Joe Cheater-man

Steve M. at NMMNB observes that Joe F'ckin Lieberman's half-assed statement that he's thinking about actually not being the member of the Dem caucus to kill Obamacare in the Senate is part of a larger pattern of being a complete assclown, because the Dems refuse to actually punish the guy.

And what evidence is there that anything like that would actually happen? What evidence is there that he would be punished by Democrats -- ever, for anything?

Lieberman's like a member of a married couple who's always cheating, and not even trying to conceal it, then taunting his spouse with stories about what great sex he had in that motel. The Democratic Party is the spouse who covers up insecurity by angrily telling Lieberman that maybe he should just get the hell out and be with the person he had the affair with if the sex was so damn great -- but, in reality, the Democrats really couldn't bear that, so they do whatever will make Lieberman happy. And Lieberman knows the Democrats will always do that; he milks that for everything it's worth, so he never leaves.

And he keeps cheating.

This is not a healthy relationship. But I strongly doubt it's going to get any healthier.

Not until one side or the other leaves the abusive relationship for good. And I'd know which one I'd like to see gone for good from the Senate.

Does anyone here honestly think Lieberman isn't going to stab Obama in the back here?

The Hypocrisy Is Galling

The next time you hear a Republican complain that he or she is being "unfairly silenced" by the "tyranny of the liberal majority", please direct them to this article right here.

Fifty-three House Republicans have signed a letter to the Obama administration asking for the ouster of Kevin Jennings, an official charged with promoting school safety, because of his career as an advocate of teaching tolerance of homosexuality.

“As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools — an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children,” the lawmakers write.

They cite as evidence the foreword Mr. Jennings wrote for a book titled “Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue About Sexualities and Schooling” (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999).

When they look at you curiously in dull ignorance and say "But that's not the same thing at all" please kindly tell them to go screw themselves.

It's very cathartic. Trust me.

MSNBC's Dirty Little Secret

Steve Benen:

Politico asked a variety of television talk-show hosts who their favorite guests are. MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski apparently had no trouble quickly naming her choice. (via Dave Weigel)

Brzezinski jumps at the chance to name Pat Buchanan "because he says what we are all thinking."

Um, Mika? Have you heard the kind of things Buchanan says?

If Buchanan's remarks reflect what the "Morning Joe" team is thinking, that's a problem.

No, the real problem is Pat Buchanan says the kinds of things he says and still has a job at MSNBC, or any network for that matter.

Why is he employed there?

All Their Base Are Belong To GOP

James Carville's polling outfit has compiled a report on the Teabagger base of the GOP:

"They believe Obama is ruthlessly advancing a 'secret agenda' to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism," the analysis said." While these voters are disdainful of a Republican Party they view to have failed in its mission, they overwhelmingly view a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of this country's founding principles and are committed to seeing the president fail."

The analysis argues that Obama's unpopularity among conservative Republicans is both quantitatively and qualitatively different from liberal Democratic ire against George W. Bush -- that the GOP is more heavily conservative than the Democrats are heavily liberal, and that the hatred of Obama is more intense than Dem hatred of Bush was. All of this adds up to a powerful set of emotions that the Republican Party as a whole cannot ignore.

One thing that the firm makes clear, though, is that this is not about racism, but about ideology: "Instead of focusing on these intense ideological divisions, the press and elites continue to look for a racial element that drives these voters' beliefs - but they need to get over it. Conducted on the heels of Joe Wilson's incendiary comments at the president's joint session address, we gave these groups of older, white Republican base voters in Georgia full opportunity to bring race into their discussion - but it did not ever become a central element, and indeed, was almost beside the point."

The massive racism is incidental, you see. They just really, really, really hate Obama to the point of breaking from reality. BooMan plays out what this means for the Republicans in 2010:

The Republicans have unleashed a beast that they don't seem able to control. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Sunshine State, where Governor Charlie Crist's campaign for U.S. Senate is starting to look a little wobbly. But, it's also evident in Upstate New York, where a special election is coming up in the 23rd District for the House of Representatives. The Chairman of the NRSC, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, has wisely sought out candidates who fit their states in Illinois (Mark Kirk), Connecticut (Rob Simmons), Delaware (Mike Castle), New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte), and Florida (Gov. Crist). But the base of the Republican Party is no match for these "moderates" and, other than Castle, none of them seem assured of winning their primaries. Cornyn certainly has failed to clear the field for them, which means any victory could be pyrrhic if it winds up consuming the entire bankroll and leaves nothing left over for the general election.

