Gotham Notes...

War On Terror, R.I.P.

2009-09-25T13:32:00.002-04:00

Aside from the snark of the last post, this story which we referenced earlier has an array of impacts actually, which we hope to get to, soon.

But, first and foremost, we can now clearly say that the "War On Terror" as a concept can officially be declared dead and buried. This currently is, always has been and will continue to be, a large-scale police matter—as the Bill Clinton era specialists always contended. It was the neo-con global crazies under George W. Bush/Dick Cheney, and the media conglomerates who love them, who decided to turn this into the Crusades. And got a whole lot of people killed in the process.

The Bushies and the GOP also muddied the discussion sufficiently to use their phoney "War" to create a universal atmosphere of fear in order to hide their pushing through their elitist, corporate agenda to steal all the money, all in plain sight: "Hey, look over there! Is that a terrorist??"

There is no way/has never been a way to stop a terrorist act, unless you happen to get lucky and stumble across a particular scenario that leads you to the individual. That's just luck and solid police work.

Other than that, we have too big a land mass, too many people and a long enough history of demanding open access to all this country provides that we will always be an easy target for an individual who is crazy enough to want to commit murder or mayhem—whether that individual is a U.S. citizen crazy or a foreign national crazy. You can't stop crazy, you can only hope to slow it down. Or, hope that it gives itself away in time to thwart it. And then pray for a whole lot of luck.

The whole idea of "terror" is that you lose your safety zone, that you have no idea where harm may come from. To put you on edge, so you fear everything and everyone and begin to act erratically. There is no "face" to that foe, so there is no "campaign" that can be waged successfully, as in a real war.

These guys are no different than all the murderers currently sitting in prisons across this nation—only with a demonically wackier sense of scope and size. They're individuals who have a taste for blood and a deluded sense of umbrage.

What's really the difference between Yousef Ramzi or Timothy McVey and James Earl Ray or Charlie Manson or Son of Sam?

Scope, nothing more.

And what, really, is the difference between all those men and George Bush and Dick Cheney?

Scale, nothing more.

It's Rudy!They Keep Going After Rudy!

2009-09-25T12:45:00.002-04:00

Well, hell, if that's all they want...

Maybe we should just hand Rudy over and let them have the putz, hell, WE don't want him. They can HAVE him.

Dallas Morning News: Man to be arraigned in Dallas skyscraper bombing plot

Heady police work and a staggering degree of luck saved the day in Dallas, if this report is true at all. If true, we can truly be relieved and grateful.

But I loved seeing the real nitty-gritty of this event, buried at the bottom of this story:

ABOUT FOUNTAIN PLACE
Address: 1445 Ross Ave.
Height: 60 stories
Construction: 1984-86
Architect: I.M. Pei & Partners
Major tenants:
•Wells Fargo Home Mortgage
•Bracewell & Giuliani – On March 31, 2005, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani joined the firm as a name partner.
•U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
•Fidelity National Title Insurance Co.
•Tenet Healthcare announced in August that it planned to relocate to Fountain Place.

Looking at that list, it seems like either this guy was pissed about a home foreclosure, or he was after Rudy.

Hmmmm, let's see...

The first WTC bombing was in 1993 when Rudy was running for Mayor; the second attack in 2001 brought down Rudy's brand new Emergency Command Center/bachelor pad, which he stupidly put inside a major target; they missed him the last time (see these infamous pictures of Rudy hauling ass away from the tower to save himself, dragging along the Police and Fire Commissioners whose jobs dictated that they be back at the towers coordinating the mission, not riding shotgun with their patron, the Mayor); upon leaving City Hall, Rudy hires out as a security/terrorism maven/consultant/expert, since no one knows how to run away from a fight like Rudy.

Well..., yeah, I guess that must be it.

Say: Let's just give them Rudy and be done with this whole terrorism thing.

WTF?

2009-09-25T11:07:00.001-04:00

This story in The Daily News is just nuts!

Can the general underlying anger across the land play out in any stupider way?

10 Cherry trees downed: Vandals at root of growing problem around Queens

My lawd...

When TV's Child Stars Go Wrong...

2009-09-23T16:55:00.002-04:00

...They go Christian.

