Nancy Smash! shows her gentler side as she twists the knife and entreats Americans to stop her “out of control” ex-friend Steven Colbert’s nefarious use of “secret money from special interests” to attack “my friend Newt Gingrich.”
Cardenas said that the ACU is now offering cards for those that want to be “card-carrying conservatives.” This is an exciting way to support the ACU and also more overtly support conservatism.
Attendees barely had time to finish fanning themselves with their cards and rearranging their vestments before the morning’s heartthrobs Jim DeMint and Marco Rubio took the stage. Meanwhile, backstage, conservative bloggers are preoccupied with the serious business of taking photos of each other engaging in the traditional pre-mating snuggles and flirting.
If you’re a real sucker for punishment, you can watch a livestream here (which, in typical enterprising fashion, times out periodically and pesters you to sign up to the ACU, though a refresh easily dodges such untoward advances), but I’m sure we’ll dip in over the two days if something suitably outrageous or snarkworthy’s on the menu. A PDF of the full schedule is here, a summary of what the ACU considers the “highlights” here.
Over at Salon, Mark Oppenheimer has a longish, interesting piece on Maggie Gallagher, NRO hack, NOM founder and arguably the most prominent opponent of marriage equality in the US. I read it because the thing that has always puzzled me most about the gay marriage controversy is why those who oppose it are so convinced it is a threat to straight marriage, and I wondered if Gallagher would offer any fresh rationales. Alas, no.
As Oppenheimer says, for fundamentalists, the answer is straightforward enough, if kooky. But I’ve never heard people who accessorize their opposition to gay marriage with supposedly secular arguments make a convincing case for why marriage equality is bad for society in general. The arguments always come down to someone’s personal conviction that it must be so, and that conviction is almost invariably derived from a personal experience projected planet-wide.
Gallagher is no exception: For her, it all boils down to her unshakable conviction that the ideal for every child is to be raised by its biological parents and that the institution of marriage must be exclusively about facilitating that arrangement or else, I dunno, cats and dogs, living together. She offers no convincing evidence for this conviction and baldly asserts that there is no evidence to the contrary that could convince her otherwise.
And yet I’m still fully prepared to bitch about having to walk nine blocks uptown in the cold to give a cat fluid therapy (it’s like dialysis, that’s not a fancy way of saying “a bath”). If I had any less perspective I’d be a cardboard cutout of myself.
Come to think of it, if I tried to give Sebastian a bath I’d end up like a Syrian rebel, but with more bleeding and less dignity.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/09/12 at 08:43 AM
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That’s one for every state Mittens lost yesterday, or rather, very early today, to the little man in the tight-fitting conservatism. Congratulations, Rick Santorum, you’re this week’s NotMitt! You have now won more contests than the putative front-runner. Oh, he’ll still get the nomination in the end, with his deep pocketed PAC and their Hortastic negative advertising genius (and now you can probably expect a little more of that genius to be expended on you, you Washington insider you). But thanks are in order, Rick. You have not only won three states; you’ve underlined what the Democraps already know about the Republican electorate: Mitt Romney? Do.Not.Want.
Can you hardly contain yourself? TPM is showing, at 9:17 EST, New NotMitt Fave Rick Santorum ahead in Missouri and Minnesota. Could it be his night? Do we love our Cornhole?
Division: Editorial Location: Washington, D.C. Job Type: Full Time Career Level: Entry Level Education: Bachelor’s Degree Category: Administrative and Support Services Position: Upright with Arched Back
Job Description : The Washington Post has an immediate opening for an editorial aide to influential columnist and human-sheep hybrid Richard Cohen. This position is perfect for an organized self-starter who derives satisfaction from handling multiple tasks, working independently on long-term projects, and making creepy old pervs think they’ve got a chance. The successful candidate will be a critical thinker, sophisticated reader and will have excellent writing, computer and communication skills, and can run around a desk fast enough to evade a pursuer but not so fast that he’ll give up the chase.
We are looking for an assistant who is college-educated, communicates effectively, brings energy and initiative to their work, and looks good in black. Web-savvy applicants preferred, but the main thing is, you’ve got to be able to give Cohen an erection, because the only other way he can achieve arousal is through irresponsible warmongering, and we’ve got a whole stable of former Bush administration hacks to take care of that.
CORRECTION: Due to a clerical mistake, the exhortation “to spill blood” in yesterday’s Law-Sayer column was incorrectly preceded by “not.” The Post regrets the error.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/07/12 at 05:20 PM
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Brian Beutler at TPM wonders if the GOP plans to follow Paul Ryan down the kill-Medicare rabbit hole again in an election year and concludes that yes, they do:
Why on earth would Republicans put the whole party back on the line? Particularly after a year of serial brinkmanship and overreach that has dragged their popularity down to record lows?
The answers speak as much to the hubris of this GOP majority as it does to the fact that the party’s in thrall to a movement that demands unyielding commitment to a platform of reducing taxes on high-income earners and rolling back popular, though expensive, federal support programs.
Ryan & Co. plan to coat the poison pill with saccharine-flavored provisions (inexplicably) contributed by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, which were soundly rejected by Wyden’s fellow Democrats when the “bipartisan” agreement was announced a couple of months ago.
