Shiny leather

The newspapers are burying the Rally to Restore Sanity. The NYTimes put them as far down on their online front page as possible, then joked about attendance without dropping so much as a clue as to actual turnout. This picture is suggestive, but I’m still looking for a definitive crowd shot.

The WaPost buried their pictures under several from the Marine Corps Marathon, a race I’d never heard of before. Sixty-four pictures but not one from high enough ground to capture the entire crowd. Funny how they were able to do that with Beck and the SEIU.

Ditto the ChiTrib, L.A. Trib and every other newspaper I checked out. Crooks and Liars says 200,000, but doesn’t attribute that number.  Howie the Whore expressed surprise at the size of the crowd before opining:

Maybe Jon Stewart is as big as Glenn Beck. Maybe bigger. Maybe passionate moderation is underrated. Or maybe these hordes of people have nothing better to do on a bright, crisp fall afternoon than to gather in the shadow of the Capitol and shout for sanity.

I’m sure we’ll have an accurate count any day now after Tuesday but in the meantime even AP is saying 150,000+ while Canada’s CTV NewsNet put it at a quarter million people. All I can say is that I know people who were there, and that wasn’t true of either of the earlier rallies. [more from Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson] [Digby] [PZ] [FDL] [Maha]

No, this is our most corporate of media’s hour to shine. Tuesday night ABC will treat us to the analytical ponderings of Andrew Breitbart, but at least ashamedly so. (Very ashamedly so.) Fox’s coverage, of course, will be worse.

More rally pix from TPM. More pix:

UPDATE: Politico admits to 215,000, and this picture certainly says more than Beck got:

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More politics:

DOJ to monitor Sheriff Joe’s turf on Tuesday

The Great Orange Satan has another excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia

Another Joe Miller scandal

Phoenix Woman on Alinsky

More economic doom and gloom from Jonathan

Sheer hackery from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Harry Reid?

Russ Feingold?

Prop 19

Time for a new Reformation?

Palin’s latest bluster

Into the abyss

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Recently David Brauer crunched the data and determined that the Strib had, by promoting early sales of their Sunday edition, cannibalized their Saturday edition sales to bump up their Sunday circ.

Here, on cue, is Strib publisher Michael Klingensmith thanking Strib readers for playing along.

Not where I’d spend my advertising dollars….

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Incredibly, D.J. Tice writes something I agree with (buried amidst the usual he said/she said sludge):

Here in Minnesota, if the polls can be trusted, Democrat Mark Dayton stands a fair chance of becoming a bright spot for his party Tuesday. If so, he will have done it with a brilliantly simple, three-word platform — “tax the rich” — that answered “no-new-taxes” and caught in progressive sails this year’s swirling winds of resentment for the powerful.

Dayton has made this look so easy that as a matter of pure political strategy one wonders why national Democrats don’t work the class conflict issue harder. They sound that theme, of course, but somehow Democrats in Washington always seem to pull their punches and change the subject in the end. Maybe they don’t really believe in it.

Democrats need to reinvent themselves as . . . oh I don’t know . . . Democrats?

Jon Tevlin weighs in on Minnesota’s elections and sardonicism is the word.

Me? I don’t have any trouble with my MN ballot choices. DFL straight down the line until you hit Ramsey County Attorney and there I’m voting for Dave Schultz over John Choi, but I have no problems with Choi. I live in the heart of the Twin Cities and with the possible exception of Schultz, everyone I vote for on Tuesday will win.

Yet this is the same city that elected Norm Coleman and Randy Kelly as mayors, and which has helped to re-elect Bob “Weapons of Mass Urination” Fletcher as sheriff too many times (hopefully, not this time).

I still think both chambers of Congress are safe, but if not . . . .

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Venus in Furs, of course. One of my favorite Velvet Underground songs. The next line is the one I can’t embrace even though it would be our new reality if John Boehner of SS-impersonator pal fame becomes Speaker of the House: Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather….

Do so cheerfully: so sayeth the PiPress. And cheerful they should be: election ads probably just gave them their best fiscal quarter in years. Frank Rich talks turkeys:

But whatever Tuesday’s results, this much is certain: The Tea Party’s hopes for actually affecting change in Washington will start being dashed the morning after. The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.

Trent Lott, the former Senate leader and current top-dog lobbyist, gave away the game in July. “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” he said, referring to the South Carolina senator who is the Tea Party’s Capitol Hill patron saint. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” It’s the players who wrote the checks for the G.O.P. surge, not those earnest folk in tri-corner hats, who plan to run the table in the next corporate takeover of Washington. Though Tom DeLay may now be on trial for corruption in Texas, the spirit of his K Street lives on in a Lott client list that includes Northrop Grumman and Goldman Sachs.

Worst political party ever? Or is that just a subset of worst managed economy ever? The case can and will be made. 2012 won’t be pretty either:

The tempest, however, will not be contained within the tiny Tea Party but will instead overrun the Republican Party itself, where Palin, with Murdoch and Beck at her back, waits in the wings to “take back America” not just from Obama but from the G.O.P. country club elites now mocking her. By then — after another two years of political gridlock and economic sclerosis — the equally disillusioned right and left may have a showdown that makes this election year look as benign as Woodstock.

Or voters could shock the pollsters and turn out for the Dems in large numbers on Tuesday. We don’t lose when everyone votes.

Never forget that.

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Halloween:

An artsy skull

More corporate crime, trick or treat edition

Wolcott on Keith Richard’s Life (I listened to the first chapter of the Johnny Depp-narrated audio book last night and yeah, it took me back)

Squidlanterns

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Etc.:

Russki billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov profiled in the NYTimes Magazine

Got Torpedoed last night (there’s better out there but this stuff is pretty good for the price)

 

Why aren’t you watching the rally?

The ChiTrib has a good summary of the al-Qaeda plot to mail bomb Chicago synagogues. Most amazing? Somehow Obama managed to stop this plot without strip searching tens of thousands of airline passengers. No one’s mail was opened, no emails intercepted, no cavities probed. [more from Juan Cole]

Violence, of course, should be reserved for lefties only:

Two years later Seattle woman still seeking justice after being stomped by Palinists

Michael Moore: Beck and O’Reilly called for violence against me

League of Women Voters debate official gets death threats after Beck’s thuggish diatribe

Republican eugenics: Leave the disabled kids at the shelter

ABC decides Andrew Breitbart is fair and balanced enough for them [more] [more]

Raping constituents

Palin flunks another reading comprehension quiz

Kansas GOoPer SecState candidate tries to bury living voter

Joe Miller update

Turning Al Franken into a verb

DADT = al-Qaeda

Shaking down elderly Texans

Pam Geller knows everything

Answers forthcoming

An honest ad

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The rallies are live and streaming. Somehow I clicked on the link just in time to see Jon Stewart hit the stage. Colbert, as expected, is way over the top in ways the right will never get.