The Village keeps thinking that the Democrats will lose dozens of seats in the House next year. That is possible, but only if the Democrats don't pass their agenda...and even then, the reality is that the Teabaggers want to hijack the Republican party so far over to the right that 90% of the current denizens in the Republican side of the aisle would be tossed for ideological impurity.

It's actually about a lot more than race: it's about change, real actual honest to goodness change, and the people who have been beaten with the fear stick for the last 30 years have now broken the leash and are loose. The Republicans can't control them anymore, and this hurricane is liable to cost even more GOP incumbent lawmakers their seats than Democrats.

The GOP civil war is raging. The results will be that the Democrats are the biggest winners of all.

Wage-ing The Battle

USA Today reports wages are falling to their worst yearly drop since 1991, but driving it is deflation.

Colorado announced this week it will become the first state to lower its minimum wage since the federal minimum wage law was passed in 1938. The state will cut its rate by 4 cents to $7.24 an hour Jan. 1, to reflect a drop in the consumer price index.

Retirees are also feeling some pain. Social Security announced Thursday that it will not give cost-of-living increases to beneficiaries next year because prices have fallen in the past year.

Weekly wages have tumbled largely because employees are working fewer hours — an average of 30 per week — than at anytime since the government began tracking the data in 1964.

Hourly wages are stagnant or declining, too. After adjusting for inflation, average hourly wages have dipped a half-percent this year to $18.67 an hour in September.

Prices measured by the CPI are down 1.8% from their peak in July 2008. For seven months, the CPI has declined from the same month a year earlier — the longest stretch since 1955.

That trend is upsetting a wide range of wage-and-benefit packages in this recession.

Nearly 80 million people have wages or benefits tied to changes in the consumer price index. Those include contracts for 2 million unionized workers, food stamp payments and some child support checks. The Labor Department announced Thursday that federal pensions won't increase next year.

The consumer price index fell 3.3% in the last quarter of 2008. Most cost-of-living adjustments include the end of last year in changes that take effect Jan. 1.

Ten states link minimum wages to inflation. But, unlike Colorado, most states do not cut minimum wages when prices fall.

Ohio recorded a 0.2% drop in prices in the past year, says Dennis Ginty of the Ohio Department of Commerce. Like Social Security rules, Ohio's law permits only cost-of-living increases, never decreases, Ginty says.

Business groups say this one-sided inflation adjustment is unfair. "The bar should move both ways, up and down, if you're going to have a cost-of-living adjustment," says Shawn Cleave, a lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

The problem is with the dollar's collapse, we're now seeing a lurch in the other direction, only without the wage increases to go with it. the result will be our consumer driven economy will be flat broke soon, and without anyone to do the consuming.

What recovery? What middle class?

Video Gaming Out The Dystopian Obamafuture

Yes, apparently the Winger fringe is already gaming out their response to "Obama's failed coup to form a North American union in 2011" triggering the Second American Revolution as the gang at Barefoot & Progressive reports:

Yes, this game is good practice for the future lynchers/Tim McVeighs of America.

Location: Virginia, U.S.A.
You are a militia commander and in control of 1 county.

Mission: To defeat all enemies of the United States, both foreign and domestic. Includes:
C.O.R.N.Y. (Congress of Rejected and Neglected Youth) Shock Troops
Obama's police force (Ameritroops)
The Cong (Former congressional leaders)
Nation of Malsi (Islamic fundamentalist troops)
Black Tigers (black nationalist troops loyal to Obama)
NHKS (National Honor Killing Society) Yet another Islamic army
I.S.U.E. ( International Service Union Empire) Troops
U.N. (United Nations) Peacekeepers

Oh, and my favorite part:

Sarah Palin The Patriot Leads Revolt Against Hamas

March 7, 2011 - Yesterday Sarah Palin was spotted helping to take out several Hamas warriors who were guarding Rahm Emanuel. Rahm was able to escape thanks to yet another suicide bomber who blew himself up. Sarah Palin is expected to be on the ticket in some way for the next Presidential elections to be held 60 days after Obama's capture in Virginia. Sarah ran after Rahm with at least 300 Militia, many of whom are from Texas and out for blood following the massacre that was revealed outside of Dallas by Obama's Police force, the Ameri-troops.

