Conason

Joe Conason is one of my favorite journalists. He's a no bullshit kind of guy and is a throwback to the old journos who just wrote what they saw. No personal viewpoint injected into the issue -- just straight up tell it like it is.

Glad to see MSM is booking him as a talking head on their usually stilted and slanted shows. His presence alone makes it worthwhile to watch.

Here he decimates the idiotic ACORN "sting" clowns.





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Fox gets the red-ass treatment . . . .

Rick Sanchez goes on the air and calls Fox News liars and journalistic frauds to their faces. And the best part about it (other than the fact it's true) is that he used evidence culled from Fox's own broadcast material to support his devastating charge.

A deliciously wonderful ass-reaming of Fox by Mr. Sanchez -- which earns him a medal of bravery from this interested observer.

More of it.






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Led around by their nose-rings . . .

I honestly wonder whether or not the teabaggers that marched on the Capitol last weekend have any semblance of a clue as to how masterfully they are being played like a fiddle by some very savvy, very elite, and very cynical people.

In this clip Bill Moyers peels back the layers of fraud and hypocrisy from the two faces of the Teabagger movement's sugar daddy for the moment -- former GOP Congressman Dick Armey and his sneeringly named organization "Freedom Works."

Sickening to the point of nausea -- so beware.






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Certifiably . . . .

. . . . INSANE!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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The death of manufactured parody . . .

You just simply cannot make this shit up. How can you create human comedy better than this?






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The difference between them and I . . .

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

So here's some additional justification as to why I have such vituperative, negative feelings against conservatives of the right-wingish kind. You tell one of these "super patriot" (and they are super patriots, because they remind you of it incessantly) wingnuts that some insane muslim terrorists just killed 3,000 Americans and hoo boy, they're ready for war -- ready to send little Johnny and little Sally off to a foreign land to kill and die for the fatherland. Ready to bankrupt the national treasury for a little blood revenge. Ready to allow their leaders to use The Constitution as a wad of toilet paper to wipe their asses with.

But you just try to tell this same conservative that lack of access to basic health care kills 45,000 of his fellow Americans every year, and he just shrugs his shoulders and says, "oh well, probably just a bunch of lazy welfare bums that deserved it anyway - it ain't my problem."

And I guess that in a nutshell explains why I'm not on their side.



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Czars, Czars, Everywhere the Czars! . . .

Well, I suppose it's time I provide my jaded, albeit informed, view on this issue.

Problem is, there is so much idiocy surrounding the teabagger movement and their myriad grievances, there isn't enough time in the day (or a week for that matter) to address all of it in a timely fashion.

So -- let's take look at one of the more vocal wingnut accusations. Obama's scary Czars! BOO!

I'll dispense with this nonsense without too much bombast. Suffice to say, it's a crock of uninformed shit.

Here's a link with an in-depth analysis of which administrations have had which "Czars" and how many they had. OOOPS! Seems the George W. Bush administration had more Czars than Obama has.


[CZAR CHART FROM WIKIPEDIA]


Why weren't the wingers screaming about Bush's Czars?? Why? Is it because he was your favorite Republican President and it's ok if you are a Republican, but not OK if you are a Democrat. Do you know the definition of the word "hypocrisy"?

Please explain why Bush's Czars were more acceptable than Obama's? I'd love to hear the logic behind that argument. My comments section is open -- even if you want to be anonymous.



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The neo-clowns do protesteth . . .

For some reason I'm of the urge to fart in the general direction of this op-ed in the conservative rag the Weekly Standard. Pffffft!

It's a brazen, and in typical neo-con fashion, incoherent rant about the Obama administration's decision to scrap a missile defense system, planned under the Bush administration, which was to have been built in the Czech Republic and Poland. The planned system had not been supported by the Czech or Polish people at large, but the Bush administration strong-armed their then governments into backing it.

Setting aside the technological and strategic nuances of the decision - I truly find it laughable that the protestations of the neo-con's and their pimps at the Weekly Standard (Bill Kristol's enclave) should be lent any credence. These are the same people who on August 6, 2001 (one month before 9/11) were given a briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US", and completely ignored it -- while steaming full speed ahead with their plans to pre-emptively invade Iraq. Gee! How'd that plan work out for you boys??

The bottom line is - the neo-cons and Bill Kristol and his shitty magazine are quite simply put -- people who have squandered what little credibility they ever had in the foreign policy arena with their disastrous Iraq adventure. They have been proven to be wrong over and over and over again and the consequences to America's security and worldwide credibility have suffered as a result.

So my advice to Obama and Robert Gates is to ignore the neo-con temper tantrum and proceed with what you feel is in the best interest for America's and Europe's long-term security.


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Oh Sweet Irony . . .

Good lord!

The teabaggers are now bitching about the horrible level of service of the publicly funded subway system in Washington, D.C. over the weekend for their Whine-Fest.

Here's a novel thought -- perhaps the teabaggers should have gone with the private option (cabs, rental cars) instead of the public option (subway) -- bada bing!

It's nothing short of pure comedy gold from people who claim to want government out of everything ---- except that is ---- when they have a need for it themselves.