Nothing would make me happier than if this somehow impacts Tuesday’s election.

Fr. Guido Sarducci? I could have sworn he was dead….

UPDATE: They wrapped with The Roots backing up Mavis Staples and the rest of the talent who sang I’ll Take You There. Worked for me.

links:

Wingnuts protested Yusuf Islam’s appearance in real time

“It’s insane down here”

AKMuckraker

WaPost

Signs

Voice of America carried the rally

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A retired pedophile got stomped by one of his victims in San Jose yesterday and to me it sounds like a textbook case of poetic justice.

Teabaggers aren’t hard to understand. When justice is denied, people get angry. The difference between Will Lynch and your average teabagger? Your average teabagger has never ever been screwed but they listen to radio and TV stations that jerk them off with stories that just ain’t so. Obama’s not molesting teabaggers, Fox and Rush are.

As for Will Lynch, if ever a guy had cause to stomp a retired priest…..

Lynch and his younger brother settled with the Jesuits of the California Province, a Roman Catholic religious order, for $625,000 in 1998 after alleging that Lindner abused them in 1975 during weekend camping trips in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The boys, who were 7 and 5 at the time, were raped in the woods and forced to have oral sex with each other while Lindner watched, Harris said. Lindner has been accused of abuse by nearly a dozen people, including his own sister and nieces and nephews.

Not spelled out is the fact that the Rev. Jerold Lindner never spent a minute in jail for his heinous crimes against children. Alexander Cockburn wrote about this pervy priest in 2005 but you may not want to read more. Suffice it to say, Lindner was punished yesterday. And when he gets out of the hospital, he should be punished again.

Beat this sumbitch over and over again until law enforcement steps up and he’s properly charged, tried and sentenced. Absent that, his victims have an obligation to themselves to keep beating this Jesuit piece of shit’s depraved ass. Even more than the sex, this is about a profound betrayal of trust. The sins of the bishops and archbishops and cardinals and popes are far graver than any crime committed by some sick deviant who should have been institutionalized the moment his depravity was exposed.

The courts are supposed to handle these things. There should be a federal investigation into why they didn’t. Congress needs to investigate the Catholic Church in America thoroughly. And then it needs to investigate itself to find out why this investigation hasn’t already been done.

Harder to deal with is the routine abasement of men of color by cops who are given cart blanche to humiliate anyone in NYC who’s not not white enough to get a pass. Bob Herbert updates us on the phony stop and frisk bullshit that has seized .015 guns for every stop.

You can blame the arrogance of the church and New York’s city fathers on racism, classism or the conceit of the elistist monied haves, but the real answer is that you get back what you put in. Charles Blow has the results of a study that I think illuminates the nature of our real problem:

• Boys who went to private religious schools were most likely to say that they had used racial slurs and insults in the past year as well as mistreated someone because he or she “belonged to a different group.”
• Boys at religious private schools were the most likely to say that they had bullied, teased or taunted someone in the past year.
• While boys at public schools were the most likely to say that it was O.K. to hit or threaten a person who makes them very angry, boys at private religious schools were just as likely to say that they had actually done it.

Now think about all the private schools in the deep South. Think about how many rich kids are kept out of public schools and fast-tracked to become our new monied elites, taught to assume their right to lead by sycophants and pharisees whose existence depends of the largesse of their charges’ parents.

Teabaggers hate Europeans, but the harder you look at our society, the harder it is to ignore how we’ve set ourselves up to create a privileged class of elites, just like Europe used to be before social democrats brought sanity to that continent.

Tuesday’s election isn’t about fixing any of this. [Even Dana Milbank is astonished by the Republicans' America-hating pettiness.] The only thing you can really achieve this Tuesday is a thwarting of the pedophilia/racism/classism enabling right who are desperately seeking to preserve unearned privilege by retaking the reins of power.

America is in the toilet and the Republicans would like nothing better than to flush us down into the Dickensian depths of septic tank servitude.

Teabaggers are voting for idiots who will further enable the aristocracy because theirs is a simple message: fuck you.

Our message should be fuck you too, and the money you rode in on.

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Misc. politics:

Sequestering absentee ballots because both sides just can’t stop picking on them

Sara Robinson on the myth of self-made Americans

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Workers are blowing the whistle on Toyota, and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect given the otherwise supernatural origins of the sudden acceleration cases.

Employees at Toyota dealerships witnessed and duplicated sudden acceleration in the company’s vehicles several times in the last decade, yet the automaker did not report the findings to regulators, new allegations in a federal lawsuit charge.

The claims, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, also allege that Toyota Motor Corp. bought back vehicles from owners who complained of sudden acceleration in exchange for confidentiality agreements barring them from discussing the matter.

The complaint, which amends a multi-party suit filed this year claiming economic loss for owners of Toyota and Lexus vehicles, includes numerous examples of acceleration complaints pulled from company documents and reviewed by plaintiffs’ attorneys.

In July 2009, for example, a service manager at an unidentified Toyota dealership reported test-driving a Tacoma pickup that accelerated to 95 mph from 71 mph with the driver’s foot completely off the gas pedal, according to an internal memo cited in the suit. The automaker approved a repurchase of the vehicle.

No clue? I think Toyota was very much clued in but let themselves get caught up in a bottom line snafu not unlike Ford’s legendary decision to sell exploding Pintos because the lawsuits were cheaper than the wrongful death cases.

This does not mean that Toyota doesn’t make good cars. It just means that, as with American car companies, the word of their executives is worse than worthless.

Caveat emptor? Or just fuck you for being a complete moron and taking a corporation’s word for anything?

And yes, I do think it would make sense to waterboard a few Toyota execs just to see if it would jar some truth free. That or have the court order them held in a retirement facility for Catholic priests. Harsh? Not really, not considering how Toyota damned their victims by blaming them for tragic accidents that would have never happened had Toyota owned up to its errors.