Crooks and Liars: Evangelist Kirk Cameron Plans To Distribute Darwin's Origin Of The Species With Creationist Introduction

I like the idea of printing a run of 50,000 Bibles with a 50-page introduction alerting people to the incredibly happy horseshit inside the rest of the book and handing them out freely right outside of Regent and Liberty Universities.

This woman does a perfectly good job of pointing out the flaws in Cameron's philosophical Growing Pains:

That about sums it up. Well done, miss.

Neh-Ver Miiiiiind!

2009-09-23T12:35:00.002-04:00

Just as we were thinking, "...uh..., can't get fooled again!" here comes more of the same crap—Terro-style.

Media hypes terror plot, despite the fact no one is charged with terror

Oops.

Looks like the Bush-era holdovers in Eric Holder's Justice Department are fully focused on Business-As-Usual.

Either that, or we're left assuming that folks in a Barack Obama administration are simply the same useless schnooks the George W. Bush boys were.

It's sad that we no longer can believe ANYTHING our government tells us. The loons on the Right are correct about that. It's just that their focus is a tad off the mark. But, they're closer to the truth, it seems, than they know.

Yesterday, it appeared that Holder's troops were doing the right thing—actually bringing a case before a judge instead of shipping some poor moroon off to a Black prison in Poland and touting it on FOX. That's good, we think; progress.

Ummm, but in this ABORTED TERROR PLOT case ("BE AFRAID, BUT WE SAVED YOU—THIS TIME..."), the charges filed were not for terrorism. Or terrorist acts or conspiracies. They were for lying. To an agent. Something we can assume every agent's teenage child does on an ongoing basis.

Oh.

Or perhaps the perp accidentally stepped on the agent's donut. The star's slowly dimming here...

It's looking increasingly as if this is simply a planted story to help law folks look good on a slow news day. Complete with innuendo and blind, unattributed sourcing. Which is always a great mix for Banner Headlines!

As the man once said, "Ya got nothin', copper, nothin'!"

It's true. The Feds appear to have nothing on these guys aside from photo ops of "strong law enforcement in action!"

BOR-ING! That's SOOOO Bushie. So police state.

If this is a real case, we'll assume that real charges will be filed against real suspects in a real court, leading to a real trial in front of a real jury, leading to a real conviction or acquittal.

American people memo to Law Enforcement: Please stay out of the headlines. Your job is to go about your business quietly, without grabbing TV face time. At least, please stay out of the headlines until you've got something. Until you can indict someone on serious terror-related charges, at a minimum. Actually having enough evidence to build a case that's strong enough to get a conviction for a change would be admirable. That way you'll again look like heroes and not like the usual glory-grabbing, incompetent fools.

And the Rule of Law that you swore to uphold would be maintained.

What America Looks Like

2009-09-22T15:11:00.001-04:00

Whether this is real or bogus, it's nice to see a case brought through legitimate channels.

Feds seek people in terror investigation

If this were the Bushies, they'd miss these guys altogether, find another bunch of big-talking guys in a bar and sweep the blowhards off the street into indefinite detention with great fanfare. And never try them, so the world couldn't see that there was no case, ever.

Here, in our legal system, this case will work itself out properly we hope, with the presumption of innocence for these men. If they are, in fact, guilty of anything, it will be the job of the prosecution to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt.

You know, just like in "America."

So, to all the Tea Bag loons and all the Republicrats, this is MY America. This is the America I want back.

The New GOP

2009-09-15T10:57:00.002-04:00

Back in the day, say..., 2007 or so, Republicans merely cheated on their wives and lovers, then made them stand next to them during the ensuing scandal's initial press conferences.

McClatchy: Prominent Kentucky GOP pol charged with murder in ex-fiancee's death

Now, they just kill them.

Wow! Who Knew???

2009-09-14T00:39:00.002-04:00

Stunning. By reading this article, I just found out there are actually a couple of Republicans still left in Congress. Wow! I thought they were extinct. I'm stunned to find a few still exist. The poor babies, what do they do all day?