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**UPDATE**: The GOP Congressman who went public with his complaints of shitty metro train service on Teabagger Saturday 9/12 voted AGAINST Federal funding for the very same Metro he’s now blaming for offering the tea partiers substandard service.

Fucking priceless!



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The WSJ - taking assklownery to new levels of absurdity . . .

The consistently goofy and perennially wrong Wall Street Journal editorial page asks the burning question that's on all Enquiring right-winger's minds:

Obama and Acorn
Is there a case for a special prosecutor?

Let me get this straight.

Lying about blow jobs = special prosecutor.

Loose association with ACORN = special prosecutor.

Lying America into a needless war that's resulted in untold death and destruction, a bankrupt national treasury, and a world image and reputation so shattered it will take decades to undo the damage = [sound of crickets chirping].

James Taranto -- you sir are an assklown. How big of a bonus did Rupert Murdoch pay you under the table (and we all know what you were really doing under Uncle Rupert's table don't we?) to write that stupendously juvenile drivel?

As a matter of fact, this editorial is such a magnificent specimen of assklownery, I can't even find an equivalent picture that will do it justice to post along with it.

Amazing.



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Assklowns - - All of them. . .

GOP Governor of my birth state Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, boldly orders his state government to suspend funding of the evil Darth (or Dark?) Vader's Imperial Forces known as ACORN.

The punchline to the joke is of course that ACORN does not currently, nor has ever, received any funding from the state of Minnesota.

More proof that the ACORN hysteria is nothing more than a bunch of manufactured red-meat idiocy that's being spoon-fed to the red-state rubes by the FOX and AM hate radio circus ring-leaders just to rile them up about the "imminent" muslim, black panther takeover of 'Murrica.

Funny shit, if it weren't so depressingly pathetic.



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Another day, another faux outrage with the wing-nuts . . .

I'm not going to waste a whole lot of valuable blog space and time rummaging through the sordid details of the conservative ACORN "stings" that have recently occurred.

Suffice to say I find it highly interesting that right-wingers have focused their child-like rage on a long-established community organizing (dirty words to conservatives) group that prior to last fall's election was hardly ever talked about or heard about (they've been in existence for nearly 40 years) in the mainstream media.

What's most interesting (yup - here it comes) is that in 2007 and 2008 ACORN made a very public and coordinated national effort to register as many low-income and minority voters (uppity negroes and beaners!) as possible in preparation for a major get out the vote effort for the 2008 Presidential election. Keep in mind this voter outreach program started long before anyone knew who the eventual nominees would be. So - combined with the fact that the Democratic nominee turned out to be a liberal, highly educated (uppity) half-black (negro) man -- it seems a little more than obvious to this interested observer why the conservatives have shown such a sudden and intense interest in an organization such as ACORN and pretty much explains why they've ramped up their big-lie media machine to smear them in any way possible.

Has ACORN had some cases of internal malfeasance by their low-paid workers when it comes to voter registration. Yes they have, just as conservative voter outreach orgs have. However, in every single case with ACORN the national organization has reported such transgressions to the proper authorities, local law enforcement investigations were performed and the offenders were dismissed and/or held legally accountable.

One thing to remember -- and the dim-bulb conservatives are blithely ignorant of this fact -- voter registration fraud does not equate to actual voting fraud. I swear, there have been times where I've tried to explain this very simple distinction to conservative acquaintances, and the only response I get is glazed-over eyes, and head-shaking denials.

Basically, what voter registration fraud means is that some not too bright wise guys, in an attempt to satisfy their registration quotas, stupidly or lazily filled out and submitted phony registration forms with names like Mickey Mouse, Jack Daniels, Marie Callender, Jose Cuervo, etc., etc. However, it would actually require someone showing up on voting day at a voting precinct and actually attempting to cast a ballot based on the name/address of the faked registration for it to legally qualify as voter fraud (a serious felony). Duh!

To date there have been no prosecutions of ACORN staffers for that kind of actual voting fraud - none, nada, zero, zilch (regardless of what Hannity, Beck, Limpballs and FOX have told you to believe). Factcheck.org did some in-depth analysis of the ACORN charges after John McCain and Sarah Palin accused ACORN of "massive voter fraud" in the run-up to last November's election. Read it if you care to know the truth, ignore it if you choose to propagate your own ignorance on the subject.

So, if my conservative friends truly insist on playing this game with me of who has been officially and legally prosecuted the past couple of years for actual voter fraud (a rare occurrence by Dems or Repubs btw) please just let me know. I've got some interesting links you can read about of actual cases and, lo and behold, they have nothing to do with ACORN's voter outreach efforts. I'll reiterate -- I challenge anyone to show me a single documented case where ACORN was charged with, prosecuted and convicted of actual voter fraud. E-mail me your sourced links. I await with breathless anticipation.

Lastly -- let's take a close look who's pimping these stories the hardest -- yep-- that's right -- it's our good friends and journalistic super heroes at FOX Noize. And of course we all know that the gallant and honorable defenders of truth, justice and The American Way at FOX Noize would never, ever just make shit up, put it on the airwaves and claim that it's true ---- would they?