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More betrayals:

The gathering storm

Pentagon fall guy (I’m guessing he reported directly to Dick Cheney)

Fox preps their viewers for Sharron Angle’s defeat (ask not who stabbed them in the back for it was YOU! who betrayed the counter-revolution)

Bussing in Mexicans to illegally vote

Lies carry the day, TC Jimmy John’s sandwich shops fail to certify an IWW union local

Hidden donations

AZ Republican SecState fails to find vote fraud (how deep does this conspiracy run?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

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Etc.:

Vicente Fox on Prop 19: “May God let it pass”

More etc. to come.

Only 4 posting days before this blog goes politics free!

Catching up on election news:

Anti-Conway attack ads being funded by Terry Forcht, a nursing home operator Conway is prosecuting for covering up sexual abuse (glibertarian Rand Paul, of course, supports the right of a nursing homes to allow residents to sexually abuse an 88-year-old women) (this speaks pretty directly to the negative side of anonymously funded ads) [more from Digby]

Lexington Herald-Leader rips Rand Paul’s brownshirts

Are we fit to wear Joe Miller’s combat boots? Frankly, I don’t know if I’m twitchy or deluded enough

Write-in mania

Some indicators show early voters are mostly Dems, but facts don’t dissuade Andrea Mitchell from holding to the Villager line (shocking the Villagers is reason enough for voting Democratic next week, imho)

IF Angle loses, THEN the GOoP will accuse Reid of vote fraud (convenient formulation, n’est-ce pas?)

Meg Whitman is on the record as wanting her former housekeeper deported [for some reason I always thought Whitman founded eBay, but according to The Exiled, she came along after they hit it big, then ran the company into the ground]

King Street Patriots agree that Houston needs federal election monitors (perhaps because they’re finding out that old white people hovering over inner city black voters isn’t playing out so well)

Keith Ellison on voter intimidation

WWE freebies for CT voters!

Gloating in advance of the election is not a good strategy [more]

The coming theocracy / holy wars

George McGovern has an op-ed on voting

Polls say WI voters about to go all GOP, but that was before their SecState candidate, a seriously messed up holy roller, was accused of raping a drunk less than two months ago

Oberstspeaker der Hausen in waiting John Boehner

Kendrick Meeks is taking money under the table from Karl Rove (no proof but it’s pretty freaking obvious, don’t you think?)

Sheriff Joe on the pending thugocracy

Neiwert on the brown hordes threatening Nevadan ballot integrity (not)

Ohio McDonald’s tells employees to vote Republican “if they want to continue receiving raises and benefits” (huh? the only time fast food workers get either is when Democrats raise the minimum wage or pass healthcare reform)

Ginni Thomas update

In case of voter fraud, call the DOJ (and not your local Foxists who, most likely, will be to busy intimidating voters to check their emails)

Steve King says children will be warehoused if gay marriage prevails (sorted and graded by size and appearance to facilitate their being auctioned off by the GSA to the highest bidding oil country sheiks and/or Barney Frank and zombie Rock Hudson)

John Hickenlooper is looking to be the candidate who kills off the anti-Chamber of Commerce lies’n'smears biannual wave of campaign sludge

If Harry Reid should happen to fall, Durbin’s the only sane choice to replace him (but if Reid loses, chances are I won’t be blogging about it although ideally the Dems would keep the Senate but lose Harry)

And, if you’re opinionated enough to think you know what will happen Tuesday, you can email your predictions to Firedoglake (if you’re registered at that blog).

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Not sure why the cartoonist ran the first panel last.

Glenn Beck

Waterboarding Democrats

Serwer on fear-based vote suppression

The enfraudening

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Paul Krugman says if we lose either chamber next Tuesday, it will be curtains for meaningful democracy and any hopes of an economic recovery.

He’s right. And I’m dead serious when I say I’m done with political blogging if the Republicans win the House or Senate. I think the polls are way off due to systemic and persistent flaws in how the pollsters do their work, but I also know that Obama hasn’t done squat to fix our epidemic of gamed electronic voting machines.

Either way I can’t spend the rest of my life bitching about shit no one’s trying to fix. Obviously the Democrats haven’t been doing what we elected them to do, but even more obviously the Republicans are out to destroy our economy and way of life. If the voters let them that’s it. I’m primed to stop caring, and a Republican landslide will seal that deal.

Either this country continues to recover, or I will stop caring altogether. Assuming I live to retirement age, I expect to have my Social Security checks mailed here. Who in their right mind wants to retire in a country where the Supreme Court ignores the sentencing judge and the law to stick a needle in some schmuck who’s safely locked away? [scroll down to the last two grafs if you're in a hurry]

More from Charlieq who’s dropped out (in a good way).

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Money:

William D. Cohan on Wall Street’s (now) sadly all too imaginable greed (I watched Money Never Sleeps last night, then, when it was finally over, I deleted it for being lame, boring and not nearly nasty enough)

New allegations about Chamber of Commerce [more] [more]

David Sirota pulls back the curtain

$80 billion for intelligence?

Bring back Spitzer as a regulatory enforcer

Horrorclosure stories

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Tomorrow’s rallies should be interesting. I may have some live reports from DC (or I may not).

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MN:

Duluth News Tribune insisted they endorsed wingnut Cravaack over Oberstar on their own and not because their reich-wing owners told them to, and this new flap about the DNT leaking Duluth Mayor Don Ness’ email pretty much proves the DNT editorial board has at least one true wingnut aboard (why on earth would any real news person leak a story to others?)

Next time the buttons will say, Please Tase Me

The only political tricksters talking about Catholics in MN are all Republicans

State’s top weatherman says he doesn’t recognize the GOP anymore

The best intimidation is when voters decide to stay home and not even try to vote

The latest from Max Sparber

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Upstaged? They’re still playing baseball? Who knew? And while I usually always root for the American League team, this year that team is one formerly owned by George W. Bush.

Yes, I have no interest in this World Serious whatsoever. [more on Bush]

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Why is Jonah Goldberg still alive? Or, if you want an exact parallel, why are Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby all still alive?

And how could any news media report this crap with a straight face? Not to mention the thugs who insist on loyalty oaths at political debates….

Also, does anyone really think Nancy Pelosi is confiding in Juan Williams? [more on Williams from emptywheel]

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One Glenn Greenwald link just to let you know he’s still alive. I do understand why people get mad at Glenn. For weeks now while everyone else has been trying to GOTV, Glenn’s been piling on Obama. All true, but all posts that could have waited until November 3.

Seriously, I’m starting to wonder if Karl Rove pays him to write some of this stuff.

BDM, otoh, hates everybody.

