With such a crowded field... how did we let this go for so long?

.


We’ve drifted away from the practice for the last 2 or 3 years but we had previously been in the habit of awarding the truly horrible journalism the Walter Duranty Putridity in Journalism Award, in honor of the eponymous Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times reporter and Communist sympathizer.


So bad was the column by David Brooks a couple of weeks ago, we have decided to resurrect the award and reprint our blog response to it below. Congratulations, Brooksy, for taking home the not-so-coveted Walter Duranty Putridity in Journalism Award for 2013:

When shilling for an autocracy is so much easier than swallowing your pride

We've all been there. We read something or listen to someone and your jaw hits the floor with the simultaneous thought, perhaps voiced out loud, "Where has this guy been?", or "What planet is this dude living on?"


David Brooks (pictured), employing what is now a cottage industry in political punditry: decrying gridlock and/or a "dysfunctional" Washington D.C., gave us that moment in his latest column titled "Strengthen the Presidency."


To be fair, Brooks does bring up some valid points. Yes, there are too many K Street lobbyists. Yes, moneyed interests skew legislation to the benefit of just a few. We know all this but Brooks' solution to the problem, as strongly suggested by the title of the column is both dangerous and foolish.


First, though, some false assumptions by Brooks:

"... it is possible to mobilize the executive branch to come to policy conclusion on something like immigration reform. It’s nearly impossible for Congress to lead us to a conclusion about anything.

It's "reform" and "reform" is inherently good, right? No. Not really. You can dress up that pig and call it anything you want and it's still just a pig and the current amnesty plan not to mention Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg and, of course, the mother of all reform pigs, the Affordable Care Act are all proof of that. And please note how easy Brooks can assert singular executive action as a preferable course all in the name of "doing something" whatever that "something" is.

"Fourth, Congressional deliberations, to the extent they exist at all, are rooted in rigid political frameworks. Some agencies, especially places like the Office of Management and Budget, are reasonably removed from excessive partisanship."

Good. We'll keep saying for as long as we have to, but in our constitutional republic, passing laws is supposed to be and is necessarily designed to be difficult... at least it used to be. The Senate's sobriquet as the most deliberative body on the planet was, we thought, a point of pride. Again, this notion that Congress must do “something” is simply wrong-headed. Mere activity of Congress does not equate to beneficial nor productive legislation. There are far worse things than “legislative inactivity” and “legislative activity” would be one of those.

Fifth, executive branch officials, if they were liberated from rigid Congressional strictures, would have more discretion to respond to their screw-ups, like the Obamacare implementation. Finally, the nation can take it out on a president’s party when a president’s laws don’t work. That doesn’t happen in Congressional elections, where most have safe seats.

Now, Brooks is just talking wacky. When he says "respond" does he mean the blizzard of waivers, delays and exemptions the administration has rained down from on high since ObamaCare became law and which has served only to add confusion to an already overly-complex and byzantine law and served only to reinforce the perception of utter incompetence of this administration? Is that what he means by "respond"? God help us. We're bordering on banana republic territory as it is and Brooks appears blissfully unaware that his "respond" mechanism of the executive branch is the main reason why.

And about those safe seats… Tell that to the scores of now-former congressional Democrats that got swept out of office in that 2010 midterm shellacking which was a direct result of the electorate's "response" to ObamaCare.


But, believe it or not, Brooks isn’t done… not by a long shot. Here’s the paragraph justifying more concentrated and constitutional republic-shunning power-grabbing and which is tied directly to his fifth point above:

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout. It’s important to advocate greater executive branch power in a chastened mood. It’s not that the executive branch is trustworthy; it’s just that we’re better off when the presidency is strong than we are when the rentier groups are strong, or when Congress, which is now completely captured by the rentier groups, is strong.

Insane. Simply insane. Brooks lays out exactly why it’s such a bad idea to give the executive branch more power and then doubles down by advocating exactly for that.

And let’s take a quick moment to disabuse ourselves this notion that somehow the executive branch is more insulated from special interests than Congress. For one, the Department of Energy green loan program has been nothing but a pay-off to administration cronies, bundlers and campaign donors.

And the absolute lack of accountability in the scandals involving the IRS, NSA snooping, Fast and Furious and Benghazi are all indicative of responding to political pressure from like-minded political interests. Whether its K Street or within the vast federal leviathan, what does it matter?

