Go Steelers.
Archives for 2008
John King, Wanker of the Week
I am calling it now- John King, on CNN, just proclaimed that there is no allegation of wrong-doing in the Blagojevich case regarding the Obama team, but that he better prove he is innocent and get it right because he said he would have an open and transparent administration.
Got it? Unless Obama proves he didn’t do anything wrong, when he hasn’t been accused of any wrong doing, there will be hell to pay.
Now, no one has accused John King of buggering young children after luring them into his van down by the river with promises of candy and then feeding them rum balls and Jesus Juice before repeatedly sodomizing them, but he better prove this is not the case or there will be big problems for King and CNN. What did Wolf Blitzer know about this? It would be irresponsible to not speculate about this.
Can’t they put something useful on CNN before Fareed Zakaria’s GPS so I am not subjected to this bullshit?
*** Update ***
John King is from Idaho, which makes me wonder if he has ever had a tryst with Larry Craig, who is also from Idaho. Don’t you see the obvious connection? They are both from Idaho, just like Obama and Balgojevich are BOTH FROM CHICAGO. It is right there in front of your eyes, folks! Will John King be able to prove he has never had sex with Larry Craig in a bathroom stall? We need answers!
Greenwald On Moyers
Rather than watch David Gregory on MTP, I would recommend you pour a cup of coffee and watch Glenn Greenwald on Bill Moyers:
David Gregory will be an hour long rehash of congratulatory gibberish and conventional wisdom, while Greenwald is saying something different and important. And, as Larison and others have noted, it is exceedingly depressing that our media is consumed by bribery attempts by a second rate crook, but completely silent about reports of outright lawlessness. I am willing to bet anything that Senate report will not be discussed at all on MTP, while Blagojevich and the “problems” he poses for Obama will get 45 minutes of the hour long show. Crooks and Liars highlights a relevant portion of the Moyers piece:
What you have is a two-tiered system of justice where ordinary Americans are subjected to the most merciless criminal justice system in the world. They break the law. The full weight of the criminal justice system comes crashing down upon them. But our political class, the same elites who have imposed that incredibly harsh framework on ordinary Americans, have essentially exempted themselves and the leaders of that political class from the law.
They have license to break the law. That’s what we’re deciding now as we say George Bush and his top advisors shouldn’t be investigated let alone prosecuted for the laws that we know that they’ve broken. And I can’t think of anything more damaging to our country because the rule of law is the lynchpin of everything we have.
Depressing, and while I understand why an Obama administration may not desire to pursue investigations of criminality, I disagree strongly with it. Right now, legally and economically, we are two different nations (sound familiar)? The status quo is untenable.
*** Update ***
And no more than ten minutes after I post this, I check memeorandum and find this story in Newsweek about the man who blew the whistle on the NSA’s illegal behavior. The title and subtitle to the Isikoff piece:
“The Fed Who Blew the Whistle: Is he a hero or a criminal?”
I am at a loss to provide a clearer example of what is wrong with our corrupt Washington establishment and their lackeys in the media.
What is Wrong With People?
It goes without saying that this is outrageous and wrong:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize Saturday if the fire was connected to “undeserved negative attention” from her campaign as the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Damage to the Wasilla Bible Church was estimated at $1 million, authorities said. No one was injured in the fire, which was set Friday night while a handful of people, including two children, were inside, according to James Steele, the Central Mat-Su fire chief.
What were these scumbags thinking?
CBS Sunday Morning
A glowing piece on the WPA seems to be the highlight of the show, and there was one of those old time ditties accompanying the beginning of the segment that was really catching. I miss those. At any rate, I tried to do a google search to find it, but couldn’t. On the other hand, I did come up with this website, the Uncensored History of the Blues, which has a great podcast about the blues in the WPA era, including some songs. Pretty cool. Yet another bookmark in my already crowded folder.
Up now, Jesus Christ Superstar.
