The Circus

Obviously, with the Republicans taking control of the House we can expect plenty of shenanigans aimed at lining the vaults of the already well-monocled whilst also convincing ordinary Americans that attempts to stop their insurance carriers from dropping them at a moment of dire need or to prevent their mortgage holders from breaking into their houses and stealing their stuff are sure signs of the Republic’s impending doom.  Still—broken-hearted Son of Liberty that I am—even I did not foresee Pete King’s argument that babies tossed into garbage cans were evidence that the ACA should be exempted from the Commerce Clause.

I suppose we’ll be learning lots of new things in the days and weeks ahead, and for a while it’ll be LOLz.  But then I have a feeling that the fun will wear off, and soon and badly too.  The nice thing about the circus is that you can leave when you want.

—Jason

Friday’s Bounce-Back Random Ten

Nothing really happens here.

10.  Every Mother’s Son – Traffic

9.  I’ll Take Romance – June Christy

8.  While You Were Asleep – Ok Go

7.  The Talisman – Iron Maiden

6.  Extrasupervery – Frightened Rabbit

5.  Dancing Shoes – Arctic Monkey

4.  Come in Alone – My Bloody Valentine

3.  These Wooden Ideas – Idlewild

2.  S.A.D Light – Glasvegas

1.  Bulletproof – Major Lazer and La Roux

Bonus:

—Jason

Birther Madness

Gonna be a long two fucking years.

An apparent member of the birther movement seated in the gallery of the House of Representatives on Thursday interrupted a reading of the Constitution. The woman yelled out “Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!” as Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) read the “natural born citizen” clause of the Constitution.

-Ian

President Bachmann?

It really is a deluded cavalcade of nut jobs thinking about running for POTUS on the Republican side in 2012.

-Ian

Filibuster This!

Looks like Reid might be serious about reform. This will be an interesting few days to watch.

Reid:

Here’s the bottom line: We may not agree yet on how to fix the problem – but no one can credibly claim problems don’t exist. No one who has watched this body operate since the current minority took office can say it functions just fine. That wouldn’t be true, it would be dishonest. No one can deny that the filibuster has been used for purely political reasons — reasons far beyond those for which this protection was invented and intended.

-Ian

Back At It

Ok, maybe I have the strength.

-Ian

The Revolution Will be Televised

I didn’t think it was possible for him to get any crazier, but then…

What’s amazing to me is that we’ve already had a couple of incidents of Beck-inspired near bloodshed.  And then Glenn goes on teevee or the radio and makes some quiet noises about how he [cough cough cough] abhors violence, and that’s good enough for the powers that be at Fox and he’s back at it again the next day.

—Jason

Friday’s Lazy Week Random Ten

I’m too tired to drive anywhere anyway right now.

10.  When I Was a Young Girl – Feist

9.  Singapore – Tom Waits

8.  Halfway to Crazy – The Jesus & Mary Chain

7.  Drive – The Cars

6.  Tunic (Song for Karen) – Sonic Youth

5.  Lose Yourself – Eminem

4.  Shadow People – Dr. Dog

3.  Free – Cat Power

2.  Great Expectations – Gaslight Anthem

1.  Witch Hunt – Wayne Shorter

Bonus:

—Jason

Slant

Fair and Balanced and such.

At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News’ controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network’s journalists not to use the phrase “public option.”

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox’s reporters should use “government option” and similar phrases — wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats’ reform efforts.

Journalists on the network’s flagship news program, Special Report with Bret Baier, appear to have followed Sammon’s directive in reporting on health care reform that evening.

Sources familiar with the situation in Fox’s Washington bureau have told Media Matters that Sammon uses his position as managing editor to “slant” Fox’s supposedly neutral news coverage to the right.

Sammon’s “government option” email is the clearest evidence yet that Sammon is aggressively pushing Fox’s reporting to the right — in this case by issuing written orders to his staff.

But MSNBC does it blah, blah, blah.

-Ian

Worn Out

Are all of you as tired of everything as I am? Here is a quick recap of the last week: Republicans act like monsters, Democrats fold like lawn chairs. There.

-Ian

Friday’s Totally Frozen Random Ten

I’m on a good mixture.  I don’t want to waste it.

10.  She Loves Me – Muddy Waters

9.  Everyday – The Field

8.  Too Long – Daft Punk

7.  Oh, Goddamnit – Hot Hot Heat

6.  Dance or Die – Janelle Monae

5.  Sonny Feeling – Wilco

4.  Hair Down – Cold War Kids

3.  Don’t Haunt This Place – Rural Alberta Advantage

2.  Something’s Wrong – The Jesus & Mary Chain

1.  October Fires – Wolf People

Bonus:

—Jason

Pissed Christ

Jesusy Republican pols sure do like the idea of killing people.

