Who Thinks Like This?

[UPDATE] 2:

Just looking at the comments I'm ... well, stunned. I simply don't understand people whose default position seems to be a fear that all of our nation's problems will be solved by calling in the law. Aren't you people the ones telling us the free hand of the market solves everything? Why do you assume the American people will call in the National Guard to fix every problem like, for example, a shortage of rural doctors? Why wouldn't your default position be that we'd reach for market-based solutions and incentives (which is what we've done?) Or perhaps reach for other government solutions, such as funding doctor recruitment programs at the National Health Services Corps? I mean, it's like your worldview is so narrow, you can only imagine the government as having a narrow police state enforcement function.

Again: what the fuck is wrong with you people?
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[UPDATE]:

The headline says it all: Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care. Yes Libertarians, please run on how health care is not a "right" and health insurance is completely necessary.

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Rand Paul is a nutwagon. Via Digby, who transcribed his rant equating healthcare with slavery:

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery.

I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

Oh my God. Who thinks like this? Is he fucking nuts or what? No one is saying this at all. Free healthcare? Where? Where does he get this shit, from Aqua Buddha? Has someone been hitting the bong a little too hard lately?

What Rand Paul is really saying is: if you think you have a RIGHT to healthcare, that means you will FORCE ME TO TREAT YOU. You will HUNT ME DOWN and force me to be your monkey and give you glasses.

And trust me, I would not go near that guy, not if he were the last breathing optometrist or ophthalmologist or whatever the fuck brand of medicine it is he allegedly practices because swear to God the guy is crazy and I don’t want crazy treating me for anything. Dude you are the last physician I'd want touching me, I promise you. So put down the crack pipe, dude, and chillax. No one is forcing you to do anything.

Who the hell thinks this way?

You know what my problem with Libertarians is? They’re a bunch of whiny babies. Whaaaah! Because someone, somewhere, feels they should be allowed to access our healthcare system at the same fair price as everyone else without some insurance company flunky telling them they can’t, suddenly it’s all about Rand Paul being oppressed! His freedom has been infringed upon and the jackbooted liberal thugs are gonna come and force him to give people glasses.

Grow the fuck up, already. People are dying because of assholes like you, folks who harp on about your precious freedoms, like the freedom not to treat someone (anyone in particular, perhaps? Hey, based on your past comments about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it's a fair question.) Why dream up crazy-assed scenarios like the police breaking down your door forcing you to treat someone? What the hell is wrong with you? People are dying, do you even get that? That’s not an abstraction either, that’s called reality. If you don't want to do your job, fuck off, we'll find someone else who can. You're not the last physician on earth.

Get over your damn self. Jerk.

Here’s the video:

Awesome Defense Of Teachers

My mother was a teacher. My mother-in-law was a teacher. My sister-in-law is a teacher. I have friends who are teachers. I tried to teach once and was smart enough to know that I am supremely bad at it. It's hard work, it takes dedication, heart and patience, and you have to really care about the profession because you will never get the respect you deserve or the compensation you've earned. It sickens me that we have these Republican assholes who now seem to think that picking on teachers is a winning message. It's despicable.

When the hell did that happen? Seems like just a few years ago the national debate centered on how teachers didn't make enough. Now suddenly they're fat cats? How come whenever I read the Headline Homes feature it's not teachers buying those million-dollar-plus estates, but healthcare executives, doctors and people "wealthy by way of motorized wheelchairs"?

Here's an awesome defense of teachers making the rounds:

Failure To Seize The Moment

[UPDATE]:

Apparently Gov. Walker threatened to call out the National Guard if public employees strike. OMG he wouldn't dare. He's poking a stick at a sleeping bear.

-------------------------------------

I swear to God I am about to lose my shit.

Near as I can tell the only people covering the thousands of working people marching on the capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, are some liberal bloggers and Ed Schultz, who has been talking about this for three days. Well, that and liberal outfits like The Nation, which filed this report:

More than 10,000 Wisconsinites marched on the state Capitol Tuesday, as crowds rallied in cities around the state, students walked out of high schools and public employees lined roadways holding aloft banners declaring their determination to battle an attempt by Republican Governor Scott Walker to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights and pack state government positions with political patronage appointees.

Another huge crowd -- numbering perhaps 8,000 -- surrounded the Capitol for a Tuesday night rally. Protests spread to the Milwaukee area, where hundreds of workers massed outside Walker's suburban home.

The crowds in Madison will swell Wednesday. The city's schools are closing, as teachers take sick days to join the protests and buses packed with public employees roll into the city.

The protests, unprecedented in recent Wisconsin history, are being organized by union—the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the Wisconsin Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin and others—in anticipation of a Thursday vote on whether to give the governor powers that the senior member of the state legislature describes as nothing short of dictatorial.

Hellooooo! News media! Y'all might want to cover this! Think of it like Cairo, but ya know, in English and not so Muslim-y. Now will you cover it?

I mean, yes, there’s a little New York Times piece, but no, I am not seeing the wall-to-wall TV coverage we get every time 500 Teanuts in knee britches and tricorn hats decide to wave a misspelled sign. This is worse than irresponsible. This is a failure of epic proportions. This is why the news media is not trusted by the left. This is why no one reads your shitty newspapers or watches your lame cable news programs where you ruminate over the need for reasonableness.

News is happening. Here. In America! Go cover it! It really shouldn't be that fucking hard.

I mean, shit. Just one year ago the news media descended on Nashville to cover the first Tea Party convention at a level of one reporter for every three participants. We’ve got 10,000 working people descending on a state capitol and where’s Anderson Cooper? Brian Williams? Katie Couric?

You know who’s there? Fox News. I just heard a clip on the Ed Show where some Fox bimbette opines that the protests are surely going to turn violent soon. Yes of course they are, because we liberals always turn violent when a big group of us rally to defend our rights, or try to stop a bogus war, or try to save the planet from nuclear annihilation. Even though your side is the one waltzing around with guns strapped to your legs carrying signs about “watering the tree of liberty” and whatnot. Fuck off, I don’t have time for you idiots.

No, I want to know where the serious coverage of this unprecedented event is? Why aren’t you there on the scene?

And where are the Democrats? Hello?! This is your base, thousands of them, rallying for the right to collectively bargain, a founding principle of the liberal movement, why aren’t you people there? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi there? Howard Dean? Hell, Dennis Kucinich? Anyone? Why aren’t liberal leaders flocking to the site of a major liberal protest? This is called an opportunity, you idiots.

(A question: Are they not there because the TV cameras aren’t there? Or are the TV cameras not there because the political leaders aren’t there?)


This is why we suck on just so, so many levels.