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Etc.:

The $10,000 challenge: the money’s yours if you can prove alcohol is safer than marijuana

There’s an even split between all Americans on legalizing pot (ties, of course, go to the side that wants to imprison the other side)

YouTube censors pro-Prop 19 videos

Gay marriage: almost as dangerous as evolution

I was skipping the Gawker crap on O’Donnell, then I saw that the tell-all dude was only 28! (meaning that he was 25 when he got nekkid with a then 38-year-old Christine — which is certainly OK but yeah, I think O’Donnell has some serious tease issues)

NBC affiliate in Texas goes full Fox

NYTimes: suckers or morons?

NY state judge rules that a four-year-old can be sued (this is important because it sets the stage for letting four-year-olds become betrothed)

David Stern, still ruining the NBA one stupid fucking rules change after another

Airline rules have nothing to do with your safety, and everything to do with establishing control

For cat lovers only

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James MacArthur, R.I.P.

and from Jonathan, an R.I.P. for a furriner I didn’t know much about.

 

Only 6 more vote suppressing days left until the end of democracy as we’ve known it

More:

Obama pleads his case to Jon Stewart

Latest poll shows huge drop for Miller with Murkowski leading (and the AK Supreme Borks make damn sure Murkowski’s got a shot at winning) [Mudflats] [Immoral Minority]

Big Insurance has dumped over $100 million into anti-healthcare reform ads since health reform passed

Are you authorized?

No reason why eliminationism can’t be projected as well

Digby’s mail bag

Swift Boat billionaire has spent at least $7 million

Joe Biden didn’t clean Sarah Palin’s clock?

David Broder assures us that a big Republican win won’t mean the end of the Republic because both parties are pretty much the same (it’s just voters who are a problem)

O’Keefe’s latest shameless lies preceded by still more DHLF seductionalizing [Democrats He'd Like to Fuck]

Nina Totenberg recants, apologizing for the most intelligent thing she’s ever said on air (no mention of what she ever did with her Impeach Clinton pom poms)

What an anti-democracy pro-Karl Rove anonymous billionaire funder looks like

Florida dude still hanging tough in West Virginia

The military-Dow Jones Industrials complex really isn’t all that complex (no more so than the average reacharound)

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Suppressing the GOTV:

Texas

Minnesota [more] [more] [more] [more]

Nevada [more]

Wisconsin (drowning out the truth with lying ads)

Pennsylvania (disinterest)

North Carolina

Illinois [self-inflicted]

More kung-pooh from Malkin

Anatomy of a stomping / Louisville KY Courier Journal / suppressing the video / Boortz / flashing back 14 months

Catholics: thinking one way, voting another? [more from Birkey] [more from Lambert]

Fox News nationwide sky is falling sky is falling voter fraud alerts [Neiwert] [Serwer]

What happened because you didn’t vote (not fearmongering —  as this Cal Thomas column proves)

Not the future, this happened a week ago: No means yes, yes means anal (and voting for us means handcuffs and toys!) (DKE at Yale is, of course, W’s old frat house)

Point that finger at me, and I’d break it off before redepositing it

Greg Sargent on voters not buying into voter suppression stories (but did they poll cell phone users?)

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World:

Max Blumenthal with more on the ADL’s Abe Foxman

Manipulating natural resources

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MN:

When you don’t spend money on court services, bad guys just run away (who’s to stop them when Gov. BridgeFail’s in Iowa kissing ass and spouting nonsense?)

Bachmann campaigning hard . . . in Alaska?

The Patriot buys Jesus.org (because a Jesus you can’t buy isn’t a Jesus worth having) (credit Paul Schmelzer for noting how much the new mast’s Jesus looks like the Burger King)

Dave Mindeman on why MN appears to be avoiding the national shitslide

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Etc.:

L.A. Times resorts to Russki drug war czar Viktor Ivanov to warn us of “psychiatric deviations” should Prop 19 pass (and that’s true: smoking pot immunizes you from radio waves that impair sane voting choices)

Latest Prop 19 poll #s

Noted commonist Nick Kristof calls for ending the war on pot

The great domain rush of aught-ten [seriously, these people are morons — by January putting your zip code and the word marijuana into Google will be all you need to do to find your local vendors]

Crowdless in Beckistan

Cato Institute scholar calls bullshit on anti-legalization conservatives

Looking ahead to retirement? (and some bonus thoughts about blogging software)

DeLay jury selected

U.S. can’t figure out where any money spent before 2007 went (not to worry, the important people got theirs)

I would be in the Democrats/25% column

Joel Bleifuss on corporate kraken

Just when you least expect it, alt-culture impacts mainstream marketing

Promoting piracy as a business strategy (I just told a client who makes his living from his expertise that he would do well to give clients flash drives loaded with legally purchased but probably illegal to share videos, essentially he’d be lending his library to his clients)

OK, scratching The Nook off my list (seriously I am going to buy an eReader with those donations . . . just as soon as we get done laying the marble tile in the new bathroom) (no, in the other new addition)

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After last night’s 117-116 Wolves loss, I noticed that I had 88,887 songs uploaded to iTunes. A one-hour Mr. Scruff mixtape nudged the count up to 88,888 songs. I’m sure that has some numerical significance.

No clue what will be in tonight’s set. I recently discovered a small cache of about 50GB worth of music I need to sort off the second MyBook drive into iTunes. I’m sure those songs will change everything.

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It’s in the mid-30°s here this morning. While I refuse to acknowledge anything less than a Siberian express as being actually cold, the wind is blowing and it is kind of chilly. (Sort of.) I closed the window and put on some pants.

Just mentioning it in case you picked up on this post being a bit warmer than usual.

A great wind is blowing

One way the right is getting away with their moneybombs is that local newspapers simply aren’t explaining what’s happening to their readers. From today’s NYTimes:

Bruce Braley, a Democrat from northeastern Iowa, has been a popular two-term congressman and seemed likely to have an easy re-election until the huge cash mudslide of 2010. The Republican Party had largely left him alone, but then a secretive group called the American Future Fund began spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on distortion-heavy attack ads.

Mr. Braley is now struggling to maintain his lead against a Republican challenger, Benjamin Lange, who is running on a familiar program of smaller government and opposition to the health care law, the stimulus and growing federal spending. Mr. Braley has disclosed all of the donors behind his ads and his campaign; Mr. Lange generally will not discuss his independent support….

As The Times reported recently, the American Future Fund was started with money from Bruce Rastetter, an ethanol company executive. Mr. Braley supports ethanol tax credits — a favorite in Iowa. Mr. Rastetter, who is pushing to defeat several Democrats on the House energy and agriculture committees, has not explained his political goals.