If you think that the most powerful office in the world is somehow more insulated from the pressure of interests groups than a congressman, we believe you’d be sadly mistaken.


Poor David Brooks, the center-right columnist of America’s paper of record. Pride is a tough thing to swallow and since he’s been an Obama apologist for years now, it’s probably the easiest path now to double down on proposing the executive branch power grabs for his boy that has already been happening for years. Power grabs that are completely at odds with the ideals of a constitutional republic but it’s apparent that brushing aside political inconveniences trump any fidelity to separation of powers and checks and balances.


Brooks’ assumptions that this can all be justified because of the fundamental decency of one man is that of foolishness and shortsightedness.


Exit question(s) for our liberal friends out there. Sure, it’s all good because of the unsurpassed righteousness, benevolence and wisdom of Barack Obama. But he’s only going to be in office for a little over 3 more years. What then? The executive orders and unilateral actions that had you all so exorcised during the Bush years and that you either turned a blind eye towards or actively cheered during the Obama regime… What now? All those assumed and accrued powers will be turned over to someone infinitely less-saintly than the current occupier of the Oval Office. What will you say then?


We're not holding our breath waiting for an answer.

(end of article)



And we do have a video category for this award for the first time. Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC… come on down and get your hardware while the rest of us enjoy the this montage of the 5 dumbest things you said this year.



It’s no surprise that Fox News skews right and blonde but we’ve got to hand it to the folks at MSNBC for stretching beyond the widely-held standards of common sense and graciousness to achieve previously-thought unimaginable levels of poor taste and derangement. An atta boy all around to that entire network.




That's it, gang. Have a safe and enjoyable New Year's and we'll see you all in 2014.

Some people just can't quit digging

Last week, we blogged about MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry and her updating of the collectivist Hillary Clinton "It takes a village" meme and which can be found here.

We had some fun with it on Twitter wondering if when MH-P dropped off her kid with us on Friday evening, she was prepared to pick up a Dodger, Laker, Charger and Milton Friedman fan on Sunday afternoon. And we believe it was Sarah Palin who asked if MH-P would be cool if the Palin family took her tyke hunting after church in their big pick-up.

Funny stuff but it's something the bubble people of the establishment media don't ask themselves: If you're in the It takes a village set, are you willing to expose your children to opinions and possibly even indoctrination of which you vehemently disagree?



Well, not to be outdone, Melissa Harris-Perry doubled down on her collectivism, this time going wondering if people's freedom can be impinged upon for the greater common good.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"This isn’t about me wanting to take your kids, and this isn’t even about whether children are property. This is about whether we as a society, expressing our collective will through our public institutions, including our government, have a right to impinge on individual freedoms in order to advance a common good. And that is exactly the fight that we have been having for a couple hundred years.”

Since we know her track record and since she's even asking the question, we don't think we're going out on a limb by saying she has no problem with what it is she is postulating. A few points/questions: We would like MH-P to give us an operational definition of "common good". We've got a pretty good idea that our idea of "common good" doesn't jive with hers. Well, we're just assuming that because given the context of impinging on our freedom, we're not quite sure what "common good" even means, ourselves. It's Orwellian Newspeak. Also, by institutions, we're assuming she doesn't mean the Christian Church. Of course, she doesn't. Again, the establishment-left who live in their echo-chamber and who come up with this non-sense don't think through their half-baked theorizations. They automatically assume their correct thinking will be the coin of the realm as they move us all towards this utopic "common good". So much for diversity and more importantly, diversity of thought. With collectivists like MH-P, there is no such thing. It's their way or the highway as they are obviously superior moral and intellectual betters to the rest of us and the quicker we accept that fact, the quicker they can achieve their collectivist goals. Freedom and liberty are fine for her and her socio-poltical set, but the rest of us are not to be trusted with it, especially as it may run afoul of the "common good." In the words of a World War II general: Nuts! If no one else will say it, we will: Melissa Harris-Perry is a fascist thug and she only confirms this notion each time she opens her yap.

Video clip of the day

.

MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry updating Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village" meme from the 90s.

"We always had this private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very collective notion of 'these are our children.' So, part of it is we have to break through this private idea that kids belong to their parents... (rather) recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

So, what's your personal "creep factor" on this one? We give it a solid 8 (out of 10). Points for the earnestness that comes with this strain of lefty down for the struggle packaging.