Via Down With Tyranny, a picture of today's rally:

Time For Us Women To Cut You Boys Off

I am so ready to nip shit like this in the bud:

Dr. Hal C. Lawrence III, vice president of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said contraceptives fit any reasonable definition of preventive health care because they averted unintended pregnancies and allowed women to control the timing, number and spacing of births. This, in turn, improves maternal and child health by reducing infant mortality, complications of pregnancy and even birth defects, said Dr. Lawrence, who is in charge of the group’s practice guidelines.

But the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and some conservative groups, including the Family Research Council, say birth control is not a preventive service in the usual sense of the term.

“Pregnancy is not a disease to be prevented, nor is fertility a pathological condition,” said Deirdre A. McQuade, a spokeswoman for the bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat. “So birth control is not preventive care, and it should not be mandated.”

About one-half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended.

Wow, and right on the heels of the whole “forcible rape” outrage, too. Assholes.

I will never understand why the people screaming the loudest about how awful abortion is are the same people putting up roadblocks to women trying to access birth control. What the hell is wrong with you people?

And don’t even get me started on the whole tortured “pregnancy is not a disease to be prevented” bullshit. Who says “preventive care” applies only to disease?

Last week I got into an argument with someone over abortion coverage in insurance policies. He said he didn’t understand why he should pay more because women are “irresponsible.” Because an unwanted pregnancy is always the woman’s fault! Isn’t that neat how that works? Heads you win, tails we lose.

Look fellas, I’m sorry you lack the plumbing that would enable you to get pregnant, gestate and give birth and all that. I’ve long suspected your inability to create life in the same way we ladies do has been a source of equal amounts fascination and disgust on your parts for thousands of years. Grow the fuck up already.

You know, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have my reproductive organs flying around loose in the breeze where any predator, fungus or hunting accident could come along and snip it all off, making me evolutionarily irrelevant. That’s a hard burden to bear, a not-so-subtle reminder of how biologically dispensable you guys really are. There are always more males out there willing to spread their seed; it’s the female of the species who carries the burden of the species’ survival. We’re the ones who not only bear the young but care for them as well.

This isn’t me talking feminist claptrap, this is basic evolutionary biology: the bird that’s going to get snapped up at the feeder is the bright red highly visible male cardinal, not the drab brown female blessed with a natural protective camouflage. She’s more important in the grand scheme, which is why she’s been given this protection. God I know that chaps y’all’s ass big time.

It’s the battle of the sexes, played out over thousands of years. Men are bigger and stronger and take down a mammoth but for all your bravado it’s we women who keep the species going. And you’re just dying to control that, too.

Well guess what: you can’t. And you won’t. The earliest cave women knew which plants and herbs and tinctures and infusions prevented pregnancy and induced miscarriage. It’s in the archeological record. Women have been doing this for thousands of years. Do you seriously think you can stop what women have been doing forever? You won’t outlaw abortion, you’ll just drive women to desperate, unsafe, archaic means of doing what they’ve always done. And keeping women from accessing birth control is only making more unwanted pregnancies, not fewer of them.

I repeat: We’re the ones who not only bear the young but care for them as well. We know what’s best for us. And we will act accordingly.

I’m thinking this battle needs another ancient solution. A little nationwide Lysistrata action, perhaps. I’m tired of being dicked around by you assholes. Really, I am. And while plenty of men out there are believers in women’s reproductive choice and women’s access to birth control, I’m thinking maybe some of you guys just aren’t fighting hard enough on our behalf.

I think it’s time to cut you off until you guys recognize that we women will not be pushed around, that “small government” does not mean government small enough to fit inside my womb, that women can be trusted to make the right decisions for the human race because dammit that’s what we’ve been doing for thousands of years anyway.

[UPDATE]:

Oh for God's sake. This was totally the wrong day for me to learn we have a state breastfeeding law. Words fail me.

Jesus get over your squeamishness, people. What is the deal?

American Trash

Yeah, I kinda had a feeling the news media’s infatuation with “golden voiced homeless man” Ted Williams wouldn’t end well. Thank God Jon Stewart provides the proper mocking of this truly crass performance by an Indianapolis Fox affiliate (it starts after the James Franco bit, sorry I don't know how to edit Comedy Central clips):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indianapolis Homeless Talent Show
www.thedailyshow.com
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What we have here is the inevitable, predictable outcome of an American culture which no longer values people. That is it in a nutshell. That is what ails America.

We do not value people. Not in our policies, not in our attitudes, not in our discourse.

Maybe it’s our increasing isolation from one another. Maybe it’s our wealth which breeds this contempt, our consumer culture which views people as bank accounts and credit scores, not human beings. Maybe its our national narcissism, our national sense of entitlement. Maybe it’s the overall breakdown of American society which has been underway for the past 50 years. Maybe it’s biochemical, a product of the crap in our food and water supply. I honestly don’t know where this disdain for our fellow citizens comes from, but it's the root of all our troubles as a nation.

I wrote about this last April, when I was reading Natural Capitalism: Creating The Next Industrial Revolution. The part which resonated with me then:

People are often spoken of as being a resource -- every large business has a “human resource” department -- but apparently they are not a valuable one.

[...]

In a world where a billion workers cannot find a decent job or any employment at all, it bears stating the obvious: We cannot by any means -- monetarily, governmentally or charitably -- create a sense of value and dignity in people’s lives when we are simultaneously creating a society that clearly has no need for them.

Every day, in a hundred ways, we are telling people we have no need for them. From the outsourcing of jobs to the foreclosure crisis to, yes, even the Citizens United case, Americans are being told they don't matter. We are trash, we will eat trash and we will buy trash and we will live in trash heaps because we don't deserve any better. That is the message the culture sends every day.

And this pathetic Indianapolis news station trolling the alleys for homeless people with a talent -- any talent! Can you sing? Dance? Play the cello? Anything? -- is just another example of the general devaluing of humanity. You don’t have a talent? Oh well, back on the streets for you with your sign and tin cup along with the rest of the trash! Simply being a human, a brother or sister, a neighbor, a fellow traveler: that is not enough! You must prove your worth in modern America or we don't have time for you and we certainly don't have the money or energy to help you out.

What next, “sing for your healthcare” fairs? Need that heart surgery? Well, are you deserving? Do you have some kind of value to the nation? Can you at least sing? Dance? No? Pfft. Fuhgeddaboudit.

Death panels, indeed. Modern American culture is one giant death panel, shunting off people we've decided are superfluous or drains or "mooches" on society because they aren't sufficiently "productive." Off into the trash heap of humanity with you, leech!