Killing Obama and his Jew/Muslim cronies has never been more fun for White Male Liberty Patriots living in their mother's basement.

Do I even need to say it?

Yes. Yes I do.

WOLVEREEEEEEEENS!

When I said Obama Derangement Syndrome was a cottage industry, I wasn't kidding, folks. It's like Mafia Wars on Facebook, only gone horribly, horribly wrong.

And yet there are plenty of people who think this is going to happen for real. Best to get your County Commander training in now, loyal patriots!

The LG&M gang has more, as do Teh Sadlies.

What They Fail To Say Is That Bush Did It Several Times

As FOX News tries to paint health care passed under budget reconciliation as another "nuclear option" extension of Obamafascism.

A key House committee on Thursday quietly altered its health care legislation in a way that could allow the Senate to mow over Republican opposition to Democratic reforms by exploiting a budgetary loophole.

The Ways and Means Committee adjusted its health care overhaul package so that the Senate, down the road, could avoid a filibuster and pass health care reform with a smaller number of votes than normally required.

The long-discussed process, nicknamed the "nuclear option," is known as reconciliation. It's coming into potential play after the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday became the last of five committees to approve health care reform legislation, sending the overhaul proposals a big step closer to the president's desk. Before it gets there, though, the bill has to pass from the committees to the floors of the House and Senate.

Under the normal process, senators can filibuster almost anything and the debate would only be cut off if at least 60 lawmakers vote to do so. For that reason, 60 is considered the magic number in the quest to pass health care reform out of the Senate.

Note how a Senate filibuster, another parliamentary procedure, is considered not only "the normal process" but required in order to pass legislation by FOX News. It is not. Legislation only needs 51 votes to pass, and even then technically legislation only needs 50 votes plus a tiebreaker cast by the Vice-President.

But FOX here frames going around the filibuster instead of leveling the playing field as somehow scurrilous, unconstitutional, and wrong even though Republicans have filibustered nearly every single bill in the last three years.

And people wonder why FOX News should be considered a partisan entertainment division of News Corporation rather than a news outlet.

StupidiNews Focus

Zandar's ire. It is raised.

A justice of the peace in northern Louisiana has refused to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple because he believes it would harm any children born of that relationship.

“I’m not a racist,” Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in the state's Tangihapoa Parish, told the Hammond, Louisiana, Daily Star. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is calling the justice's move "tragic and illegal."

The Hammond Daily Star reports:

Beth Humphrey, 30, said she and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, intend to consult the US Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint.

Humphrey said she called Bardwell Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She said Bardwell’s wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples.

The paper quotes the justice of the peace as saying that “99 percent of the time” an interracial couple will consist of a black man and white woman, and “I find that rather confusing.”

Evidently, Bardwell has long had a policy of not marrying interracial couples, and admitted that Louisiana's attorney general had warned him years ago that he could "get into trouble" because of it.

“I told him if I do, I’ll resign,” Bardwell told the Daily Star. “I have rights too. I’m not obligated to do that just because I’m a justice of the peace.”

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Justice Department disagrees with you on that. And in an era where a child of an interracial couple can grow up to be President of the United States of America (or even a political blogger like myself), as a mixed-race person might I offer a hearty "screw you, I hope the DoJ fries your ass" to Magistrate Bardwell.

It's 2009. The world's changed. Louisiana in fact has a pretty long history of interracial couples and children of those couples (and not from marriage), as do many other Southern states. This kind of thing isn't going to fly anymore. Might as well ask anyone who comes in for a marriage license to flip a coin, heads they can, tails they're one of the 50% or so of marriages that end in divorce, so why bother?

But don't use mixed-race kids as an excuse to deny marriage saying "society will not accept them." What society should not accept, sir, is your staggeringly ignorant self being a magistrate, or in any position of governmental power like that at all.

StupidiNews!

• An explosion in Peshawar, Pakistan has killed 11 as another police station is targeted by militants.
• A Louisiana Justice of the Peace has denied a marriage license to an interracial couple based on concerns for the children they may have.
• One industry booming in this economy: debt collection.
• Bank of America has posted a billion dollar third quarter loss based on loan defaults.
• The FCC is considering a measure like the "Schumer Box" in the credit card industry to make cell phone and internet bills more clear.