Open Threads

Just took my Thanksgiving turkey carcass out of the freezer this afternoon and made some delicious turkey rice soup. Ingredients:

1 lb carrots
1 lb celery
2 onions
1 bag frozen peas
1 lb mushrooms
turkey carcass
2 cups wild rice

I assume you all know how to make soup, so I will not waste time giving you specific instructions. Iwill say this, though- yuou need very little salt and pepper to make a grreat soup. After you boil the carcass for a while, pull it out of the pot, let it cool, and you will have a great broth for your soup already. Pick the meat off the carcass, throw it in the put with the other ingredients, and that is really it. Super simple, and I will be able to eat it for over a week. Just warm, tasty goodness for cold days. For dessert I am making baked apples stuffed with cinnamon and raisins.

For some good Holiday Cheer, I recommend visiting this website, F**k Christmas, which takes on the chowderheads pushing this tedious ‘War on Christmas’ crap. I can’t figure out who annoys me more- the folks who try to remove every manger from a public place, or the folks who are fighting this mythical ‘War on Christmas.’

Personally, I just want some nog with rum.

Holiday GoodnessPost + Comments (18)

I was perusing the 40 most obnoxious quotes of 2005 (Right Wing Edition– someone send me the left-wing edition if someone has done one), and I saw this quote:

Absolutely (I had sex with animals). I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule.”

First off, BLECH!.

Second, that is batshit-insane anti-abortion advocate Neil Horsley on Hannity and Colmes:

Colmes: “You had sex with animals?”

Horsley: “Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule.”

Colmes: “I’m not so sure that is so.”

Horsley: “You didn’t grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?”

Colmes: “Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?”

Horsley: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality…Welcome to domestic life on the farm…”

Horsley is the guy who looks like a mildly retarded Abe Lincoln in the HBO documentary Soldiers in the Army of God, which follows the lunatics around as they plot their anti-abortion schemes and debate the relative merits of Eric Rudolph and bombing abortion clinics. I didn’t think there was anything out there that could make these creeps any ickier, and I was wrong.

Worst Quotes of the YearPost + Comments (44)

I picked up a pair of hemp jeans, Patagonia brand, the other day. I know that you guys care about everything I wear, but hemp is especially awesome. They’re my favorite pair of pants now. It wears lighter than denim, has a cool dress-casual look and the material is practically unbreakable. Of course it’s expensive since hemp, which will kill you from smoke inhalation before you get a buzz, is for some stupid reason ILLEGAL to grow in the United States. I got mine for half off and I’m not telling you where [actually I don’t remember]. I’m just sad that society (and my wife) has rules against wearing the same pair of pants every day.

So, when will America do the sensible thing and legalize the best clothing material since silkworm poop? I’ll start the bidding at never, or as soon as the cotton lobby collectively resigns to take up a career in the musical theater. Whichever comes first.

Consider this an open thread.

Open Pants ThreadPost + Comments (209)

Once again call me late to the party. Let’s make it clear that if Jack Abramoff decides to flip, the GOP has a huge problem on their hands. As I said in my first post on the subject, Abramoff acted as the bagman for a vast network of corrupt and largely illegal cash reserves set up to benefit the GOP.

It’s easy to see this as a perversion of lobbying, which it is, and since lobbying permeates DC the problem is “the system” it indicts all of the parties and we all might as well shrug and move on. See, the Republicans thought you might have that reflex so Norquist, DeLay and Jack Abramoff kicked off a plan (more here) some years back to make DC lobbying an explicitly Republican operation, to revamp the system in to one of, by and for the Republican party. They called it the ‘K street project,’ after the avenue where the top lobbying firms usually reside. It worked pretty well for them.

The problem with owning the lobbying machinery is that when the lobbying machinery turns into a disgusting cancer you own that too. Some Democrats will go down, I have no doubt, and that’s all for the better. But if this smoldering kindling every truly catches fire you’ll see an amazing number of Reps, aides and hangers-on from the right side of the aisle disappear in smoke.

Today’s big story suggests that Abramoff is facing “increasing pressure” to flip. Pressure? You think? That doesn’t sound like news. Abramoff already faces jail time, his cronies have flipped and prosecutors have his records. God knows he’s faced pressure for a while. Reading between the lines, this suggests to me that the NYT has learned that Abramoff is negotiating a deal but can’t say so yet, except to refer elliptically to rumors. If that’s true this story would serve as a kind of placeholder, like a billboard that says ‘watch this space,’ so that when it breaks into the open they can point back and say toldjah-so. Blogically-speaking it’s one of Josh Marshall’s most annoying habits. So, watch this space.

Ten-gallon h/t

Read our previous coverage: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Abramoff NewsPost + Comments (67)

* The worst attempt at protecting journalistic sources ever:

The matriarch of the Bush clan is colder than North Pole ice right now to those around her son who she thinks have undermined him. I’ll tell who my sources are if Patrick Fitzgerald gives a call and makes me — but the sources are very close to Poppa Bush (41), who has been traveling a bit with some of his old entourage, including Brent Scowcroft and others of the first Bush regime.

I can’t tell you who wrote that. Secret. But the writer is one of the moderate-left political blogs I’ve read this morning which includes Steve Clemons. On topic, Barb is pissed at everybody but Karen and Junior? Of course she is. Junior’s in the tank and she can’t very well blame her own kid. Well, she could if it was Jeb. George Jr. is “special.”

* Justice Department lawyers concluded that Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting was illegal, superiors approved it anyway. On a practical level this doesn’t mean much of anything to me since Ashcroft’s already gone, the redistricting seems like a done deal and DeLay’s TRMPAC has already gone down in flames over it. I will gladly be proven wrong if, a) somebody did something prosecutable, which I doubt, or b) this gives ammo to people challenging the redistricting in court.

* The War on the War on Christmas: Has it become an unwinnable quagmire? Carpetbagger reports that the gloves may be coming off.

Stories Making The RoundsPost + Comments (48)