[UPDATE]:

Along the same lines, please, please PLEASE go over to Gin And Tacos and read Ed's post today. He hits on the same idea, in a slightly different way. To wit:

[...] Everything "engineers" and scientists can do can and will be done more cheaply there. And we did this to ourselves when we decided that having cheaper consumer goods for the top 10% of income earners was more important than having a middle class making decent money and driving the economy with (non debt-supported) purchasing.

When the upper- and middle classes decided 30 years ago that it would be a good idea to phase out the working class in favor of cheap foreign labor it appears obvious in hindsight that they were opening floodgates that would eventually result in white collar and highly skilled jobs going overseas as well. But something – subconscious racism, American exceptionalism, or perhaps good ol' fashioned cockiness – convinced everyone in the suburbs and penthouses that this could never happen. Chinamen using computers? An Indian getting an MBA? Be serious! The unwashed masses of the Third World will never be able to do our jobs, said the comfortable elite. They will be useful for helping us break unions, but their skills are and ever shall be limited to menial physical labor.

First they came for the autoworkers, and I did not speak up. Then they came for the steel mills, and I did not speak up. Then they came for the white collars, and there was no one left to speak up for them.

Yes, yes and more yes. We hit on this path a long time ago. The top 10% decided the bottom 90% was trash and packaged their vision of dehumanization and cheap Chinese crap from WalMart and this is the inevitable result.

It Will Be Different This Time, Honest!

I swear, the narrative coming out of Democratic Party circles as Republicans take over the House of Representatives is driving me nuts. The message we’re hearing repeated everywhere is that “now Republicans have to lead,” and “governing is oooh so different from campaigning,” and “put up or shut up”, or as Rep. Anthony Weiner told Face The Nation:

"It's their ship to run now," he said. "That's the responsibility."

No, it’s not! It’s totally not! Because, they’re Republicans, which means they can do whatever the fuck they want and no one ever calls them on it, ever. Like, when Peggy Noonan famously claimed in a 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed that “At least Bush kept us safe,” which neatly overlooked Nine-Fucking-Eleven, the anthrax attacks, Hurricane Katrina, etcetera, etcetera. Heh heh, we all know that shit was Clinton’s fault!

Or how about the time Karl Rove wrote, also in the Wall Street Journal, that President Obama’s stimulus package is “the biggest peacetime spending increase in American history,” forgetting that it’s not peacetime, asshole, we’re still embroiled in the two wars started under your watch.

In a sane world, someone over at the Wall Street Journal might have pointed these things out before running these pieces to begin with. But this is not a sane world, this is a world where Republicans are allowed to get away with saying and doing whatever they want. Republicans are Teflon, Democrats are glue. When will the Dems figure this out?

You know, you can never, ever say anything about what a budget-buster the Iraq War has been without someone pointing out, “Well, Democrats voted for it toooooo!” Yeah, but they wouldn’t have if a) Republicans weren’t fearmongering 24/7 about smoking guns being mushroom clouds, b) Republicans weren't given free rein to question the patriotism of anyone who had the temerity to doubt the Bush Administration’s war rationale, and c) Bush Administration officials, in collusion with the media, hadn't personally threatened and intimidated war critics like Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson. So get over your damn selves.

Yeah, we all know this routine. As long as there is one liberal within 30 yards of a bad decision, that is the person who is getting the blame. Wake up, Democrats.

Democrats never, ever remember this stuff. They never remember that the media is not liberal, that the networks and cable news bots are infatuated with sniffing Republican shorts and will rarely call Republicans on their lies, spin and revisionist history.

I mean, I don’t recall hearing a lot of media hacks rushing to correct the lies of Rush Limbaugh, who claimed Obama tanked the economy as payback for racism. This only makes sense if you are insane, and also if you forget who was president in fall 2007, when the economy actually crashed. Remember how John McCain was going to suspend his campaign and rush to Washington to fix the economy?

Ah yes, but the Democrats took the Senate in the fall 2006 elections, so everything that happened after that is their fault! Heads we lose, tails they win.

Already today we are seeing Republicans rewrite their brand-new House rules to suit their agenda. You know, like how deficits matter except when they don’t, which would be when pushing for war and tax cuts and pretending that a repeal of healthcare reform won't add $230 billion to the deficit.

Got it, Democrats? It’s always Republican Rules. IOKIYAR is the guiding principle of modern American governance. Republicans can get away with everything and anything, Democrats cannot.

So don’t be pushing this pablum about how “Republicans have to govern now.” No, they don’t! They just have to show up on some Sunday morning bobblehead show and mouth some bumper sticker bromide about Freedom and Real America and What The American People Want and blargheddy blargh. It's not like anyone in the media, save maybe Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, ever holds their feet to the fire.

This will only change if Democrats finally grow a spine and really wise up and make a big stink about this hypocrisy. And that won't happen until they stop caring about what Tweety and David Broder think, and start really pushing back.

But I don't hold out much hope.

Pat Buchanan Is A Racist Asshole

As long as Buchanan is penning racist screeds like this current one at Townhall, I just have to ask that eternal, perpetual question: how much longer will NBC and MSNBC continue to shred their credibility as legitimate news organizations by using him as an expert?

What’s particularly galling about Buchanan’s current Townhall column is that he actually quotes Steve Sailer and Dr. Robert Weissberg, both contributors to the anti-immigrant VDARE.com (identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center). Both men promote in their writings the idea that Hispanics and African Americans are by virtue of their very DNA less intelligent than whites and Asians; Weissberg devoted an entire book (Bad Students, Not Bad Schools) to that idea. I don’t know about you, but where I come from that’s pretty blatantly racist.

Yet Buchanan quotes generously from both men, without bothering to mention the controversial and racist nature of their writings. Indeed, he quotes these racist assholes as legitimate scholars. For example:

"America's educational woes reflect our demographic mix of students. Today's schools are filled with millions of youngsters, many of whom are Hispanic immigrants struggling with English plus millions of others of mediocre intellectual ability disdaining academic achievement."

In the public and parochial schools of the 1940s and 1950s, kids were pushed to the limits of their ability, then pushed harder. And when they stopped learning, they were pushed out the door.

Writes Weissberg: "To be grossly politically incorrect, most of America's educational woes vanish if these indifferent, troublesome students left when they had absorbed as much as they were going to learn and were replaced by learning-hungry students from Korea, Japan, India, Russia, Africa and the Caribbean."

”Politically incorrect?” That’s not politically incorrect. It’s racist, bigoted and wrong. It ignores economic disparities, disparities between urban inner city schools and white suburban schools, and institutional roadblocks which oppress the poor and economically disadvantaged. It ignores the achievement of tens of thousands of people of color who have reached the highest levels of American society, despite insurmountable odds -- including, let me point out, the sitting president of the United States and some notable Supreme Court justices.