The fund, based in Iowa, has spent at least $574,000 to run a series of anti-Braley ads. One that is particularly pernicious shows images of the ruined World Trade Center and then intones, “Incredibly, Bruce Braley supports building a mosque at ground zero.” Actually, Mr. Braley has never said that, stating only that the matter should be left to New Yorkers.

Another implies that Mr. Braley supports a middle-class tax increase because he voted to adjourn the House at a time when some Republicans had proposed cutting income taxes on everyone. In fact, Mr. Braley supports extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class, while letting them expire for families making $250,000 or more to avoid adding $700 billion to the deficit.

Mr. Braley has also been the subject of $250,000 worth of attack ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which also has not disclosed its contributors.

He is only one of many candidates being pummeled this year by secret money and shamefully false advertising.

OK, I think that’s fairly specific and certainly eyebrow-raising stuff if you live and vote in Braley’s district. Unless, of course, you’re the Des Moines Register. They took note of the AFF two weeks ago, but didn’t even mention they were from out of state!

A conservative group that has been spending money to buy advertising critical of U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat, is proposing a debate between Braley and Republican challenger Ben Lange.

Nick Ryan, the American Future Fund’s spokesman, sent a letter to both 1st Congressional District candidates proposing the debate. The American Future Fund is not required to identify its donors who are bankrolling  the advertising efforts.

Braley spokeswoman Caitlin Legacki responded today, “Our reaction is that we are happy to discuss this invitation as soon as they reveal their donors, but until then, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.”

Lange’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment today.

That’s the ENTIRE article. No mention of how much, where they’re from or why this is problematic. Just AFF’s debate agenda shared. Reporting by press release. Classy. But the Register did do an update yesterday. Here’s the lead:

A campaign staffer for Congressman Bruce Braley provided documents Tuesday that she says shows she has been working as an independent contractor for the campaign since Oct 1.

Caitlin Legacki, Braley campaign spokeswoman and director of congressional communications,  provided the documents in response to a complaint filed by Nick Ryan of the American Future Fund over whether Legacki is on the campaign’s payroll or the congressional office.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, nothing about AFF, nothing to let Iowans know that Braley’s under siege from billionaires buying elections. Just a baseless accusation made public in hopes of media coverage. [more from TPM]

The Register is an above average newspaper. In most states I have to doubt voters even know about the right’s efforts to buy this election. Hell, the Register’s not even telling readers about the Iowa Republican Party’s decision to establish “no-activities nights” every Wednesday statewide (that’s “church night” in Iowa). [DM Register search results]

Shameful.

Also from Iowa, it’s hard to believe they’re about to re-elect Chuck Grassley again, but that looks to be the case. Sadly, the only account of their one and only debate is at the Register. Too bad the Times didn’t cover that story as well.

Oh, and that NYTimes’ editorial’s conclusion?

The voters, who are the real victims of these distortions, haven’t the slightest idea who is paying for the ads. But rest assured that the big corporations and donors will make their identities known to the winners they push into office. The price for their support will be high.

Very high but the DM Register probably won’t write anything about that either.

More on the matter at hand:

Digby on defeating the most radical, authoritarian, anti-intellectual Republican class in modern memory

David Dayen with the latest on the Republican Get Out The Lies effort

WaPost headlines Dem’s fundraising success (lumping them in with the mega-buck raising Rove groups in one big happy he fundraised/she fundraised article)

Arizona’s fuck you if you’re brown law struck down by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Post confirms what we’ve been reading from the Alaska blogs about Joe Miller’s illegal use of government computers to rig an internal GOP election [TBogg]

Shorter WaPost: How John Boehner bought his way back into the Republican leadership

Harold Meyerson on a movement driven by lies and distortions

GWill rationalizes away all that money

No head stomping, but Eric Cantor doesn’t take questions either

Tim Profitt says he stomped Valle because of his bad back?! [more camera angles fail to show Valle lunging at Paul as alleged] [Juan Cole with video of how the real Taliban beats their women] [Amazing: now Profitt wants Valle to apologize to him!] [Maha's take]

More on Ilario Pantano, the Tea Party Iraq war vet/murderous freak

Angle’s latest lies

TPM has video of Al Franken at a Dayton rally

TX deficit hits $25 billion as Gov. Perry continues to refuse to debate

Tild does Eric Paulsen

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s cultie rag on liberal intolerance and murder

Fair and balanced

& and at the edges of it all, naked racism laying in wait

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GOTV:

Kucinich: Vote or cede to the forces of nihilism

Trick or Vote

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Elsewhere:

Radical right riots in Umm al-Fahm

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Etc.:

I think the private sector’s agenda is fairly clear: first they sell booze with caffeine added, then it will be bacon-flavored booze with caffeine and then it will be bacon-flavored erectile dysfunction medication designed to be dissolved in a glass of caffeinated booze (but POT IS BAD FOR YOU!) [more on "blackout in a can"]

Jon Walker updates the valiant Prop 19 struggle

L.A. Times looks at our racist drug law enforcement

50 nukes fall off the grid

Terrorists hit NPR with bomb threat (you know why)

Tattoo tales

AZ inmate executed yesterday gave the Boomer Sooner cheer as his final words

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The wind is here. Same stuff that’s shutting down airports. Dave Wiegel got stranded in Eau Claire….(but he’s got a great Onion link to the Russ Feingold race)

As plebeian as I wanna be

I thought I’d take the Charles Murray “elitist” quiz, courtesy of Ricochet.

1. Can you talk about “Mad Men?” No.

2. Can you talk about the “The Sopranos?” Yes.

3. Do you know who replaced Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right?” Yes.

4. Have you watched an Oprah show from beginning to end? No.

5. Can you hold forth animatedly about yoga? No.

5. How about pilates? No.

5. How about skiing? No.

6. Mountain biking? No.

7. Do you know who Jimmie Johnson is? No.

8. Does the acronym MMA mean nothing to you? No.

9. Can you talk about books endlessly? Not any that have been written in the last 20 years.

10. Have you ever read a “Left Behind” novel? No.

11. How about a Harlequin romance? No, but I used to sell them.

12. Do you take interesting vacations? I do interesting things while on vacation, but always in the same places.

13. Do you know a great backpacking spot in the Sierra Nevada? No.

14. What about an exquisite B&B overlooking Boothbay Harbor? No?

15. Would you be caught dead in an RV? No.

16. Would you be caught dead on a cruise ship? No.

17. Have you ever heard of of Branson, Mo? Yes.

18. Have you ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club? No.

19. How about the Rotary Club? No.

20. Have you lived for at least a year in a small town? Yes. (Huxley and Hills, Iowa)

21. Have you lived for a year in an urban neighborhood in which most of your neighbors did not have college degrees? Yes.

