What If Matt Drudge Accidentally Told the Truth?

My Rumproast co-blogger StrangeAppar8us used to do an occasional series on One-Scoop Wonder Matt Drudge. I thought of Strange when I saw the OOGA BOOGA headline below, so I decided I’d revive Strange’s regular feature.

Here’s the story it links to, which covers Mittens’ NRA speech. In that speech, Mittens regurgitated the NRA’s own paranoid fantasy about Obama, which goes something like this: Obama does fuck-all about guns for four years as part of a fiendishly clever scheme to lull gun owners into a false sense of security and win a second term. And then, just as quick as his hand leaves the bible on his Second Inauguration Day, Obama orders jack-booted ATF agents to go door-to-door to forcibly disarm the populace.

Of course, Mittens himself was all for sensible gun control measures when he was running for and serving as governor of Massachusetts, and unlike the president, Mittens has actually signed gun control legislation. If the NRA were a bipartisan interest group, it would support the president over Romney for that reason.

But the NRA is actually a dismal, dishonest collection of Republican hacks and barrel-stroking, pinwheel-eyed lunatics who believe open-carry permits are required to protect them from rogue turkeys, so it’s entirely in the bag for Gun-Grabber Willard.

As for Mittens himself, who the hell knows what he really believes on the gun issue. He believes he should be president, and he believes there’s no lie too shameless to utter in pursuit of that goal. And his lies will be swallowed, digested and excreted as truth by fellow liars and hacks like Drudge, and the resulting turds will be polished to a high gloss by bottom-feeders like Halperin.

[X-posted at Rumproast]

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Open Thread

I got nothing but a question: Will outrage over Hilary Rosen’s infamous assertion that a gazillionaire with a household staff embedded in multiple mansions might not be the best economic adviser on the affairs of ordinary American women continue, or will the blind hogs find another acorn today?

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Babysitt-AHGH

One thing that’s always bugged the shit out of me is when a man says he has to “babysit” his children. It would annoy me if a woman said that too, but I’ve never actually heard a female use that term in reference to her own progeny.

I bet Mittens would have said it, had the situation ever presented itself. I can imagine a scenario back in the 80s in which the entire Romney Nanny Army was simultaneously stricken with food poisoning while the Missus was astride an Austrian Warmblood at some dressage (fancy horse-dancing) event and the kitchen staff, livery crew and gardeners all pretended not to speak English, leaving poor Mittens to “babysit” all five lads.

As yet another demonstration of his cool, crisis-free management style, Mittens may have simply lashed Snotleigh, Tagamet, Cumberbund, Fontleroy and Snoodle to the roof of his golf cart and kept his tee time with the Marriotts. This is all pure speculation, of course, but the Romneys provided a glimpse into their family life in a recent campaign clip titled, intriguingly, “Family,” and after viewing it, it’s easy to image such a madcap, screwball comedy ensuing.

Ruth Marcus over at Kaplan does a pretty good job of pointing out how the clip, meant to humanize Romney, might backfire with female viewers since it unintentionally portrays Romney as yet another hyperactive brat the long-suffering Missus had to tame between patronizing pats on the head about the importance of Motherhood:

“His consoling words were always the same: Ann, your job is more important than mine.”

This story is supposed to buttress Mitt’s bona fides as a supportive husband, and Ann is, no doubt, a more tolerant spouse than I am. But every time I hear that patronizing line, I imagine responding, “Great. If my job is more important, then you come home and do it and I’ll check into the nice room at the Four Seasons.”

Anyhoo, Marcus goes on to note that the contrast in styles between the Obamas and Romneys would tend to skew the female demographic in the president’s direction. True enough.

The gender gap has widened into a chasm, and because “Game Change” changed exactly nothing—people like Nicolle Wallace and Mark Salter are still running presidential campaigns—it wouldn’t surprise me if Mittens puts someone like Kay Bailey Hutchinson on the ticket. He badly needs an Ambassadress to Planet Vajayjay.