There’s this thing conservatives have about “political correctness” as if it’s some kind liberal plot designed to trip them up; conservatives just want to hew to some basic facts about the world, which we dirty libs are in deep denial about. The conservatives I know rail against “political correctness” with a missionary zeal. But this isn’t about political correctness, it’s about your facts just being wrong. Blacks and Hispanics are not less intelligent than whites, no matter how you may wish it were so. No, things weren't so much awesomer in the 1940s and 1950s, when "those people" knew their place, no matter how much Pat Buchanan thinks it's so. And no matter how many columns Pat Buchanan pens saying if only we kicked the brown people out of our schools America’s test scores would soar it won’t change the basic fact that test scores are the way they are because of institutional and systemic reasons, not biological or genetic. You know, those same institutional and systemic barriers which were firmly in place in the storied 1940s and 1950s which Buchanan and his ilk look back upon with such nostalgia.

I'm just really sick of this shit. I'm sick of conservatives kicking immigrants in the shins, over and over again. Just fucking stop it already. And I'm sick of powerful news networks like NBC and MSNBC promoting the racist assholes who are doing the kicking. Cut it out. Enough.

We’ve all known Pat Buchanan is a racist asshole. We’ve all wondered why NBC and MSNBC continue to promote him as some kind of “reasonable” conservative. This latest column is just another in a long stream of bigoted screeds from NBC’s go-to conservative voice. I get that. But honestly, how much longer are we going to be saddled with this crap? When are we going to stand up and say, America is better than this?

Buchanan is peddling racism and intolerance and he’s using crackpot junk science from known bigots to support his views. No legitimate news outfit would ever make Lyndon Larouche a regular pundit, yet Pat Buchanan spouts the same hateful views and he’s on both networks regularly. It's just not cute anymore. We're heading into 2011, folks -- you've still got some old crank on your network spouting 18th century ideas? I'm just really fucking tired of it.

Hate is not okay. Bigotry is not okay. Racism is not okay. And as long as MSNBC and NBC pay Pat Buchanan to appear on their news shows, they are promoting this intolerance.

Really, it’s appalling. Time to say: no more.

Dignity For The Trashman

This, from yesterday’s fishwrap, really shows how disconnected people are from how city services are provided:

QUESTION: Becky Becker got a surprise a week ago when she brought up her trash cart. Tucked under the lid was an envelope with a holiday greeting from her trash collector that included his name and address.

Becker wonders if this was a hint to send him a holiday tip. She did not plan to send a check to someone whom she did not know — or even know whether he was really her trash collector.

More important, Becker questions whether to tip someone for doing a tax-supported job.

She wrote to me: "They are paid a salary by me and the other citizens of the city. It's not so much that I am a Grinch as I am just tired of everyone having their hand out for a tip, especially when they are already receiving a salary."

Oh my God. Yeah, you are Grinch. Get over yourself. If you don’t want to send a tip, then don’t. Jeebus. And here I thought I was the biggest Grinch in the county.

It’s the whole “These are MY TAX DOLLARS and how dare you not bow down and kiss my feet for every penny I begrudgingly pull out of my ass despite all the bitching and moaning I do at every opportunity.” Listen, Becky Becker (can you even believe that name is for real? I can’t): the reason you got a little Christmas card is because Metro has privatized its trash collection. It’s that whole “private companies can do everything better/cheaper/shinier/prettier” mindset that people like you espouse at every Tea Party rally and Ayn Rand reading group. So yeah, it’s a private company doing your trash collection, and that means you have to take it up with them. You ceded your right to bitch about this stuff when you decided you no longer liked the idea of public employees doing public services. I’ve got a steaming cup of STFU with Becky Becker’s name on it.

Or, as The Tennessean more politely put it:

ANSWER: Some Davidson County residents get trash collection that is paid for through property taxes. Private companies under contract with Metro handle some of those routes.

That is the case at Becker's residence.

I alerted Metro Public Works to the card that Becker received.

Her trash route is handled by Red River Service Corp. Metro Public Works spokeswoman Gwen Hopkins-Glascock said the manager at Red River would speak to employees about this sort of solicitation.

This is what happens when you contract out city services to private, for-profit companies. They pay their employees like shit, and people who have to do a sucky job like collecting your garbage every week look to other ways to make ends meet. Instead of being grateful that she doesn’t have to haul her stinking garbage to a landfill herself in the August heat (or January ice) she begrudges some guy his Christmas card. If you’re offended by a Christmas card and perceived request for a holiday tip (which you are under zero obligation to acknowledge), then imagine how offended you will be when some private company decides to hire illegal immigrants to save a buck. Hey, could happen.

The Beale household has been getting these Christmas cards every year, by the way. Here it is (Note the guy even said MERRY CHRISTMAS, not the offending “Happy Holidays.” There’s just no pleasing some people):



We also get these from the newspaper delivery guys. If I think of it, and I don’t always do so every year, I pop $10 or $20 in a Christmas card and send it back to them. I figure it’s the least I can do for someone who has a sucky job I would never want to do myself.

I hate to break it you, Becky Becker, but the real reason you got that Christmas card is that it's really, really hard for working people in this state. We've privatized everything to save a buck, we refuse to raise taxes on corporations or rich people here because ZOMFG that would kill our "robust" economy, we deny people the right to organize into unions so they can collectively bargain for fair wages, we scream and bitch and moan about the very idea of raising the minimum wage let alone providing people a living wage, we force people to accept crappy pay for crappy work and so yeah, it's no surprise they’re gonna have their hands out. It's not because they’re greedy grabbers, but because they’re trying to pay their bills and send their kids to school and basically attain the American Dream which is increasingly out of reach for working folks because the people who got there ahead of them are pulling the ladders up.

I can’t link to this Financial Times article from August often enough, especially this part:

Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the ­multiple is above 300.

People are working two and three times harder to stay in the same place. A lot of people are falling behind. And I think it’s this inconvenient fact which has the Becky Beckers of the country upset. It’s like they’re offended at being reminded that a lot of people are struggling. They want to stick their head in a hole and sing their happy songs. “America is the greatest country in the world EVAH! Everything is awesome!”

It’s like those folks who get ticked off at the vendors selling copies of The Contributor all over town. You’ve seen them with their yellow placards: it’s the alternative to panhandling. The paper is produced by homeless and formerly homeless folks through the Downtown Presbyterian Church. Vendors sell the papers for $1. The paper is actually quite good, - it’s won several national awards - and Mr. Beale and I always buy one.