22. Have you spent at least a year with a family income less than twice the poverty line? Yes.

23. Do you have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian? No.

24. Have you ever visited a factory floor? Yes.

25. Have you worked on one? Yes.

Eight yes answers out of 25 questions but it’s a weird quiz and my elitist score is more like 11 out of 25. Some pertinent bio stuff:

I grew up and worked on a family farm half way between St. Paul and Des Moines in an extremely rural part of Iowa.

As a teen I drag raced (most guys did). Why you would watch other people race on TV is beyond me. (Yes, I found out that Jimmie Johnson is a NASCAR racer.)

My first college was Iowa State University in Ames.

My first major job was working in a tire factory (1973-1982).

I don’t watch daytime TV. I also don’t watch nightime TV. I watch whatever I feel like watching on my computer, including NBA games and other “real” sports. (TVs are kinda ’90s, know what I mean?)

More to the point, Murray should have asked who Drew Carey’s predecessor was on The Price is Right. That question’s only easy if you’re a geezer.

I have lived and worked in ghettos and small towns. I have lived and worked in nice places as well. I prefer ghettos as you run into a better quality of people.

When I was at my most blue collar, I read an average of 150+ books a year, mostly science fiction but a few bestsellers and the occasional nonfiction.

I started out smoking little cigars, switched to Camel straights for a couple of years then finished out my 14 years as a smoker doing a pack and a half a day of Marlboro Menthols.

Despite having lived in blue collar rural and urban America, I’ve never met anyone who has ever been on a cruise ship. I don’t think I know anyone who knows anyone who’s been on a cruise ship. In fact, most working people I’ve known don’t take vacations other than trips to see relatives. Vacations were replaced by long weekends a long time ago.

I was a Jaycee once. Even then I thought Kiwanis and Rotarians were stuffed shirts.

After taking his quiz, I think Charles Murray pays to have his nails done.

What an odd little world they live in. I can’t help but think of Rush and his $4-figure bottles of wine, or Bill O’Reilly being stunned at finding a quality restaurant in Harlem. Glenn Beck and his bazillion-dollar income. Dick Nixon having the White House wine steward serve him connoisseur quality wine while his guests got the domestic vintages.

They have no clue who we are even as they walk around pantless and fact-free.

And while Murray’s quiz misses me almost entirely he would have nailed me had his elitism quiz asked:

Have you ever spent over $10 on a single bottle of beer?

Do you indulge in soft drugs?

Do you think $40 is a reasonable tab at a sushi bar?

Do you ever argue the merits of Thai food vs Vietnamese?

Can you name the stuff in the tiny side bowls at a Korean restaurant?

Have you ever owned a manual transmission vehicle not used to haul a boat?

Do you pass on coffee if you suspect it came pre-ground from a can?

Do you drink tea?

Do you secretly laugh at people who mispronounce foreign words?

Can you spell well?

Can you hold two contrary thoughts in your head at the same time?

Would you rather throw in another fiver than argue about the tip?

Do you think reality TV is a greater threat to our way of life than crack?

Do you try to eat healthy?

Do you consider fast food to be an absolute last resort?

Are you indifferent to the size of your friends’ TVs?

Do you know anything about people from other cultures? Would they agree with you that you do?

Do you think it’s immoral to underpay someone, even if it was expected of you?

Do you hate people who don’t hate you first?

Which major Indian city is closest to Bangladesh?

Is Animal Collective a band, PETA type group, or a chain of pet shops?

Do you chew, smoke, snort or inject khat?

Can you tell parsley from cilantro just by looking?

Name three members of Monty Python.

Can you write an articulate blog post free of misspellings and with correct grammar and punctuation? Would it include the word “fuck”?

I am an elitist, but like most elitists I’m fleeing my plebeian past. What Murray and his friends really object to are class jumpers — people who come from working backgrounds yet choose to think about life and life choices instead of letting themselves be herded by lowbrow entertainment, phony sports and truthy news.

My new buzzword is cognitive hypocrisy. Guys like Murray don’t just make this shit up, they think about it first and then make it up. The real insult is that they think working people can’t see through this shit. I first read and was offended by Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve while I was still writing resumes and dealing with the realities of employment and clients from all backgrounds instead of wingnut fantasy league talk radio indistinguishable from Shinola bullshit. Despite having worked with almost every kind of person Murray opinionates about, I could find almost no correlation between his specious “analysis” and my 7,000+ clients.

Ironically, a fellow lefty conspirator and blogger of my acquaintance used to have a family medical practice in Newton, Iowa. That’s where Charles Murray was born. It’s also, to this northern Iowan, a big city. Or at least that’s what I used to think. My horizons have broadened a bit since then even if I don’t watch NASCAR or eat greasy, shitty food anymore.

The right is about making their world smaller. The left is about making the world smaller. Who do you think Jesus would prefer to have gay homosexual sex with?

Norm the Coleman

Thanks to TPM Muckraker, here’s the text of Norm Coleman’s latest fundraising letter (red emphasis mine, pink emphasis for funny):

George Soros Wants to Buy America’s Elections

He’s spending Millions Again on his Secretary of State Project

You Can Help.

Dear Friend:

Every Vote Counts. You know that and I know that.

My reason for writing to you is to help ensure that all Americans can be assured that their vote counts – and that the rules for elections are fair for every legal voter in America.

George Soros – a wealthy liberal billionaire has funded organizations like MoveOn.org and other front groups to expand his own political agenda.

His Secretary of State project donated an unheard of amount to select his choice of Secretary of State in Minnesota, Ohio, and other key states across the country.

It’s frightening that one man – with unlimited wealth – has determined to focus his efforts to elect individuals who have the power to overrule the will of voters.

Imagine a country where a majority of Secretary of States are beholden to one man – George Soros.

We must make sure that Soros doesn’t gain this political power.

You can help ensure that by donating to the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), an organization that will be working to counter George Soros’ Secretary of State Project.

In 2006 and 2008, there was not any counter to the Secretary of State project, but for 2010, the RNLA will be there to help fight against Soros’ millions. But they need your help: donate here now.

The RNLA has long stood for open, fair and honest elections and has trained thousands of lawyers on preserving the integrity of the vote. But this task is made more difficult if the chief election official (in most states the Secretary of State) is not interested in fairness or openness but is rather a partisan liberal such as the type George Soros’ Secretary of State project chooses and supports.

