Sad

Nearly 40 armed individuals waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant last Saturday to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.  The advocacy group was formed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.

Looks to us like these 40 individuals -- who have a Constitutional right to assemble and to own guns -- also have mental health issues.

(photo: Momsdemandaction/Facebook.com)

It's Still See-B.S.

Both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had lead-off segments last night on the "60 Minutes" story fraud on Benghazi  Benghazi! BENGHAZI!!, and the network's attempt to both gloss over its vetting process (not to mention the linkage to its right-wing publishing house, Threshold Editions, which was publishing the story fraud), and the false impression that they -- CBS -- had caught the fraud, when it was real journalists at the New York Times, Washington Post Bezos Bugle, and the Media Matters website.  Here's Colbert's version in two parts, ably aided by Sam Waterston (please excuse the commercial interruptions).

Medicaid Expansion's Growing Success

The bungled roll-out of the Affordable Care Act website has obscured a positive development in ten states that have allowed expansion of Medicaid.  You also won't hear much about it from the Beltway media, either, since it's a success story.  Some 444,000 people have signed up under the ACA's Medicaid expansion, extending health benefits to low-income citizens and their children.  Unfortunately, as we noted yesterday ("Patriotism - Rethug Style"), Rethuglican governors in many key states (Texas and Florida, for example) have refused to accept the Medicaid expansion, even though it Federally funds their states' Medicaid programs fully for the first three years, phasing down to 90% after that, affecting the poor and tens of thousands of veterans.

Econ 101, Rethug-Style

From Nobel laureate word salad shooter, half-term governor and full-time grifter Sarah Palin, Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa, talking about Gummint "free stuff" (presumably things "the moochers" like, such as Medicare, Social Security, and Obamacare):

"This free stuff, so seductive. Why do you think marketers use free stuff to bring people in? Free stuff is such a strong marketing ploy.  But didn't you all learn too in Econ 101 there ain't no such thing as a free lunch? Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China.  When that note comes due -- and this isn't racist.. but it's going to be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to be beholden to a foreign master. Because there is no plan coming out of Washington, D.C. to stop the incurrence of debt."

My I.Q. dropped 10 points just having to read that.

(Photo:  If we buy you another Big Gulp, will you please just go away?)

Patriotism, Rethug-Style

The refusal by most Rethuglican / Stupid Party governors to expand Medicaid and to set up State health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act has resulted in huge numbers of veterans being denied adequate coverage:

"While the health care law does not change the Veterans Health Administration or other military health care systems, the ACA does expand Medicaid to all uninsured Americans with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty line and could provide health care coverage to nearly half of all uninsured veterans. This population of approximately 1,314,000 veterans tends to 'have served more recently, are younger, have lower levels of education, are less likely to be married, and are less connected to the labor force.'”

So when the next flag-waving "patriot" on the right tells you that "Obamacare" will destroy America, remember these figures and ask them who's really "destroying America?"

More Media Malpractice - Sunday Shows Edition

More today on the CBS/ 60 Minutes/ Lara Logan clusterf**k on Benghazi!  Benghazi!!  BENGHAZI!!!  We especially like this summation of why CBS, the great Ed Murrow's flagship, has sunk to its newest low:

CBS is running its own little wingnut grift mill to separate the rubes from their money. Unfortunately the company seems to have forgotten that people still turn to its flagship news program for actual news. This is what happens when you put a bunch of Faux News idiots in charge and they get outside the right-wing media bubble into what the rest of us refer to as “reality.”
Read more at http://wonkette.com/534010/return-of-the-revenge-of-the-bride-of-the-son-of-benghazi-the-sequel-part-eleventy#CKIGOY2zkyReVZh8.99

CBS is running its own little wingnut grift mill to separate the rubes from their money. Unfortunately the company seems to have forgotten that people still turn to its flagship news program for actual news. This is what happens when you put a bunch of Faux News idiots in charge and they get outside the right-wing media bubble into what the rest of us refer to as “reality.”
Read more at http://wonkette.com/534010/return-of-the-revenge-of-the-bride-of-the-son-of-benghazi-the-sequel-part-eleventy#CKIGOY2zkyReVZh8.99

...CBS is running its own little wingnut grift mill [Threshold Editions] to separate the rubes from their money.  Unfortunately the company seems to have forgotten that people still turn to its flagship news program [60 Minutes] for actual news.  This is what happens when you put a bunch of Faux News idiots in charge...

Didn't know ex-Faux News people were in charge at CBS?  We forgot, too.  But it helps explain things at bit better, and why the "nopology" from Lara "Lara Croft" Logan last night was what it was (which, btw, hasn't been received too kindly by media critics).

Over at Press the Meat, Dancin' Dave Gregory was having multiple orgasms tongue-bathing interviewing Gov. Chris "Krispycreme" Christie (R-Savior) and crapping on weak-kneed Defeatocrat Secretary of State Kerry.  The pundit panel over at This Week with George Steponaflagpinopoulos was also busy further inflating (hee-hee) the Governor's persona.  Virtually Speaking summarizes the idiocy:

So Chris Christie is a magical reincarnation of TR, because John Kerry did not make a deal with Iran, it proves he is too trusting, Obama use of Seal Teams, drones, bombs in Libya and threats to strike Syria, show he is reluctant to exercise military power, and if, in the next few weeks, Republicans do not suddenly change their minds and love Obamacare and start to work with the President for the first time, it will wreck the President's credibility and his entire second term. And that's the most ridiculous thing that happened this Sunday.

That's your "liberal media" right there, America.  Sic transit gloria, y'all.

Veterans Day 2013

We take the day to honor all who served in our Armed Forces, and thank them for their service and sacrifice.

