Kids, I remember the ’70s. I recall waiting in my car all night long — in a weird line of similarly stranded travelers, snaking through a residential neighborhood — for a chance to pump up my Ford Falcon when the gas station opened at dawn. When I finally got home from school the next morning, it was time to go back to school.
The Carter-era gas crisis hit like the Joplin tornado: Precious little warning. Just…WHAM.
Did a similar crisis happen in 2008? Did it happen in 2011?
No. That fact tells you that something other than a supply squeeze caused gas prices to reach the four-buck-a-gallon stage. I am here today to tell you what that “something” is.
Meghan McCain goes on national television and says Sarah Palin is ruining her love life:
Jay Leno: Are you dating anyone?
Meghan McCain: No. I’m in, like, dating Babylon. Like, I go on dates with men and, literally, like Sarah Palin will come up in like the first 20 minutes, and that doesn’t put me in the mood. Like, talking about Sarah Palin. And they just want to know gossip, and I’m just kind of taking a little hiatus from dating right now, because I just don’t want to talk about Sarah Palin.
She was almost FDOTUS – we dodged a bullet with that one.
Congressman Weiner’s weiner got posted on Twitter. (you can’t make this shit up)
In honor of the holiday, here’s a clip from one of my favorite war movies:
This story is a couple years old but I just heard about it:
On a busy November day in a bustling public street market in Cotonou, some Beninese people started shouting that their man-junk had been stolen by a group of men nearby, who happened to be Nigerian. A mob soon formed, things got hysterical fast. The mob poured gasoline on the accused and set them on fire, killing them. BTW, the first rule of being accused here of witchcraft penis theft (or even regular old petty theft) is: run to the police as fast as you can, because a mob will form and try to kill you. After this initial freakout, about 9 more copycat incidents soon followed, in which the accused schlong-stealers were either burned alive or hacked to death.
One of the expats in Cotonou Monday night told me the bittersweet punch line was — the men who claimed their penises were stolen and caused all the mayhem were later apprehended by police, stripped of clothing, and paraded in front of television news crews totally naked, to show that yes, their wedding tackle remained intact and the whole thing was BS.
Someone (either a cop or a TV reporter) on camera asked one of the chained, naked, still-be-penised guys “So! What do you have to say for yourself! Obviously it’s still there!”
To which the guy replied — “Well, it was a lot larger before.”
“The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president,” says a Republican adviser close to front-runner Mitt Romney. “She’s making money, she’s moved on, she’s kind of an entertainer rather than a politician. She still has some sway with the grass roots, but she is not going to run.”
“I don’t think she’s going to run,” says a Republican close to Tim Pawlenty. “She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she’s doing now and say that she’s found a way to get back in the story.”
Maybe these representatives of rival campaigns are just spinning. But the fact is, some of the most serious people in the 2012 Republican race don’t believe Palin will run. While the press looks at the former Alaska governor’s publicity operation, political pros look at her campaign operation, or, more accurately, her lack of a campaign operation.
I don’t know if Sarah will ultimately decide to run or not, but one thing is for sure – the “experts” don’t know shit.
I’m not really sure how important a campaign organization is these days, especially with someone as well known as Sarah Palin. Not to mention that she has lots of dedicated supporters, which is even better than paid-for operatives. As for money, it’s needed to get publicity and Sarah already has a ton of it.
If Sarah runs and wins a few early primaries and caucuses, the money, endorsements and professional help will flock to her banner.
Personally, I hope she runs. I want to watch heads explode.
But so it goes when the nation’s Church Ladies seize control of a White House campaign. The ladies have been clucking hard in recent weeks about the sins of the vile Cheri, who even carries a Frenchified name, a name which reeks of sweet perfume. Only naturally, Michelle Cottle has been leading the way, continuing her long campaign to succeed Cokie Roberts as establishment Washington’s official ranking Church Lady. But Church Ladies come in both genders these days—and they seem to be a bit slow to admit their own mistakes.
Yesterday, we uttered low mordant chuckles as we reviewed the way Zeleny adjusted his copy from two weeks before. But that’s how the Church Ladies play.
The Church Ladies love to stick their long noses into other folks’ underwear drawers. Beyond that, they love to make a campaign so dumb, so fatuous, so inane, that even they can find it intriguing. This low-IQ system has worked very poorly for liberals and Dems in the past several decades. But we liberals now seem to love the dumbness too, as we saw in yesterday’s Salon, when Justin Elliott authored this long, dumb report about Newt Gingrich’s jewels.
