Today's Pix

Stewart's On Fire

Gotta see this one - Comedy Central

Racist Asshole Alert

From Addicting Info:

And, yes, Obama’s race is a factor, contrary to what conservatives will (and always) say. Lynching a black man – even symbolically – in the South is a deliberate statement. It’s meant to invoke the “good ol’ days” when white southerners could terrorize the African American community with impunity. When contacted about this by Burnt Orange Report, Johnson responded, “I don’t really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not. You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don’t give a shit. If you don’t like it, don’t come down my street.”

This is terrorism.  Luckily, this particular act is on the low end of the Terrorism Spectrum, but I can't help thinking it's just more evidence that we're a little closer to pickin' up the Civil War where we left off.

Connections

I don't know what's up here, but it smells really bad and I just wanna get something posted that maybe starts me stroking in the right direction.

From Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone:

The great mystery story in American politics these days is why, over the course of two presidential administrations (one from each party), there’s been no serious federal criminal investigation of Wall Street during a period of what appears to be epic corruption. People on the outside have speculated and come up with dozens of possible reasons, some plausible, some tending toward the conspiratorial – but there have been very few who've come at the issue from the inside.

We get one of those rare inside accounts in The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins, a new book by Jeff Connaughton, the former aide to Senators Ted Kaufman and Joe Biden. Jeff is well known to reporters like me; during a period when most government officials double-talked or downplayed the Wall Street corruption problem, Jeff was one of the few voices on the Hill who always talked about the subject with appropriate alarm. He shared this quality with his boss Kaufman, the Delaware Senator who took over Biden's seat and instantly became an irritating (to Wall Street) political force by announcing he wasn’t going to run for re-election. "I later learned from reporters that Wall Street was frustrated that they couldn’t find a way to harness Ted or pull in his reins," Jeff writes. "There was no obvious way to pressure Ted because he wasn’t running for re-election."

And from Reuters (via The Agonist):

With less than two months to go before the U.S. presidential election, a new survey found 61 percent of Americans say a candidate's commitment to rooting out corporate wrongdoing will be key in deciding who gets their vote.

Along with keen interest in knowing each candidate's plans to fix the struggling economy, voters want government to do more to fight corporate misconduct - which they say helped cause the financial crisis.

"In these difficult economic times, Americans are mad as hell about corporate wrongdoing and are going to do something about it in the November elections and beyond," said Jordan Thomas, a partner at law firm Labaton Sucharow, which commissioned the survey and which represents corporate whistleblowers.

This is the first I've heard of a continuing disgruntlement over Corruption Inc - it seemed to me that it had been pushed way down the list of priorities.  But when I stop and put some thought into it, I start to see it making some real sense.  How do you fix the problem of Too Much Big Money In Politics if you don't fix the problem of Private Up-Side and Public Down-Side?

Oh yeah - no more thing.  When your clear-eyed and sensible Repub friends start yammerin' about how we need lots more deregulation to "unleash the mighty power of unfettered American free-market know-how", see if this rings a bell for 'em (from an AP story cited in the comments at The Agonist referenced above - and got practically no mention anywhere):

A Texas company that profited for decades by supplying mentally disabled workers to an Iowa turkey plant at wages of 41 cents per hour must pay the men $1.37 million in back wages, a federal judge ruled late Tuesday.

The judgment against Henry's Turkey Service in Goldthwaite is the third of more than $1 million against the company after state authorities in 2009 shut down a dilapidated bunkhouse in rural Iowa where the men had lived since the 1970s.

Pic O' The Day

Obama should win this thing, but don't get cocky.  Make sure your ass is registered today, and in line early to vote on Nov 6th.  And just to be sure - go to the nearest OFA office and make some phone calls or somethin'.  If you want this to stick, then ya gotta help turn people out.  Most people have already made up their minds, so turnout is everything now.

Proud To Be

...an Obama Wonk

What - too much?

(stolen from The American Conservative)

Almost Missed It

So, Willard - that bit about "one nation, under god; indivisible..."?  What the fuck, douche-nozzle?

Even Peggy Noonan?

It's a pretty bad sign when practically every pundit who pretends to be down the middle bails on your campaign.

Peggy Noonan, Rupert Street Journal:

It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one. It’s not big, it’s not brave, it’s not thoughtfully tackling great issues. It’s always been too small for the moment. All the activists, party supporters and big donors should be pushing for change. People want to focus on who at the top is least constructive and most responsible. Fine, but Mitt Romney is no puppet: He chooses who to listen to. An intervention is in order. “Mitt, this isn’t working.”

--snip--

Romney always seems alone out there, a guy with a mic pacing an empty stage. All by himself, removed from the other humans. It’s sad-looking. It’s not working.

Maybe he seems alone because he's leading the charge of the minority.  As it becomes more and more obvious that he appeals only to an ever-shrinking number of insiders, why would anybody be surprised to see him campaigning in front of ever-dwindling crowds, while being accompanied by fewer and fewer GOP stars?

BTW1: In spite of all the pearl-clutching and pleas to "party elders, to the extent you exist...", Noonan and the "Smart Right" are helping the TeaBaggers put up the context that will push the GOP even farther to the extreme right.

BTW2: how does Peggy Noonan keep getting paid to write this junk?  A true testament to Wingnut Welfare.

The Great Debunking

Wonkette is possibly the best place on the planet.  I wish I could vacation there.

ROMNEY: THE THINGS I SAY ALL THE TIME ARE DEBUNKED AND SELECTIVELY EDITED

BY JESSE TAYLOR

As it turns out, we need not see what was in those missing two minutes of video from Romney Gone Wild: 47% Of His Clothes Off. Willy Mittens is now declaring the video “debunked and selectively edited” for some reason.

Favorite comment:

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New Journalism

Andrea Seabrook left NPR a little while ago and has (finally) put up her first episode of DecodeDC.

You can go to Mule Radio and subscribe via iTunes or RSS for free.

And this is the tune playing in the background at the end of the piece:

The Illusion Of Choice

The freedom and justice of the Marketplace is more and more just empty sloganeering.

(click to make it bigger)

Today's Pix

A New Thing

Big national campaigns almost always give us some memorable slogans or phrases.

There you go again.
Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy
Welfare Queens

Soledad O'Brien may have come up with one last night.  At about 5:10 she coins the phrase "The myth of the Deadbeat Nation".


And BTW - Bay Buchannan seems to be fairly gasping for air trying to beat this thing down.

Fast forward to the first coupla years of Willard's first term, and imagine what happens when he's faced with some majorly snarled problem in - oh, I dunno - the Middle East or SW Asia or North Africa or wherever.  We'll have Willard out front saying some kinda stupid shit that he thinks only Americans can hear, while his State Dept team is saying something exactly the opposite to the rest of the world because they're trying to keep from being barbecued inside our embassy in Western Fuckedupistan - and then we'll spend the next 7 or 8 years trying to get ourselves out of the shooting war that Sec Def Lyndsey Graham absolutely knew was a great way to settle the issue etc etc etc.

DO NOT put these clowns in charge of anything more complicated than a Saturday morning carwash down at the local high school.

Unproved

But wouldn't it be just too sweet if Obama's buttons were Union Made in the USA (which I think is verifiable), and Romney's buttons all had the Made In China label (probably not true).