Quotable: Bubba Clinton on The Campaign Trail

"You'd be amazed how many times I take a picture with a very pregnant woman and then she immediately gives birth."

 ~ Bill Clinton, campaigning for Ohio Rep. John Boccieri who rushed offstage when news came his wife had gone into labor. Bubba didn't miss a beat: "The baby is now being born!" Clinton announced as the crowd cheered.

Trick or Street: McDonalds Election Central Moons Employees, Customers

Massive artery blocker McDonalds follows in the footsteps of Target as yet another corporate citizen SCUMBAG to crap on American democracy by intimidating employees into voting for Republicans or face lower wages/benefits or worse. (As if a health “plan” that caps annual medical expenditures at $2,000 after $364 in employee paycheck deductions is any kind of adequate “benefit.”)

GOP Arches Moons Employees/Customers, Farts Republicans

Who needs a stinking Republican Big Mac anyhow? Look at it this way: It'll be one less heart disease generator to finally quit patronizing on a matter of principle. So don’t forget to boycott these corporate criminals unless they get down on bended knee and reform their voter intimidation/election investment/purchase ways with deeds not words. That’ll be the day.

See, these heart disease and diabetes peddlers are upset at First Lady Michelle Obama for insisting that the fast food industry include more healthy options in its menus. It seems the fat, grease, and processed meat emporiums of America are inconvenienced by her concern over the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in our nation.

In his obligatory but clueless apology the franchise owner said he did not intend to “offend” anyone. The franchisee and corporate just don't get it: It isn't about hurting an employee's feelings. It's about violating a fundamental principle of our democracy: The freedom to vote without any form of coercion.

Dan Tokaji, associate director of Ohio State University Law School's election law project, said Siegfried's communication appears to violate a state law that bans companies from distributing handbills that threaten workplace repercussions if particular candidates aren't elected. 

Vote for HEART DISEASE, DIABETES, CANCER, POLLUTION, and GLOBAL WARMING: Vote Republican.

Chris Matthews: Edging Toward Enlightenment

Chris is a liberal at heart (as most good people are), but he prefers to take the "scenic route" to enlightenment:

Musical Interlude: Harmonica At Carnegie Hall

Quotable: Jason Linkins re:POLITICO

Here's what Jason Linkins has to say about POLITICO, Chris Matthews's bible, on its criticism of Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity:

"[T[hey've taken that smallish gaggle of walleyed concern-trolls, mixed in a clueless academic and added a heaping helping of straw-men to contend that Jon Stewart will utterly destroy his brand by staging a comedy show for people."

 I think he's got the Mitchell-Matthews pets pretty well sussed, don't you?

TEA PARTY Remedial Education: Your Voter’s Guide From HELL

Countdown’s Keith Olbermann slammed the Tea Party candidates, peeling the scab off their political “Constitutionalism,”  “big government,” and “family values” platitudes to expose the breadth of Tea Party extremism on issue after bedrock issue of critical importance to the American people.

Keith’s slam of the Tea Party is a PSA (public service announcement) to the American people, a warning of a disastrous cave-in just as we’re pulling ourselves out of the economic hole Republicans plunged us into. Large majorities of Americans vehemently disagree with the Tea Party but, literally, do not know it because they are largely unaware of where Tea Party candidates stand.

Case in point: ending Social Security as we know it with privatization schemes to hand trillions of the people’s retirement funds to gambling “investment” bankers in a massive transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street. Had President George W. Bush’s privatization scheme worked — his biggest regret was that it failed — the people’s retirement and social safety net would have been decimated in Bush’s economic meltdown. A recent New York Times poll shows:

• 54 to 42 percent of respondents oppose raising the Social Security retirement age; and

• 71 to 23 percent of respondents oppose reducing Social Security retirement benefits for future retirees.

With regard to the supposedly wildly unpopular healthcare bill — the one Republicans derisively call “Obamacare” and the Bush tax cuts:

• 46 to 28 percent of respondents think the Democratic Party is more likely to improve the healthcare system. Eleven percent of respondents said neither party;

• 45 to 41 percent of respondents believe Congress should not repeal the healthcare law; and

• 48 to 41 percent of respondents believe letting the Bush tax cuts expire for people making more than $250,000 is a “good idea.”

Which of the following programs would you be willing to cut to reduce government spending?

National security – 29
NO CUTS – 26
------------------------------------------
Healthcare – 25
Social security & Medicare - 13
Education – 7

Is reducing government spending the single most important issue, or is it important but so are other issues, or not important?

Important but so are others – 66
Single most important – 21
Not important – 9

Finally, as one common refrain among Tea Party supporters is this country is in an irreversible tailspin, and those in talk show terrorist Glenn Beck’s thrall are literally terrified, scared to death about our future, this is what the REAL AMERICA believes:

• The current economic downturn is temporary – 68

• The current economic downturn is permanent and the country won’t recover – 28

Conclusion: (1) the TEA PARTY is NOT America; (2) The issues TEA PARTY candidates have been hammering — privatization of Social Security, Medicare cuts, repeal of healthcare, elimination of the Department of Education, massive cuts in government spending, keeping the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, and this fear ginned up by domestic terrorists GLENN BECK and PORKULUS RUSH LIMBAUGH that our best days are behind us — are DECISIVELY rejected by SOLID MAJORITIES of the American people.