GOP Sen. Snowe urged Obama to take ‘public option off the table’

Say, we could start a Republican nostalgia craze! Hey, kids, remember when Republicans had any say in anything, and had some power, and ran things? Yeah! Then, we can all take oxycontin and cheat on our wives.

GOP: An Ancient Symbol...

2009-09-14T00:31:00.000-04:00

...Meaning, "Make shit up."

ABC fights back against Tea Party protest size falsehoods

Fascism: Do It For The Children!

2009-09-12T13:27:00.002-04:00

Not-So-Great Britain continues to party like it's 1984!

Raw Story: UK readies largest ‘anti -pedophile’ database on Earth

Drag the word "child" or "children" into the conversation, and you can literally get away with the murder of the entire system of laws that great nations have thrived under for centuries.

Because, as Adolf Hitler proved in Germany, when people are afraid enough they will lose their humanity, and can easily be turned into blinded, murderous animals, who can then be easily manipulated to do the bidding of whomever feeds and stokes their fears.

It's bad enough that every Brit is now on camera almost every waking hour once they leave their home. Today, the bleak world of Terry Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil is coming to pass. One giant Db with all of your particulars, open for any interested party to look at. Job? Housing? Life? Death? Taxes? Credit? It will all be based on your info (maybe correct; maybe not correct, who cares?) in those files.

Rot's a ruck, Charlie, as they say...

This Is A 'How,' Not 'What' Poll..

2009-08-21T19:57:00.002-04:00

OK, we return to our self-described role as Context Maven. A little 'Focus' music, maestro...

Cook Report: Dems Have Lost Control Of The Debate | TPMDC

All day, week-end, week and month, you'll be hearing, "The Dems are gonna get skunked in 2010; the Dems have lost control."

All of this is true, for the time being. What you''re not gonna hear anywhere, alas, is why.

The MSM will portray this as the plan was too big; the White House overreached; they bit off more than the American people could handle. The American people were just not ready for Barack Obama, and what he wanted to achieve.

Bullshit, in fact, is the word you're groping for there.

Context: these falling numbers are due to the American people's astonishment at the paucity of cojones on the part of the Democratic leadership and Mr. Obama.

We wanted CHANGE, in CAPITAL LETTERS.

Non-GOP fringe America is angry at Obama and the Dems right now. But not for doing too much. Rather, we're furious at them for not doing enough!!

The numbers for the Republican voters have not changed since November, nor will they ever change. There is no groundswell for rampaging hordes of mindless rabble taking us back to the 17th Century.

This clearly is the Left and the Middle who elected these guys screaming as one, "WTF????!?!?!?!?!"

Both the Left and the Middle wanted to cast the disgust of the Shrub Bush years from their mouths. Govern us again properly, we pleaded. But alas, if anything, we've become even more Beltway-bound. If that were even possible.

Maybe Obama did, but we didn't want bipartisanship. We wanted to kick some very well deserved corrupt, un-American booty. We wanted action. We got dither. We wanted leadership, since even fourth graders knew early on, Congressional Republicans had neither the votes nor the inclination to press forward. We all knew they'd kick up a ruckus and that'd be about it.

But we had the votes to say to the GOP, "you want in, we'll take you along, but if not, well, we'll see you all in four years."

We watched as you put together a Cabinet and staff of advisers who were all House- & Senate-savvy, most likely to wage the tough battles and arm-twisting that was going to be needed to pass the agenda America wanted.

But on the morning of your term, you took great pains to insist that the GOP were all well meaning Americans who had the interests of the nation at heart, and would bargain in good faith all down the line in order to get the best bills for the American people.

Every American knew that was a load of crap.

And, Mr. President, respectfully sir, they've been pissing on your shoes ever since.

The poll numbers you are seeing now are the direct result of the disaffection of many on the Left and in the Middle thinking, Hey! These aren't the guys I worked to elect!! And they're not getting it done!! Who the hell cares what the GOP thinks?!?!?

THAT is the background you see playing out in these poll numbers. Not the swill FOX and by extension CNN and NBC and all the rest will be spewing tonight and this weekend.

This is a LEFT/MIDDLE poll. The 30% on the Right still hates his Black guts, simply put. This will never change. So, if Obama was at 65% and is now down to 50+%, this means he still doesn't have the Right, he has softened in but still has the Middle, and has lost about half of the Left.