Call me old fashioned, but I think a Secretary of State’s job is the fair and transparent administration and running of an election. I think the voters, not partisans, nor lawyers or courts should determine who won the election.

And, I sure don’t think George Soros should be given the power to determine who wins or loses elections in the United States.

Help stop partisan Secretaries of State and restore the rule of law for our elections so that all voters, including our military, are treated fairly by DONATING NOW TO THE RNLA.

The RNLA is a recognized leader in promoting open, fair and honest elections. Besides training thousands of lawyers over the last six years, they have also been working tirelessly to call attention to the plight of our military voters that helped result in new federal legislation to help military votes count.

With your help, RNLA can do more to help ensure Secretaries of State keep to their job of running elections in a fair open and honest manner.

Please join me in supporting the RNLA and fighting against those who want our elections run by partisans and George Soros by donating here now.

Sincerely,

Senator Norm Coleman

PS: Who wins elections should be determined by who got the most legal votes, period! Unfortunately, the far left is trying to politicize even the counting of votes through George Soros’ Secretary of State project, which seeks to have elections run by hyper-partisan liberal election officials. Donate here to the RNLA to help ensure that all legal votes in 2010 are counted.

Paid for by The Republican National Lawyers Association
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee

Contributions to the Republican National Lawyers Association are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.

Corporate funds are accepted

Federal Law requires political committees to report the name, mailing address, occupation and name of employer for all individuals who contribute in excess of $200 in a calendar year.

File alongside Virginity, Fucking for, and Suits, Nasser Kazeminy Buys Mine. Not to mention 2000, Remind Me Again How We Counted the Votes in.

 

 

Cognitive hypocrisy / shitsliding away

It turns out that the jackass with his boot on Lauren Valle’s head was one of Rand Paul’s county coordinators. [more on Valle] [still more on Valle] [more on cognitive hypocrisy] [more] [criminal summons] [Rand & Profitt together]

Still it’s really hard to believe that Rand Paul is a bigger asshole than Joe Miller. Gryphen has the story of a piece of property Miller bought on the cheap:

Hcrnir finally decided to put the place up for sale in an Anchorage newspaper. Not long after, the Anchorage attorney, his wife and several of their kids came by. “He knew I wanted to sell bad,” Hcrnir said. “He made me one of those ‘offer’s good only until the sun goes down’ deals.’”

Hcrnir didn’t really want to sell for the cut-rate price being offered, but he felt that he had to. And he perfectly understood the low-ball offer; business is business.

What followed wasn’t, at least not by Alaska standards. The deal was made in Willow, Hcrnir said, but he met Miller in Anchorage at the Denny’s on Dimond Boulevard to sign the papers to close the sale. Up to that point, Hcrnir said, he’d always found the Anchorage lawyer a friendly guy. That changed the second the legal documents were inked.

Hcrnir told Miller he planned to go back to Caswell to get the last of the family’s stuff out of the cabin, including the generator Hcrnir had said all along he planned to take with him. Miller told Hrncir that he was to stay off the property.

“He schemed me out of that,” Hcrnir said. “He pulled out a paper and said it said (sold) ‘where is, as is.’ Legally he was right, (but) he went from a friend to a legal counsel in a minute.’

Because what we really need in Congress is another crooked lawyer.

More on the upcoming shitslide:

Norm Coleman: impressively, he’s become an even bigger dick since leaving office (I wonder if Nasser Kazeminy still buys his clothes?)

Taking your picture and making a list….

The fraud in Yuma County that never was

And ye shall know them by their followers

Alex Sink makes Dems look bad, but not as bad as Jim Bunning made Republicans look

130 Republican members of Congress want to end birthright citizenship

Lambert analyzes the Strib and local media coverage

Jon Talton explains the clusterfuck that is Arizona

Fucking with Wikipedia to advance your twisted agenda (my money would be on one of Karl Rove’s interns)

Only Republicans could use the words under God as a fuck you

And only Glenn Beck would ever compare Republicans with Rosa Parks

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In the World According to Mediaite, Andrew Breitbart identifying a protester who called him “gay” as a state party Democratic official is newsworthy. Andy Sullivan saying it would be good for Obama to lose the House is worth headlining (and since Andy’s a Brit I know he’ll take it the right way when I call him a fucking furrin’ cunt).

Also from Mediaite perhaps the lamest visual Palin joke ever [I really think you had to a) be there, and b) have been smoking what they were smoking], valuable proof proving I grew up conservative [what? you thought I made that line up?], and Larry King steals the line I use whenever someone mentions Julian Assange. Scott Ritter was a child molester therefore Iraq had WMDs and Julian Assange is a rapist thereby proving that no war crimes took place during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.

Enough of this mushy liberal thinking. What CIA propagandists have put together, let no man leak asunder. And let no political meme escape Mediaite’s ability to trivialize and dismiss bad behavior. [And would it kill someone to point out that in the late nineties Nina Totenberg all but bought the rope the House impeachment managers were trying to slip around Bill Clinton's neck?)

As if that wasn't enough, today's Mediaite also jumps on Lillian McEwen's sadly delusional belief that Anita Hill did have sex with Clarence Thomas. That's Stockholm Syndrome talking. TBogg has more.

Seriously, I hope Rex Sorgatz isn't involved with these people any more because my take on their takes is that they're a less mature Daily Beast. My extended take? Just because our political system is a joke doesn't make politics something to joke about at least not in a trivializing he snarked/she snarked way.

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Money:

The end of banksters?

Sharing the pain (being smart now equals being an insider)

Finally! someone looks to see how much $$ media executives make

Saying it again and again and again

The one good thing about the Crystal Cathedral's bankruptcy? Who they owe the money to

Supreme Chamber of Commerce?

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Etc.:

Nathan Spewman update

Because abusing the elderly is punny

Plan on seeing a lot fewer McClatchy links from me

Even when Iran is being bad, we're worse (which is to say better at being bad) (& ditto on Norwegian Shooter's caveats)

Jim Romenesko writes what I think is his longest post ever on why the latest Wikileaks documents are too important to ignore [more] [FAIR asks what kind of news network complains that the govt. hasn't assassinated enough journalists?] [Masnick on how the old guard doesn't understand the new rules of news distribution]

Confirming every suspicion you ever had about people who use Comic Sans

Russell Crowe was in an Aussie production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show when he was 20 — if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll guess which character he played

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Paul the Octopus, R.I.P.