This last figure, measuring Americans’ optimism in full economic recovery, in my view, is a snapshot of REAL AMERICANS — US — versus THEM — the TEABAGGERS, America’s REAL ILLEGAL ALIENS, a crop of un-American TRAITORS, European mid-20th Century-style fascists who represent no more than 28 percent of the population.

Keith quoted a passage, a scene from one of the greatest films ever made: Inherit the Wind. Its tragic message is that, as a nation, we continue to relitigate issues of science and separation of church and state, as the pull of fundamentalism and the Christian Right continues to wage a relentless war against science, education, history, and the emancipation of young minds through knowledge and truth. Here is the scene, dominated by the incomparable Spencer Tracy, who plays the role of legendary attorney Clarence Darrow (for science and evolution) versus the equally iconic William Jennings Bryan (for the Bible) played by Fredric March:

If you haven’t already, rent this movie ... It’s highly recommended. And here is a snippet of the nightmare vision the Tea Party plans for our nation:

Get out there and VOTE, people. Let’s STAND TALL and defend our democracy against the fascist hordes and plutocrats. VOTING is our civic duty. This year it’s more important than ever.

Rand Paul Stomp Ad: Way to Fight Back Against The GOONS!

Baked Alaska: What If Sarah Palin's Backyard Turns Out to Be The Canary in The Fetid Tea Room?

Back before there were ventilation systems in coal mines and no state and federal regulatory safety compliance standards to speak of — a climate of criminal deregulation advocated by Senate Tea Party candidates Rand Paul and John Raese in the mining states of Kentucky and West Virginia — coal miners would take a caged canary down into the mines as a sort of early warning system of the build-up of dangerous gases that cause explosions and cave-ins. Canaries are particularly susceptible to methane gas and carbon monoxide, and would keel over in time, it was hoped, for miners to evacuate successfully.

With five days remaining in this election, the state of Alaska may turn out to be the canary in the coal mine for the lower 48, warning of an impending disaster if the Republican Tea Party candidates are elected next Tuesday. The latest poll has Tea Party Senate candidate Joe Miller self-destructing as Democrat Scott McAdams surges past Miller and sets his sights on write-in Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski.

In fact, the fetid odor of rotten political eggs  emanating from every pore of the Tea Party may finally be registering in the consciousness and smell test of low-information swing and independent voters. The vaunted “enthusiasm gap” promoted by the beltway Idiot Punditocracy is a myth, at least with regard to Democratic voters and the base. Interestingly, it was an invention of the GOP-leaning Gallup Poll, which may be the Fox News equivalent of pollsters.

Quantifying a so-called “enthusiasm gap” is so subjective it is practically worthless as a measure of voter intention. But with “News Nation” anchor Tamron Hall and others breathlessly reporting the mythical “enthusiasm gap” number, its likely effect, to the extent it is uncritically reported, is to suppress Democratic turnout and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fortunately, most Democratic voters aren't swayed by the bogus Gallup numbers as evidenced by angry e-mails and tweets to Contessa Brewer (a marginally more skeptical anchor) from Democrats who insist they will be voting and resent being told they lack enthusiasm. Sure, Democrats are disappointed, angry, upset, worried, anxious about the state of the Union. In a conventional election year, this might be reason enough to stay home and cede the advantage to the other party. But not this year, not considering the alternative.

As Chris Kofinis rightly noted on Countdown, “the choice isn‘t about Republicans and Democrats.  It isn‘t about mainstream Americans and Republicans. It‘s about mainstream and extreme.” That reality may finally be resonating with voters, horrified by these images of thuggery, reports of extremism (which is an euphemism for fascism in America) that are finally breaking through the fog of white noise from political attack ads to right wing propaganda to the idiocies of the beltway punditocracy.

In Alaska, the Idiot Punditocracy is surprised and unwilling to recognize it has been blindsided. The  “amazed” Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, colleague to bewildered Jonathan Capehart, dismissively referred to Alaska’s Democratic Senate candidate Scott McAdams as a “local mayor.” Strangely, he has also refused to recognize the thuggery of the right wing as a manifestation of proto-fascism in America, which is an empirical historical reality. And so we see these verbal gymnastics in which Chris Matthews uses the euphemistic phrase of “hoodlums in another country in the 1930s” to describe the thuggishness of  Rand Paul Teabaggers roughing up and stomping on the head of a young woman demonstrator. At least he deserves credit for making the comparison:

Indeed, one of the attributes common to the Idiot Punditocracy is an unwillingness to “go there” as employees of the corporate media. It’s understandable. Not every journalist can afford to be completely independent; as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted about his colleagues, most of them, unlike Krugman himself (a tenured Princeton economics professor and Nobel Laureate), cannot afford to run afoul of their corporate employers. They also have mortgages to pay and children to support. Yes, it’s understandable, but not the public interest journalism we deserve. That Keith Olbermann actually said the word “fascism” to characterize such thuggish behavior from Tea Party hired goons is a victory for straight shooting journalism, both written and electronic.