Now, all due respect to Charlie Cook and his famous political Report, all Obama needs to turn these numbers around is to finally pass the Healthcare Reform Bill WITH the Public Option, and his numbers among the Left and within the Middle shoot back up through the roof.

If Obama and Rahm (wasn't he supposed to be the roughest, toughest SOB to ever work in the West Wing???) the Milquetoast can get it together to salvage their self-esteem long enough to pass this bill all will be well.

If not, the Left and the Middle will start looking about for a new Democrat to fight the good fight.

NYU = EVIL

2009-08-21T19:01:00.003-04:00

NYU Destroys Again

Renowned Corporati farm New York University clearly works under the negotiating theory of, "Oops!"

They'll tell you anything you want to hear during negotiations, just to wrap up talks. Then, once the settlement is being implemented, they simply rely on a subtle, well placed elbow against the Ming vase, "Oops!" to re-establish what they wanted all along, and to destroy what you worked so hard to preserve in your talks.

This time, it's the beloved Provincetown Playhouse of Eugene O'Neill fame. "Sure, folks, we'll save it. At the very least, we'll save the façade for you. NO problem. Oops, we broke the façade, damn. Gotta tear it all down now."

This extends to the lesson they deliver to their well heeled student body: "Give 'em whatever they want; get them to shut up. We'll just break whatever it is later."

"Oops! Sorry we broke your building/town/country/company."

So, never negotiate with someone out of NYU. Just go for the kill. It's what they've been trained to do. Either up front—or, preferably, on the back end.

Where's Mike's 8-Point Plan Now?

2009-08-21T18:03:00.001-04:00

If, like most NYers who haven't been paying close attention to the NYC mayoralty race—since there's only one "oh-so-announced" announced candidate running, you may have missed the flurry of campaign ads that Mayor Mike Wallet, NYC's richest man, ran last Spring.

He loudly trumpeted: "I have an 8-point plan to create jobs in New York City!!"

OK. Kinda wondered where some of those points were during his eight (8) years already spent in office, but we'll walk with him for a moment on this one.

But, then we see this:

New York City jobless rate hits 9.6%—a 12-yr. high

Hmmmm, hasn't been this high since the end of Rudy's first term.

And we realize ol' Mayor Mike hasn't said anything about job creation in a very long time. Hmmm. Probably, because he can't.

I assume this is due to Bloomberg News simply not being able to accommodate any more staff.

Mike's going to simply have to buy sections of New Jersey in order to find new places for NYers to work.

Democrats to Hoyer:"We'll Have To See" About Re-election

2009-08-21T17:17:00.002-04:00

Hoyer Counters Pelosi: "We'll Have To See" About A Public Option | TPMDC

Steny Hoyer, if you can come home with a solid Healthcare Reform bill with a Public Option in your overnight bag, fine. We're here with open arms.

If not, don't bother coming home, we won't be here.

Best wishes,
Your fellow Democrats

Bang! You're foreclosed!

2009-08-21T15:04:00.007-04:00

Jesus!

The GOP chairman of Boise County, Idaho, Charles McAffee, who is also a tea-party activist and a member of the Idaho GOP Central Committee, pulled a loaded .357 Magnum on some guy while moonlighting on behalf of Wells Fargo bank. This cowboy must think he's guarding the strongbox on the Wells Fargo stagecoach.

Let's repeat that:
The GOP chairman of Boise County, Idaho, Charles McAffee, who is also a tea-party activist and a member of the Idaho GOP Central Committee, pulled a loaded .357 Magnum on some guy while moonlighting on behalf of Wells Fargo BANK.

Homeowner, 51, falls behind some on his mortgage. Looks out, sees a guy, McAffee, 33, clicking pics of his house. As you or I would, he asks McAffee just what the hell he's doing. McAffee blows him off. Homeowner gets angry; they get into an argument. McAffee pulls out a concealed .357 Magnum, points it at the homeowner. Homeowner thinks he's about to die.

GOP County Chair McAffee is reported to have thought that pulling a loaded monster killer weapon on this schmuck would "de-escalate the conflict."

Your modern Republican Party at work.