[X-posted at Rumproast]

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My Version of “The Talk”

After the senseless killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Central Florida, some black people were incensed enough by the prospect of their own progeny being gunned down for walking through a residential neighborhood while black that they revealed the existence of “The Talk”—a conversation they have with their youngsters to help the kids avoid Trayvon’s fate. This didn’t set well with certain white grievance mongers.

After breakfasting on “Birth of a Nation,” masticating The Bell Curve and washing it all down with a 151-proof bottle of Ye Olde Imperial Wizard, NRO’s resident white supremacist, John Derbyshire, vomited up a screed in the guise of his own version of “The Talk,” which ABL eviscerated here. Derbyshire’s column on “The Talk” was overt enough in its racism to attract condemnation from “conservatives” who prefer dog whistles to white linens, a dishonesty that Freddie deBoer ably vaporized here.

I can now reveal the existence of yet another version of “The Talk”—this one a heart-to-heart we liberal white women who are raising daughters in Dixie have to help our children navigate life among ignorant bigots, religious fanatics and Derbyshire-class assholes in the rural South:

1) Some 41% of our fellow Americans identify as “conservative;” this is why we can’t have nice things. By “nice things,” I mean things like universal health care, marriage equality and a sane foreign policy. “Conservatives” believe despite all evidence to the contrary that it makes more sense to invade foreign countries, kill tens of thousands of people and spend trillions of dollars in a fruitless effort to convert Baghdad and Kabul into Arlington, Virginia than it does to ensure that American families aren’t one diagnosis away from medical bankruptcy and homelessness.

2) Despite the fact that “conservatives” and “Christians” have dominated civic life in America for centuries and even today ritualistically require candidates for practically any elected office to declare fealty to Jesus, “conservatives” always behave as though they are the victims of anti-religious bigotry. Even though your entire holiday choir program was devoted to Christian-themed songs (well, I think they did the dreidel song too) and that you and your classmates are free to engage in private prayer the entire time you are at school, “conservatives” will insist that the country is going downhill because radical atheists gave Jesus the bum’s rush. You can point out reality and make enemies or privately roll your eyes. The result will be the same. This is what’s called “an article of faith.”

3) Being able to look down on gays makes “conservatives” feel better about their own dumb life choices and misery. That’s why your aunties can’t get married and enjoy the special tax treatment and societal status your father and I enjoy, even though they’ve been in a monogamous relationship for just as long. More »

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Up with the Chickens (Early Morning Open Thread)

Last week, I showed off one of my Australorp chicks. This week’s pullet is a Rhode Island Red:

As you can see, she’s sprouting tail feathers, and her wing feathers have developed sufficiently to allow her to briefly achieve liftoff.

In other news, incredibly, it turns out the late Andrew Breitbart really was the brains of his eponymous outfit. His lackeys continued their “Vetting the Bed”* series yesterday with a piece about how President Obama once scandalously colluded with Chicago Cardinal Bernardin to promote universal healthcare:

The law, had it passed, would have forced the state to enact a plan that, in the Orwellian words of the Chicago Tribune, “permits everyone in Illinois to obtain decent health care on a regular basis by 2002.”

God knows we can’t have that. (More here.)

Anyhoo, what are y’all up to this weekend?

*H/T: different-church-lady

[X-posted at Rumproast]

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Extremely Dumb and Incredibly Obtuse

Breitbart Big Ho editor / Hollywood flop John Nolte dislikes the film “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” because – get this – it “exploits 9/11:”

The film’s biggest problem is that, to put it bluntly, it exploits 9/11. Thomas could’ve died just as easily in a plane crash or boat accident without a single element of the story having to change. For Daldry (working off a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer) to use one of the biggest crimes ever committed against this country as a “device” is truly repulsive and a symptom of a Hollywood bubble so impenetrable that a group of people with the power to make a multi-million dollar film actually thought it was okay to say 9/11 is all about …. me.

God, that’s funny, in a “Union Carbide Bhopal executive complains about worker flatulence” kind of way. Has there ever been a group that has exploited a national tragedy to silence opponents and enact a radical, ruinous agenda as efficiently as the modern GOP humped 9/11 for fun and profit? If so, I was mercifully not alive for it.