The movie review segment is pretty solid- Cadillac Records looks right in my wheelhouse, and Doubt will be a must see. Really, all someone has to do to get me to watch a movie is put Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a role. I think he may be the best actor in Hollywood, and if not the greatest, he is definitely my favorite. Hell, he made Charlie Wilson’s War as Gust Avrakatos, otherwise that was a pretty forgettable flick.
Because I Love You
You’re Either With Us Or Against Us
I mentioned this in an earlier post, when I noted that the main reason the GOP appears to have spiked the auto bailout is because Sen. Corker thinks UAW workers make too much money, but this comment makes me think that we need to bring it up again to drive the point home:
Also, isn’t it ODD to have US Senators negotiating wage and benefit levels with the employees of private companies? These Southern Senators were actually NEGOTIATING WAGE LEVELS with the UAW leadership in a back room while they were filibustering the bill. Is that outrageous? Unheard of? What. The. Fuck?
Still, autoworkers remain angry with the senators who tried to negotiate wage and benefit concessions from the union, then scuttled the House-passed bill that would have granted the loans and set up a “car czar” to oversee the nearly insolvent companies and get concessions from the union and creditors. Their top targets were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who led negotiations on a compromise; and Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who has been a vocal critic of the loans.
Angry United Auto Workers members lash out at Southern senators
Just think about that for a minute. That kind of interference is on the level of Terry Schiavo interference. US Senators from “right to work” states with foreign auto plants trying to NEGOTIATE WAGE AND BENEFIT LEVELS with workers of private companies doing business IN OTHER STATES. That totally blows me away.
US Senators are openly colluding with foreign auto companies to drive down the wages of American workers. Something to think about the next time you hear “You’re either with us or against us.”
And as a side note, as someone who has never really cared much for unions, I am as shocked as anyone to see myself defending the UAW this vigorously. I guess I am just taken aback by how brazen the efforts are to blame this on the workers and to let the economy explode just to destroy unions. It is pretty mind-boggling, and that is even after a pretty amazingly awful eight years of suck.
*** Update ***
Also, well-known pink commie Ben Stein was really in rare form last night on Larry King:
BEN STEIN, ECONOMIST: Well I think what happened was that the Republicans were sick of the bailout and they were also sick of the idea that the autoworkers had voted Democrat so many times and turned Michigan into an entirely Democratic state and they’re also a little envious on behalf of the constituents of the way — the imaginary super wage benefit legacy cause.
But I think they made a terrible and unpatriotic mistake. We’re teetering on the brink of a depression. We can ship money to Iraqi warlords and giant cargo planes. We ship money all over the world. We can’t ship it to help our own people? We can ship it to Goldman Sachs and rescue people that get $100 million a year but we can’t rescue an autoworker and his family? That’s crazy.
***STEIN: But it is going to do a lot to deal with the onrushing depression business. That’s the problem. The problem isn’t the about business model of GM has failed. We know its failed. The business model of Goldman Sachs has failed. We’ve got a lot of failed business models.
What we are having is an onrushing depression. We have got to stop it now. We have got to have a government contra-cyclical action that stops it. If we fall off a cliff into depression, it will be so much worse than any of the bailout costs. You cannot imagine it. You do not want to let this go into Great Depression.
***STEIN: I absolutely agree, absolutely right. The government shoved tens of billions of dollars down the throats of banks who said, we don’t even want it. Now Detroit and the workers there who are decent Americans are begging for it. For gosh sake, let’s do the right thing.
You really need to read the entire thing. However wrong Ben Stein might be on any number of issues, he at least appears to working from a reality based environment on this. for the life of me, I don’t understand how people think if these companies all fail the only fall-out will be a few union workers won’t be living high on the hog. For christ’s sake, even Toyota is worried.
*** Update #2 ***
I rather like this:
“I don’t know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we’ve done, it’s time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him, ” said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, “He’d rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers.”
That ought to wrinkle Vitter’s diaper.