However, the sham “compromise” backed by Wyden puts the GOP in the unenviable position of having to explain subtleties to two different audiences with opposing agendas: It doesn’t accomplish the utter annihilation of Medicare the tea party extremists want since it contains a “public option” (no, really) that purports to preserve the program in its original form rather than leaving seniors entirely to the tender mercies of the private insurance industry.
But it does tie the cost of the “public option” version of Medicare to market permutations, which would almost certainly drive costs up for seniors, many of whom are Republicans. The devil is in the details, but it’s hard to see how this could actually save money without reducing benefits or raising costs.
As Beutler notes, Democrats are happy to have this debate again, especially in an election year. But should they be? Does Wyden’s participation provide a sufficient fig leaf for the “zombie-eyed granny starver”? I’m thinking not, though surely outfits like PolitiHack will do their utmost to muddy the waters.
Thanks to alert Balloon Juice commenter WereBear, I learned that Rush Limbaugh was possibly caught on film picking his snoot in Patriot owner Robert Kraft’s booth during last night’s Super Bowl. There is much speculation about it on the Google: Did he or didn’t he shove his finger knuckle-deep into his nostril in full view of all the swells in the skybox, including Steven Tyler?
Deadspin has a pretty definitive photo here. However, some wingnut site called the “Daily Rushbo” gives the clip the Zapruder treatment and concludes that no nose-picking occurred. Not content to rely on the analysis of someone daft enough to run a Limbaugh fan site, I used advanced digital still analysis techniques and found that the truth is far worse than the original rumor.
First, here’s the Deadspin still:
And here’s a detailed view of Limbaugh in mid-pick—the enhanced image clearly shows a viscous, green glob of mucus dangling from his index finger:
And a couple of frames later, the horrible truth is revealed: Not only did Limbaugh extract a slimy, revolting booger from his snout, he disposed of it by wiping it on the back of his host, Mr. Kraft.
Jesus, that’s disgusting. But it kind of puts the NFL ownership’s rejection of Limbaugh’s bid to join their little club in a new light, doesn’t it? It’s not that the owners were put off by Limbaugh’s constant race-baiting and misogyny; it’s just that he’s one crass motherfucker.
We may be the world’s sole remaining superpower, but there are still challengers to the throne, and whether it’s Cold War nostalgia or a decade of well-publicized moral compromise on our part, I for one find it comforting that the commies are the bad guys again. Makes it that much more likely that the bloodshed can be ended by a lone catchphrase-spouting musclehead. Okay, that’s definitely Cold War nostalgia.
Hey, so how’re Bill Keller and the rest of the “Hillary for Veep” morons feeling about all this? You guys really want Biden minding the tinderbox? Because I’m not sure if y’all are aware of this—it may have been mentioned in passing once or twice—but the man’s a bit of an oaf. It’s part of his charm, but, y’know, maybe not quite the personality trait you’re looking for in someone whose job is to stave off international conflagration. Hell, if he was Secretary of State we’d still be putting out the fires from his comically botched attempt to lie about our involvement in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. And I mean actual fires, like I can totally see Biden burning down the briefing room by accident while trying to distract the press corps with Zippo tricks.
Anyway, now comes the hard part: deciding what color to use for our Twitter backgrounds.
UPDATE: if you search for “Syrian bombardment” on Google Video, the sixth hit is this:
What was I saying about being a superpower?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/06/12 at 12:41 PM
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If you’re anything like me, you’re a big sissy whose lack of interest in sports has led to enormous gaps in your cultural literacy, so hopefully you’re nothing like me, but if you’re exactly like me, you made the 5th-grade class bully cry. What happened was, he got stuck with you on his touch-football team in gym class, and apparently you were “off sides,” and he got very upset about this. To this day you don’t know what “off sides” means, but you did make a bully cry, so maybe you’re not that big a sissy after all.
Anyway, here’s a real giant. Not so much the other thing!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/05/12 at 10:18 PM
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The occupant of today’s ducking stool is a post by Erick Erickson that is entitled—I shit you not—“The Perversion of the Words of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sinner Barack H. Obama.” CottonMather CottonMatherson waxes theological for 1,500 words or so, returning to variations on the word “pervert” with such alarming frequency as to inspire concern for Georgia’s dairy goat population.
The post is such a textbook demonstration of moral obtuseness, ignorance and conceit that to put it through the Ensnarkerator seems superfluous. Instead, I’ll turn the analysis of Preacher SonOfAPreacherman over to Emily J. Brontë, who described a similar (but harder-working) character thusly:
He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.
Speaking of assholes, we’ve got our own low-rent version of Sarah Palin in the Florida legislature: State Senator Ronda Storms. She just introduced a bill to ban welfare recipients from using food stamps to purchase cakes, cookies, Jello and potato chips. Is it because she’s concerned about good nutrition? Hell no. Storms wants to make sure a struggling single mom can’t buy her child an Oreo because Storms is a self-righteous, sanctimonious jackass.
And naturally, Storms is another tiresome god-botherer who would make Jesus, if he existed, puke his holy guts out. Her continued existence, unsmited, is all the evidence I need that Bill Maher has it right in the clip down yonder.
So, it’s Super Bowl Sunday. What are y’all cooking for the occasion, if anything? Does anyone have a good recipe for onion dip that does not include Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix? I intend to try this Alton Brown recipe unless someone has a better suggestion.
Also, Giants or Patriots? I’m not particularly fond of either team (my team is the sucky Bucs), but I’m leaning toward the Giants for no particular reason.
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