John Nolte, whose writing recalls the elegance of Nick Nolte’s mug shot, goes on:

According to [Director Stephen] Daldry and company, what 9/11 is about, though, is the opportunity for a nine-year-old “amateur inventor, Francophile, and pacifist” to trot off on a narcissistic journey of self-discovery while banging his precious tambourine and providing his precious voice over and meeting all the precious people in the precious city of New York. And in the film’s most racially patronizing scene, meeting a group of precious Christians who are of course, Black.

And there you have it in a nutshell, ladies and gents. Wingnuts despised New York City before 9/11 for the same reasons they hate Hollywood, and their grievances against it would match up point-for-point with the Talibans’. Except the Taliban probably don’t hate “the Blacks” as much.

[X-posted at Rumproast]

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What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

So, the GOP is holding its convention in Tampa, Florida—the Lap Dance Capital of the Universe—during the height of hurricane season, when the heat and humidity are enough to prompt Satan himself to prance under the scalding sprinklers for momentary relief.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and the other city bigwigs are coming up with all sorts of rules to try to contain the mayhem, including my personal favorite, which is to limit parades to 60 minutes so the riot cops can take a break from their humidity-retaining Imperial Stormtrooper suits.

They’ve banned all sorts of items, including super-soaker squirt guns and string, from the “protest zone.” But guess what they can’t ban outside the Secret Service perimeter? Actual guns:

Conspicuously absent from the list of potential weapons: Firearms.

That’s because state law bans local governments from placing any restrictions on the carrying of guns in public spaces.

And that’s because the brilliant Rick Scott administration allowed the NRA to run its wish list through the GOP super-majority state legislature. Is it possible for an entire state to perish from terminal stupidity? We may be about to find out.

[X-posted at Rumproast]

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Get Whitey!

It’s a good thing this poorly camouflaged critter lives in my oak tree instead of the fictional setting of the Hunger Games, where he might have fallen under the pitiless gaze of movie huntress Katniss Everdeen. She would have put an arrow right through his little eyeball.

Speaking of those who are hard on the little things—the gentle, helpless creatures—it appears Herman Cain is still pretending to be relevant in the public arena (possibly as an excuse to get out of the house and escape the baleful gaze of Mrs. Cain). He has ads out that depict an adorable bunny being hurled upward and shot-gunned out of the sky and a fish being slowly suffocated to death to protest the stimulus. It’s such a pressing issue these days, you know.

Also, according to a CNN breaking news alert, a CNN/ORC poll finds that “nearly 75% of Americans” think George Zimmerman should be arrested for shooting unarmed teen Trayvon Martin to death. I’m guessing the precise number will turn out to be 73%. Maybe the 27% are the Orcs who were polled?

Please consider this an open thread.

[Cross-posted at Rumproast]

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Or else it gets the hose again… (Open Thread)

Daisy does not like baths.

At all.

Last night I took a pack of screechy teens to see “The Hunger Games.” Meh. I had read the book, and I kept wondering how much sense it would have made to someone who hadn’t read it. Fortunately, it seems most in the packed theater had read it, so the lack of character development wasn’t an issue. Plus, there were hawttt boys.

Today I’ve got to take the kiddo to the ball field for team pictures, then to an away game, where I must keep score. I’m getting pretty good at it, though there are some who question my tentativeness about assigning errors. I say unless it’s a really boneheaded play, the kid doesn’t get an error. Those who disagree are free to keep their own scorecards.

Jesus God, Newt Gingrich is a despicable motherfucker. If I were Queen of the World, I would order him lightly scored with rusty pitchforks, dipped in sulfuric acid, rolled in a bed of broken light bulbs, stuffed into a cannon and fired into a toxic waste dump.

What are y’all up to today?

Open thread.

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Even Better Than the Real Thing

God, I hope this is true. Balloon Juice commenter Dave:

Sweet baby Jesus, you can’t make this stuff up.

Jason Mattera, on behalf of the Breitbart Babies, ambushes Bono of U2 to grill him on why he hides his taxes. Except Mattera interviewed a Bono impersonator instead.