Sarah Palin was a local mayor too, Mr. Cillizza. But the Alaska race, “writ large” (to coin a fancy Maddow-Hayes liberal elite-ism) is that (a) it’s wide-open, (b) Tea Party candidate Joe Miller is literally self-destructing before our eyes, (c) Lisa Murkowski faces an uphill fight as a write-in candidate locked in a three-way race, and (d) Democrat Scott McAdams, a quality candidate known mostly to Alaskans, is surging in the polls. Once Alaskan Democrats realize McAdams is a viable candidate who can win, they will break his way. If the choice is between a false Democrat (Murkowski), a real one (McAdams) and a Teabag Republican (Miller), Democrats will choose McAdams over Murkowski.

Miller, the fascist Tea Party candidate, will poll in the mid-30s, the same as Hitler and the Nazi Party did in Germany of the 1930s. Regardless of the preferred terminology, this nation's fascist vote is around the mid-30s, ticking up into the 40s depending on how much lipstick Republicans can put on the Tea Party pig.

America’s Most Dangerous Talk Show Puts Angle in The Crosshairs: “Come Here, BITCH!”

Joy Behar rocks! The full Behar-to-Angle quote: “I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch! Come to New York and do it!”

Behar unleashed a few more sweet nothings for the BITCH from Nevada, notably she’s going to HELL —Joy, that BITCH’s one-way ticket to HELL is punched. Satan has a cabaña reserved for the xenophobic Angle to share with Sarah Palin screeching over and over again in ear-splitting pitch: “SEA HOMBRE, MUJER PUTANA! SEA HOMBRE!”

In Part II, Behar receives flowers from Angle thanking her for raising $150,000 online. Behar then fuels Angle’s latest conspiracy theory that Harry Reid is “stealing the election,” when she says: “I'd like to point out that those flowers were picked by illegal immigrants, and they're not voting for you, BITCH!”

“You know what’s offensive?” Behar added. “Watching those ads, and watching people who work for a living made to look like villains. That's what's offensive. Not what I said. Let’s get that straight, America.” Here’s the BITCH’s “closing argument”— an overtly racist us v. them ad in which she uses/abuses white children, scary-looking brown and black actors to strike fear in the hearts of white voters while smearing the entire Latino population of Nevada. That’s Angle’s closing argument with Nevadans: fear and loathing.

Latinos are pretty pissed right now, and they’re mobilizing. If they turn out in numbers come election day, they can defeat this revolting woman. Get out there and VOTE straight Democratic ticket, people.  It’s really important. EVERY.VOTE.COUNTS.

Behar and Angle’s racist ad:

Lights Out For Whitman: Too Bad Dems Can't Clone Jerry Brown's Ad Team

The secret to Jerry Brown's success in California is his one-two punch — or, how to convincingly beat a billionaire who outspends the candidate 10-1 in an attempt to buy the governorship: (1) A brilliant ad campaign, the first ('Twins') using Whitman's own words to tie her at the hip to the highly unpopular "Gobernator" Arnie, then pouncing on her devastating rookie mistake, below; and (2) being the quality candidate in the race by force of his own personality, the legendary "Governor Moonbeam," a California brand of leadership that runs through generations, more than one-half centuries of father-son California politics.

Jerry Brown endeared himself to a whole new generation of California voters with his trademark energy, intelligence, and self-deprecating humor — as when he told voters his advanced age was a great deal for them because as long as they kept him on the job he wouldn't be a drain on state and federal pension and retirement rolls. Jerry Brown has the "vision thing" in a state that rewards forward-looking candidates. Is it any wonder that, despite all her millions, Whitman is fading as Brown opens up a lead on her; or that he was the one person who was most optimistic he could buck her money? Brown believed in himself all the way, and his trademark optimism, along with a frugal approach to governing and his honesty, were infectious. It pays off in ways money can't to field outstanding candidates, no matter what the real and perceived advantages in money and trends are on the other side.

When Reason Fails: Stomp on a Collectivist’s Head

And a woman, to boot. (No pun intended. Well…) Lauren Valle, a MoveOn volunteer, was thrown to the ground and held down while her head was stomped by a Rand Paul mind over violence enthusiast. These rationalists must have thought Lauren was one of those “collectivist thugs” inimical to their philosophy. You can never be too careful with these altruistic socialists. The objectivist instincts of these deep thinkers must have figured Lauren for a liberal insect to be crushed underfoot.

Paul, The Oracle Octopus, Dies; Nate Silver Devastated

Paul, the amazing psychic octopus, who became world-famous for predicting eight 2010 World Cup results in a row including the final, sadly, has died of natural causes. He was 2 1/2. Mourning Paul's loss was Nate Silver, the New York Times polling wiz-geek who had secretly contracted with Paul to predict the individual outcomes of the midterm elections, as well as which party will control the House and Senate. Nate was devastated and confused: "I don't know how I will carry on without Paul. I was still waiting on the final results when I got the news," said a crestfallen Silver. "I guess I'll just have to crunch the numbers and hope for the best," he added with a resigned sigh. "It's all guesswork," he confessed in a low voice, "and Paul was our best guesser." RIP, Paul. You will be missed.

With Eight Days to Go, Matthews Scapegoats The Left: Stay Classy, Chris

CHRIS MATTHEWS: “Is the left always going to be a thorn in the side of a center-left or moderate Democratic president?”