 

At the Ditches of Madness

Karoli has the economy in a ditch story as retold by Al Franken:

When the President took office, not only had the car gone into a ditch, the car had flipped over and was rolling down a steep embankment. We, the American people, were in the back seat, and the Bush Administration had removed all the seat belts, so we were all flying around the interior of this car as it was rolling and flipping and careening down this steep embankment, headed to a 2,000 foot cliff. And at the bottom of that cliff were jagged rocks. And alligators.

Now, at noon on January 20th, 2009, as the car was careening toward the cliff, George W. Bush jumped out of the car.

President Obama somehow managed to dive in through the window, take the wheel and get control of the thing just inches before it went over the precipice. Then, he and Congress starting pushing this wreck back up the embankment. Now you can’t push a car up an embankment as fast as it careens down the embankment, especially if some people are trying to push against you. But we got it going in the right direction. And slowly we’ve gotten ourselves up the embankment, out of the ditch and onto the shoulder of the road.

There. That’s what happened.

Pretty much the way I remember it, that’s for sure.

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Politics:

Top six laws the Tea Party folks want to abolish

Digby on how the Tea Party is taking over the G.O.P. from within

Rand Paul embraces Jim Bunning and the politics of mindless obstructionism while outside the debate hall his goons stomp a young woman for disagreeing

Milbank spanks Joe Miller [more on AK write in votes]

James O’Keefe update (his schtick is devolving into a stylized theater of the absurdly libelous)

Spotty on the profoundly anti-Constitutional nature of voter suppression

Strib blesses Tim Walz (to hurt him or help him, who can say? in some parts of MN, a Strib endorsement is like hanging a target on a candidate)

Prog Breakfast on Tea GOTV

In case you were wondering why Iowa Dems have been voting early so heavily, read this

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Money:

Taibbi on BOA

Dave Mindeman on Chicago’s privatized $4.25/hour parking meters

Glenn Beck’s surviving advertisers look like the kinds of businesses that used to partner with televangelists to prey on the old and senile

Bob Herbert on infrastructure (in the GOoPer vision of the future, we will all flush our toilets with bottled water)

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World:

Isn’t cutting down twenty-year-old olive trees a form of terrorism?

More on olive trees

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Etc.:

Former police chief helps with final push for Prop 19

ACLU asks Holder to back the fuck off Prop 19

She’s working really hard and her partner is really good which is why it’s so very, very sad that Bristol has no talent (and her fans have no clue)

Part trois of the WaPost’s gun series

Future specimen’s for Helmut’s fruit pix

&, after only five years of stalling and footdragging, Texas will finally try former House Majority/Minority Leader and all round scumbag Tom DeLay for money laundering

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Big Tibetan gathering across the street yesterday afternoon. The Strib has more if you’re curious about the U.S.A.’s second largest Tibetan community.

 

 

Voter suppression on a massive scale

Two posts because there’s just too much shit happening right now. Polling data going in every direction and reports back from the grassroots that are completely at odds with the national pundits and so-called analysts. However this election shakes out, the one sure casualty will be pollster reputations. I mean, hey, I’ve never owned a cell phone but even I know that there are more seniors with cells than under-thirties with landlines.

I can’t decide if Republican obsession with voter fraud is sincere paranoia or simply the politics of manipulation and ass-covering, the latter because it excuses any loss and the former because Republican “truth” squads jacked up on Foxist lies do intimidate voters and depress turnout. [TPM Muckraker, belly bumping, $173,000, and "we are all voter fraud police now"]

All I know is that I grew up hearing about stuffing the ballot boxes in Chicago and each election cycle since has brought a new variation on a tired and disproven theme. A day before he died Paul Wellstone received a threatening postcard from a sincerely angry nutjob who was certain Wellstone was planning to steal the election. [MPR, TPM]

Still no clue as to how it’s possible to believe in massive voter fraud, yet be completely unconcerned about foreign businesses investing in U.S. Senate candidates. If organized labor is stealing elections, at least they’re doing it to keep jobs in America. What’s the upside to being owned by Eurocorps? [Digby, more from Digby, Greg Sargent]

More politics:

27,683 ads since August 1, and that’s just Karl Rove’s groups

John Kasich ducked an NPR interview after learning they were going to be taking live questions from listeners

Jeff Sharlet with an update on the Prayboy Mansion

The rising tide

Sweet

Times v WSJ on Chamber of Commerce $$

Keith Ellison on Juan Williams

Rand Paul, even worse than you thought (how he manages to keep topping himself, I’ll never know)

Colorado’s disappearing Republican candidate

Howzabout separation of church and early voting site? (where do they get the nerve to talk about illegal voting?)

Ben Stein dumps on Joe Miller

Inhofe’s latest illiteracy

WHO-TV plays very fast and loose with the truth in refusing to run an anti-Grassley ad (an ad that would have legs with Iowans)

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Get Out the Fucking Vote:

Dave Johnson

R.J. Eskow

Me

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Isaiah J. Poole has some unbelievable numbers from Dave Johnson about how much the richest of the rich made in 2009:

The number of Americans making $50 million or more, the top income category in the data, fell from 131 in 2008 to 74 last year. But … the average wage in this top category increased from $91.2 million in 2008 to an astonishing $518.8 million in 2009. That’s nearly $10 million in weekly pay!

There is no limit to greed. They will just keep demanding and taking more, and no one else will ever get ahead or catch a break. They’re sucking all the money out of the universe because it makes them feel important.

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Lavni Kidd. But it’s OK, he’s a Muslim.

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Etc.:

Vick interviews the author of The Book of Night Women (the information on slavery in Jamaica is great)

Just like a real book

A phone bank I do approve of

How did they manage to pass laws making it illegal to modify your toys?

Not being a New Yorker, I’ve made it a point to wear my cap every day since

Best proof ever of how sick and twisted the recording industry is, watch the video

So much for the NY Observer’s credibility

Chinese professor ad makers move to take the parody off YouTube

This week’s 10 most pirated movies (still stuck at 6 but I did download Get Him To The Greek after multiple recommendations in the comments) (the only one I’ve actually watched is Red, a passable BUT REALLY FUCKING LOUD geriatric Bourne Identity parody)

& do check out the new mast (courtesy of an item from the latest Bits) (also picked up on by Secrets of the City) (the ram’s horn, btw, looks to me a lot like a sex toy I’ve seen advertised….)

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Gregory “Night Nurse” Isaacs, R.I.P.