Today's Cartoon and Reading - "Ayn" Rand Paul Edition

(click to enlarge)

(Dan Wasserman, via gocomics.com)

For a great companion piece, read Dana Milbank's imagining of Sen. "Ayn" Rand Paul's acceptance speech to the Republican convention in 2016.  Hi-larious.  This whole episode kind of bolsters the argument that "there is no there there"* when it comes to right wing thought, policies and principles.

*Gertrude Stein (hee-hee).

Must See TV

Be sure to tune in to CBS' "60 Minutes" tonight to catch their latest "apology" and retraction of the false story that they peddled on October 27 regarding the Benghazi attack.  As details of their journalistic malpractice emerge, it's clear that an impetus for the story was promoting the book that CBS-owned Threshold Editions (which publishes the likes of Glenn Beck) was publishing by the liar who appeared on the Benghazi segment and spread the false narrative (the books are now being recalled by the publisher).  Product cross-promotion is all too common among the media conglomerates that have integrated publishing, film, broadcasting and cable.  In this instance, the promotion (assisted by a reporter who has lost her objectivity) proved to be a sewer pipe for yet another Benghazi! BENGHAZI!! fable.

Break out the popcorn.

Immense Damage Left By Typhoon Haiyan

Mega-typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines roughly 48 hours ago, and we are just now getting a sense of the magnitude of the damage caused.  Philippine Government souces say the death toll may reach 10,000, with several cities in the path of the typhoon mostly or completely destroyed.  The Pentagon is rushing aid to the Philippines, with widespread power outages, blocked roads, and food and clean water in short supply.  (On a personal note, the lady that has cut this Hackwhacker's hair for more than a dozen years was in Cebu, Philippines to attend her mother's funeral, and was in the path of the storm.  No word on her situation, but we're hoping for the best).

To donate funds for those impacted by the typhoon, here's the Red Cross link.

(photo:  Residents of Cebu City run for cover during typhoon.  Z. Casas, Reuters)

Bibi Bomb Bomb's Latest Stinkbomb

Talks are underway in Geneva to convince Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program, and, not surprisingly, Likudnik saber-rattler Prime Minister Bibi "Bibi Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu doesn't like the negotiated approach.  Bibi Bomb Bomb is rejecting the option of easing the harsh economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for reducing the amount of highly-enriched uranium that Iran possesses and that could be converted into weapons-grade material quickly:

 "Israel utterly rejects it and what I am saying is shared by many in the region, whether or not they express that publicly."

Much like his neocon brethren in the U.S., Bibi Bomb Bomb ultimately won't accept any solution that doesn't involve a military strike against Iran.  This is a potential conflict that the Likudniks would like to start, but that the U.S. would have to finish, and that's something the U.S. should "utterly reject."

More Media Malpractice

Michael Tomasky on some in the "mainstream media" rooting for the failure of Obamacare, or for anything Obama-related:

... [T]here’s a certain type of political journalism that so exists in the moment that numerous such moments have been declared to be disasters for Obama, going back to Jeremiah Wright. This kind of hyperventilating approach always turns out to be wrong and overheated. It turned out that all those things were pretty bad, but it also turned out that Obama survived them. And he’ll survive this, too.

He mentions some of the usual suspects =cough=Politico=cough=.  We'd like to offer a few more journamalists who're getting the story all wrong.

Like Chuck Todd and his never-ending false equivalencies, this time on opposition to privatizing Social Security in the Dumbya years vs. Republican hostage-taking on every possible issue today:

No one on the Democratic side of the aisle was willing to burn the place down when we didn't get everything we wanted as we've seen the Republicans, who were more than willing to do just that with taking the country on the edge of an economic collapse -- and the pundits in the media like Todd and his ilk have been doing their best to erase that hostage taking and the economic damage it did to our country from our memory banks from the moment it finally ended.

Like Lara Logan and her bosses at CBS News (we're going to have to start putting quotation marks around News pretty soon) playing to a certain audience in their botched Benghazi!  Benghazi!! BENGHAZI!!! 60 Minutes debacle:

"My concern is that the story was done very pointedly to appeal to a more conservative audience's beliefs about what happened at Benghazi," Mary Mapes told Media Matters. "They appear to have done that story to appeal specifically to a politically conservative audience that is obsessed with Benghazi and believes that Benghazi was much more than a tragedy."

We can make out the whirring sound of Edward R. Murrow spinning -- heck, even Chet Huntley's getting some revolutions.   (Look 'em up, kids.)

Just remember what the biggest political story of the past 25 years has been (the radicalization of the Republican Party) and who's been covering it in the "mainstream media" (crickets chirping).

Quote of the Day

"The Tea Party is no longer a brand-new movement in American politics. So, more than four years in, what do they appear to have learned? How about: nothing. And they seem to want it that way." -- Jonathan Bernstein, writing in Salon today.  Anger, fear and willful ignorance fuel their movement, and, as true believers, they reject any particle of compromise with what they consider to be the forces of perfidy / evil / enlightenment.  Would they relent and allow, say, New Jersey Gov. and human 9-man raft Chris "Krispykreme" Christie to win the 2016 Stupid Party nomination when they believe the last few nominees haven't been conservative enough?  A question that answers itself.

Today's Cartoons - Dustbin of History Edition

(click to enlarge)

(Tom Toles, Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

(Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle)

Jobs Report Much Better Than Expected

We were being primed to expect about 120,000 jobs created in October, but instead:

In its monthly job report released Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the private-sector added 212,000 jobs in October, seasonally adjusted. The federal government shed 12,000 jobs, but local and state governments added 4,000, bringing the total gain for the month to 204,000. The official unemployment rate calculated in a separate survey rose slightly to 7.3 percent.

Imagine where we could be if the Stupid Party not been engaged in economic sabotage for the past 5 years.