The dumbness of our political culture is a thing to behold—and a threat to the nation. That cultural dumbness got Clinton impeached; it then sent George Bush to the White House. But as pseudo-liberals have emerged from the woods in the wake of that latter disaster, we too have developed an obvious taste for The Dumb. Our editors seem to think that their liberal readers are dumb, and they rush to serve them piffle. This system will never work well for our side, but it feels very good going down.
Our political culture swims in The Dumb; The Dumb is now our cultural ruler. On any given Sunday, this fact becomes abundantly clear in the Washington Post’s Outlook section. This past Sunday, the section led with a tribute to The Dumb, as a silly TV producer compared the various Republican hopefuls to a long list of American sitcoms. But The Dumb appeared all through the high-profile section, as is true many weeks.
Any given Sunday, The Dumb rules the Post. This culture works poorly for progressive interests—and for America’s future.
A new Sachs/Mason Dixon poll gets to the heart of the presidential choices in front of us. Who would you rather have lunch with? More than three times as many Americans – 53 percent – would choose to have a one-on-one lunch chat with President Obama over any of the Republican presidential conentenders. Sarah Palin placed a distant second, with 16 percent.
At a Wednesday breakfast sponsored by Politico, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner attempted to answer a question about the “predatory atmosphere” toward women at the International Monetary Fund (h/t Ace of Spades).
Geithner’s answer was anything but an answer.
“To be perfectly fair,” he said, “I think that is an incredibly difficult question to ask a man. You could ask a woman that question, I think it is hard to find any, uh, no offense to the, to men, um, I think it is very hard for men to understand what it is like to be a woman working anywhere, so you should ask a woman at the IMF in that case.”
Mike Allen, the Politico reporter asking the question, responded, “So it sounds like no, you weren’t [aware of a predatory atmosphere].”
“No, no I wouldn’t say that but even if I was aware or said I was aware, I wouldn’t have any feel or appreciation,” Geithner responded.
“Were you aware of a predatory atmosphere at the IMF?”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the DNC, ripped into Republican presidential contenders who opposed President Obama’s 2009 bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler.
“If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes,” she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by The Christian Science Monitor.
But according to Florida motor vehicle records, the Wasserman Schultz household owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan, another Japanese company. The car appears to be hers, since its license plate includes her initials.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blasted Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on the Senate floor late Wednesday night. Reid called Rand Paul’s opposition to the renewal of the PATRIOT Act “political grandstanding.” However, that wasn’t the worst thing Reid accused the freshman Senator from Kentucky of.
“When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we will be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot against our country undetected,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “Now, the Senator from Kentucky is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them.”
The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the “Patriot Act”) is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. The title of the Act is a contrived three letter initialism (USA) preceding a seven letter acronym (PATRIOT), which in combination stand for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.[1] The Act dramatically reduced restrictions on law enforcement agencies’ ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and broadened the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act’s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.
“I am deeply sorry, and I apologize,” said Schultz, who was suspended from his The Ed Show by MSNBC for his off-color remarks. “It was wrong, uncalled for and I recognize the severity of what I said. I apologize to you, Laura, and ask for your forgiveness. “
“This is the lowest of low for me,” continued Schultz; read his entire statement on HuffingtonPost.com. “My wife is a wonderful woman. We have a wonderful family. And with six kids and eight grandkids, I try to set an example. In this moment, I have failed. And I want you to know that I talked to my sons especially about character and about dignity and about the truth. And I tell you the truth tonight that I am deeply sorry and I tell them every day that they have to live up to standards if they want to be a successful human being in life. And I have let them down. I have never been in this position before to the point where it has affected so many people. And I know that I have let a lot of people down.”
He said he was unable to reach Ingraham in person to apologize.
Ingraham, a radio host and political commentator, criticized Schultz on her Facebook page: “MSNBC suspends Schultz. Oh great, now his ratings will go up.”
In a statement released Wednesday, the cable channel said: “MSNBC management met with Ed Schultz this afternoon and accepted his offer to take one week of unpaid leave for the remarks he made yesterday on his radio program. Ed will address these remarks on his show tonight, and immediately following begin his leave. Remarks of this nature are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
I have to agree with the “vile and inappropriate” part but I have to wonder:
If Bill O’Reilly called Obama a “N-word” would people settle for a voluntary one week suspension or would they demand he be fired?
The day after the stunning upset in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Rep. Paul Ryan is a man under fire.
But ABC News was behind the scenes with the Wisconsin Congressman and GOP Budget Committee Chairman when he got some words of encouragement none other than former President Bill Clinton.
“So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York,” Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don’t use this as an excuse to do nothing.”
Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington.
“My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said.
Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would.
