The Teabaggers Will Win Soon, Thanks to Gandhi

Now that Barack Obama has acknowledged that there were "folks waving tea bags around," it is only a matter of time before he concedes defeat in the great struggle against the tea people. As Red State's Moe Lane points out, this is because of the old adage, First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then you cry TEA BAGS FOREVER!! socialist hitler foreign-born tyrannical TAX ENSLAVER


...then you win. It's basically inevitable.

Moe Lane sees the tea-strategy shaping up here: "The idea here - I think - is to get and keep the attention of the forces of reaction [that's us] by co-opting their own iconic imagery." SCROTA?? Anyway: "this will encourage them to make heavy-handed attempts at suppression of the movement, which will both: alienate them from the populace in general; and cause a rift with the more progressive and perceptive elements from their own faction."

So, whatever we do, we must not try to suppress the movement in any way, including ridicule, lest "progressive" (i.e., imaginary) Democrats join the tea partiers. You know, the old "I used to be a Democrat, but ever since Barack Obama said teabaggers are unserious, I believe he was born in Kenya." Because that's exactly what they want to happen.

Now Chris Matthews Can Run As A Republican

So Keith Olbermann, whose show I never watch, asked Chris Matthews whether he, as a potential candidate for Senate, had looked into the future and seen Arlen Specter switching sides. His response was, uhh, well, Chris Matthews took it a little bit hard?

Ughghghgh... Well I did a little due diligence... I don't want to be a toady of a political party and when you join these damn political parties no matter which one it is you end up buying the blue plate special. You gotta buy card check, you gotta buy trade restrictions, you gotta do everything they want, ya gotta EAT IT. And I didn't want to EAT IT. Now Arlen is willing to eat it.

In fact, Arlen already puked up card check, and sent it back to the kitchen. But at least now Matthews has a better explanation for why he didn't run than the one initially offered up, which is that he didn't know what he wanted to do once he became a Senator. Now we know he just wasn't very hungry for unions. Matthews continued:

This guy is willing to do anything to keep that senate seat. Fine. If the voters like that and want to reelect him next year they know what they're getting. They're getting a guy who will do anything to get that seat. This guy is the opposite of Edmund Burke.

There you go, you skeptical hard leftists. Arlen Specter is, in fact, the French Revolution.

[Pennsylvania] does believe in middle of the road politics, but it does believe in loyalty. And I think they're gonna find it very hard to believe that a guy, a politician, was loyal to a political party for half a century, that gave him elective office time after time after time, supported him, raised money for him, voted for him, BELIEVED in him, and then just like that, when he sees a better opportunity, he splits to the other side.

Obviously, the 200,000 Republicans who registered as Democrats in the last election don't care about loyalty as much as Matthews does. I mean, Matthews just sounds pissed. So pissed, indeed, that it sounds like he just might consider running as a Republican, just to prove a point about loyalty, to Pennsylvanians.

You gotta wonder about a guy's character who does that. I think. Now the voters are gonna have to decide. And I have no idea what they're gonna decide. Maybe they won't have any better choice than him, and they'll be stuck with him.

But maybe they'll have Chris Matthews! And then won't we all be better off, just a little.

Answers for Rich People

It is a time of great angst for the rich. Recently, there have been questions as to whether rich, taxpayer subsidized bankers "deserve" million dollar bonuses, from taxpayers. They sense scorn from fellow subway passengers, which they had not sensed before, from taxicabs. They have questions, many anonymous questions scattered throughout that piece in NY Magazine, and they deserve answers. Let's get to it.

Laid-off JP Morgan vice president asks, "AIG pissed some people off, and now you’re gonna screw everyone on Wall Street?"

That's the idea.

Citigroup executive, via e-mail to a colleague: "No offense to Middle America, but if someone went to Columbia or Wharton, [even if] their company is a fumbling, mismanaged bank, why should they all of a sudden be paid the same as the guy down the block who delivers restaurant supplies for Sysco out of a huge, shiny truck?"

Because your question makes not a lick of sense? Why would Middle America be offended, when you mean to offend your neighbor down the block, and his truck?

Mortgage-investment banker: “There’s this perception that the people on the Street were making money for nothing. You have a political and media class who make the mortgage originators and bankers out to be the villains. But are they? They were doing what Congress wanted them to do."

Yes, mortgage originators and bankers are the villains; they were doing what banking industry lobbyists wanted Congress to allow them do do.

Bear Sterns managing director: "Compensation gets so emotional. Everyone has a point of view. The truth is, the market determines what people are worth. Did I think I was overpaid? You betcha."

Thank you for making my job easier. My representative will be along to collect your excess compensation in the next 7-10 days.

Attendee, Goldman-Sachs client meeting: "Are you going to raise my taxes."

Barack Obama answered your question already. "Yes," he said. I would add, "Fuck yes."

Nicholas Cacciola, 44-year-old executive at a financial-services firm: "If you really take a look at what Obama is promising, it’s frightening. He’s punishing you for doing better. He doesn’t want to have any wealth creation—it’s wealth distribution. Why are you being punished for making a lot of money?"

Because you are annoying, and because you're probably this guy on Twitter who only follows Michelle Malkin. Shut up.

Securities trader: "Suddenly, the simple fact I work on Wall Street means that I’m a bad person?"

Yes, I think you're starting to understand.

The Aristocrats!!

Yes Of Course There's an "Ohio Militia"

The Ohio Militia wants a "million man march" on Washington, with guns. For Independence Day! Says a spokesman:

A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can get 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.

This is what the DHS was talking about in their nefarious "oh yeah there's a lot of crazy rightwing lunatics out there with guns" report. Ten million gun persons, "even better!" God, I hate America.