In the past we've been shamed into parting with our scratch to lavish upon a broken public education system on the simple "it's for the children" sales pitch with the implied accusation that you are a heartless bastard if you don't vote for that particular school bond in November.

We've entered new territory here as the "it's for the children" angle is topped off with a healthy dose of getting onboard and being a team player in the new collective vision of the future as a means to grab more of our money. To believe or act otherwise would be anti-social behaviour at its most unacceptable.


Looks as if transformation of MSNBC from an opinion and news outfit to a megaphone for statist collective group-think is complete. Congrats, gang.

The Friday evening dump: It's back edition

An occasional look at unsavory news being jettisoned from Washington D.C. right before the weekend.


And you all thought the debt-ceiling debacle was going to be the ruin of us.

From MSNBC, no less, what we have feared may befall us since we allegedly emerged from the recession in mid-2009 is here.

Friday's news on GDP shows the double dip has arrived — an expansion of only 1.3 percent and consumer spending up 0.1 percent in the second quarter. Astonishingly low by any account. The debt ceiling trouble and lack of a longer term resolution to the deficit will make it worse.

The U.S. has entered a second recession. It may not be as bad as the first. Economists say that the Great Recession began in December 2007 and lasted until July 2009. That may be the way that the economy was seen through the eyes of experts, but many Americans do not believe that the 2008-2009 downturn ever ended. A Gallup poll released in April found that 29 percent of those queried thought the economy was in a “depression” and 26 percent said that the original recession had persisted into 2011.


It is any wonder that many Americans believe that the economic downturn is still in progress? Home prices have fallen to 2002 levels. Values have dropped nearly 50 percent in parts of Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona. Property values are also down that much in parts of troubled big cities like Detroit. Estimates are that as many as 11 million homes have underwater mortgages. Banks have inventories of as many as 2 million foreclosed homes which have not even been released to the market. Home prices could fall another 10 percent if current trends persist.


Perhaps the most powerful argument that the recession never ended or that a new one has begun is the persistence of unemployment. Fourteen million people are out of work. A third of those have been jobless for more than a year. May employment data showed the jobless rate rose unexpectedly and that the economy added only 58,000 jobs. Experts believe that the unemployment rate will not improve significantly until the monthly gain in jobs is consistently 300,000 jobs or more. And, at that rate the gains would have to go one for more than two years to bring the economy back to what is traditionally considered a reasonable unemployment figure.

(emphasis, ours)

Props to them, however, for lasting until the 4th paragraph of the article before breaking out their favorite term.

To be fair, we thought the standard definition of a recession was two straight quarters of negative GDP growth. But, in keeping with the liberal-Left standard of staying in touch with one's emotions, if it feels like a recession then it most certainly is a recession.

Go to the link where they break down how 10 elements are factoring into what MSNBC is calling an unqualified double-dip.

Developing now! (UPDATED)

(please scroll to bottom of post for update)



Palin derangement syndrome on display...

--The state of Alaska on Friday released more than 13,000 e-mails that shed light on Sarah Palin's tenure as governor — before she became a vice-presidential candidate, a reality-TV star, and an undeclared heavyweight in the 2012 race for the White House.

Many of the e-mails dealt with the mundane matters of running an office and a state: speech preparations, gubernatorial appointments, even office softball games. Others, however, provide a look at Palin’s political persona, before she was catapulted into the national spotlight.

Check out this exchange between Andrea Mitchell and Michael Isikoff, MSNBC's senior D.C. correspondent, whom they saw fit to pack off to Juneau for this 3-ring circus.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The mere fact that we have so many reporters, news organizations who have flocked up here to Juneau to start poring over this material is a sign that Sarah Palin... remains the superstar in this (G.O.P.) field.

Mitchell looks downright bummed that this near-foreign over-land adventure might actually benefit Palin. Then again, Mitchell always looks like she's coming off a two-day bender.


Does Isikoff or anyone else up there of his ilk ever ask themselves, "What in God's name am I doing up here in Alaska on this glorified dumpster- diving gig?"


We're being crushed under a mountain of debt, we're now officially pursuing regime change in Libya, unemployment is up again and all economic indicators show us slipping back into a double-dip and this is the big news of the day.

Gripping

Dig this:

One embarrassing aspect of this episode, among several, is that major newspapers like the Times and the Post don't seem to have the resources to review a few boxes of emails to determine whether there is anything there of interest. Otherwise, why would they solicit help from hundreds of readers? In my business, litigation, it is not unusual for parties to produce tens of millions of documents. A production of 13,000 emails would be considered minuscule. That our major newspapers evidently don't have staff to do this minimal amount of work speaks volumes about their decline.