In an interview with former President Jimmy Carter, Hardball’s Chris Matthews repeatedly tried to marginalize the left of the Democratic Party with leading questions designed to elicit a certain response that would validate his oft-repeated preconceptions. But President Carter wasn’t biting. In fact, the former president pushed back and schooled Matthews on his Pollyannaish assessment of the Tea Party and its backers.

Where Matthews said “conservative” Mr. Carter said “hard right oligarchs;” where Matthews said Tea Partiers are “regular … religious people” the President said those who know they’re being financed by big corporations “deny it” and have “been suborned by these very right wing people who don’t give a darn about middle class working people and just want to feather their own nest.”

Does Matthews know the definition of suborn? It means: To bribe, incite, or instigate (a person) to commit a wrongful act. Perhaps if he had taken the time to read the NAACP report on Tea Party nationalism he wouldn’t insult the audience’s intelligence with benign bromides about the Teabaggers.

But it was Matthews’s sparring with President Carter on the nature of the “Democratic coalition” and his fantastical rewrite of the relationship between President Obama and the left that was most fascinating. According to Chris:

“Democratic liberals … They tend to be dissatisfied. Often. There’s a great old phrase, “NDC,” it meant New Democratic Coalition years ago, but it also means “November doesn’t count.” It’s the attitude that as long as you win the fight on the Left, and beat the center, or beat the center-left you win the battle, even if the right ends up winning.”

Let’s break this down. Chris doubles down on his “NDC” phrase attributed to the left, “November doesn’t count,” although progressives have already disposed of it, including this blog, with concrete examples of better, more viable candidates that would strengthen the Democratic Party’s chances of winning in November. One of these, and I repeat for the last time, promise, is Bill Halter v. Blanche Lincoln.

Time and again, Lincoln infuriated the left by joining the party of  “NO” to vote against the public option (which polled extremely well in Arkansas) and raising the liability cap on corporations responsible for the Gulf oil spill. It was a disgraceful, shameful display of corporate cronyism by the largest recipient of oil money on the Democratic side. Mr. Pollyanna Matthews calls Lincoln a “moderate.” But she belongs in fact to the ultra-conservative corporatist DINO wing of the Democratic Party, along with Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. Her corporate donors dumped her a lot faster than progressives did. At least we gave her multiple chances to show some spark of Democratic spirit.

If the objective was to win in November, what was the rationale of the Clinton Party leadership in supporting Lincoln? She was the weakest of all incumbent Senators, including Harry Reid, who had no opponent at that stage. Had they joined forces with progressives and the unions to back Bill Halter, we’d have a competitive race in Arkansas today and one more Democratic Senate seat in play. Chris said:

“It’s the attitude that as long as you win the fight on the left, and beat the center, or beat the center-left you win the battle, even if the right ends up winning.”

Let’s complete Chris’s little phrase: It’s NDC for Bill Clinton and the DLC. It was the Clintonian wing of the Democratic Party, not the left, that sacrificed Lincoln’s seat (she is sure to be defeated) simply to deny progressives an intraparty victory. It was the Clintonian DLC wing, to quote Chris, that “beat the left” by denying Halter,“even if the right ends up winning.”

How stupid is that: Ever heard of the phrase “bass-ackwards,” Chris? He continues:

“You had the battle with Ted Kennedy, I see it today with the netroots, the younger generation, groups that are mad all the time at this President. What do you make of it?”

First, to say progressives are “mad all the time at this President” is to mistake disappointment for anger. Second, it isn’t “all the time;” and it isn’t uncommon for one faction of a sitting president’s party to criticize constructively. What does Matthews expect of the left: That we be potted plants? Or that, like children, we should be seen and not heard? Interestingly, President Carter didn’t take Chris’s bait, and chose instead to remind Matthews that it was the Republicans who have been “completely irresponsible the last two years.” Which prompted Chris, probably in frustration, to make his most outrageous assertion about the left:

“But the Republicans, you’re right, they basically blocked everything the President tried to do and forced him to the left, forced him to build leftwing or center-left coalitions without any help from the center-right. I mean, it’s brutal politics, but they won I guess on the argument because it made him look “lefty.”

Not only is this pure fantasy, it’s downright offensive. So let’s set the record straight. First, Matthews’s rhetoric —“leftwing” and “lefty”— is spoken in a pejorative, disrespectful way. And it’s simply not accurate. I challenge Chris to show exactly where and how these “leftwing” coalitions were built. Was it during the stimulus debate; The one in which the President spent more time schmoozing with Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe than with the House Progressive Caucus?

That was the beginning and end of bipartisan cooperation. The result was a watered-down stimulus that Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said “consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states — [and] was more conservative than his election platform.” Krugman continued: “A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.”

With President Carter deflecting Chris’s jabs at the left onto Republicans, Matthews made one final attempt to smear progressives:

“Well what do you make of this, what is there just something fundamentally wrong about the Democratic coalition, that if you’re a centrist Democrat like you, a moderate, you’re a progressive to some extent but basically a moderate. Is the left always going to be a thorn in the side of a center-left or moderate Democratic president?”

President Carter replied:

“Well I think the attrition rate has been even greater among the moderate Republicans, and now the hard right, very conservative fundamentalist Republicans are taking over and any moderate Republican is very likely to be on the way out of the House or Senate …”

Game over. There goes your fantasy, Chris. Krugman explains:

“If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states — was more conservative than his election platform.”