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Batting 000.000 --- still . . .

Awesome!

Queen Bee of the Obama "Birther" nuts, Orly Taitz, get's told by a Judge to stop fucking wasting his and the court system's time and taxpayer's money with her mind-numbingly ridiculous lawsuits challenging Barack Obama's citizenship status.

What - isn't this like the 3rd or 4th different court to tell this imbecile and her zombie army to fuck off?

How many chances is someone supposed to get in the public court system to try and have a proven, frivoulous lie validated? I think after the 2nd loss, the assklown that brings any additional court cases that are tossed out for the same, frivolous reason ought to be sent a bill for the cost of the entire proceedings. I guarantee -- they start doing that and you'll see stupid shit like this dry up pretty damn quick.


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When parody = truth . . .

I sure am glad there are other folks out there who recognize the Kafkaesque, absurd irony of an underclass of people throwing their own self interests under the bus by defending the "rights" of the big corporations and wealthy elites to hoard even bigger slices of the American financial and American Dream pies than they already have.

What depressing fucking times we live in.






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Why don't they just let the Health Insurance lobbyists write the bill? You'll get the same result.

Pardon me for saying so but ... something about the fact this guy Wendell Potter spent his entire career enriching the profit margins of one of the largest health insurance outfits in the country kinda/sorta helps the credibility part along you know?





Blue Dog Democrat Max Baucus owes his Senate longevity to the health insurance industry through their generous campaign donations to him over the years. Frankly, I'm of the belief that putting trust in Max Baucus to write a Health Care Reform bill that actually betters the lives of the Americans who are in dire need of fair and affordable health care is the equivalent of entrusting Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh with responsible use of the public airwaves. It is very simply --- stupid fucking foolishness.



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70,000 or 1.7 million - eh - what's the difference?

Glenn Beck has constructed a very well compensated career out of public dissembling so it's no surprise he would go on his network and push even more bombastic lies about his self-created importance.

Beck was on Fox this morning claiming that some mysterious, unnamed "University" who are purportedly experts at calculating body space (sic) (ROFLMAO - I know -- you can't make this shit up -- unless you are Gleen Beck) estimated 1.7 million people attended the teabagger hate fest in the nation's capital this past Saturday.

The Washington D.C. fire department gave an initial estimate of 60 - 70 thousand. Other media outlets have been reluctant to give an official head count number (mainly out of fear of the right-wing screeching that would result), but they all seem to be of the consensus that the turnout was in the "tens of thousands" range, which incidentally, any honest, self-respecting, grass-roots political organization would be proud to boast of. Nonetheless, the truth wasn't good enough for Beck and Friends.

The lying about the crowd size truly is nothing more than the right-wing leadership and their zombie followers desperately trying to stave off a very simple truth being known about their movement -- which basically is that it's nowhere near as popular as they've made it out to be and it's actually more of a corporate manufactured and sponsored astro-turf movement than a true grass roots citizen movement.

It's actually kind of pathetic when you think about it. They are behaving just like attention starved children who have no compunction about resorting to outright lies in order to get someone to acknowledge their annoying, albeit noisy, temper tantrums and it reflects directly on the credibility of their leaders and organizations as a whole.





**UPDATE**: Apparently the desperation level of the right wingers is so high that they began circulating on the web a 12 year old aerial photo of a Washington, D.C. Promise Keepers event that had attracted nearly a million people. They are attempting to pass it off as being a photo from this past weekend's event.

Now there's dishonesty you can count on!


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It's about goddamn time . . .

AP Source: NY Attorney General preparing charges against BofA execs over Merrill Lynch deal

By STEPHEN BERNARD AP Business Writer
NEW YORK September 14, 2009 (AP)

B of A recently jacked my Mastercard interest rate up from 14% to 29% out of the blue. Never missed a payment, always paid more than the minimum and that's my reward for being a good customer.

Hopefully Cuomo is successful and puts a few of these slithering bankster pieces of shit behind bars for a very, very long time. It's justice that is long overdue.


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Pod People

Words escape me . . .





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I stray . . . .

I am.


This.









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The teabaggers have had their say . . . Infromed!

You almost (almost!) feel bad picking on them. It's like when you were a kid and laughing at the retard kids riding the short bus to school. (please - no e-mails about how politically incorrect the word 'retard' is). I'm in no mood for sanctimony today.

Hmmmmmm . . . .

Here's a genuine Communist party slogan.























Here's Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project slogan. Who's the real socialist?


















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Closure? . . .

Have the teabaggers finally and mercifully shuffled off in to their corporate paid for charter buses and headed back home to hillbillyville?

God knows they sure made an impression with their march yesterday. Don't matter that the impression is as impressive as Glenn Beck's IQ, it's an impression nonetheless.

I wish I could feel some empathy with them or sympathy for them ---- but I don't.

Oh well -- tomorrow is another day. And more right-wing assholery to battle.


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No more Mr. Nice Guy . . . .

Hey Bill Kristol and Fox Noize -- here's some bipartisanship for you: fuck off AND stick it up your right-wing ass!




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I'll put it this way . . . .

Nothing to say ---- the man speaketh for himself.





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