—Jason

Evil Fed Watch

Here and here.

There was a moment there, early on, when it looked as though sanity might prevail, if even in only in some small way.  But…no.  Our Rulers have decided that the only way to restore our economy is to drop mountains of money on the criminals who created the crisis in the first place, while issuing stern lectures from the Wall Street Journal opinion page and the cables about the Very Serious necessity of the little people sucking it.

—Jason

Morning Music Break

You may now to dance.

—Jason

He’s-a-Liberal Watch

Joe Scarborough is about to become a liberal.  You heard it hear first.  (Okay, not really.)

Palin’s usefulness lies not so much in her political utility (she’s pretty bog standard, when it comes to that) but rather in an almost devout conviction among conservatives that she Pisses Off Liberals [tm].  They’ve even invented an amusing (if grim) little myth that liberals hate her because she refused to abort one of her pregnancies.  How this makes any sense at all—how exactly it’s supposed to enrage pro-choicers—is never quite detailed, but details aren’t really what matters.  In a way, I admire Palin.  Far from hating her, I find her an almost quintessentially American creation:  A relentlessly, catastrophically self-assured grifter who uses her purported love of country like a cudgel, and who when she’s not nattering on about “liberty” and “freedom of speech” is quacking insults and volleying outrageous slanders at those who disagree with her.  Her tweets about ordinary Americanness emanate from her enormous mansion and the thumbs of a paid employee, and the rubes are so besotted by it all that even though they never take their eyes off the hustle they never quite manage to see it.  What’s more American than that?

—Jason

Learning Deficit

Nobody cares about the deficit, of course, and when they do pretend to care they do it so badly as to defy belief.  But what won’t stop our Media Overlords from taking the “deficit hawks” seriously or relentlessly pushing the Very Serious Truth that the only way to bring our economy back to sanity is to cause the greatest number of little people possible to suck it.

—Jason

A Personal Army of Union Thugs

There’s just no tense situation that this psychopathic clown can’t make more dangerous.

—Jason

30

Salon presents the thirty worst political pundits in America.  Couldn’t we just stop with Mickey?:

“Obama by double digits” in N.C.: Predicted by a blogger using a sophisticated model that ignores … what’s been happening in the campaign. Like Rev. Wright. I predict this person is wrong! … Update: He was right. … [via Insta] 9:27 P.M.

Update: Just adding that I really don’t think Jeff Goldberg belongs on this list.  He’s too utterly awful a human being to be relegated to a mere list of bad pundits.

—Jason

Fetus: The Housekeeper Did It

Conservatives are often very, very strange people.

—Jason

Grievance: The Timeless Dance

Please make it stop.

“She’s enduring a lot.”

—Jason

Psychopaths Rule Our Discourse

The Ol’Perfesser:

JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW: North Korea fires artillery barrage on South. If they start anything, I say nuke ‘em. And not with just a few bombs. They’ve caused enough trouble — and it would be a useful lesson for Iran, too. We can’t afford another Korean war, but hey, we’re already dismantling warheads. . . .

What kind of human do you have to be to so causally call for this kind of violence?  Obviously, such a thing would pretty much signal a horrendous and utterly catastrophic turn in the course of human history.  The bloodshed and suffering would be positively incalculable and the United States would be forever remembered as a global mass-murderer. And all that means so little to this insane asshole that he even manages a stab at New START.

The only question is when does Newt hop on board?

—Jason

Dim Bulb

Thanks America. I can’t wait to live through at least two years of mind numbing stupid like this.

Hoping to counter attacks from his right, Rep. Fred Upton is promising to reexamine a controversial ban on incandescent light bulbs if he becomes chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Michigan Republican told POLITICO on Thursday that he’s not afraid to go back after an issue he once supported but that has come under withering assault on the conservative airwaves, including on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck’s talk shows.

“If I become chairman, we’ll be reexamining the light bulb issue, no problem,” Upton said.

Upton’s bid to be the next Energy and Commerce Committee leader has been rocked by allegations that he’s too moderate for the post.

Beck called him “all socialist” for cosponsoring legislation phasing out incandescent light bulbs that made it into a 2007 energy law signed by President George W. Bush. An unsigned 22-page document highlighting Upton’s voting record on a range of fiscal, social and policy has also been circulating around Capitol Hill this month.

Also, too.

-Ian

Today’s Edition Of…

… we’re totally fucked.

-Ian

Bachmann Rules Their World

You ever get the feeling that this whole movement is going to come back and bite them in the ass?

-Ian

Um…Never Mind

And this, my dear friends, is why we’re so totally fucked as a civilization.

I don’t know what happened to make everyone so goddamned crazy and mean and apparently completely unable to recognize their own bullshit, but we need to get over it and get over it fast.

—Jason