“What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe. Yes, things are better than they would have been without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.

The tragedy here is that if voters do turn on Democrats, they will in effect be voting to make things even worse.”

Please don’t try to scapegoat the left, Chris. The blame game even before the midterm elections are decided won’t work. Rest assured, the left will push back hard against any revisionism, to set the record straight. Remember, if not for the commitment of progressives and the netroots, our millions in small campaign contributions, boots on the ground, and creative internet networking, President Obama would not have been elected. Nor would his program, flawed though it was, have passed against a recalcitrant, reactionary, obstructionist minority of Republicans and corporatist Democrats in the House and Senate.

President Obama has graciously recognized this. Why can’t you, Chris?

Ratigan’s Libertarian Critique of The Tea Party

Dylan Ratigan couldn’t mess this up when he points his bombast in the right direction, i.e., a wayward family member. As usual, our buddy Cenk was there to boost Dylan’s ratings:

[R]ecent ratings show that the 40-year-old host outdrew MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan on the five days he replaced the daytime host in July and August. (While Ratigan averaged 276,000 viewers in August, Uygur drew an average of 293,000.)

Memo to MSNBC suits: Those 17,000 viewers are progressives who would watch Cenk, but hate Ratigan. (Can you take a hint, suits?) Progressives are turned off by Ratigan’s obnoxious attacks on Democrats — we criticize too, but constructively; it’s all in the family. Ratigan’s criticism is destructive, filled with cheap shots and outright lies, with his penchant for sweeping generalizations. Therein lies the difference. Their Mise-en-scène is quite amusing. Ratigan beams and giggles condescendingly as Cenk makes a progressive case for government intervention, then steers the conversation back to his kooky libertarian notions. For his part, Cenk can’t disagree with the hand that feeds him. He really needs his own show.

Here, Ratigan returns to the Tea Party of his heart: The Ron Paul original “tea party moneybomb” to raise money for Dylan’s candidate, Paul, in 2007. Ratigan interviews Karl Denninger, one of the original Tea Party “founders,” who is not pleased with the current direction of the Tea Party groups:

In a “message" to the Tea Party Wednesday, Karl Denninger declared that he "ought to sue" anyone who uses the Tea Party name "for defamation."

“Yeah, that's a joke,” he writes. "But so are you. All of you. Especially Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, and douchebag* groups such as the 'Tea Party Patriots.’”

Ratigan howler: Describing Cenk as a “moderate progressive.”

*Trans: "douchebag" means "racist." Why Denninger didn't just come out and say it is baffling.

TEA PARTY Remedial Education: Teabagger FOOL TOOLS

This story needs no embellishment beyond this brief, hateful, and entirely heartfelt introduction to the most contemptible movement of humanity's scabs ever to inhabit this great land: Nope, Bill (Maher, "Americans Are Just Dumb"), the Teabaggers aren't just dumb; they're dumb, dumber, and dumbest:

Companies That Received Bailout Money Giving Generously to Candidates 
By T.W. Farnam
Sunday, October 24, 2010; 2:42 PM
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) was a fierce critic of the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler last year, saying he "cannot ask the American taxpayer to subsidize failure."

But General Motors doesn't seem to hold a grudge.

The political action committee formed by the company, which is now largely owned by the taxpayers, cut McConnell a $5,000 campaign check in September, a small piece of the $190,000 it donated to campaigns in the past month.

While GM suspended its contributions as it solicited the government for financial help, it is now back in the game of political giving, increasing donations from its federal political action committee steadily over the past few months.

And GM is not alone: companies that received federal bailout money, including some that still owe the government, are giving to political candidates with vigor. Among companies with PACS, the 23 that received $1 billion or more in federal money through the Troubled Asset Relief Program gave a total of $1.4 million to candidates in September, up from $466,000 the month before.

Most of those donations are going to Republican candidates although the TARP program was approved primarily with Democratic support and President Obama expanded its use to GM and other auto makers.

All aboard the TEA PARTY Traitor Express: Pile on, Teabaggers, because your TARP taxpayer bailout money is going straight into the pockets of your TeaCarpetBagging candidates to defeat Democrats who did the heavy lifting of governing this country in the public's interest by passing financial regulatory reform without a single Republican vote. To quote my man Mike Malloy, Have I mentioned yet today how much I despise the Teabaggers?

Website Suggests GOP Candidate Link to Priest Sexual Abuse Without Actually Saying So

The candidate is Ed Martin, challenging Democratic incumbent Russ Carnahan from Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District. The website is titled “The Real Ed Martin.” It suggests that while Mr. Martin was employed by the St. Louis Archdiocese as Director of the Office on Human Rights he was in a position to have knowledge of accused pedophile priests being transferred from parish to parish.

The website contains supporting materials, facts, documents, background information, but no smoking gun, no definitve proof Ed Martin had personal knowledge of pedophile priests. It was created by a New Mexico private investigator, Michael Corwin, and a well-credentialed former network TV producer, Jeannine Dillon. The site states:

“This is not a smear campaign against Candidate Ed Martin. It is a three-month investigation revealing important, relevant, and previously unreported facts that raise serious concerns about Candidate Martin’s integrity, judgment, and ability to serve the public as a United States Congressman. The investigation focuses on the role Candidate Martin played as a member of the St. Louis Archdiocesan Curia, the policy it had of moving accused and convicted pedophile priests from parish to parish, and the trail of molested children left behind.”

