Countdown

One reviewer thought Keith Olbermann's return to cable news too much of a muchness.

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Less is sometimes Moore

VCA's website reported on the event, warning that-

"Virginia Pastors are Losing the Culture Wars."

VCA's website lists its heroes, several of whom have Christian Reconstructionist ties, including David Barton, the late D. James Kennedy, Ken Ham, Roy Moore, and Pat Robertson.

The now-dead Kennedy backed God-obsessed Roy Moore in his midnight installation of a big tombstone of Jeebusisms in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court-Coral Ridge used to run a documentary showing A Tee-shirted, poufy thinning haired Moore pretending to shove the big block into place all by himself.

After he got his ass kicked off the court by his by no means liberal colleagues, Moore ran for governor in 2006 and 2010. Neither adventure approached the realm of possible victory.



Of late Moore has announced he is thinking of running for president. Not even the trivia-obsessed press taken any notice. Not even that he issued a judicial opinion calling for gay Americans to be corralled in concentration camps and "put to the sword."

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Four years too late, and nothing about closing the C Street frat house

Image via Wikipedia

The president of the Christian conservative Family Policy Network — a group best known for confronting attendees at gay pride events about Jesus’ power to cure homosexuality — sent a letter to Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) today calling on him to follow the lead of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and resign. Vitter admitted to frequenting prostitutes in 2007, but did not step down and, unlike Weiner, never faced much pressure from his own party to do so. Family Policy Network President Joe Glover added in his letter that Republicans “are committing outright hypocrisy” as long Vitter remains in office, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

“There are a lot of people that I think are committing outright hypocrisy and are forced to do so as long as he (Vitter) remains in office,” said Joe Glover, the president of the Family Policy Network, based in Forest, Va. “I don’t think the senator should put those folks in the untenable position of having to pragmatically defend his presence in the Senate.”

Glover noted, for example, that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had called on Weiner to resign, but had also contributed to Vitter’s 2010 re-election campaign.

An article that will be posted on the group’s website tomorrow asks, “So what did Republican leaders do about Senator Vitter? They let him off the hook.” The article continues, “[T]he public’s perception of Vitter as a sleazy, hypocritical Christian only served to tarnish the name of Christ among unbelievers.”

Indeed, while Weiner received universal condemnation from Democrats and Republicans alike, Vitter actually received a coordinated campaign of support from Louisiana Republicans and campaign donations from national Republican leaders — the same leaders who demanded Weiner’s resignation. Even former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele saw “inconsistency” in the way his party reacted to the two scandals.

To their credit, some conservatives have spoken out against Vitter. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said, “I don’t think Vitter should be there. Absolutely not.” Fox’s Greta Van Susteren and right-wing media provocateur Andrew Breitbart — who played a key role in bringing down Weiner — have also criticized the senator.

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Welcome one and all

Golly, in a day since I put up the revolving globe thingy, visitors from ten eleven thirteen nations!

As the old joke goes, you don't need to know Anthony Wiener if you have a Mercedes-Benz

Ben Smith:

This year's Netroots Nation was briefly crashed by conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart, causing a small stir.

Go tell it to the Dear Leader, Archbishop Dolan

In New York, you can push so hard, and so hatefully, that even your natural allies will tell you to fuck off:

"You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing," McDonald, 64, told reporters.

"You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f---k it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this."

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Lest they be taken literally, they all look pretty Bush League

For all their preening, sitting around on couches with MacPros, SC consultant/bloggers just aren't in The Show.

But Britney's 55-hour marriage gets the full panoply from the feds

The New York State Senate is as big, if not a bigger, a wretched pool of scum and villainy than the Star Wars bar.

Thus the state senate reached its last day in session one vote shy of finally approving marriage equality.

That's democracy for you. 58% of New Yorkers favor it. State GOP senators? Well, wait till next session if you can't cough up one more. The hinge is closing.

When it goes to court, they argue it should be decided by the legislature.

When it goes to the legislature, they argue it should be decided by the courts.