Yet people bitch and moan about the vendors selling these papers in front of their businesses and on street corners. I’m like, WTF do you people want? First you put up “Please Help, Don’t Give” signs in your store windows. Then a local church devises a way for people to earn some money -- all of that pulling-up-by-the-bootstraps stuff you’re always harping on about -- and you begrudge folks that. You like to shout “Get a job!" but when someone actually does get a job, you're like "Well, not that job!" Jesus.

What you guys really want is for these folks to just go away, am I right? You want them to be invisible. You don’t like to see the wages of our national sin out there on display for all to see. Well sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You espouse the creed of greed and this is the result.

Christmas Crab

I really hate Christmas this year. I just want to fucking get it over with already.

I don’t know why I’m not in the Christmas spirit: we’ve already had a couple days of snow, the weather is crisp, I’ve baked brownies from scratch -- twice. We’ve even been to a Christmas concert. On top of that, we were in New York City for a few days and nobody does Christmas like New York. I’m just not into it this year. Mr. Beale says it’s the economy, people are just down. He doesn’t feel the Christmas spirit either.

Truth is, I haven’t been into it for a couple years. Christmas is messy. It’s just more work, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll be vacuuming up pine needles from the damn tree until June, and every day I’m cleaning up broken ornaments.

The animals are denuding the tree horribly; the Christmas carnage numbers at over a dozen ornaments at this point, even though we were careful to put only non-breakable ones on the bottom branches. But one of the cats has figured out that she can get a bunch of ornaments down by pulling on the lights. After the cats are bored with the ornaments they leave them for the dogs, who turn them into chew toys. Perhaps the most alarming part of this whole scenario is realizing the cats are colluding with the dogs. This won’t end well.

And then the Christmas Nazis don’t help, the folks wearing their “Merry CHRISTmas” buttons (yeah, saw one of those at a recent office holiday party). Last week I heard a woman tell a clerk angrily, “And MERRY CHRISTMAS to you!” after being told “Happy Holidays.” Oh for God’s sake. You really think Jesus wants you using his birthday as a fucking battleground? Get over yourselves.

You know what I don’t get? Those people who decorate their cars. I can handle the reindeer antlers on the window and red nose on the grill, but some people don’t know when to quit. I saw someone who had a little Christmas tree, greenery and lights on the luggage rack of their SUV. Ridiculous.

Nashville people are big on decorating. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, I don’t really know. They’ll hang eggs from trees for Easter, and now those giant inflatable Easter bunnies have started showing up on peoples’ front lawns. I blame Wal-Mart, I figure that’s where people buy this crap.

Anyway, I’m really just over all of it. These people who are so militant about their religion being the ONE AND ONLY TRUE religion are the same folks eager trivialize the sacred with cheap crap made out of Chinese toxic waste. I really have no time for you people.

I’ll be glad when Christmas is over and I can put the ornaments back in their box and haul the tree to the recycling drop off and shove all of the boxes back in the closet where they belong.

For those of you who may have missed it, this is hilarious:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Blitzkrieg on Grinchitude - Gretchen Carlson & Christian Nation CHRIST-mas Tree<a>
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

I Object

I object to a rigged game.

I object to a broken system.

I object to those in power benefitting from keeping our system broken.

I object to a system which expects we the working people to open our wallets on a par with multinational corporations.

I object to institutionalized imbalance.

I object to a media which misinforms and divides, and is rewarded with billions of dollars in election year advertising.

I object to propaganda disguised as news, and money masquerading as speech.

I object to the politics of fear.

I object to the collusion of big business, corporate media and government.

I object to spending $4 billion so we can shout over one another, while kids go hungry and schools crumble.

I object to the freak show.

I object to a system which sees me as an object:

“I, object”: a wallet, a bank account, a credit score.

“I, object”: an opinion to be swayed.

“I, object”: a rabble to be roused.

“I, object”: a vote to be manipulated.

I object to same as it ever was.

I object to the failure to reform.

I object to the lack of leadership.

Shorter ABC News: Online Stuff Matters?

So now ABC News is trying to distance itself from crackpot Andrew Breitbart:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s opinions. 

This whole “clarification” reads to me like a slap in the face to its online audience. You know: “Hey! It’s digital! It’s the internet! We thought you kids loved the crazy shit!”

Jeebus, get a fucking clue or don’t do the internet at all. People don't distinguish between ABCNews.com and "regular" ABC News, you idiots. The digital division isn't some "other thing" "out there" in the hinterlands. It's your same fucking brand. Fucking maroons, what the hell do you think the future of news is? It's the shit that's sent to your iPhone and iPad. You can't downplay a stupid decision by saying, "oh well it's just digital content and so it doesn't matter because no one but a bunch of college kids in their pajamas is paying attention." Are you really that dumb, or do you just think WE are?

Get. A. Clue.

Why I Am Not Sufficiently Enthusiastic

No one can rant like Athenae:

You know what else dampens the fuck out of my enthusiasm? Talking all the goddamn time about how insufficiently enthusiastic I am. I mean, quit bitching about how I'm not excited and go fucking do some stuff to get me excited. God.

Yeah, I can dig that. You know what dampens the fuck out of my enthusiasm? Shit like this:

Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, said Thursday that she would block confirmation of President Obama’s new budget director until the administration lifts the moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ms. Landrieu, a steadfast supporter of the oil and gas industry, said that although she believes that Jack Lew is qualified to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget, she will place a hold on the nomination as long as the drilling pause is in place. The moratorium is set to expire on Nov. 30, although Department of Interior officials have hinted that it may be lifted sooner.

Setting aside for a moment the fact that the moratorium affects just 33 rigs while thousands in the Gulf of Mexico chug merrily along, let me just say: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?! You’re going to hold hostage a key nomination presented by the President who is a member of your own fucking party over 33 oil rigs? After your state has just been devastated by the country’s worst oil spill? Ever?

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Hey Democrats: This is why I’m not busting my hump hosting house parties and writing checks and making phone calls and knocking on doors for you. What kind of caucus is this? Can you not get your shit together for one goddamn month?

The buzzword of this election season is “enthusiasm gap,” and you’ve got an angry and disillusioned Democratic base, yet this is the perfect time for Mary Landrieu--who is not up for re-election--to step forward and demand obeisance? On her pet issue which the Democratic base deplores? Seriously?

Are you fucking serious?

I’m so over this shit I could spit. Instead of calling me "fucking retarded" or bemoaning the fact that I'm not sufficiently enthusiastic to volunteer for your GOTV campaign and spend my weekends knocking on doors, maybe you should go fucking do some stuff to get me excited. Like, for starters, telling Mary Landrieu to save her pity party over 33 deepwater oil rigs for after the election.

Jesus.