Here’s the crux of the issue: During Martin’s tenure, the Archdiocese approved a settlement between Fr. Leroy Valentine and the Scorfina family, in a case that was reported nationally. The family was paid a sizable sum and agreed to remain silent about the case with the understanding Fr. Valentine would be excommunicated. Fr. Valentine was not excommunicated.

This is not a “palling around with terrorists” guilt-by-association smear. The fact Martin was employed by the Archdiocese in an official capacity while a possible coverup of sexual abuse was in progress is a serious matter. It goes to the candidate’s character and judgment. The public has a right to know what Martin knew about the Fr.Valentine case.

Whether or not the website is directly connected to the Carnahan campaign, it still strains credulity that Martin was unaware of what was going on. He denies any knowledge and blames Carnahan. Standard denial. Given its ultra-conservative bent, the Church’s enforced prohibition on clergy serving in political office, on balance, is a good thing. It’s unfortunate the same restrictions, even if voluntary, do not extend to lay employees — past and present — of the Catholic Church as well.

Batting Practice: More Howlers From Keith’s Secret Wingnut Admirer at The DC Caller

She’s baaaack … for her weekly lobbing of silly spitballs at Keith Olbermann. Ruthie tries hard, at least. She claims to do it only for the money (“because we’re paid to,” thanks to Keith for her job), which hardly explains the unintended hilarious entries. Ruthie seems obsessively preoccupied with Keith, in a Glen Close kind of way. Still, it’s less weird than her boss’s recent behavior; instead, Ruthie serves up a steady diet of  harmless wingnut pokey buffoonery on the Daily Howler.

Ruthie says indignantly Keith is “mad” at Rupert Murdoch because “turns out he gave some money to the Republican Governors Association” and Keith notes, “he also runs a TV network that purports to cover news.” Doing her best clueless Christine O’Donnell imitation, Ruthie agrees: “Good point, Keith!”

Then she proceeds to go off-point, listing among Murdoch’s entertainment holdings such liberal broadcast favorites as The Simpsons, House, and 20th Century Fox which made Star Wars and (oh the humanity!) the pro-union Norma Rae. Having unburdened herself of wingnut guilt (Ruthie seems to have a glimmer of conscience, which is the first step toward recovery), back to the point: Murdoch’s contribution to the RGA. Specifically, Fox News purports to be a legitimate news organization rather than the propaganda arm of the Republican Tea Party. So when its owner contributes a whopping $2.25 million to the GOP, $1.25 of it to the RGA and the rest to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that puts the lie to its ridiculous “fair and balanced” claim over the years. This is Murdoch’s reply to a shareholder complaint about his contributions to the GOP:

RUPERT MURDOCH, NEWS CORP CEO: “We believe that it is certainly in the interest of the country and of all the shareholders and the prosperity—of the—that there be a degree of—a fair amount of change in Washington.”

Who is “we” — is it News Corp? Evidently, Rupert Murdoch doesn’t realize or care that a news organization in a free society has an ethical responsibility to be neutral and objective. Here is what Ruthie further omits from her silly little hit piece:

OLBERMANN: How much do Republicans love the Democratic focus on their secret pay masters?

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch spent much of his annual shareholders‘ meeting today fielding questions about his $1 million donation to the Republican Party, in what he thought was going to be a secret News Corp. donation to the chamber.

There‘s breaking news on that.  At this hour, it turns out it wasn‘t just $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from FOX‘s parent company, News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch. There was another donation of $250,000 more.  News Corp. is now in the books with the Chamber of Commerce for $1.25 million.

You will hear Murdoch on tape defending these actions to his shareholders later in this hour. But despite the Republican claim this story does not matter, Karl Rove‘s group today sent reporters an e-mail blast playing defense, trying focus attention on Democrats who previously also worked for groups that did not disclose their donors.

And what to make of claims by Rove‘s groups and others that they are benefiting from this scrutiny because it‘s prompting new donations? “Politico” today reporting that Rove‘s group claimed to have gotten more than $100,000 in small dollar online donation since the president began to criticize them, and that they will use that money to pump $2 million into eight more House races today.

So, how does $100,000 to get them to $2 million? A separate story in “Politico” reports $13 million raised in the same time period.  But the $100,000 was, quote, “small dollar donations,” which would make the remaining $12, 900,000 medium to large donations.”

[…]

But in our fourth story: the chairman and CEO of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, has given the most overtly political explanation to date, regarding $2 million contributions and other one for $250,000 benefiting the Republican Party.  Quote, “It‘s certainly in the interest of the country and of all the shareholders that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”

And now this other quarter million dollar donation has surfaced.  Today at News Corporation‘s annual shareholder meeting, stakeholders wanted to know why News Corp. had given $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which backs Republican, and $1 million more to the Republican Governors Association.

And since this morning‘s shareholders meeting, IRS disclosures show that News Corp. gave another $250,000 to the Republican Governors Association, that according to “Think Progress.”  That brings News Corp.‘s total contribution to the RGA to a million and a quarter.

