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Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

It’s the corruption, stupid.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Hot air and ill-informed banter

People are complicated. Love is not.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

He really is that stupid.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

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The Free Market is a Cruel Mistress

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It appears that the director of Atlas Shrugged: The Debacle is mooning the invisible hand and will go Galt:

Twelve days after opening “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1,” the producer of the Ayn Rand adaptation said Tuesday that he is reconsidering his plans to make Parts 2 and 3 because of scathing reviews and flagging box office returns for the film.

“Critics, you won,” said John Aglialoro, the businessman who spent 18 years and more than $20 million of his own money to make, distribute and market “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1,” which covers the first third of Rand’s dystopian novel. “I’m having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2.”

“Atlas Shrugged” was the top-grossing limited release in its opening weekend, generating $1.7 million on 299 screens and earning a respectable $5,640 per screen. But the the box office dropped off 47% in the film’s second week in release even as “Atlas Shrugged” expanded to 425 screens, and the movie seemed to hold little appeal for audiences beyond the core group of Rand fans to whom it was marketed.

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“Why should I put up all of that money if the critics are coming in like lemmings?” Aglialoro said. “I’ll make my money back and I’ll make a profit, but do I wanna go and do two? Maybe I just wanna see my grandkids and go on strike.”

There can only be one response to his threats to Go Galt and refuse to bring us parts 2 and 3:

Atlas Shrugged, and I Got Soaked

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I’ve Run Out of Invisible Hand Jokes

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But not schadenfreude:

My esteemed colleague Kyle Smith may not qualify as a box-office Nostradamus (“I smell a hit,” he once wrote of “An American Carol”) but he was certainly on the mark in predicting that “Atlas Shrugged — Part One” would flop in his Sunday column a couple of weeks ago.

After a middling performance during its opening weekend that was hyped in some quarters (i.e., The Hollywood Reporter), the per-screen average for this amateurish Ayn Rand adaptation (even Kyle could only muster 2.5 stars’ worth of enthusiam for the movie, though he liked its message) plunged to an alarming $1,890 from $5,640 during its opening frame. Overall, the weekend’s take was a scant $879,000 — a whopping 48 percent drop despite adding 166 locations. Which certainly suggest they’re running out of audience quick.

That means that at some locations, distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures will be writing checks to theaters to cover the difference between receipts and operating expenses. The only way they’re likely to get the 1,000 screens the producers say they want next weekend is to rent them. And, as Kyle put it at his personal blog, “Whether the sequels get made is purely a matter of how much desire the producers have for losing money.”

I’m dying.

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Kicked to the Curb

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Marco Rubio won’t be joining Jim DeMint’s Tea Party Caucus, and instead has been one of Mitch McConnell’s favored freshmen, recently accompanying McConnell on a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Tea Party has been in Rubio’s rear view mirror ever since he leveraged it to push Charlie Crist out of the Republican primary, so it’s not really a surprise that Rubio won’t join Jim DeMint, Rand Paul and Mike Lee’s little band of true patriots. Rubio has to get re-elected in a state that occasionally elects Democrats, and he’s smart enough to know that the Tea Party will be nothing but an impediment to that run, not to mention a hindrance in his ambition to be the Republican Obama.

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This Must Be Done

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Please excuse me, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA:

Michigan has fired head football coach Rich Rodriguez after three seasons, according to Fox 2 News in Detroit.

Rodriguez was 15-22 overall during his Michigan tenure and just 1-10 against ranked opponents. The Wolverines ended this season with a 52-14 loss to Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl, the worst bowl loss in school history.

Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. He could have been the king of West Virginia. He would have been the highest paid state employee in West Virginia his entire career, and then there would have been lucrative promotional contracts, his own radio show. They’d be naming streets after him, as anyone who has been on Don Nehlen Boulevard can attest. We even loved him despite that loss to Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl. He never would have been fired. Ever.

But he was too good for us.

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Rules are For Other People

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Oddly enough, Fox news is not screaming about this:

DID former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

The problem is that the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a “foreign terrorist organization,” making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support. And, according to the Justice Department under Mr. Mukasey himself, as well as under the current attorney general, Eric Holder, material support includes not only cash and other tangible aid, but also speech coordinated with a “foreign terrorist organization” for its benefit. It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.

It’s a stupid law, but these clowns would have used it to bludgeon anyone who got in their way while they were in power.

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Oklahoma vs. Westboro Baptist Church

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something-something “where the wind comes sweeping down the plains”1


Sometimes what you need on a Monday is a little schadenfreude for the soul. Here’s some, for ya:

Members of a Kansas church who protest at military funerals may have found themselves in the wrong town Saturday.

Shortly after finishing their protest at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey of McAlester, a half-dozen protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., headed to their minivan, only to discover that its front and rear passenger-side tires had been slashed.

To make matters worse, as their minivan slowly hobbled away on two flat tires, with a McAlester police car following behind, the protesters were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle, according to police.

The minivan finally pulled over several blocks away in a shopping center parking lot, where AAA was called. A flatbed service truck eventually arrived and loaded up the minivan.

Assistant Police Chief Darrell Miller said the minivan was taken to Walmart for repairs.

Even before the protesters discovered their damaged tires, they faced off with a massive crowd of jeering and taunting counter-protesters at Third Street and Washington Avenue, two blocks from the First Baptist Church, where the soldier’s funeral was held.

Miller estimated that crowd to number nearly 1,000 people, and they not only drowned out the Westboro protesters with jeers, but with raucous chants of “USA, USA.”

Fred Phelps is an asshole. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church are assholes. They got thusly served.

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Late Night Open Thread: Schadenfreude

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Just got a press release from the self-proclaimed “pioneer [of] political direct mail”, who boasts that he “has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation magazine), one of the “conservatives of the century” (The Washington Times), and one of 2008’s “top 25 influencers” among Republicans””:

Manassas, Virginia – “Voters have given Republicans one more chance to get it right,” Richard A. Viguerie said today. “They are on probation, and if they mess up again, they won’t get another chance.”
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“The last time the Republicans were in charge, they became the party of big spending, Big Government, and Big Business. They abandoned the philosophy of Ronald Reagan and cozied up to lobbyists and special interests. And they paid a price at the polls.
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“This year, the Democrats under President Obama and Speaker Pelosi drove millions of voters right back into the arms of the Republicans. But if Republicans return to their bad habits – if they start working for K Street instead of Main Street – they will pay a terrible price. Tea Party voters and conservatives will turn them out in the 2012 primaries.
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“People will say: Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, and the Republican Party is dead,” Viguerie said.

The upcoming, ongoing battles between the common Republican careerists and the wackaloon true believers are going to make the internecine sniping between Obots and firebaggers look like a… garden fete.

I’m just a little giddy that my beloved Commonwealth of Massachusetts has stayed solidly Democratic. Incumbent Governor Patrick held off Charley Baker, aka “Mitt Romney with a functioning neocortex”, and Barney Frank defeated our own version of “Joe Miller Lite”. The local newsbots are already babbling about “the end of the Scott Brown effect” — Cosmo Boy is now reduced to another quirky swamp yankee anomaly, not the much-ballyhooed John-the-Baptist foretelling a new regime of Masshole Republicanism. I wonder what the 2011 version of those Watergate-era “Don’t Blame Us, We Voted for McGovern” bumperstickers will be?

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