Anti-American American Businesses

You know, nothing makes me want to “go Galt” liberal-style more than reading shit like this. Businesses have apparently told Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) that they want “complete gridlock” in Washington. And the best part is the “clarification” from DeMint’s camp:

A spokesperson for DeMint reached out to ThinkProgress and provided the following statement: "The story about 'gridlock' was a glimpse of how upset businesses are with President Obama and Democrats in Congress, not DeMint's legislative goals."

Okay, assuming DeMint isn't pulling this out of his ass and is in fact repeating some Chamber of Commerce bullshit, here's my response to that line: Oh, whah. I have a sad.

You’re upset? You despoil our environment and ship our jobs to China and Mexico and locate your corporate headquarters in a Cayman Islands-based Mailboxes-R-Us so you can dodge taxes and set up phony astroturf front groups to deceive the citizens over the public airwaves and you’re upset?

Fuck you. With a rusty slide-ruler. Sideways.

You simply cannot expect to be allowed to rape, pillage and plunder America and not have a few citizens think that maybe this isn’t in the country’s best interests.

I’m tired of hearing that we need to bend and scrape before grand and glorious “business interests” who apparently think a non-functioning government is just peachy. We’ve been doing that for a generation and look where it got us. I’m tired of hearing that being “pro-business” is the be-all and end-all of every legislative endeavor. Whatever happened to being pro-people? Business has its place but it’s not our purpose. There is more to this life than business. And President Obama has done double back flips for business interests, at the expense of the peoples’ interests. And somehow these assholes are still unhappy?

Y'all can just quit yer whining because this consumer is tired of hearing about it. You guys do not deserve one dime of the tax breaks and government contracts that’s making your wallets fat, when you turn around and spit in the American peoples’ collective face spouting some bullshit about how you want “gridlock” in Washington.

American consumers do not want gridlock in Washington, you fools. We want and deserve a government that functions. We elected a president and a Congress to do that.

I am about this close to selling all of my worldly possessions and living off the grid in a yurt somewhere, eating hippie tofu and home-grown vegetables. At least then I won’t be part of your bullshit game.

Mistakes Were Made

Remember when the Bush Administration fired Lawrence Lindsey for estimating the cost of regime change in Iraq at $200 billion? Ha ha that was so funny.

Today Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard’s Linda Blimes had to revise their $3 trillion war estimate. Upwards:

But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. For example, the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating disabled veterans has proved higher than we expected.

Moreover, two years on, it has become clear to us that our estimate did not capture what may have been the conflict's most sobering expenses: those in the category of "might have beens," or what economists call opportunity costs. For instance, many have wondered aloud whether, absent the Iraq invasion, we would still be stuck in Afghanistan. And this is not the only "what if" worth contemplating. We might also ask: If not for the war in Iraq, would oil prices have risen so rapidly? Would the federal debt be so high? Would the economic crisis have been so severe?

The answer to all four of these questions is probably no. The central lesson of economics is that resources -- including both money and attention -- are scarce. What was devoted to one theater, Iraq, was not available elsewhere.

The rest of the piece is equally depressing.

When you think of all the things that could have been done with that money -- healthcare, teachers hired, environmental restoration, infrastructure rebuilding, job training, scientific research, unemployment extensions -- all the stuff the Republicans are yammering about how we don’t have money to do these things and the free hand of the market should pay for them anyway! while wringing their hands over making our grandchildren pay for the stimulus! when in fact not one of those assholes said anything about our grandchildren paying for this stupid, useless war except CLAP LOUDER. It just turns my stomach, it really does.

But the worst part is that no one went to jail for this. No one’s career was destroyed for this mistake. Hell, there are rumors that John Bolton might run for president. People got rich off the taxpayer teat -- people like Erik Prince, such a nice Christian fellow -- and where is the call for accountability? *Crickets*

I simply don't understand why the nation is not rising up over the biggest national blunder in our history. We'll quite literally be paying for this mistake for a generation, on so many levels. And it's like the entire country is happily choosing to move along, think happy thoughts now, er, maybe not happy thoughts since we're all so depressingly broke but here's a great idea, let's blame the black man in the White House for all of our problems instead of having a come to Jesus moment about our national shame. How's that working for everybody?

I still cannot believe that we invaded a country for no reason and no one has paid for it. The biggest mistake of the Obama Administration was not devoting a little time and energy to a war inquiry like what they're doing in the UK right now, or a truth and reconciliation commission like they did in South Africa. To borrow President Obama's favorite phrase: make no mistake. The physical and psychic wounds of this colossal error run very, very deep. And by not channeling the grief and anger where it belongs, without giving us a chance for national healing, Obama has just heaped a whole bunch of grief and anger on himself.

And I have a special word to our glorious mainstream media. You folks so eager to cover every gathering of Teanuts who seem oh so worried about the national debt, not a one of them ever asks where Dick Armey was when our $3 trillion war was drummed up (originally opposing the war, Armey voted in favor of war authorization after Dick Cheney made him wet his pants.) Our prestigious national news media, so busy picking apart every little thing President Obama does, like what condiments he puts on his burgers and what beverages he drinks -- yet they can’t be bothered to ask how or why the last administration was allowed to bankrupt the nation and slaughter thousands of innocents.

Guess they’re too busy washing the blood off of their hands.

Nobody Could Have Anticipated, v. 1,018

[UPDATE] 2: A perfect example of what Ruth and I talk about when it comes to listening to the wrong people. The same Wall Street assholes who caused this problem continue to perpetuate free market fairy tales and now their widdew feewings are hurt. Aw I have a sad. Wait, I don't. Fuck off. I've already squandered enough of my retirement money listening to you idiots.

--------------------------

[UPDATE]: Via Atrios is this must-read post from Ruth Calvo about the right's stranglehold on the nation's economic policy. Belief in such fairy tales as "trickle down" and the "Laffer curve" and the ability of tax cuts to create jobs and other myths continues in our nation's business press and Washington, all evidence to the contrary.

Go read the post....

--------------------------

Really? Really? Ten years of this shit and we’re still hearing the same tired excuses from Washington?

Nobody could have anticipated that Bush and the Republican Party shredded the economy with spending on wars and big tax cuts to the wealthy? (... and deregulation, and the casino mentality on Wall Street, etc. etc.)

Are you fucking serious, Robert Gibbs? Yes, let’s step back to January and February 2009 for a second. Remember all of the phony-baloney Republican hand-wringing over zombie marsh mice?

Remember all of the phony-baloney "pork” Republicans claimed was in the stimulus? If I knew the bill stank in February 2009, why didn’t you? Why didn’t you fight for something better? Something that would really work? Something that wouldn't put us where we are today, with midterm elections around the corner and people still out of jobs, which means a lot of Democratic Congress Critters may be out of a job. You needed to go big or go home and it looks like you chose go home. Why?

