Banks, insurance companies, and the GOP can die in a fucking fire

One day, earlier this year, our neighbors across the street - an older woman and her daughter who had a developmental disability - suddenly moved away. When we got back from our vacation this week, we saw that the house was for sale as a foreclosure. Tonight, we learned why.

The woman had lived in the house for over 30 years. She raised 4 children in her home. One of her daughters apparently developed a drug problem, and the woman took out a loan on the house to help pay for her rehabilitation. She took out another loan to pay for another child's heart surgery. The woman, who was retired, saw her retirement investments go south when the economy tanked last fall.

This woman did everything right by her family, but the banks wouldn't even think about cutting her a break. No insurance company would cover her daughters' medical needs. And the GOP would never think about helping her out of a bad situation with loan restructuring or providing adequate access to health care.

And people wonder why I hate - hate - these fuckers.

Wait a tick

I am trying hard not to think about the fact that it appears that Obama just killed the unionized American car industry, or at least let it die. Trying very hard. I must say, however, that it is disheartening to read this:

President Obama announced Monday that struggling automotive giants General Motors and Chrysler will be given a "limited" period of time to "restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional taxpayer dollars."

at the same time that I know that the government is spending $970 billion to buy up worthless mortgages in the hope that one day, maybe thirty years from now, they might be worth something (and then we can auction them off for pennies on the dollar!).

The US autoworker is about to take a giant kick in the metaphorical balls. What makes me cry is that, while I just read a whole lot about how bad Joe Finance has it because he might lose his million dollar bonus at AIG, I imagine I am about to read a whole lot about how Joe Autoworker had it coming because he wanted health care after he retired. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I'd also like to note for the record, before we get too far down the fuck road that Obama defended the AIG bonuses because there were in a legal contract, and here he is saying that UAW must again "restructure" its contract in order for the industry to get more bailout money.

Of course, when one looks across the aisle, what do we see? Fuck stick and Lex hero Senator Bob Corker. Here is a guy who looks at a situation where the auto industry is coming to the government begging for money to stay afloat and the government says, sure we'll give you the money, as long as you make some changes to your business (especially if you can figure out a way to fuck your workers, because worker fucking is fun for everyone) and this asshat sees the heavy boot of communism come crashing down on American capital.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee and member of the Senate Banking Committee, said this is a "major power grab" by the Obama administration.

"This is a marked departure from the past, truly breathtaking, and should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise. I worry that in one fell swoop we've lost our moral high ground throughout the global community as it relates to chastising other countries that use strong arm tactics to invade on private property rights," he said in a statement.

God bless the people of Tennessee, but do they really look at the situation with the US auto industry, and one imagines the firing of Rick Wagoner, and see a totalitarian government interfering with the fine, fine businessmen at GM? How can they vote for this guy?

Lord the hate feels good, now I know how Vader felt.

But back to the sadness. Is there anyone who reads this blog thinking Obama is doing well? Are we still cutting him slack? Anyone ready to cut the line? I'm getting very, very close and having a harder and harder time believing that it would have been all that much worse under McCain. Especially when I read shit like this.

Goddammit, I so wanted to have something to believe in.

Music, sweet music

It is way better to be having a conversation about the difficulties in shutting down Gitmo than one about the necessity of maintaining it.

I'd also like to hear about people being held responsible for that particular criminal site, please.

Fuck you, Ralph Nader

Seriously. Fuck you.

(via LGM)

What circular firing squads look like from the outside

Get the popcorn ready, because the GOP implosion is just beginning. The first order of business, it would seem, is to torpedo any possibility of Sarah Palin having a shot at national office. This morning we saw wardrobegate become more embarrassing, and now FOX (of all networks) airs this report:



And there's more to come.

While I'm certainly going to enjoy the show, it only increases my anger towards the conservative movement. It looks like Palin's dangerous lack of qualifications was an open secret in right-wing camps, and they didn't fucking care except to make her the first to take the fall. Fucking appalling.

No. Fucking. Shame.

John McCain is a fucking liar:

"I think she's most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president, tell you the truth," McCain said, citing her experience as a small-town mayor and Alaska governor. He added: "Bill Clinton was pretty well derided when he came out of a small state to run for president of the United States," and he pronounced himself "amazed" at the criticism.

The "most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president." More qualified than George H.W. Bush. More qualified than Al Gore or Jack Kemp. More qualified than the man who is currently running our government - Dick Cheney.

And Bill Clinton. Who had a law degree from Yale. And was a Rhodes Scholar. And was governor for over a decade. She's at least as qualified as Bill was, probably moreso.

OMFG.

It was enough to foist her upon us in the first place and pretend that she was qualified to run the country. But to offer this stunningly over-the-top endorsement is a transparent lie. And he knows it.

Worst Ever

In another giant "Fuck you" to the American people, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to "read" 200,000 citizen comments on their plan to radically alter the endangered species rules in just 32 hours. Fish and Wildlife assembled a team of 15 people to read the legally mandated citizen comments. They started yesterday at 9 am and plan to work 8 hour days and finish up Friday afternoon. For those playing at home, that's 13,333 comments per person. That works out to 416 comments per hour. 7 comments per minute. These comments are written by citizens, including scientists and lawyers and often run to dozens of pages.

