Cartoon of the Day

This is my favorite cartoon this year, it's just sad it's necessary. Click to enlarge, via.

Palin: "I'm never going to pretend like I know more than the next person."

By GottaLaff

Via L.A. Times letters to the editor:

'Divide and conquer' again

Re "Palin's on the 'beer track,' " Opinion, Feb. 12

Ron Brownstein talks about Sarah Palin using class division to possibly shape the 2012 GOP presidential race.

The fact that she is using class warfare to gain attention and prominence isn't disturbing; the strategy of "divide and conquer" has been used for centuries.

What's disturbing is the large number of Americans who are supporting her campaign of ignorance. She stated during her "tea party" speech in Nashville that "I'm never going to pretend like I know more than the next person." That statement alone should disqualify her from running for president.

At a time when many American citizens base their opinions and judgments on 30-second sound bites and tweets, the fact that a person of Palin's limited intellectual capacity can become a serious presidential candidate is yet another example of the dumbing down of America.

But come on, she's pretty-y-y-y!

Most recent Quote-O'The-Day: Palin's Colossal Ignorance edition

By GottaLaff

Relevant segment at about 4:35...



Just now on Hardball, Chris Matthews said this while discussing Sarah Palin's Glenn Beck interview:

"America is the book she didn't read".

VIDEO: Bachmann Invokes 'Charge Of The Light Brigade' (Note- They Lost)

By GottaLaff

Code Stupid:

At today's conservative "Code Red" rally against the health care bill, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) rallied the faithful with a fun historical and literacy reference: "It's the charge of the light brigade!"

The fun part here is that the Light Brigade lost that famous battle of the Crimean War -- they lost it badly, sustaining heavy numbers of deaths and injuries.

Charge! (and by that, I don't mean MasterCard or Visa, 'Chele)

Michele Bachmann Wonders Why Democrats Dislike Her

By GottaLaff

I could tell Michele why people don't like her if only she'd call. Text? E-mail?

In an interview with the St. Cloud Times, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is confused about why she's the target of so many Democratic attacks.

Said Bachmann: "I grew up a Democrat in a Democrat family."

Let's start right there. It's Democratic, Michele, not "Democrat". There is no way you couldn't know that using that term is offensive. Hint: This is just one small, teeny tiny, minuscule reason why Democrats don't wanna be your BFF. Okay? Hmm? Good.

My husband and I both worked on Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. The first time I ever came to Washington was to dance at Walter Mondale's inaugural ball. It was a thrill for my husband and me, and we were both happy to work on behalf of Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter. We really believed in them when we were in college. So in some ways I don't understand why the Democratic Party would be opposed to me, because I stand for the same values that my parents stood for when we were Democrats."

Well, for one, you're a liar.

Then there's that whole ill-conceived incitement thing.

Of course, we can't overlook the targets of your admiration.

Of of your misplaced ire.

Or the fact that you're no fan of Medicare.

Shall I go on? I could, but those are enough for now.

Of course, other than all that, you have our deepest admiration and undying respect.

Video- Tucker Carlson: Palin More Experienced Than Obama and Smarter Than Al Gore

You know, for a while there I just thought Tucker was a grade A tool, but now I think he should be checked for undiagnosed brain damage. Via Heather.

Palin: “There’s no better training ground for politics than motherhood”

By GottaLaff

The New York Times book review of Barbie McLipSchmutz's ghost writer's efforts included this quote:

She pretends no particular familiarity with the Middle East, the Iraq war or Islamic politics — “I knew the history of the conflict,” she writes, “to the extent that most Americans did.” And she argues that “there’s no better training ground for politics than motherhood.”

If that's true, then why are there only a handful of Rushpublic women serving? They should far outnumber the men if they're so well-trained. Using Palin's logic, either most Rushpublic women with political aspirations never gave birth, or they were such inferior moms that they didn't qualify for a run.

Let's see what else the Times dug up. I see she's not too fond of fish-turned-humans. How rude of her to offend fish that way:

Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she “didn’t believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea” or from “monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.” In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: “My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over.”

First-- and this is so stupid it burns holes through other stupid burn-holes-- fish didn't "sprout legs", Barbie. Little Nemo didn't wake up one day and say, "I'm a real boy!" Sorry about combining references, but when it comes to Palin, it comes naturally.

Next, if God really did take over and all we got was Palinism-as-we-know-it, then He needs more than one day of rest.

