Stunned? - Really?

The old guard GOP establishment must be really nervous about where the nutters are taking the party.



Remember, there are no accidents and no surprises on DumFux News. This was on the air because Roger Ailes wanted it on the air. And it was "shocking" because Ailes intended it to be shocking.

It could represent a direct swipe at The Limbaugh Wing - Rush's been flacking for Gingrich pretty hard lately so the message could be, "OK, you've had your fun, but it's time to end this flirtation and get down to business". 

Unfortunately, that genie's outa the bottle now. There's a TeaBagger Caucus in The House. The big money aggregators helped 'em get organized. They were dispatched to disrupt meetings and throw rocks thru windows. Etc.

Now the GOP Graybeards are nervous about how stupidly fascist the whole thing looks and they're making desperate attempts to get the rubes back in line.

(Driftglass made some great points on The Professional Left podcast this week)

So I'm wondering about the fault lines, and how serious the fracturing will get.

Our Mr Brooks

Everybody just loves taking Bobo down.  And I just love watching it.

From Balloon Juice:

... These traits—narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance—are core to the modern conservative movement, but they are embarrassed by them. They like to pretend they belong to somebody else and so they invented fantasy memories of the 1960s complete with phantom hippies as the home for their shadow material.

Mr Smith Stays In Oregon

Where's this guy been? Why haven't we seen him before?

Closed Loop Sustainability

hat tip = nonny mouse at Crooks and Liars

If You're Stupid And You Know It

I always have a hard time thinking there are people who actually believe this shit. I really do try to think more highly of my neighbors and countrymen, but I have to admit (to myself anyway) that DumFux News wouldn't put it on the air if it wasn't working.

hat tip = Media Matters for America



And the kicker is that the Boca Raton city government was being threatened with lawsuits - not by the evil forces of atheism (which is always the inference invited by the middle school melodrama that is DumFux News), but by "Religious Groups" who were always loudly demanding ever more sectarian displays.  And Jesus wept.

Read all about it.

Dear Governor Perry

hat tip = Balloon Juice

A Money Shot

Given the Clown College visage of the Repub stable of primary candidates, Obama should be a prohibitive favorite for re-election in 2012.  But it's likely to be a close one, and the good folks at Mother Jones can confirm our suspicions as to why that is.

(click the pic and be amazed)

News Poodles

DumFux News viewers got an eyeful recently. (hat tip = Democratic Underground) Some points of emphasis: First, Eva Golinger's comments starting at about 1:45. Second, CNN screwed up on some of its coverage too, but they aired the appropriate correction/apology. Third, DumFux News, of course, made no such attempts to correct the record that I've been able to find (and the original video has mysteriously disappeared from foxnews.com). Which very much reinforces my assertion that when you see this shit on DumFux News, it's no mistake.

Today's Pix

I'm comin' for ya, pretty boy.

New Music

By way of a friend in Oregon (Steve Pancoast - Piece of the Wind):
He referred to this young woman as his niece, but with Pancoast, ya never really know.  Doesn't matter. This video is the best I could find, and while the production values are sketchy, the talent of the players is pretty obvious. And you can follow the link at the bottom to Amazon and sample the tunes as produced in studio.
 

Post Racial Debunked

As if anybody paying any attention at all needs to be convinced or reminded, all mutterings about how "we elected a black guy president and that means we've all gotten over that whole racism thing now" can be officially stamped HORSESHIT.

Blacks have had the poorest chance of receiving the president's ultimate act of mercy, according to an analysis of previously unreleased records and related data.

Current and former officials at the White House and Justice Department said they were surprised and dismayed by the racial disparities, which persist even when factors such as the type of crime and sentence are considered.
"I'm just astounded by those numbers," said Roger Adams, who served as head of the Justice Department's pardons office from 1998 to 2008. He said he could think of nothing in the office's practices that would have skewed the recommendations. "I can recall several African Americans getting pardons."

The full story at Pro Publica.

And a great rundown at Balloon Juice (includes video from The Rachel Maddow Show).

Selectively Predictive

Once upon a time, we heard a lot of blather from the "right" about what we could infer about future events, based on our observations of things happening in a certain place, at a certain time, and in a certain order.

My example here is when Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice were always going on about "the obvious nexus" of Al-Qaeda, Iraq, and WMD.  They put these things together like the pieces of a matched set, and they used it to sell a specific plan of action.

Not to shift gears too abruptly here, but how come the rubes are always willing to buy all the phony shit using the Nexus Argument, and then completely ignore something that's real, and should be just as obvious about the Nexus of Economic Desperation and Access to Firearms?

From Crooks and Liars:

The 38-year-old woman entered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission office in downtown Laredo on Monday afternoon and demanded to speak to a supervisor, said investigator Joe Baeza of the Laredo Police Department.

The woman, whom he declined to identify, pulled out a handgun and started walking through the office, threatening several employees, he said.

And now there are 2 motherless kids in critical condition in a Texas hospital.

Blind Zealotry

Loudoun County in Northern Virginia is a wealthy, and oh so 'conservative' DC suburb - and the sense of Entitled Victimhood is sometimes just a little overwhelming.  Especially when that feeling makes you miss the fucking point entirely.

From Leesburg Today (hat tip to Wonkette):

"I am very upset with what has happened here with this holiday as have been since several holidays ago. This is Christmas," Bill Rusciolelli said. Rusciolelli said he "respects the decision for people to petition and be allowed to represent their beliefs," but said it went too far when displays are allowed that mock religion and religious beliefs of many residents.

Leesburg attorney and father of three, Jack Hanssen said he believed if the board knew what would result, the language governing the displays would have been written differently, and added that the crucified Santa is a "direct attack" on religion.

It is certainly about as close as you come to a burning cross as I have ever seen," he said.

Read the story and be amazed.

Occupy Explained

From Mother Jones:

Americans are not opposed to the rich getting richer—as John Steinbeck is said to have noted, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." But this prospect only satisfies so long as people believe that with luck and hard work, their ship, or at least their kids' ship, may some day come in. In a system overrun by piracy—a system in which the pirates also, sorry to stretch the metaphor, run the Navy—the dream becomes hard to sustain.

Seemed Like A Good Idea

Occupy Melbourne protesters seemed to have hit on a way to thwart efforts to evict them from the park by wearing their tents as clothing. The police had other ideas. If mayors and police chiefs would stop giving Occupiers something to push back against, the thing would most likely just fizzle and die. I guess authoritarians aren't equipped to understand that.