Law requires the administration to read and comment on public response to proposed rule changes, and this is an attempt to get this process done and the changes in place before a new administration takes office. If the rule change is still "proposed," then it is easily undone. If the the change is complete, then a new administration would have to go through the entire process again.

I guess it should come as absolutely no surprise, but jeebus. Democracy means absolutely nothing to these people, does it?

It's Just Food, Nothing More

[UPDATE TO POST BELOW]: Has McCain denounced this, or is this an example of something that doesn't need to be repudiated?

The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles. [pic at the link]

Diane Fedele, president of the group, said she had no racist intent. "I never connected," she told the newspaper. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

Fedele said she had received the illustration in e-mails and decided to reprint it to poke fun at a remark by Obama that he doesn't look like other presidents.

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele told the newspaper. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Clearly.

Why Bother?

Looks like the new bailout bill contains tax breaks for "small business" in order to attract the votes of the House Republicans.

OMFG

If even Katie Couric is looking at you with undisguised contempt...



In other news, some rube from Alaska got mugged in New York today.

Moral Relativism

You all know that I am not a smart man, so help me out here.

Having sex outside of marriage is a sin, yes? But apparently, not that big of a sin.

From what I understand, abortion is murder, which is a huge sin. Big time. Not having an abortion qualifies someone to be vice president and definitely overrides the sin of having premarital sex.

But, volunteering to participate in a war of conquest and killing someone (be they combatant, or, as is more likely, innocent civilian) is not murder nor a sin.

Do I have this right? Because, if so, it seems to me that it is fair to say that the decisions one makes are influenced by a particular set of circumstances and what is "right" or "wrong" can depend on those circumstances or even a particular point of view.

Hmmm.

Hookers & Blow

What Would Bela Say About It?

The Chinese forging passports so that underage gymnasts can compete? Completely believable, a huge deal, and international disgrace!

The Bush administration forged a document linking Iraq and Al Queada and made it part of the rational for the war? Not credible, not a big deal even if true, and who cares?

And further relationship advice

11. Women, older or otherwise < /end lame running gag >, don't particularly care for narcissistic jerks.


http://view.break.com/527579 - Watch more free videos

[h/t Amanda]

Beware: Run-on Sentences, Cursing, and Ill-formed Thoughs Below

Bush is not an economist, he's an optimist. Great. He thinks the economy is on a solid footing. It's only psychologically that people are worried. This is fine. We don't expect our presidents to be economic experts. We expect them to hire guys who know this shit. Then we hope that they listen to these men. No such luck, apparently.

While we're here, several men have taken pains lately to assure me that speculation has little to no role to play in the recent increase in the cost of oil. I'm not going to link, as you've either read it or you haven't, and I've got a couple bay breezes in me ('cause I'm a girl) and I don't want to look that shit up. But the President has told me just today that if we agree to let oil companies "explore" the shit out of the deep continental shelf and the Alaskan wilderness, then people will be assured and the price of oil will come down. In other words, the oil futures market would come down and we would pay less at the pump oil company revenues would drop slightly.

Also, the President also thinks that it's hilarious to not know how much gas costs. Fuck me. And the magic wand. How's this for a magic wand...any gas station that charges more than $3 for a gallon of gas will pay 120% tax on all income derived from charging more than $3. I bet that would bring the price of gas down right quick. Oh, I know, Exxon would only make $7 billion next year instead of $40 billion. Bet they'd stop selling gas altogether, only making $7 billion and all.

If said it before, I'll say it again, fuck me.

War criminal

(h/t PZ)

Holy Freakin' Zombie Jeebus!

Some have called him the "fucking stupidest guy on the face of the Earth," I say he's brilliant. I give you Douglas Feith:

Of Rice, Mushrooms, and Lies [Douglas J. Feith]

One viewer of my interviews with Peter Robinson wrote in that among the "lies" of the Bush administration was "Rice's line about the 'smoking gun/mushroom cloud.'" CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on September 8, 2002 how close was Saddam Hussein's government to developing a nuclear capability. Rice said: "You will get different estimates about precisely how close he is." She presented a summary of what the CIA was saying at the time about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and then added: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Rice was highlighting the limits of U.S. intelligence. While emphasizing the disparate estimates about how close Saddam was to a nuclear bomb, Rice was saying that the CIA would not necessarily know when Saddam acquired one.

She was warning that we might not learn this until after a detonation. This was an important and accurate statement.

Everyone now knows that the CIA's intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed. (It was a diplomatic and political disaster that Rice and all the other top Bush administration officials relied on erroneous intelligence - though they did so in good faith.) Rice deserves credit for stressing here the gaps and uncertainties in U.S. intelligence.

The comment about the mushroom cloud was a way of telling the American people not to expect their officials to know the state of Saddam's nuclear program at any given moment. It was a clear and proper warning that our country was subject to surprise. And it made the unarguable point that we would not want that surprise to take the form of a mushroom cloud from an Iraqi weapon.

Rice's reference to the mushroom cloud has been widely denounced as a gaffe or a lie. But it was neither.

UPDATE:I'm riding the "Vicodin Dragon," as the kids say, could someone with some skills take the ad out?

h/t: S,N!