These people are going to start "de-escalating" folks to the morgue the way they are going. Then, they'll blame the victims for needing killing.

I've looked down the barrel of a handgun and, trust me, you will never focus in your life the way you do in those precious moments. It does get your attention.

This has officially gotten scary. At this rate, someone is going to get killed unless the police and FBI step in. A small army of mentally unbalanced loons on the right are now armed to the teeth and ready to defend "their America" from a whole array of psychosis-induced enemies.

This is the single greatest threat we face to the security of the United States of America. Armed insurrection by a few thousand armed crazies will turn the U.S. into an updated Night of the Living Dead, where no one is safe.

This cadre of maniacs has, at the least, the tacit approval of our corporate leaders—local and national.

So, the banking industry and your friendly neighborhood Republican Party have now joined forces to invite you to "Make. My. Day!"

"You Can Fool Some Of The People...

2009-08-20T16:15:00.004-04:00

...All of the time."

This should now—and forevermore—be known as The Favre Rule.

NY Times: Brett Favre’s Arm Takes Sales for Vikings Farther

The Vikings sold more than 3,200 season tickets in the first 24 hours after news broke Tuesday that Brett Favre was going to Minnesota.

I rest my case.

It's THEM!

2009-08-20T15:51:00.002-04:00

These are the very people who will have the biggest say in your not getting decent, affordable healthcare any time soon.

There's three of them. No, not the Republicans in the Gang of Six. There's three people in this town that Mike Enzi represents. A typical Wyoming town. If you drive to Wyoming, try to find a person. Go ahead. Find a living, breathing human being. Damned hard to do. Just how did all those horses and cows gain statehood?

Mike Enzi (R-WY) represents less people than any other Senator, maybe eight people and a few horses in all of Wyoming, but he gets to be a major player in the Gang of Six on the Senate Finance Committee that's in the process of drowning your chance at viable health coverage in the tub.

Hell, we've got as many people in our apartment as these folks have in their whole TOWN!

I don't know who they're burying in this photo, but you can rest assured that whoever it was, was 57% of Enzi's vote total last election.

So much for representative government.

Are we seeing something like, "Representation without Population!"

"...In Case Something Went Wrong"

2009-08-20T13:27:00.001-04:00

Something like this.

In this tightly knit, scary little world of Dick Cheney and his minions, public exposure is much more to be feared than any covert loss to one of their precious multitudes of enemies.

So, Cheney and the CIA lost their illegal assassination program. OK, they say, we'll lay low, then we'll go back-channel and get a black op company to do it. We'll put it in the contract that they take the fall if it fucks up.

See? Thinkin', always thinkin'.

Meyerson Goes Behind The Red Curtain

2009-08-20T12:30:00.001-04:00

Nicely done op-ed piece by Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post today.

Republican ideology has shrunk alongside its geography and demographics. Where once its view of the role of government ran the gamut from Rockefeller activism to Goldwater libertarianism, today the party largely adheres to the religiosity and the anti-statism of the white South. (In its ideological uniformity, today's GOP looks—O, the irony—more like a classic European party than an American one.)

In short, the Republican Party with which Democrats could make deals no longer exists. The GOP is too narrow; the gap between the parties, too wide. Our politics are not those of the mid-20th century, when bipartisanship was fairly common. If anything, they're more like those of the mid-19th century, before the Civil War, when North and South combined only to make a house divided against itself—a conflict resolved not by compromise, but, as Lincoln predicted, by a nation then half-slave and half-free becoming "all one thing or all the other."

Lincoln's prophecy still holds. Our current conflicts may be resolved only as the South becomes traditionally less Southern and more diverse—home to more Northern transplants and immigrants. That process was already at work in the 2008 elections, when [Barack] Obama carried Virginia, North Carolina and Florida on the strength of those demographic shifts. As that process continues—perhaps only as it continues—the course of reform in America may run more smoothly.

This White European screaming does, in fact, look ever more like the death throes of a dying culture, yowling as it succumbs to the tar pits.

If these White Europeans are to survive as the politically dominant segment of the population and the drivers of the culture, their mission is difficult and complex indeed: Just however do you turn a melting pot stew into a clear broth?