Look, I don’t expect Robert Gibbs or anyone in Washington D.C. to read my shitty little blog but for chrisssakes aren’t you people reading Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winner in Economics? Don’t you read the Huffington Post? Don’t you read Matt Yglesias? Or Moody’s economist Mark Zandi, who said even at $900 billion (the final bill was far smaller), the stimulus would be too small?

Who the fuck were you people listening to? John Boehner? Fox News? Rush Limbaugh?

This is why I’m pissed off. When are we going to stop listening to the same people who have been consistently wrong about everything since forever?

When?

Your Country Is Addicted To Cheap Labor

There is so much wrong with this scenario I don’t even know where to start.

How about starting with the human rights violations:

SMYRNA — A Mexican guest worker says a landscaping company with Tennessee state contracts and a federal stimulus loan guarantee held him and fellow workers like indentured servants, confiscating their passports and subjecting them to constant surveillance by managers who were often armed.

Hilario Razura Jimenez said in an interview that he was rescued from Vanderbilt Landscaping’s company housing Wednesday night by staff from the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity. He waited until everyone else was asleep before sneaking out at about midnight, he said. Staff with the New Orleans-based nonprofit were in touch with him by text message and drove out to pick him up.

Alliance executive director Saket Soni said company officials last week put another worker on a bus back to Mexico when they learned that he had been talking with their group.

A person who answered the phone at the company on Thursday said he would not comment on the allegations and refused to give his name. The company, which has $2.4 million in state Transportation Department contracts and a $900,000 a stimulus loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has offices in Smyrna and Mason.

Jimenez said he has come to the U.S. on an H2B guestworker visa twice before. Both times the pay and conditions were exploitative, but he came again because he was desperate.

Oh my God. It's the John Pickle Company all over again! We never learn, do we?

Hey America, wake up. You want to know where your jobs went? They went into the pockets of the Greed Machine, “small businesses” that would rather exploit cheap labor provided by desperate people from foreign countries than pay you a living wage you can use to send your kids to college.

This is what’s wrong with America, people. This is what happens when you “privatize” public jobs. This is exactly what will happen when all of those Metro school custodians are fired and Metro contracts out its landscaping and custodial services. Who will get those jobs? Not hard working Americans, but hard working foreigners, who because they are desperate will work for peanuts and live in substandard, slave-house conditions.

The State of Tennesseee is using taxpayer money to pay foreign workers, when there are plenty of people in this state who need the work. And don't you know as soon as someone suggests that the state not hire companies who use foreign labor we'll hear all of that screeching and squawking about the "free hand of the market." You know what? The free hand of the market can bite me. Hell, it's biting you.

Oh, and I'm calling bullshit on this:

A Nashville Union leader also brought up the issue of taking jobs from American workers. The Vanderbilts said they ran ads in newspapers in Nashville and Memphis for three weeks. They said they did 70 interviews, and said most of the applicants decided the work was too hard.

I'm not buying that. That just reeks of Rush Limbaugh "the unemployed are lazy" white privilege elitism. Try paying people what they are worth, then you'll get some takers. This is life in a "right to work" state: right to work? Bullshit. Right to see your job go to desperate "guest" workers, more like.

A bunch of greedy, selfish bastards have sold the notion that legally exploiting desperate Mexicans is somehow better than paying Americans a decent wage to do the same job. I know it really sucks that companies like Vanderbilt Landscaping can't legally exploit American workers, gosh I have a sad for you. Poor, pitiful "small business" that you are, I know we're all supposed to worship at the altar of the "small businessman" these days, you're American heroes you really are. Except when you're not, like when you exploit foreigners to boost your profits, just because you can. Hey, fuck you.

How many times do I have to say it? We are cheap labor addicts. When will Democrats wake up and say, enough already? Time to support American workers?

This is why I have been opposed to “guest worker” programs every time they are proposed, be it from George W. Bush or Barack Obama. Guest worker programs are simply institutionalized cheap labor. We refuse to pay what things are worth so we’ll just create a permanent underclass to toil in the sun for us, meanwhile millions of Americans need work but we’ll just say they’re lazy and be done with it.

Pay no attention to the giant elephant in the room. The problem is not “undocumented workers” or “illegal immigration” or “organized labor.” The problem, as always, is greed. Slave labor in the interest of corporate profits is not just fine and dandy.

This pisses me off more than you can begin to believe. We need a national living wage law. Now. Pay people what they are worth.

(h/t, Joe Powell at KnoxViews)

Very Unprofessional

[UPDATE] 2:

What Olbermann said.

-----------------------------

[UPDATE]:

Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.) calls for Robert Gibbs to resign.

Dems are in disarray, as usual. News flash: This is how we roll. I don't know why the White House thought liberals would be more like the rubberstamp Republibots who defended the Bush/Cheney torture & war show.

Maybe they thought we'd be like those idiots who were silent when the Patriot Act was signed and warrantless wiretap deals were signed, and then when a Democrat enters the White House they suddenly rediscover civil liberties. You know, those folks with the "silent no more" signs and their tricorn hats with the tea bags dangling off the corners? Hey it's not our fault you guys were silent during the Bush/Cheney years when your jobs were shipped overseas and your civil liberties were taken away. "Silent no more," maybe, but you're still hypocrites.

C'mon. That's not who we are. When we liberals smell bullshit we speak out, no matter which party it's coming from. It's kinda what I love about us. We have integrity. You don't like it? Try not selling us bullshit and telling us it's filet mignon. Sure I'd have loved some Canadian-style healthcare, but I understand why we wouldn't get it. Thing is, you never even tried. And no, thank you very fucking much, but I won't be happy with a healthcare "reform" that demands I buy insurance from a private, for-profit industry which has not shown itself interested in my health at all, but rather my wallet. Without any kind of non-profit, public option, what you have given us is a bailout of the insurance industry--the one industry which least needs it.

You don't like me pointing this out? Fuck you.

Quit telling me to clap louder. Instead, try listening to us for a change. You might learn something.

/rant

------------------------------------

I'd say the Democratic National Committee picked the wrong day to call and ask me for $1,000.

I'd also say this was a completely bone-headed move in an election cycle marked by a pronounced enthusiasm gap.

Dear Democrats: I have just one question for you guys. Are you trying to fuck up the next election? Because you're sure acting like it.

Mosque Ado About Nothing

Much is being discussed on the internets about the Anti-Defamation League’s stance on the so-called "Ground Zero” mosque. I always thought of the ADL as a rather mainstream group; heck, I remember my Dad was a member, even though our family wasn’t Jewish and he was a DFH, Amnesty International/ACLU loving beatnik. So the ADL’s fence-sitting statement that the issue is

"not a question of rights, but a question of what is right"

strikes many of us as the kind of contorted rhetoric worthy of a Kundalini master. Sorry, ADL, but there’s no middle ground on this one. You’re either on the side of religious tolerance, or you’re not. There’s no way of still being the nice guys and siding with the bigots and it's kinda pathetic that you'd try.

