found shall be considered the place of fetal death."

Just another dispatch from the Republican war on women.

Some fetuses have more right to life than others

There's an old, tired, and spectacularly unfunny joke, usually told by people who aren't Jewish, that the ultimate Jewish dilemma is "free ham."

I was reminded of that joke today when I read this:

Since Senator Russell Pearce became president of the Arizona Senate this year he’s ushered in a barrage of anti-immigrant legislation, most famously the assault on the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. Now the original sponsor of the infamous SB1070 has introduced a new bill that should attract even more notoriety. This one has the ominous overtones of being all but guaranteed to cause great harm and even death to some of the people in this state.

Senate Bill 1405 reads as follows:

A. BEFORE A HOSPITAL ADMITS A PERSON FOR NONEMERGENCY CARE, A HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS OFFICER MUST CONFIRM THAT THE PERSON IS A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, A LEGAL RESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OR LAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES. THE ADMISSIONS OFFICER MAY USE ANY METHOD PRESCRIBED IN SECTION 1-501 TO VERIFY CITIZENSHIP OR LEGAL STATUS.

B. IF THE ADMISSIONS OFFICER DETERMINES THAT THE PERSON DOES NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF SUBSECTION A OF THIS SECTION, THE ADMISSIONS OFFICER MUST CONTACT THE LOCAL FEDERAL IMMIGRATION OFFICE.

C. IF THE HOSPITAL PROVIDES EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE PURSUANT TO FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS TO A PERSON WHO DOES NOT MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF SUBSECTION A OF THIS SECTION, ON SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF THE PATIENT THE ADMISSIONS OFFICER MUST CONTACT THE LOCAL FEDERAL IMMIGRATION OFFICE.

D. A HOSPITAL THAT COMPLIES WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SECTION IS NOT SUBJECT TO CIVIL LIABILITY.

What this means is that anyone who is admitted to or receives emergency care at a hospital will have to prove that they are lawfully present in the United States. This of course presents a whole hornet’s nest of problems-- the least of which is hospitals will most likely not appreciate being saddled with the added responsibility of immigration enforcement.

Suppose a woman who's in the country illegally has a pregnancy emergency and shows up at a hospital. Does that mean that the wingnut position is to let the fetus die rather than allow a woman (vessel, in Wingnutistan) who is not in the country legally to receive treatment?

Just come out and say it, Christine: You want to round up Jews

Does Bill Maher still think Christine O'Donnell is "nice"?

Failed GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is back, and she's telling supporters she wants her newly formed political action committee ChristinePAC to "investigate and counter attack leftwing groups."

O'Donnell, who wrote that her losing campaign sent "shockwaves" throughout the nation, said in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday that her group will look into the groups "funded with one million dollars or more from billionaire leftist George Soros."

"The Left keeps after me because they consider strong, Republican women a danger to their status quo," O'Donnell wrote. "Your donation also enables me to speak out in many venues from Coast to Coast, thereby helping support a nationwide effort. This is a way that will help me counter attack our opponents and bring the battle to them."

ChristinePAC is based out of O'Donnell's Delaware home, raising concerns for ethics groups given that O'Donnell is already under investigation for alleged misuse of campaign funds.

O'Donnell also claims that President Barack Obama and the White House regarded her "as their number one opponent."

You wish, bitch.