Democrats make no bones about why they believe they won in a solidly Republican district – voter anger at Paul Ryan’s controversial plan to restructure Medicare.
“It was about Medicare,” Clinton said during a speech to the debt forum minutes before he met Ryan back stage. Clinton was referring to Ryan’s controversial budget plan, passed by the House this year, which would transform Medicare for those under the age of 55.
“You shouldn’t draw the conclusion that the New York race means that nobody can do anything solve the rising Medicare costs,” said during his speech. “I just don’t agree with that. I think you should draw the conclusion that the people made a judgment that this proposal in the Republican is not the right one. I agree with that, but I’m afraid that the Democrats will draw the conclusion that because Congressman Ryan’s proposal, I think, is not the best one, that we shouldn’t do anything and I completely disagree with that.”
There are two issues here: “should we” and “how do we.”
The first issue is should we provide health care to our senior citizens. That issue was settled a long time ago. The real issue facing us today is how do we pay for it.
TANSTAAFL – “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
There are a lot of options available besides ending Medicare. Controlling costs seems to be a taboo topic but it shouldn’t be. Unfortunately the Democrats don’t want to fix Medicare, they just want to gain political mileage by scaring people with it.
House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, on Wednesday blamed most of President Barack Obama’s political problems on racism.
Welcome to post-racial America, where the only thing that matters is race.
Who let this guy loose without a keeper? Doesn’t the State Department have protocol droids to tell him what to do (and what not to do?)
I guess they wouldn’t let him bring TOTUS cuz Obama was reading off index cards, but shouldn’t he know better than to talk over the British national anthem?
Jeebus!
At least 50 tornadoes hit the Midwest yesterday, destroying much of Joplin, Missouri. Death toll is at 89 and expected to rise. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has activated the National Guard. Rescue workers will face more severe weather today, and may see large hail, wind gusts in excess of 60 mph, torrential downpours, and additional tornadoes. Help can be channeled, as always, through the Red Cross.
In Europe, Iceland’s most active volcano Grimsvotn is spewing ash but meteorologists do not expect major air travel impact. No one who happens to be making a royal progress across Europe will get stranded there. Bummer.
In non-nature (unnatural?) news, Tom Tim Pawlenty* officially got into the 2012 race. This will probably cut into Mitt’s chunk of voters, imo. Also, Three Wickets points out this article that shows that Jeff Immelt hard at work as Jobs Czar – Overseas Jobs Czar, that is.
Open thread.
*aka another guy with nice coif and well-creased pants
BTW – Those of you who will be ascending to Heaven tomorrow should pay your bar tabs before you leave tonight. If you haven’t made arrangements to have someone feed your pets after you get raptured.then you should call Moose – but to prevent misunderstandings make sure you ask him to “feed” your pets, not “take care of” them.
So yesterday Obama made a much-hyped historic speech about the Middle East that was supposed to be “comprehensive and sweeping”. But what did he actually say? Let me sum up:
The other day Cornell West decided to stir up some shit:
Challenging the president’s progressive credentials in that Truthdig interview, West slammed the president as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.” And then there was this:
“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West said. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. . . . When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening.”
“Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive,” West said. “He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.”
Jonathan Capehart at WaPo responds by practically calling West a birther:
What West said is no less offensive, harmful and wrong than what Dinesh D’Souza said — with an assist from Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee — about a presumable anti-colonial and un-American mind-set possessed by Obama. Whereas these folks tried to deny the president his citizenship, West is trying to deny him his inherent blackness. By indulging in the “Obama-as-other” narrative, West is no better than a birther. By making petty complaints in that Truthdig interview about the lack of returned phone calls and not getting Inauguration tickets, West is no different than Gingrich in 1995 , when his displeasure over his seat on Air Force One led to a government shutdown.
At an opening reception for the new Washington offices of the National Action Network last night, the Rev. Al Sharpton addressed all this without mentioning West by name. “[I]f you’re trying to achieve something you’re strategic,” he said. “If you’re just trying to play to get some cheap applause then you just vent, holler, scream and go back home.”
Sharpton urged African Americans to hold Obama accountable but not in a way that undermines him. “I’ve seen this movie before,” he said. “We had the first black mayor of New York, David Dinkins. And we got mad every time he went to a non-black event and we pouted until some of us didn’t vote, he lost and we got eight years of Giuliani.” He went on to say, “We fought to have a real president,” Sharpton told me. “We want him accountable, but we don’t want him to be accountable to us any differently than anyone else so that it’d be used against him and us.”