And this: LA Times Won’t Release Obama-Khalidi Tape But Posts 24,000 Sarah Palin Emails



Perhaps Isikoff has a point regarding Palin's celebrity but it's far more accurate to reason that Palin being who she is must be destroyed and must be destroyed at any cost as the breathless manner in which this is all being handled by the legacy media is proving.


We cannot see ourselves voting for Palin in the Republican primaries but count on our vote for her in the general should it come to that as for no other reason than the sight of heads exploding all across the fruited plain due to the mere possibility of Palin becoming President would bring us an unbridled joy that cannot be described in mere words.




(UPDATE #1: via the Los Angeles Times, explosive bombshell drops in the Governor Palin email hog root:

The email account of Aug. 29, 2008, the day John McCain announced Palin as his running mate, tells a tale of jubilant shock and amazement from Palin devotees.

Palin's staff fired off emails praising her speech – and got lots of love back from the new vice presidential nominee.

"Wow governor! Just watched you on TV!" wrote budget director Karen Rehfeld. "You knocked their socks off!"

"Can you believe it!" Palin replied. "He told me yesterday -- it moved fast! Pray! I love you."

Vice President Dick Cheney called the governor's office requesting a call back.

There you have it, folks. The smoking gun. Does it really get any worse than potential contact with Dick Cheney?

As time and space permit, we will be updating with more explosive Palin email revelations.

Sarah sez

One in a series that takes a look at some of the zany and madcap things said by Sarah Palin

"There's a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to Fox and to MSNBC, 'Out. Off. End. Goodbye.' "

"It would be a big favor to political discourse; to our ability to do our work here in Congress; and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future,"

Oopsy-daisy... that wasn't Palin but rather West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller commenting upon a subject for which the FCC has no control as both Fox and MSNBC are on cable.

And is that a reporter or one of Rockefeller's staffers over his left shoulder who is darting her eyes around trying to gage the reaction to the dung flying out of this guy's mouth? We're going with staffer.

Video clip of the day

Broadcasting from inside one of Teddy Roosevelt's nostrils, Ed Schultz of MSNBC thinks there ought to be something done about all that mean and nasty speech out there on the airwaves.





If there are going to be any laws, the first should be one against Al Sharpton, of all people, opining on racial divisiveness.

"Never any ramifications..."
They're called ratings, Ed - again, a concept lost on this MSNBC employee who should be very aware of their small ones due to the ramifications of their own lousy program content.

Limbaugh has faced boycotts his entire career calling on advertisers to pull their spots to no real avail because the manufactured level of outrage like that which Schultz is displaying never squares with reality.

Big Ed says "I'm not saying there should be a law..." before saying, "... shouldn't there be a law?" A shining beacon of broadcasting competence, he is.

And Sheila Jackson Lee wants to ban any discussion of where the President is born. When does that start extending to discussions of the President's policies, Ms. Lee?

We guess this begs the question of just what does Ed Schultz and his obviously traumatized guests (and we assume, listening audience) think should be banned from T.V. and radio? Because they are going to have to get a whole lot more specific and detailed than "provocative", "insulting", "inciteful" and "denigrating".

This entire segment by Schultz was an exercise in stupidity and was indeed insulting and denigrating towards most Americans opinions of free speech and the 1st amendment.


H/T: Hot Air

Yep, those teabaggers sure are violent

A Michigan militiaman? A member of the Aryan Brotherhood? Nope. Just totally un-funny leftist cartoonist, Ted Rall, on MSNBC a couple of days ago dancing around the possible need for violent overthrow of the government.

via Hot Air:



This from a network that has banged on the tea party for nearly a year and half for alleged racism and violent motives.

We're confident beyond any doubt that Rall would not have been let anywhere near MSNBC studios had the Democrats maintained control of the House. But now that those crazies from the G.O.P. have taken over and are talking about fiscal restraint and individual liberty, it's time for Revolution!

Exit question: Since Rall is quoting Locke and referencing how its our citizen duty to overthrow the government should circumstances dictate it, what are his views on gun rights? Kind of tough to bring down the man without the hardware, now isn't it?