Here's another tasty little morsel:

She says she “never sought to ban any books” as mayor of Wasilla, and in fact has always had a “special passion for reading.”

If only her recollection of what she supposedly read matched her special passion. I guess God took over during the Couric interview and had a memory fart.

And finally, bringing up the rear (literally):

“As every Iditarod musher knows,” she writes of the famous Alaska dog-sled race, “if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.”

She should know.

Team Sarah plans capitol "Phone Blast"... on a government holiday

By GottaLaff

This e-mail was just forwarded to me by one of my "spies". Bwahahahaa!

Why am I laughing? Well, first of all, because the senders are one of the best collective jokes around, as is their goddess, Barbie McLipSchmutz.

But let's not overlook the message. This is a call to action! Get out there and ring up those reps! And when you do, make sure you pull off that Big Effective Shock and Awe "Phone Blast"... on a holiday... when the offices will be closed (click on "play"):

Perfect.

A message to all members of Team Sarah

Team,

The next few days are CRITICAL in deciding how our health care system will be structured. If you’re upset by what has been proposed, NOW is the time to join us on the Team Sarah Health Care Bill Review Board:

http://www.teamsarah.org/group/healthcarebillreviewboard

We’re asking for YOUR HELP with the following:

(1) Reading a 15-20 page section of the upcoming version of the health care bill that will be released and providing a review of it for the group
(2) Blogging about the group’s findings
(3) Twittering about the group’s findings
(4) Participating in a site-wide PHONE BANK BLAST before Tuesday’s vote

If you have your own outside BLOG and want to blog about the group’s findings, be sure to join the Team Sarah Health Care Review Board!

NOTE: The Phone Bank Blast – Mon., Oct. 12th, 2009 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm EDT

Light up the phone lines before Tuesday’s vote by the Senate Finance Committee!

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and let YOUR SENATORS know your thoughts, particularly if they serve on the Finance Committee. Please call ONLY your senators.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee:
Max Baucus (MT), Chuck Grassley (IA), Orrin Hatch (UT), Olympia Snowe (ME), Jon Kyl (AZ), Jim Bunning (KY), Mike Crapo (ID), Pat Roberts (KS), John Ensign (NV), Mike Enzi (WY), John Cornyn (TX), John Rockefeller IV (WV), Kent Conrad (ND), Jeff Bingaman (NM), John Kerry (MA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ron Wyden (OR), Charles Schumer (NY), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Maria Cantwell (WA), Bill Nelson (FL), Robert Menendez (NJ), and Thomas Carper (DE).

Be sure to check out the Team Sarah Health Care Bill Review Board: http://www.teamsarah.org/group/healthcarebillreviewboard

Best,
The Tiny Team behind the Team
teamsarahhq@gmail.com

IMAGINE IF..........even just 10% of Team Sarah’s members were able to donate $5, $10 a month toward our community? If you’d like to be a Team Sarah supporter, go to http://teamsarah.kintera.org

Hey Team Sarah, let us know what kind of response you got from the voice mail recordings.

H/t: Babzter

Artist Shepard Fairey's Studio Tagged with Anti-ACORN Graffiti

Really, it makes you wonder about people's logic capabilities. What the hell does Fairey have to do with ACORN?

So much for HOPE. That, at least, is the symbolic message sent by an anti-ACORN activist or group that targeted Studio Number One in Los Angeles, the commercial design studio of Obama HOPE poster creator Shepard Fairey, with anti-ACORN graffiti.

(snip)

The anonymous anti-ACORN activist or activists tried to link the anti-poverty group to the man who helped create the iconic image of the Obama campaign by targeting his studio with an image of the ACORN logo beneath the words "ACORN Funded Prostitution Zone."

Studio Number One does not receive any funds from the government, according to a spokesman, and does no work for ACORN.

"While we support free expression, it is ironic that...the conservatives and right-wingers who called pro-Obama art propaganda and if it was posted publicly, they called it vandalism, are now vandalizing private property in their campaign against ACORN," said Jay Strell, a spokesman for Studio Number One and Fairey. The graffiti has been removed, he added.

VIDEO- Keith Olbermann's Special Comment calls out Joe Wilson

By GottaLaff

As always, Keith nails it:

In a Special Comment, Countdown’s Keith Olbermann calls out South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson not just for his shameful incivility in interrupting President Obama’s health care speech before Congress but for being so glaringly, stupidly, publicly wrong.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tea Partiers Can't Find Iraq on a Map

By GottaLaff

David Williams, a freelancer and regular contributor to Omaha City Weekly, took a survey. Oh, but this isn't your typical "What do you think of health care?" or "How would you rate Obama?" survey. Nonono, this one was way more fun.