Hahahaha! Hopefully someone saved the videos. Beck’s House o’ Crazy pulled the story, and it’s 404 at Breitbart.com.

UPDATE: Video after the jump… More »

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ZombieBreitbart.com Presents: Eric Holder — The Vettening

As GOP sage Sarah Palin recently noted, President Obama and his terrorist pals were allowed to waltz right into the Oval Office unscrutinized in 2008 while white people Republicans like Ms. Palin were pelted with gotcha questions such as, “What newspapers do you read?”

Andrew Breitbart vowed to address the blatant unfairness of this situation by subjecting all African-American Obama Administration officials to a thorough vetting. After Breitbart’s untimely death, his underlings—the Breitbrats—announced that they would continue Dead Leader’s legacy by presenting an occasional series entitled Negros Said the Darnedest Things On Video in the 90s The Vetting.

After revealing 10 days ago the scandalous footage of a young Barack Obama hugging a black Harvard Law School professor back when Phil Collins was king of the Billboard Hot 100, Breitbrat Joel Pollak unleashes another bombshell sure to rock the Obama Administration to its very foundations. Attorney General Holder was caught on tape intimating that it might be a good idea to convince young people that it’s not cool to “pack heat” or whatever quaint expression they used back when Boyz II Men topped the charts:

“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes.”

Translation: jack-booted DoJ thugs will kick down your door to collect your shootin’ arn in 3…2…1…. Stay tuned next week, when sinister Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett will be revealed as the winner of the 1992 Black Panthers Ladies Auxiliary Brownie Bake-Off!

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It’s a party in the USA

Ezra Klein makes an interesting point about Americans Elect:

[I]f a high-profile incumbent, under threat of a primary challenge from the far right or left, takes the Americans Elect route, the practice could spread. (Are you listening, Senator Dick Lugar?) In that case, Americans Elect could help undermine one of the major methods by which parties enforce ideological discipline. It might give legislators like Bennett, Castle and Murkowski a license to cross the aisle — and survive. Then, if nothing else, we’d see more clearly how much polarization is baked into the system, and how much is a product of the particular people inside it.

Ed Kilgore makes the obvious observation: that teh polarization is really about how far right the Republican party is.

There are plenty of moderate Democrats in Congress, while it’s a vanishing breed in the GOP. For that matter, by any measurement, the Democratic “base” is significantly more diverse ideologically (and in every other way) than its GOP counterpart. All the examples of potentially liberated moderates Ezra cites are Republicans. So it’s reasonable to ask: are Republican moderates more successful in places where the disciplinary power of primaries is weaker?

If Americans Elect becomes an avenue for “independent-minded” candidates to bypass party primaries, you can bet your Charlie Rose tote-bag it will be Bayh-Lieberman-Bloomberg-type Democrats who go third-party to stick it to the silly hippies. Not non-crazy Republicans using an alternate route around the big winger spanking machine.

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The War on (Cardboard) Women

As a woman, I’ve found the GOP’s eagerness to piss us off with all-male sperm-death panels, state-rape ultrasound-wand legislation, FCC-sponsored slut-shaming, etc., kind of puzzling. Not because the modern GOP has ever given a damn about women, but because it seems dumb for a party to go out of its way to alienate more than half of US voters in an election year.

But a post yesterday by Perfesser Heh Indeedy may reveal the real reason behind this disconnect: Conservatives still can’t tell an actual woman from a cardboard cutout:

WAR AGAINST WOMEN: Woman Raped At Occupy New Haven. #Occupyfail.

UPDATE: I suppose that this should come as no surprise considering the signals that have come from the very top of the Democratic establishment:

At the exact moment Jon Favreau is receiving high praise in pre-inaugural media puff pieces, the 27-year-old chief speechwriter for President-elect Barack Obama (not Jon Favreau, the Hollywood actor/ director) finds himself in a minor mess over a photo from a recent private party showing him groping the breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Rodham Clinton as an unnamed pal wearing an “Obama staff” T-shirt kisses and feeds her beer.
If you haven’t seen it, imagine the early stages of the barroom rape scene of “The Accused” with Jodie Foster. Or think prosecutor Mike Nifong’s graphic (though false) descriptions of the Duke lacrosse party. Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson danced to a similar tune at the 2004 Super Bowl. Fraternities have been closed for less.