P.S. Rall actually parrots some of the tea party list of grievances concerning crony capitalism and an entrenched political class but at the end of the day, we just cannot throw in with this extremist wingnut.

They have their niche, we suppose

We're genuinely sorry but we just can't let it go. We'll try our best to make this the last post on this particular subject but such is our bewilderment that we aren't going to make any promises.


Here's Olby from last night comparing the tea party to an industrial solvent.


(if embed no worky, please go here)



The Daily Beast has MSNBC's five best (?) moments from last night at the link above and from which the above was culled.

That was what passed for intelligent political analysis for MSNBC.

To our centrist and left of center readers we have or that may have stumbled across this site, in the spirit of bi-partisan charity, can anyone please explain to us what that was all about last night?

Unprofessional, snarky and sophomoric. It was blatantly apparent last night what sort of audience they were trying to reach.

We've still got Harry Reid to kick around

The HopenChange that swept most of the nation last night was tempered a bit here on the West Coast.

California decided to send a retread (Jerry Brown) back to the governor's mansion and a disgraceful incompetent (Barbara Boxer) back to the Senate. And while we give the lunatics in the Assembly the ability to pass a budget on simple majority (Prop. 25) we denied ourselves the capabilities of easing the pain (Prop. 19 - marijuana legalization). Oh, and we decided to continue our one-state crusade to battle man-made global warming by shooting down Prop. 23.

But on the bright side... we've still got Harry. Sure, this particular campaign was national and was supposed to be a referendum on the tea party but if there was ever a last-stand/Alamo-like effort to preserve the most high-profile Democrat seat, we saw it by the Democratic Party in Nevada in the last few weeks leading up to yesterday.

Never quite grasping the irony, an ecstatic Ed Schultz of MSNBC was crowing of what an incredible accomplishment it was in sending Harry back to D.C. amid one of the worst state unemployment rates in the nation... brought upon by policies levied upon that state by Reid and his party.

(Again, we cannot emphasize enough just how bad MSNBC's coverage was last night. All told, we wound up watching about an hour's worth of coverage and we were stunned by the lack of balance and professionalism. "Whistling past the grave yard" is the metaphor that best described a cable operation of which we weren't sure was watching the same election results we were.)

So, Harry the human punching bag gets to go back and lead a Senate that owns a 9.6% unemployment rate and a stalled economy and which will be facing an energized Republican House that will get to use Reid as a proxy to attack the furthering of the regime's statist agenda.

Also, on the bright side, no more mailers clogging our mail box and no more political ads on T.V. In honor of this joyous occasion we may just run NFL bloopers and Cheezburger photos for the next few days as an ode to frivolity in the wake of all this politically besotted earnestness.

And speaking of besotted, looks like we will be enjoying that Herr-adurra later this evening as we nailed the Senate pickups (6) and darn-near nailed it in the House (58 vs. the predicted 56).

And to further this exercise in frivolity, we will be going to, speak of the devil, Vegas this weekend for the Breeder's Cup among other things. Programming Alert details to follow.

It's almost as if Keith Olbermann has been banished from the airwaves altogether

If you watched the studio portion of last night's Football Night in America perhaps you were missing a familiar face that had been on the set since 2007. Or perhaps you didn't. Either way, Keith Olbermann is no longer part of that in-studio cast of thousands as his bosses at NBC want him to focus more on his job as the host of Countdown over on MSNBC. Insert wise-crack about needing to focus and his show's anemic ratings, here.

But perhaps there was another reason why Olbermann was dismissed from the show.

Alternate theory #1: Recall the dust-up last year when Rush Limbaugh was reportedly part of an ownership group that was offering to purchase the St. Louis Rams and the subsequent faux outrage firestorm ginned up by the sporting media world and from within the NFL itself to the point where people were dropping any pretext of objectivity and journalistic integrity and were just making up and/or passing along unseemly quotes to attribute to Rush? We can't have that wing-nutty and probably racist rabble-rouser associated with the prim and proper image we have crafted of the NFL.

Is it possible that NBC execs actually tuned into one or two of Olbermann's Countdown episodes and saw what he was dishing out? After all, likening conserva-babe Michelle Malkin to a "mashed-up bag of meat with lip stick" isn't just political polemics but rather the sort of family-values misogyny the NFL/NBC partnership desires for it's viewers.