Grassley Makes Believe He Works For A Living

2009-08-20T12:01:00.003-04:00

That Grampa Chuck Grassley, he's such a kidder. I love it at Thanksgiving, when he pulls black bags of corporate cash from behind the ears of all the young kids in the room.

WAPO: Grassley Urges Scaling Back on Health-Care Reform Plan, Citing Town Hall Anger

That, of course, would be the Anger expressed by all those Red-Tie corporate types who are afraid of not getting a bonus this year, and all those truly wretched people they've duped and ginned up to scream and yell about something they have absolutely no clue about.

The hard-knuckle ancestors of these Red-Tie types used to get this rabble drunker than skunks before carting them to the polls, or stuffed cash in their pockets while telling them which lever to pull. Chuck may just be old enough to remember those days...

Maybe..., Grampa Chuck should be the first granny those "Death Panels" pull the plug on.

Dealing With The Dining Room Tables

2009-08-20T09:25:00.011-04:00

Just in case you missed Barney Frank's riposte from the other night...

Ranking right up there with "Ask not what your country can do for you..." (JFK) and "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" (FDR):

"It is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated." (Rep. Barney Frank—MA)

Thank you, Congressman Frank.

However, dear reader, I urge you to go back and look at the clip again.

Take a good look at the young woman at the mic. She's not your standard poor crone, broke, terrified, beaten by events, whipped into a frenzy by the lies of the Corporati. This woman gives every appearance of BEING the Corporati. Part of The Beltway Mob.

This version of the clip cuts off her long preamble as she sets up calmly and wisely (she assumes) her thesis that Obama = Hitler, and you of course could never support that, right? She's seems intelligent, level-headed and educated. She gives every appearance of being decidedly (upper?) middle-class. She looks for all the world exactly like every recent hire by UnitedHealthCare, Cigna, Pfizer, Blue Cross or any of the army of corporations hired by them as PR firms, lobbying outfits or influence peddlers—i.e., firms that shill (lie) for their clients for a hefty fee to influence legislators like Barney Frank to give their clients perks or better standing in upcoming bills at the expense of you, the taxpayer/consumer.

You easily can picture this young woman in a conference room with her note pad, right? So can I. Looks a bit like Ashley Judd. Very sharp visage. A go-getter; on her way up. She may have been sorting out airline and hotel reservations for her boss for the company golf outing/retreat just before heading up to Massachusetts, don't you think?

Yes, for all the world, she looks like a shill.

And yes, Congressman Frank was correct to not engage further with this young woman—since she gives every indication of being paid to stand there and combat whatever Frank says, in order to gain extra camera time and to disrupt Frank's meeting. For as long as she possibly can. Nothing personal; just business.

The Dining Room Tables will never listen, Frank is correct about that. The professional Dining Room Tables are paid to not listen. So, it's better not to waste time talking to them. Their aim is not to win, but to make you look bad. So, don't bother.

Simply pass your bill and the amateur Dining Room Tables will wind up enjoying the fruits of whatever it is you pass—as long as it's a good bill.

Then, the Professional Tables will simply be forced back to their golf games.

The Healthcare Corporati Eat Their Own

2009-08-20T08:55:00.006-04:00

Wow. Who knew those Red-Tie corporate-operative types from the corporate towers of NYC & The Beltway Mob in DC could find so many t-shirts and plaid shirts to wear to these town hall-type meetings?

Stunning, really. They must have scoured every 99-Cent Store on the East Coast. Plus, I assume they've simply wiped out L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer.

Today's quiz: Find The Montana Resident In This Video! (Aside from Max Baucus, of course.)

Poor Max. After carrying their water on this for so long, THIS is how they repay him? By making him look like David Letterman with a really bad guest? If he's this inarticulate, and fumbles so as he speaks, however DID he get elected Senator? (Just askin'...)

"... agitators, whose sole goal was to intimidate, disrupt and not let any meaningful conversation go on."

Well said, Senator.

It'd like near to turn you into a Democrat!

Corrupting With The Stars!

2009-08-18T00:39:00.007-04:00

This is classic Tom DeLay. I know, every Tom DeLay is classic Tom DeLay, but this really is classic Tom DeLay.

