Megadoofus

Just caught the tail end of Chris Matthews interviewing Mark Halperin and Sean Wilentz. Is there a dumber presser than Halperin? Is it possible that one exists?

Bad Day for the Arts

Today (well, yesterday now...) we learned that two giants have died. Playwright Harold Pinter, one of the giants of modern theater, and Eartha Kitt, according to no less than Orson Welles, the sexiest woman alive, have moved on to the great theater in the sky. We are all diminished by their loss.

Torturama

If you're opposed to torture (and who except the Neanderthals in the Bu$hCo Administration and the MSM isn't?), take a read of Meteor Blade's post today at DailyKos. It'll make you think and it'll make you mad....always a good combination.

Oh, and sign the petition to prosecute!

The Upside....

...of the auto bailout, he says while watching CNBC this morning, is that it just might make Larry Kudlow's head explode on live TV. The NERVE of the government! Bailing out people who sweat for a living! Unacceptable!!!!

Bailout? Bankruptcy?

I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the auto bailout, other than to quake with fear if something isn't done. Kevin at MoJo has a good summary to his post on the subject today:

This is the "prepackaged bankruptcy" option that's been mooted a few times before. It actually sounds like a decent compromise to me: it keeps the companies from imploding in the middle of a huge recession, but at the same time it gives a bankruptcy court considerable leeway to impose serious restructuring of the kind that a political process probably can't. The end result — if it's done right — is a pair of companies that will end up smaller but still viable in the long term, and an economy that takes only a moderate hit instead of a killing blow. Call me tentatively in favor of this approach.

Thus far, it seems the most sensible suggestion.

Rick Warren?!?!

The Rick Warren? The guy who went from perceived moderate to Jerry Falwell territory with his support (and explanations of his support) for Prop 8? That guy? To give the Inaugural Prayer? What did we do to piss Barack off?

Bush Boo-ed Nay Shoed In Iraq

Shrub was blathering at a presser in Iraq during his World Victory Retirement Tour and apparently an Iraqi reporter SNAPPED. The guy threw both shoes at our Maximum Leader (a DREADFUL insult in the Arabic world). Priceless video!!!

Great DADT Rant

John at Americablog has a post up about Lindsay Graham's 'deployment' to Iraq. Turns into a piece about dont ask dont tell. Pretty good, but the best line is in describing the execrable Sen Graham:

That brings us to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who likes to go over to the Middle East and play soldier. Now, I don't know if the unmarried Senator Graham is straight or gay. I do know that, as a gay man myself, Lindsey Graham makes me look straight. If someone put a gun to my head and made me guess whether Graham was straight or gay, I wouldn't hesitate to venture that he's a flaming homosexual because he looks and sounds like a flaming homosexual. And I've rarely met a straight man who flames, and then turns out to be actually straight.

Amen sister!

Kiss It All Goodbye

That was financial Armageddon approaching that we watched this afternoon and evening. Senate Republicans, who are widely acknowledged to be the stupidest creatures on earth (some would argue HOUSE Republicans....), but this is stupidity of monumental proportions. For a variety of reasons only Hoover or perhaps Genghis Khan would understand, these morons have scuttled the Detroit mini-bailout, passed WITH the support of House Repugs, and basically said Fuck You to Detroit, investors, workers, and ultimately, the economy. To see a preview of the economic disaster looming, look at the overnight numbers in the futures markets (SP and Dow down up to 5%)

It's so frightening that it frightened Shrub and his bagman Paulson into actually doing something, even if it's only a threat at this point.

If this idiocy stands, and one or two of the Big Three fail, we are talking a replay of the Great Depression. The upside is that the Dems should sweep the House and Senate in '10; the downside is that we might not get to '10. When is that Aztec calendar scheduled to end?

Point This!

Acording to the LATimes (still in business!!), the White House has sent out a two page memo to give guidance to their stooges on how to describe the 'successess' of the Bush Administration ('learned to eat pretzels without fear of imminent death?') I think Bill Schneider of CNN summed Bu$hCo's accomplishments pretty succinctly:

"An Obama job approval rating of 79 percent! That's the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster. To many Americans, the Bush Administration was a national disaster," says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.

Bailout? Mini-Bailout?

Whichever, it looks like Congress is getting ready to offer some help to Detroit to get them over the short term hump. Well, Everest-like hump.Details are still sketchy, but it sounds like they'll tap the alternative fuel/power fund to fund the bailout and let Paulson go play in his sandbox and not have to worry about the autos. Wouldn't want to distract him from handing out cash to his punch-drunk friends.

Healthcare Reform in Two Steps

Gets everyone coverage, simple, easy!

1) Expand 'Medicare' style coverage to everyone (minus the donut hole) with an SS number.

2) Everyone working pays a larger SSI/Medicare fee.

If you want enhanced/expanded/different coverage, you can sign up with an insurance company or 'pay for play'. Or just let the damned sons of bitches go belly up and die slowly, painfully, and, hopefully, televisedly!!

Chambliss Wins

Bah! What a pig he is.

Canadian Revolution?

Looks like Canada is getting ready to throw out their just elected Bush-lite government. Molly Ivors at Eschaton summed it up best:

Oh, Canada!

by Molly Ivors

Even your coups are polite!

Oh Hush

I like playing the 'oh look what (fill in the blank) said today that crashed the market' game as much as anybody. But it really is just a game. I'm getting a little tired of seeing/hearing it in serious reporting.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that Hank Paulson is big tool, but his remarks today did not really affect the market. More than half the drop today came at the open, and the market pretty much just drifted south the rest of the day, including before, during, and after his remarks. As has been the tendency recently, a big chunk of the movement came in the last hour (or some days, the last five minutes!!) He is useless and quite possibly counter-productive, but cut him some slack. He's not moving the market. That's the morons on the street!