To quote my new bff:

If the Tea Party crowd can't find Iraq on a map, on what else are they ill-informed?

Imagine this map in outline form only on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper with all text removed...no place or country names. The only thing I did to help the viewer orient themselves was to color in all the water (with a calming aqua hue that I was particularly proud of):

Now for David's scrumpdiddlyumptious article:

At least one thing is clear to the City Weekly; that each side is convinced that the other is ill informed. So the City Weekly devised a little quiz that might shed some light – if not on the veracity of competing healthcare claims – then at least on the political savvy of those making them.

Presented a blank map of the Middle East and surrounding area - one with county names removed – those attending the town hall were asked to point out Iraq, a country where we have waged war for over six years.

The idea was that those who consider themselves to be well informed on the state of America today should at least be able to identify a place where we have shed blood in a conflict that has lasted longer than our involvement in World War II.

The Omaha City Weekly tested 40 attendees each among those who identified themselves as either firmly for or against the proposed HR 3200. Those polled were evenly split between gender and age groups. Results are further broken down by race…

Oh, whom am I trying to kid? With an estimated 1,200 people in attendance, the City Weekly, try as we might, could not find a single African American who was against HR 3200.

A full 75%, 30 of 40 pro-reform attendees, could identify Iraq in its rather eye-catching, dead center position on the map. Only 52.5 %, 21 of 40 anti-reformers could do so.

Granted, this was a thoroughly unscientific poll with a tiny sample size. It would perhaps be unfair to infer that those who can’t find Iraq on a map may be equally uniformed on other issues - like the much touted “death panels,” a meme whose vileness is surpassed only by its insipid cruelty.

So forget the numbers.

More telling was the startling reactions I got while conducting the test. Pro-reform people, even those geographically challenged few who laughed out loud at the futility of the task before them, portrayed a uniformly agreeable front. Most gave a knowing, touch_-like nod and smile. I received no negative comments, none at all, from that group.

The same could not be said of the other camp. Far from it.

One gentleman practically knocked the clipboard out of my hand in jabbing - angrily and correctly – at the country that (John Kerry was right) represented the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.

Many sneered. Most at least glowered. Four accused the test itself of being somehow biased. About half way through the polling I mistakenly blurted out “yes” when I meant to say “no” after a Tea Partier asked if they had answered correctly in this little game of “where’s Waldo?”

“So much for your gotcha politics,” the woman with more tattoos than teeth snarled. “And you want to say that we are all so stupid!”

Think about that for a moment. She knew that hers was what could only be described as a wild guess. She knew that she didn’t know the location of Iraq. And yet when told that her answer was correct she became smugly defiant, sending me away shaking my head at such blatant disingenuousness.

Accustomed to being lied to by her own party and by the right wing noise machine, she apparently didn’t think twice about lying to the media – and to herself.

And then it hit me. I must always answer “yes,” even when an answer was incorrect. Not a single pro-reform person gave me a “so there”-style response, but five on the other side gleefully did, including four who had answered incorrectly.

Perhaps saddest of all was the Viet Nam vet who spat, “Why the hell should I care where Iraq is?”

Why indeed.

Maybe he should have shown them a map of their own heads and asked them to find their brains. Nah. They would have blown that little exercise, too.

Dep't. of WTF: John Ensign Asks Staff What They Think of Him

By GottaLaff

From the Dep'ts. of WTF, Glutton for Punishment, and Are You Really This Naive?... Ensign has to know that they think he's a total losery jerk. How could he not?

A Politico report says Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) recently held one-on-one meetings with everyone on his staff, asking for their honest views on him and his extramarital affair with a former staffer.

According to one Republican source, several members of Ensign's staff "really let him have it."

Ensign's chief of staff resigned last week.

Video- Michelle Malkin: 'Obamacare' Is A Means To 'Amnestizing' 'Border Jumpers'

Do they lay awake at night trying to find the stupidest things they can to say? Via Think Progress.

A Winger So Stupid, Not Even Jonah Goldberg Will Play Along

And that's pretty damn bad.

Within days of my going public last September with the speculation that terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers helped Barack Obama write his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, I learned that I was not alone in that intuition.

Oh, there's more. Tortured logic, twisted rationalizations more.