When it goes to either, they argue it should to to a vote of the people. Then back to the courts and/or the legislature. Then back to the people. Then, just delay. Blame the judge.

The genius of democracy is that you can drive hypocrites nuts by coming back, year after year after year after year after year. Endlessly. Like the NY legislator who changed his mind after he got outed earlier this year. And then the next year, someone else.

Meantime, a couple, 84 and 91, together sixty-one years, figure they can wait a bit longer.


Scary, aren't they? Feeling the foundations of life crumbling?

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The Protocols of the Elders of the South

This past week Max Heller died. He was 92 years old.
Max and Trude Heller

Heller was mayor of Greenville in the 1970s. He turned downtown Greenville from the slum it was into the public amenity is now is.

Out of the chaos of Nazi-occupied Austria Heller made his way to Greenville, and out of the chaos of World War II he managed to reconnect with, and marry, his childhood sweetheart- one of the most charming people I ever met.

Heller ran for governor and lost to Republican legend Carroll Campbell, who piously declared he knew nothing about those ads asking voters whether they wanted a native South Carolinian or a Jewish immigrant from Austria to lead the state. Campbell won.

The Campbell family burped up a message of condolence, but the campaign they countenanced should lie heavy on their consciences for generations. Max Heller has a statue in downtown Greenville. Carroll Campbell is just dead.



And now the same sort of bullshit has surfaced in Kentucky:

Lexington attorney Larry Forgy, a Republican who lost the 1995 governor's race against Democrat Paul Patton, said the only reason Beshear picked Abramson to be his running mate was "to attract New York and Hollywood Jewish money" for the campaign.

"There's no other reason why to pick a big-city, liberal mayor to run for lieutenant governor in a rural, conservative state like this," Forgy said.

I can't decide whether to cry or vomit. And we haven't even begun to consider Mrs. Palin's "blood libel" comments.

Sorry, but as I type, crying wins. Damn these people. How long must we remain chained to a past defined by hate and piety? Do we learn nothing?

Somewhere, Sharron Angle is loading up on Second Amendment remedies.

Former Nevada GOP Chairman Mark Amodei released a TV ad Monday that focuses on the debt limit issue and features an image of Chinese troops marching on the Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C.

He's running for Congress.

"Of course my paymasters have a better plan."

Back in 1993, the clever young staffers under Bubba streamed into The White House and complained that the phone system was lame and there weren't enough plugs for their Macs.

Twenty years on, the idea that you are somehow smarter based on what tools you use is alive and well (not to mention some more,delightful, bitch-slapping):

We have had a great few weeks here at Donehue Direct and we have big things happening. We apologize for having to put Process Story on the back burner for a couple weeks, but unlike our buddy Will Folks, we cannot just sit on our couches all day. Ok, that is not entirely true, as most of our staff sits on couches all day plugging away at their MacBook Pros, but they’re working on stuff other than grocery store trash magazine style BS.

Not disclosed, of course, is that PS shills for the Senate plan because PS is on retainer from the Senate GOP caucus.

Applause is pretty skimpy

Poor Buddy Roemer. He was governor of Louisiana twenty years ago. Now he wants to be president. C-SPAN's running his speech to the RLC.

He's definitely not using a TelePrompTer.

He comes across like a cross between Dana Carvey playing Ross Perot and a Slimfasted Rev. John Hagee.

So if you're too poor to pay child support, go to jail, where the state can make you work for peanuts and take all the money.

The US Supreme Court issued a sharp slap to SC's Dickensian debtors' prison system of dealing with delinquent child support.

h/t The Nerve

The return- sub silentio- of Reagan's Cadillac welfare queens

Victim pre-positioning:

But Wilkinson, in a Thursday night "Dear Patriots" email, says that in the upcoming fight over raising the national debt ceiling, "Republicans will lose if they support the Ryan Medicare plan. Americans do not support the Ryan plan." If Democrats make big gains in 2012, Wilkinson's email says, "Expect the GOP to then blame the Tea Party for losses.

Wilkinson says Republicans should go after welfare fraud to find budget savings and "touch Medicare last."