Alternate theory #2: Or, possibly because Olbermann fires off inane and sophomoric tweets regarding Rush and the imminently possible Koran-burner down in Florida:

‘Rev.’ Terry Jones was classmate of none other than Rush Limbaugh (Cape Central class of ’69). Coincidence?”

None other

Coincidence?

This be the level of professionalism we've come to expect from the host of a show watched by literally hundreds of people around the country.


Yeah, he probably did need to, you know, focus more on Countdown but we're glass half full kind of people and we want to think that NBC/NFL knew they were being completely hypocritical by keeping on this miserable hack and it would be refreshing that, if true, they would come out and admit as much.

When you lose MSNBC...

Click here for reaction to the President's address to the nation last night.

Chrissy "Tingles" Matthews: "I don't sense executive command".

Take heart, Chrissy, he is going to appoint yet another czar to oversee clean-up operations which will further muddy the chain of command there in the Gulf.

But we're puzzled by why Matthews seems perplexed. Exactly, who was it that he thought he was voting for? Someone with executive experience?

This is the sort of crap that gets us seriously thinking that someone like General Petraeus would possess the proper timber for the toughest job on the planet. We know nothing of the man's politics and quite frankly, at this point, we don't care.

Which got us to thinking, right now: what if someone ran on the platform of promising to do absolutely nothing for, maybe, their first year in office.

Think about it. 2013: a legislation-free jubilee!

Life is easier with pasty white Michiganders

Earlier today, we gave MSNBC host Contessa Brewer some deserved grief for having to live with the distinct possibility that there are one or two Islamic extremists out there wishing to put another crater in a major U.S. city.

"...there are a lot of people who want to use this terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry."

And speaking of believing in a certain way and having different skin color here's how she relates the alleged Times Square bomber with the Hutaree militia that were rounded up in March.

But that being said, I mean, we know even in recent history you have the Hutaree militia from Michigan who have plans to, let’s face it, create terror. That’s what they were planning to do and they were doing so from far different backgrounds than what this guy is coming from. So, the threat is not just coming from people who decide that America is the place to be and you know come here and want to become citizens.

Appears that Contessa didn't get the memo.

Nine members of a Michigan militia will be released from jail pending trial after a federal judge on Monday harshly criticized the government's claim they had conspired to overthrow the U.S. government.

The decision is a significant defeat for federal authorities, who spoke in tough and triumphant terms after arresting members of a southern Michigan group called the Hutaree in March and charging them with conspiracy to commit sedition and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction.

The government "need not wait until people are killed before it arrests conspirators," U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said. "But the defendants are also correct: Their right to engage in hate-filled, venomous speech is a right that deserves First Amendment protection."

If the feds want to head off any criticism that the arrest of these militia men coincided quite curiously with the tea party protests at the Capitol on the weekend of the ObamaCare vote, this is not going to help.

Poor Contessa. We wonder what her thoughts were regarding these militia members and any feelings of "isolation" they experienced and any "failed family ties" they may have been forced to cope with.

Look, we don't like trailer-dwelling, gun-toting, "Christian" meth-heads with bad teeth and bad hygiene any more than the next person. They drive down property values and yes, they may indeed by dangerous.

However, all we're asking for here is a little adulthood. A little maturity where the President doesn't ask for "civility" as he did a few days ago and then turnaround and debase the people who oppose his policies.

And maybe a little professionalism as well. Professionalism in the form of taking a couple days off, in the case of Contessa Brewer, in lieu of making a complete ass of herself as she did regarding the Times Square bomber because god knows, she really, really, really wanted that guy to be some white dude in his forties sporting a "Don't Tread On Me" t-shirt. Things would've gone so much smoother, now wouldn't it have?

Panic on the streets of Boston Pt. II (UPDATED)

We suppose this is what passes for responsible democracy with the liberal-Left. Here’s MSNBC’s Ed Schultz on his radio program Friday breaking out the tried and true variant of “vote early, vote often”.



And guess who’s rolling into town to uh, assist with the electoral proceedings? Why, it’s the purple people-beaters, that’s who.

UPDATE #1: Apparently, not all SEIU folks are in the bag for Coakley. Link here to some pretty awesome pictures of people who seem to be asking, "Hey, what can Brown do for you?".

Yeah, we know, but we couldn't resist.

H/T: Hot Air

Speaks volumes

We ran across article here on healthcare reform written by an advocate of healthcare reform, the Democratic version, which means she merely supports the status quo. Anyway, in a relatively short article, she uses the term “teabagging” or “teabaggers” no less than 3 times.