Here Is Your Course of Human Events

It just dawned on me why calling these wingnut protesters "teabaggers" is funny: "teabagging" is also a sexual thing where you put your scrotum in a cup of hot water, oh ha. Very nice. But I passed the "then they laugh at you" phase of dealing with the wingnuts, and cold gone into the "they laugh uneasily and sidle away" phase, and that is because I went to a tea party, and found cognitively modern large-brained land animals gathering outside the Ohio Statehouse, cheering for Glenn Beck. Humans, in other words, who are serious about this. So serious, indeed, that some got themselves up in serious costumes, as submissive TAX SLAVEs.

Wrap your mind around the fact that this person is NOT JOKING. Pointing and laughing only makes him CROSS, with the yelling and everything. Some wingnuts were much more serious about their not-joking, though, like this guy:


That's a full camo getup and an upside-down flag, because of the distressful nature of the invasion of Washington, D.C., by traitors. But what to do with the traitors??


Oh, eject! Eject! Like Thomas Jefferson would do! I guess that means the person with this sign won't be voted into office anytime soon:
OK! Your move, Department of Homeland Security! Well, these people, yes people with hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary advantage behind them, are nutters, surprise! Two figures in this crowd, though, were not so consumed with politics.

That, friends, is the figure of Prosperity, and a young'un he is teaching to use tools. One wonders what they think of all this teabagging.

69!!!1!

QUOTE: The recession has also meant more business for other purveyors of romance books: public libraries. Robin Bradford, the fiction buyer for the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, said demand for many romance titles had gone way up. She noted, for example, that the list of borrowers waiting for a copy of “Nauti Intentions” by Lora Leigh, a popular romance writer, was now 69 — up from an average of 15 or 20 for previous titles by that author last year.

Maybe they should form a book club?

ACORN, Obama, FBI, CIA, Mafia, Ghost of LBJ, Castro, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi Sabotage Tea Parties

Maybe one day in 30 years there will be a film of a wingnut tea party showing dozens of people running away simultaneously, like an anti-flash mob. And maybe it will be analyzed frame by frame until it is determined that the person who yelled, "Look, a Democrat!" acted alone.

Also, tea is imported into the U.S. duty-free (unless you're talking liberal green tea [6.4%]), so holding an anti-tax demonstration with tea as a centerpiece is, for that reason among so many, deeply stupid.

Fuck Academia

Es más y más dificil creer que mi vida es así, en la realidad.

Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Everyone's an asshole.

Jury awards $1 to professor fired for 9/11-Nazi essay

A jury Thursday found that former college professor Ward Churchill, who referred to victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks as "little Eichmanns" in an essay, was wrongfully terminated by the University of Colorado, according to a court official.

Ward Churchill was dismissed as a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2007.

But the jury, which deliberated for a day and a half after a trial that began March 9, awarded Churchill only $1, the minimum they could award while still finding in Churchill's favor.

How many Ward Churchills? I dunno, let's find them all and give them a dollar, like homeless people.

Really, I thought Ward Churchill had suicided a long time ago.

NOW THIS IS HAPPENING: "Anarchy in the UK" Shows Up on Queen's iPod

The story that keeps on giving! Barack Hussein Obama, who would have given Jesus a crown of thorns, probably, if he was a Wise Man, put "Anarchy in the U.K." on the iPod he gave to the Queen of England. It was previously disclosed that Barry X. put "Oklahoma" and his own speeches on the iPod, which was embarrassing for everyone involved, except for Apple, who sells iPods.

The Queen, upon discovering the Sex Pistols track, declared, "Bloody right it's a fucking fascist regime." She made Michelle Obama lick her boots, then everyone got into bondage gear.

Missive of Northern Aggression

Sexytime Budgetman Peter Orszag dispatched a letter explaining that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford has limited control over how South Carolina's stimulus funds are spent. In fact, Orszag says, the funds that Sanford has the authority to reject are the ones for education, and Sanford should accept them because

It would be an unfortunate (and we believe unintended) policy outcome if the children of South Carolina were to be deprived of their share of federal stimulus dollars, which South Carolina citizens have already paid for.

Unintended! We believe! This must be what is called arguing with psychopaths in good faith. Now, everyone from the South Carolina Assembly to Lindsey fucking Graham (who voted against the stimulus) wants Sanford to shut up and request the money. But how does Mark Sanford feel about all this? Here he is explaining his position on Glenn Beck's psycho show for freaks, plus, uh, an artist's conception of Glenn Beck's thinking on the stimulus:

BECK: OK. Governor, listen I — first of all, good for you for standing up against taking this — this is heroin that they're trying to put into the veins of the states. And good for you for standing up and saying — no, we're not going to take it. But I read something that was amazing to me. They're now going around you and saying the state has no right to reject these funds. Could you explain that a little bit?

SANFORD: Yes, it's kind of scary. It's "federalism is dead" 101. And, you know, the Founding Fathers believed in this notion of states being incubators of different changes that they would have different applications because we're different. [...] If you think about this in a military sense, you know, they give discretion to the commander in the field.

Well! I'm not sure that the legislative bodies that crafted the Recovery Act were thinking about it "in a military sense." Good to know! Especially since Sanford thinks that if he can't dictate how stimulus money is spent, it may be "hazardous to the republic's existence." When I think of it "in a military sense," I think of General Ripper initiating Plan R. And also this:

Reactionary Misogyny Three Centuries Older Than Previously Thought

The Saturday Profile article about Louise Richardson, the first woman president of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the third-oldest university in the English-speaking world, misstated the publication year of a book she cited in her installation ceremony last week as an example of how women have advanced. The book, by John Knox, a St. Andrews graduate, titled “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,” was published in 1558, not 1858.

(NY Times correction)