Silent dog whistle: we all know who commits welfare fraud, don't we?

Nah...everybody knows gays do the natural disasters

Uncle Grumpy says illegals are lighting all those fires in the Southwest, just to be mean.

Thune-r, or later

Neocon Bill Kristol says Senator Thune is "rethinking" his decision not to run for president.

Recently, Jonathan Chait compiled a lengthy and hilarious list of Kristol's past Magic 8 Ball moments.

Glimmers

Experts say SC's economy has ended five years of declining productivity but there's an awful lot to do before the old economy is finally in the past:

South Carolina historically has had a heavy reliance on manufacturing. After decades of transition from old-line textile and apparel manufacturing to higher-tech textiles and durable goods, the end of the switch seems to be closer, Yandle said.

"It is not past, but it is passing," he said. "We have counties without much industrial base" and many residents there may not be able to move to find a job. Also, many workers are educated for the former manufacturing base rather than the existing one.

"It could be a generation" before this residual effect is eliminated, Yandle said. However, he said, "We have a re-energizing of textile manufacturing, with companies like Sage Automotive Interiors that are world competitors.

So much for term limits

Jim DeMint appeared on Hannity Friday night and, defending tax cuts, remarked, "I"m not a rich man, and I'll probably never be if I hang onto my present job."

The National Tax Payers Union suggests otherwise.

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More on the RLC's minstrel show

Doug Heye, a party strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee, criticized the hiring of Mr. Brown. As word of the performance began to spread online, he wrote in a message on Twitter: “Wonder why many minorities have problems with G.O.P.? Our own fault.”

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Father's Day

My father would have been 82 this year. He was a remarkable man. In one small town where we lived, when his job ended he got half a dozen offers. When he died, people drove hundreds of miles to attend his funeral. He chaired the United Way for years, was a Scout leader, and a passionate gardener. We used to joke that we moved not so much because we needed to but because the yard was full and he needed a new blank slate.

It's transparent when we say so

The Nerve, an organ of a right-wing think thank, is getting all apoplectic about how a school district spends its money, claiming a lack of tranparency- even as it lays out how the district is spending the money in detail.

News from the piranha tank

One might well wonder why a buzillionaire like New Yorker Howard Rich would be so keen to turn the South Carolina legislature into a personal petri dish for social legislation experiments.

One might wonder further why, with the media at his feet, he'd publish regularly  in FITSNews.com.

Unless, as The Garnet Spy claims- without proof- that Rich more or less owns FITSNews.com.

Bitchy lot, those conservatives.

"But we spent all those billions to put up that long, long wall!"

“This would punish the intent to engage in tunnel activity, even in cases where the tunnel might not have been fully constructed because the only reason to build the tunnel is to avoid the authorities so that means you have to be going to commit a criminal event,” she said.

"I could be president, except for the worm attached to my lip."

A film critic turned moralist wishes he could make money the way other people do.

Must've required a whole box of Kleenex

It's election season in SC, and the hearts and minds of consultant/bloggers turn to gayness.

In the interest of thoroughness

A one-term governor of Louisiana also wants to be president. He's apparently a cross between Sarah Palin and Doctor Suess, crying "Drill, we will!"

Fashion forward.

RLC straw poll: people want Paul, raw milk and hemp, and to pay for it in gold

Huntsman came in second, and didn't even show up.

Laff riot

Down at the Republican Leadership Conference, in addition to the comedians running for president, they brought in a guy pretending to be the President:

“John King served him up a ball softer than Barney Frank's backside,” he said, referring to Pawlenty's decision not to attack Romney during a CNN debate.
The audience was silent.

He was eventually led offstage.

Republicans just don't do funny. Well, not intentionally.

Who knew Stalin loved the gays?

“This isn't a question of civil rights,” he said. “This is a question of something ingrained in the human question.”

On Tuesday, as momentum increased toward a marriage equality vote in the Senate, the archbishop posted a note that compared the proposed law to the tyranny of Communist regimes.

.