This is a family site so we won’t get into the gory details but let’s just say this term used by embracers of the status quo against tea party protesters refers to a sexual act that may or may not be outlawed in several Southern states. And if you have been paying much attention to the coverage of the tea party movement and the townhall protests, you know this terminology is not confined to the random columnist here and there but has risen to the level of pro-forma, if not obsessing, at many news and cable outlets, most notably MSNBC.

Imagine that. Describing a sizeable segment of the population by employing a crude sexual term. Imagine that. Defenders of the status quo bemoaning the dumbing-down of the healthcare reform debate using sexually explicit slang to refer to their opposites.

We e-mailed the author of the article asking for an explanation for her adolescent fascination with this derogatory term.

We’ll let you know if the dumb broad* sends us a coherent response. (24 hrs. and counting since we e-mailed).
.
.
.
.

*Perhaps we lack the proper throw-caution-to-the-wind irreverance of other blogs but somehow feel the need to employ the irony asterisk from time to time.

We just hope this doesn’t jeopardize San Diego's spot on the list

But, if you and your crew would rather rage on the beach till dawn, you’re in luck, too, since most city sands have facilities to encourage bonfire booze-fests.

In other news today, MSNBC discovers Susan Golding is no longer the mayor, the Padres don’t play at Jack Murphy Stadium but that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

Now if we could only find this channel....

Chris "The Thrill" Matthews of MSNBC gives an objective assessment of the inaugural proceedings:

(Sorry, inbed no worky. Please click here.)

You know its bad when even Keith Olbermann makes a light-hearted attempt to talk him down off the ledge. Matthews, however, remained undeterred. Hilarious.

… Sluuuurrrp.

Line of the Day

“Regrettably, he didn’t learn anything from the course in Lebanon, where we were taught ethics of journalism and how to be detached and neutral,”

- Zanko Ahmed, a journalist and colleague of Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi TV reporter who hurled his shoes at President Bush over the weekend.

No word yet on whether al-Zeidi will be hosting his own MSNBC show.

H/T: Sweetness and Light

Quickies

Strange and dare we say, intentionally misleading MSNBC article titled, “Bush administration ignored clear warning” regarding the financial crisis and provided only the following to make its case: “Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories,” California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job." Alrighty, then.

Maybe it’s their bad teeth. Simon Warr, the chairman of the British Lap Dancing Association, hoping to dodge some licensing difficulties had this to say with a presumably straight face while at a legislative hearing and being questioned on the specific intent of lap dancing: "All right, the entertainment may be in the form of nude or semi-nude performers, but it's not sexually stimulating."

And now it is time for the airing of grievances. Tree not up, lights not up - Yeah, for whatever reasons (well, we know a couple) we just aren’t feeling the Christmas spirit this year. Call it Fatigue fatigue. So in lieu of the traditional how about a little Festivus? Cyber Tuesday shopping here.

After reading about a diverted flight from San Salvador to LAX that sat on the tarmac in Ontario for 9-1/2 hours on Sunday because of fog at LAX we were reminded of some soul-searching the airlines did to combat the problems of keeping the passengers onboard the plane during extended tarmac timeouts. All this navel-gazing accomplished nothing as the airlines and some goofy passenger bill of rights ignored the obvious.



Folks, chilling out the natives isn’t really all that difficult when common sense logic and fermentation are applied. How this wasn’t even brought up as a possible solution was baffling.

Remote Controls: Not being operated as intended

The Left has Bill O’Reilly to kick around and "we" have Keith Olbermann. We’d “have” him a lot more if we actually watched him as on the rare occasion we do we find his manner and delivery to be overbearing and too demanding of our attention which we've never had just lying around in spades, historically speaking. And his wacko politics aside, he’s just not very entertaining. Sorry, Olby.

So it puzzles us as to why liberals hate O’Reilly so much. They express a hatred that would suggest they torture themselves by actually watching him. Why? So we can only assume that hip-hop group, East Coast Avengers must be avid viewers… avid viewers and self-flagellants to the point they cannot stand their misery any longer and now want to kill Bill O’Reilly.

Story here. Warning: Audio file of song in all its craptastic glory contained, therein. Oh yeah, and some bad language too.

P.S. Many commenters to linked article apparently need to somehow free-up some viewing time as they are urging-on ECA to do the deed.