Corporatist Supreme DeLay, who created the K Street system of lobbying, then elevated it to an integral part of DC governance, had a friend. A friend on Dancing With The Stars—country music star, Sara Evans.

Back in 2006, months after he'd resigned from Congress, DeLay sent out an e-mail to his supporter list, calling on them to vote in that current season of Dancing for country singer Sara Evans, who is a vocal supporter of the Republican Party, and whose husband was a GOP fundraiser and had been an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. DeLay framed this cause as part of the culture war—targeting that nasty liberal contestant Jerry Springer ...

OK. So far we have Tom DeLay being Tom DeLay.

Here's the part I love:

Evans ended up quitting the show due to a messy divorce, citing frequent adultery by her husband. (GN emphasis)

Well, THAT should win ya a GOP primary, boy. Especially in Texas. This all goes to show that you don't have to have a government job already to be a Republican Who Fucks Around. It's really quite simple. You can become a RWFA just by being friends with Republicans who have/had government jobs. Or just by trying to get a government job. Or by being married to someone who's trying to get a government job.

Of course, the GOP NEVER DISCRIMINATES! A RWFA can be a male Republican or a female Republican. There's no rules governing RWFAs. The only minimum standard applied is that you agree to be cheesy beyond human endurance, and be willing to make a complete, utter joke of yourself in public media while you're grasping for a sliver of that GOP political domination and an insider's cut of all that cold, hard, lobbying cash that's sloshing about in DC and out in the "Homeland." In the GOP's Big Tent, Republican women are certainly entitled to debase themselves in equal measure to anyone in the male contingent.

Mayor Updates His Intentions

2009-08-15T12:56:00.002-04:00

Term limits, schmerm limits. That was just a piffle. It's so yesterday.

Mayor Wallet's Freudian slip is showing once again.

The Supreme Owner of All Things Five-Borough-ish let slip in a WOR Radio interview with John Gambling that this year's mayoralty race is really intended to be an election for Mayor-for-Life.

New York, New York, it's a helluva town. And Mike Bloomberg lets us live here! How very kind of him.

Ahhh, the joys of noblesse oblige!

"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:48 Bible KJV

Wouldn't it be nice if, instead of Mike wasting all that money simply on a campaign he most likely would win anyway, he simply started spending it on the people of NYC, whom he claims to care so much about?

Mike is the richest man in NYC—a difficult mantle to achieve, no doubt. We plebeians can attest to that. We can also assume that it must be a bear to maintain. Mike's single, with no family. If he started a crusade on a 24/7 schedule to spend ALL of his money, he'd be hard-pressed to do so in his lifetime.

So, Mike may want to think in terms of Bill Gates, who's currently trying to shed all that extra cash he and his wife have that's clogging up the garage and basement.

We suggest to you, Mike, that instead of simply allowing those of us of the serf classes to remain on your property here as urban sharecroppers, toiling away for your greater glory and wealth, you take a real shot at buffing up your name in the history books and start spreading that cash out over the citizenry in any of a dizzying array of creative means—through major public projects, by hiring all of Brooklyn at Bloomberg News, by paying for a new school system, or, hell, just go for it—direct cash payments to every citizen. I mean, you're buying City Hall anyway, why not just go ahead and do it directly?

The rites of the class you worked so hard to enter demand it.

Well, The Going's Gotten Crazy, So...

2009-08-08T18:57:00.002-04:00

... The crazies are now getting going!

Fascism is afoot in the land.

The lunatic authoritarian White Right now looms as the greatest law and order threat to the security of the United States.

Anti-Health Care Reform Protester Encourages Physical Violence, Use Of Firearms

You now face a greater threat from some self-styled "g.i. joe" nut in your town then you do from al Qaeda. Al Qaeda doesn't have the means necessarily to cross the ocean. But this nut is already here, armed to the teeth and braying at the moon.

The basis of their tenet: If the strength of their idea isn't enough to sway you, then they'll just have to shoot you.

That's what they mean when you hear them sob, "This isn't MY AMERICA!"

During Vietnam, these are the folks who espoused the concept of "Kill for Peace" with no sense of irony.