As to the question posed, however, Mr. Murdoch offered only this:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MURDOCH: In these two donations that you‘re speaking of, we judged it to be in the best interests of the company.  It has nothing to do with the editorial policies or the journalism, or the films or anything or anything else.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you just take a moment and explain how you believed it to be in the best interest?  How you believe it would further —

MURDOCH: No, we believed it is in the interests—we believed that it‘s certainly in the interests of the country and of all the shareholders and the prosperity of the—that there be a degree of—a fair amount of change in Washington.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Murdoch also said that News Corp.‘s political action committee had given more money to Democrats than to Republicans.  But yet, another shareholder correctly noted that those donations had been comparatively small, $78,000 to Democrats, $66,000 to Republicans in various congressional races.  The shareholder further noted the million dollar donations by News Corp., that would be kind of different.

(AUDIO CLIP - cont.)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you be willing to engage shareholders in that process?

MURDOCH: No, sorry. You have the right to vote us off the board if you don’t like it.

This is but one story reported by Countdown on a given night, all of it omitted by Ruthie. Such misrepresentations are common in wingnut media, which explains the multitude of studies showing why Fox viewers lag significantly behind viewers of programs like Countdown and Rachel Maddow in the factual knowledge necessary to make informed decisions as voters. Ruthie’s lame retort is that Glenn Greenwald in “that notorious conservative rag” (projection! DC Caller) Salon, wrote last year that “GE isn’t even bothering any longer to deny the fact that they exert control over MSNBC’s journalism.” Well, d’oh Ruthie, are you really this dense? Why do you think Keith has the following he does: because he toes the GE corporate line? Keith Olbermann is famous (infamous with the suits) for his independence, which is the single most important reason he anchors all MSNBC programming with its largest audience.

Ruthie’s waste of bandwidth consists of one silly ad hominen jab after another, since she cannot mention anything that is either substantive or in proper context. For example, “Just who are you calling an un-American bastard” blares Ruthie’s headline, with the text identifier, “As for the rest of the show, the high/low point was calling “Fox and Friends” anchor Brian Kilmeade an “un-American bastard.”

Actually, Keith didn’t, so … was Ruthie’s piece inadvertently cut here? She offers no further explanation. This is what Brian Kilmeade said, as reported in Countdown. Let the reader be the judge:

BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS: Not every Muslim is an extremist, a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Somewhere, Timothy McVeigh is very surprised. 

[…]

But our winner, Brian Kilmeade.  There is stupid and there is bigoted and there is paranoid and there is Islamaphobic.  But it takes a big man to combine all four of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Do you think Americans have a right to look at moderate Muslims and say, show me you‘re not one of them?  Because that‘s really where we‘re a t right now as a country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  No, we‘re not.  But that was just a warm up.  Wait for the hate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KILMEADE:  The Shoe Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, the Underwear Bomber, they have one thing in common.  They are all extremists and they are all Muslims.  Not every Muslim is an extremist, a terrorist.  But every terrorist is a Muslim.  You can‘t avoid that fact.  And that is ridiculous that we got to keep defining this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: “Every terrorist is a Muslim.” Scott Roeder, who assassinated George Tiller, must be surprised to find out that he‘s a Muslim.  Jim David Atkison, the church murderer, who says he was inspired by Bernie Goldberg‘s writing, he converted without his knowledge apparently.  Eric Rudolph, and the guy who tried to attack the Tides Foundation and the ACUL, and the man who detonated a bomb at a mosque in Jacksonville, all Muslims.  And Timothy McVeigh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KILMEADE:  And the people that equate Timothy McVeigh with the al Qaeda terrorist organization, which is growing, and a threat that exists --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  That‘s right, see, because when McVeigh was put to death, that ended all threats of American born terrorists on the radical right. So here‘s one for Mr. Kilmeade: not every un-American bastard is Brian Kilmeade.  But all Brian Kilmeades are un-American bastards, and tonight‘s Worse Person in the World.

As with most wingnuts, Ruthie lacks a clear ethical compass since, after all, their stock-in-trade is in being unethical, the more outrageously so the better. Nothing is out of bounds. Not even a new-born child. Ruthie was unfamiliar with guest host Cenk Uygur “It sounds like he’s going to be fun. He also named his son “Prometheus Maximus” — seriously — so he seems to have exactly the level of self-regard befitting an MSBNC host. Welcome!”

“Exactly the level of self-regard”…? Excuse me, Ruth, but what exactly does the child’s name have to do with anyone’s “self-regard” or being an MSNBC host? This is typical of wingnut invective, personalizing the hate, attacking the children, even in the absence of anything substantively objectionable about the subject. Real low blow, Ruth. (There are others too, but at least they don’t involve a child.)

There’s too much hilarity to mention. Ruthie huffs indignantly “Groan. Yes, Keith, we get it, you’re a “journalist.” (No, you’re not.)” only days after he received an Edward R. Murrow award for best writing in electronic journalism. MSNBC’s parent company, NBC, swept the top awards, while Fox was nowhere to be seen. Hmm, I wonder why? In response to Keith’s rhetorical Q&A: “Why does the chamber oppose regulation? Do they really believe it‘s about jobs? No. They believe it‘s about the bottom line for the big multinational corporations they represent.” … Ruthie offers this howler rebuttal:

“Remember, on “Countdown,” jobs are something created when nice grandmothers think happy thoughts about butterflies. Jobs smell like cinnamon and their favorite thing in the world is hugging under a rainbow. They have nothing whatsoever to do with “the bottom line” at “big multinational corporations.”