Let’s get one thing straight – Barack Obama is biracial. On his mother’s side he is descended from white Europeans. He was raised in Indonesia by his mother and in Hawaii by his maternal grandparents who had originally come from Kansas. From the age of ten until today he has lived a life of privilege, attending a fancy prep school and then receiving an Ivy League education. He occasionally rubbed elbows with members of the black community, but her has never really been a part of it.
Obama’s father was from Kenya, Africa. Other than contributing some genetic material, Barack Obama Sr.’s primary contribution to his son’s upbringing was the effect caused by his absence. From a social and cultural standpoint, Barack Obama Jr. has lived lived most of his life in the upper echelons of “white” America.
Obama has less connection to “black” America than the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Will Smith’s character was transplanted from the inner city of Philadelphia to an elite suburb in Southern California. Obama first got acquainted with the South Side of Chicago after he graduated from Columbia. He was then in his twenties.
Obama never lived in an inner city ghetto. He worked in Chicago’s South Side as part of his job as community organizer, but he lived in Hyde Park near the University of Chicago. Growing up he had no relatives that had come from the segregated South or the inner cities of the North. Virtually all the black men and women he has known as friends and colleagues during his lifetime are educated professionals, like his wife, Michelle.
I think West nails it with the term “a white man with black skin.” So what exactly is Capehart referring to when he talks about Obama’s “inherent blackness?” Is he suggesting that our President is a good dancer with a large penis?”
Seriously, WTF?
Do black Americans owe Obama any special loyalty? Was Al Sharpton’s comment about not undermining Obama based on his party affiliation, his alleged political ideology or simply on the color of his skin?
If Obama’s father had been an Australian Aborigine or come from India or the Philippines he could easily have darker skin than he does now. But would he still be considered “black?”
It’s ironic that the election of the first “post-racial” POTUS has created so much racial tension. The color of Obama’s skin was never an issue for me. I usually don’t even think about Obama’s race unless someone else brings it up. Unfortunately, it gets brought up frequently, usually by some Obot accusing Obama’s opponents and/or critics of racism.
Now it seems that even black people can’t criticize Obama without being labeled racist.
Racism is the belief that one race is superior to the others. Racism is a thought crime and it is only one of the social ills opposed by the Civil Rights movement. Racial discrimination on the other hand, is where you treat people differently based on their race. That edges into the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Back in 2007-2008 we were assured by Obama’s Fucking Assholes that the rookie senator from Illinois was not only a superior candidate to Hillary but he was an exceptional human being in every single aspect.
We were told that Obama was smarter than everyone else on Earth – combined. He was a Lightworker, a political Jedi master and was so cool he could stop global warming all by himself. He would unify us and bring balance to the Force.
The media and the Democratic leadership stampeded into action, trying to declare him as the nominee immediately after the Iowa caucuses. This caused some unpleasantness when that racist Clinton bitch refused to quit running and kept winning primaries long after she had lost.
Hillary even had the unmitigated gall to take a slight lead in the popular vote while eking out a virtual tie in pledged delegates. This forced the Rules and Bylaws committee to reassign some of her delegates to Obama in order to maintain his lead.
Okay, I’m being a little facetious but they really laid that shit about how wonderful he was on thick and heavy. And anyone who tried to point out Obama was a mediocre (at best) candidate and was inferior to Hillary was called a racist.
After Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball he didn’t accuse the umpires of racism every time he disagreed with a call. Robinson was a superior player and proved that the color of his skin didn’t matter.
Obama is an inferior player and it has been obvious for a long time that to many of his supporters the color of his skin is the only thing that matters.
As the OBL shoot & dump poll bounce fades, the President tries to get another bounce with another historic address where he again reminds everyone that he got Bin Laden. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, he got Bin Laden. He’s telling the middle east that too, in case they hadn’t heard.
The President was also expected to try to claim credit for the “arab spring” ushering in democracy, but unfortunately, OBL sneakily managed to steal some of his thunder with his posthumous tapes saying that the arab spring is great because it is the ME throwing of the shackles of the USA or something. Poor President, he will be reduced to promising a lot of cash to the emerging democracies instead. Raiding Social Security & Medicare should provide enough billions to buy Middle East goodwill.
Open thread time.
Update: I predict a huge negative bounce for Obama from this speech.
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after she learned he had fathered a child more than a decade ago — before his first run for office — with a longtime member of their household staff.
Shriver moved out of the family’s Brentwood mansion earlier this year, after Schwarzenegger acknowledged the paternity. The staff member worked for the family for 20 years, retiring in January.
Arnie always was a RINO – more of a Democrat on social issues.
A true Republican would have been schtupping underage male goats.