I think the whole thing was best lampooned by a commenter over at Balloon Juice who noted:



Heh. That ought to get a few panties in a twist.

What I don’t understand is why nobody save a few foul-mouthed bloggers on the internets have noticed that there is already a mosque near Ground Zero, has been since before 9/11, and it’s a mere city block from the site of the proposed mosque. In fact, according to its website the group says they have operated in Manhattan’s financial district since 1970.

Religious intolerance always pisses me off but no one has really said much lately about how this is another example of the right-wing claiming its ownership of 9/11, just as they have tried to own everything else: the flag, patriotism, Christianity, and even American history. And I’m sorry folks but you don’t “own” 9/11. This has been going on since Darryl Worley first warbled “Have You Forgotten,” turning the tragedy of 9/11 into conservatives' personal crucifixion event; it continues today with the idiots in Glenn Beckistan and their "9/12 movement." You think the world was so great on Sept. 12? Holy crap, I remember being shell shocked, depressed, scared. You say we're the ones who have forgotten? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Here’s a news flash for you guys: 9/11 was probably the most multi-cultural tragedy in American history. 9/11 didn’t just happen to white Republican Christian Midwesterners. Citizens of more than 50 countries perished, of every religion and no religion. What part of World Trade Center don’t you people get?

Collectively the conservative movement is dominated by a striving, "greedy grabber" sensibility. Maybe it's because they've convinced themselves that they are oppressed and everything is so unfair and the world is really, really mean to them. I guess it must be really hard out there for a middle aged Christian white guy, yeah you have my sympathies. But 9/11 isn't your event; it didn't just happen to you in your strip malls in Iowa. It happened to everyone, all around the world. Get a fucking clue.

There's already a mosque near Ground Zero, folks. You're arguing against something that already exists. If anything shows conservatives as a bunch of clueless sheeple eager to get foamy-mouthed at whatever manufactured controversy the folks at FOX News pull out of their asses on any given day, this is it. You folks need to wake up and figure out who is pulling your strings and then ask why. Who benefits by keeping 20% of the voting public in a constant state of high dudgeon? This is a question I'd like to see addressed.

GOP Party Of Know-Nothing

Jeeeesus but John Boehner is an idiot:

Perhaps most interesting was his attack on the Obama administration’s attempts to impose a moratorium on deep-sea drilling. “The deep-water drilling — maybe there’s a reason there to pause till we know what happened and we can make sure we can prevent it from happening again,” Boehner said. “But all of this other drilling that’s going on down there in the more shallow waters — there’s no reason to have a moratorium.”

Oh for crying out loud, what have I been saying for weeks now? One more time, for the Republican Minority fucking Leader who seems to have absolutely no fucking clue what he’s talking about:

The offshore drilling moratorium applies to just 33 oil rigs drilling exploratory wells in water deeper than 500 feet.

Got that? All of the whining and moaning about the final nail in the Louisiana economy (since the oil spill destroyed their fallback industries of tourism and fisheries) and yammering on right wing radio and threats that the entire Gulf oil industry would pick up sticks and move to the North Sea because oil workers and supporting industries simply can’t wait six months ... all of that is over 33 exploratory wells.

Think about that. Even the House fucking Minority Leader doesn’t know it because everyone has been acting as if the entire offshore oil drilling industry has been mothballed for the duration. And that’s because no one in our glorious media has bothered to mention that, or at least not mention it often enough and loud enough.

Things I Don’t Give A Crap About

• I don’t care that Obama went golfing over the weekend because unlike some previous presidential persons I could name, he’s actually working when he’s not on the links and getting shit done, like wresting $20 billion from a corporate polluter to help people affected by an ecological disaster. So zip it.

• I don’t care that Tony Hayward went yachting over the weekend because, for crying out loud, he’s a rich asshole and that’s what rich assholes do: they go yachting. Though, just as an aside, I am amused that his boat is named “Bob.”

• I don’t care that some Swede said he cared about “the little people” when he obviously meant to say he cared about “the little guy.” He’s not a native English speaker and it’s not the first time a foreigner mangled an American euphemism. The whining and moaning about that one made us all look like assholes, and the last thing we needed was for the establishment media to join in the fray, pointing their fingers and laughing. People can snicker about this stuff all they want but that doesn’t mean the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, CBS News, etc. need to blast it all over the place.

• I don’t care that Sarah Palin told people to pray for God to stop the oil spill. President Obama basically said the same thing in his Oval Office speech last week. Frankly, if someone wants to pray for some Divine Intervention over this disaster, where’s the harm? While you’re at it, light some incense, say a chant, visualize a pink bubble, sacrifice a goat, howl at the moon, or do whatever it is your particular belief system dictates. I think it’s pretty obvious that we need all the help we can get at this point.

Now that we have that cleared up, here’s what I do care about. I care that our discourse is so unbelievably stupid in this country. I care that we keep focusing on the trivial shit instead of trying to figure out how to solve our problems. I don’t happen to think there’s a national obsession with politics but our pundits apparently do. Yes that's their job but lately they seem to have gone off the deep end and anyway, as Adam Nagourney pointed out over the weekend, we're all pundits now. Maybe instead of spending so much time worrying about the political process we should be worrying a little more about what policies are needed.

Today John Cole writes:

Can you imagine going through life with all this artificial nonsense dictating your decision making process? I like those shoes, but do they make me look “weak?” I really would like some spicy mustard on my sandwich, but is it too “elitist?” My employee is a mouthy little shit who gets the job done, but do I have to fire him to show I am “tough” even if doing so hurts my business? Sure, I’d like to go to the opera, but will that make me look like a pussy?

He’s writing about all of the McChrystal nonsense, and the growing meme that Obama has to fire McChrystal not because of anything related to the mission in Afghanistan but for political reasons: that not firing him “says something” -- to whom, I’m not sure. I guess to the pundits who increasingly feel like they were the ones elected. Hey guess what, Chris Matthews: I know there are some Republicans who send a shiver down your leg at the mere thought of them running for president in 2012 but for crying out loud that's two years away and in the meantime there's some actual governing that people are trying to do.

We have some serious stuff to work on, people. We need to figure out how we’re going to get off the oil tit, how we’re going to put people back to work, how we’re going to extract ourselves from the stupid, expensive wars the last Administration committed us to.

The endless yammering over superficialities is not helpful or productive.