Here’s the pic, in case you’ve forgotten. No word on whether Favreau was involved in helping accuse Republicans of running a “war against women.”

For my money, one of the best troll smack-downs in the history of the internet occurred right here on Balloon Juice when the Favreau controversy first erupted. I don’t think I can improve on the words our host used then to squash a nincompoop who was confused about the difference between an actual woman and a cardboard cutout, a brainless frat-boy prank and a hideous crime. So I will paraphrase Mr. Cole to address another nincompoop: Do you want to know what is like rape, Perfesser Heh Indeedy? Rape, you stupid fuck.

I’ll only add that every rape is a tragedy, and the wingnut obsession with any sexual assault that occurs in the same ZIP code as an Occupy encampment is creepy. But while Perfesser Heh Indeedy’s willingness to make political hay out of that particular woman’s personal tragedy is breathtakingly craven, it may shed light on a root cause of the gender gap in US politics. Therefore, it cannot be said that the Perfesser is altogether useless as a teacher.

[H/T: Alicublog; x-posted at Rumproast]

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How Exactly Do They Renege?

I know Tim already talked about this, but I guess I am just not understanding the details of what is going on here:

Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are ready to break a hard-fought budget deal with Democrats as they try to quell a revolt by conservatives who are insisting on deeper spending cuts ahead of the November elections.

House Republican aides said on Tuesday that House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor were pressing for a modest $19 billion reduction of discretionary spending caps in this year’s Republican budget plan.

How exactly do they renege on the deal? I thought the agreement was a law, passed by both houses, signed by the President, and a done deal. How do they go back on the law without another law passing both houses and going to the President. What am I not getting here?

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She’s All Yours

After viewing the movie version of “Game Change,” WaPo putz Richard Cohen channels the late David Broder to draw this curious conclusion about “the Palin effect” on US politics:

So far, the Palin effect has been limited to the GOP. Surely, though, there lurks in the Democratic Party potential candidates who have seen Palin and taken note. Experience, knowledge, accomplishment — these no longer may matter. They will come roaring out of the left proclaiming a hatred of all things Washington, including compromise. The movie had it right. Sarah Palin changed the game.

What a steaming load of horseshit. While the left has its share of dunderheads, I’m afraid the Republicans have pretty much cornered the market on prideful ignorance. When was the last time a Democrat on the national stage appealed to the base via anti-intellectualism? William Jennings Bryant maybe? We ceded the Know-Nothing vote for good when the Dixiecrats finally got over Reconstruction and switched party allegiance to the GOP a few generations ago.

As for “a hatred of all things Washington,” all politicians rail against Washington because of its dysfunction, but Democrats aren’t the ones peddling the notion that “government” in the abstract is an evil thing. We have tedious purity ponies who’d rather go hungry than take half a loaf, but they don’t run the party. And Democrats have to compromise because our liberal base is smaller than the GOP’s conservative base; most people in positions of actual power get that.

The Democrats are an exasperating, contentious lot who push me past my patience a hundred times a day. But one of the reasons I stick with them is because the Democratic Party, at least in its current incarnation, is incapable of producing a Sarah Palin.

Former McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt has been making the rounds since “Game Change” debuted, frankly admitting his own complicity in putting forth a “manifestly unprepared” candidate. Schmidt claims the Democrats did something similar when John Edwards became John Kerry’s running mate in 2004.

Edwards certainly was a lightweight and a smarmy, shape-shifting asshole to boot. But if you put aside the sex scandal (and lord knows that’s a bipartisan failing), Edwards belongs in the Romney class of entitled, ambitious jerks rather than in the Palin category of frighteningly ignorant dangers to the republic. Sorry, Republicans: you own Palinism.

[X-Posted at Rumproast]

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