Um Ruthie, see it’s like this. Absent tax incentives (a Democratic bill blocked by Republicans) for corporations to create jobs at home, they will continue to ship and create jobs overseas by the millions (see “TEA PARTY Remedial Education: Your Candidates Are Financed By Outsource Jobs USA, Inc. Do You Care?” below) precisely because it is good for the bottom line of big multinational corporations. The connection, Ruthie, is really a no-brainer. Finally, after some garbled, confused whining about the nature of  “class warfare” politics in America, this:

“News flash, Keith: Many Americans vote based on not just their tax bracket, but on who they want to be, or what they think is best for the country. You do it, too. So stop being such a condescending creep when others act in that same spirit.”

Gee, looks like Keith touched a raw nerve by repeating the truism that middle and lower middle class people often vote against their best interests, e.g., for candidates who will get rid of tax breaks for the middle class, privatize Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA hospitals, kill the EPA and the Departments of Energy and Education, end affordable student loan programs, the medical patient’s bill of rights, unemployment benefits, and on and on. They might read a provocative, sensationalist headline in your wingnut rag re: fear of  burkas, or sinister-looking illegals, and be so very afraid as to punch that (‘R’) for the corporate candidate whose policies will royally screw them in the short, medium, and long term. Happens all the time. It’s not really a surprise, given the level of misinformation and fear trafficked by wingnut propaganda outlets.

There was more weird stuff from Ruthie re: Michael Phelps in a speedo and Superman Keith avoiding the Kryptonite … best not to go there. Her historical faux pas deserve a post by themselves. But this is my favorite Ruthie howler: “Tonight Keith got himself in a huff over New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino over “his shouting and his tone,” which is pretty rich coming from the president of Shouters Anonymous.”

Wow. ¡Qué rico, Hoochie! (trans: That’s rich, Ruthie!) As luck would have it, I have located a priceless vid of the president of Shouters Anonymous. Enjoy!

Reading wingnut media (not watching it — the principal participants are much too repulsive) is similar to experiencing a Sam Peckinpah film (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) while on a caipirinha buzz. It’s one slightly unbelievable shocker after another. Of course, what Peckinpah did was high art. Wingnut media is more like low-brow performance art turned accidental satire.

(I’m beginning to think there’s something to this reptilian brain, lizard people thing.)

Quotable, Bill Maher: "A Lot of Americans Are Just Dumb"

Oh, I think it‘s absolutely (the very existence of a black president) that‘s driving these people crazy. When they say they want their country back, that‘s what they mean, really, is they want their country back to the appropriate time when a white person was in the White House. It‘s called the White House. It‘s not hard to figure out. But I think it‘s also just impatience. 

I mean, I don‘t want to cast most Americans as being racist, but I think a lot of them are just dumb. I‘m sorry, but they are. They are clueless about the issues. They don‘t think further than things are not great, let‘s have a change — even though we just had a change two years ago. I mean, they voted for this massive change two years ago. But because it didn‘t immediately start raining $20 bills, they want to go back to the way it was. They remind me of a battered girlfriend, you know, who goes back to the guy who was battering them because, I don‘t know, the new boyfriend forgot their birthday or something?

Bill Maher, on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell

THE VIEW, America's Most Dangerous Talk Show, Claims Another Victim: Buh-Bye, Juanito

First it was Bill-O The Clown's turn to suffer the walkout mockery of those uppity women who treated Mr. Bombast The Bigot like a wingnut crawly couch bug, jumping up and exiting stage left, presumably in search of bug spray:

Bill-O was still talking about it when Juanito Williams came under NPR re-View and release for, strangely, deciding to speak out in solidarity with The Clown. How weird and stupid is that. (Maybe there was some unresolved hostility toward The View ladies? ...  Bill-O The Clown's certainly got woman issues there that only professional help can tackle.)

Did NPR overreact? Probably. But the subtext here  is that NPR suits were upset Williams was working for a wingnut propaganda network. And it did affect their public image. On occasions when I listened to NPR and a Williams segment came up, my first reaction was to laugh. Then, it was in one ear and out the other. Why? Because he's been prostituting himself for Fox money and playing the Colmes (white) role of black token liberal on the propaganda wingnut network. It taints the guy; he's not recognized as a serious journalist. That's just the way it goes. And that's why he's very well compensated by Rupert Murdoch — so he can burnish the Fox image as something it's not. Williams's long-time association with Fox is a journalistic fraud, and NPR had just about had enough of that. It's understandable, and it's their right. Here's Juanito's swan song from NPR:

Moral of the Story: BEWARE OF THE VIEW, WINGNUTS and FOX PROPAGANDISTS.

Funnin' Rachel Maddow: What To Do After a Vicious Assault From The Wingnut Blogosphere ...

Learn To Mix A Traditional CAIPIRINHA! 

Rachel, when the wingnut bloggers are nipping hysterically at your heels, there's nothing like a traditional caipirinha to give you that nice tropical buzz, making happy face and taking the edge off crushing the widdle whackos  ...

Note: It's LIME, not lemon.