the venn of birthers

rotting away in jail for fraud? well, this could be your lucky day! birthers are once again fishing for clients and anyone convicted under any laws enacted under an illegal president can apply for a get-out-of-jail-free card — at least according to their latest sure-fire usurper-slaying scheme, passed along by birther debunker blog obama conspiracy theories:

dcist.com reports the story that sibley has created a motion template for people convicted under the 2009 fraud enforcement and recovery act (the act makes it easier to prosecute cases of mortgage fraud and predatory lending). they can petition the court to have their convictions overturned because obama isn’t really president, forcing, sibley believes, the courts to adjudicate the president’s eligibility.

wherein i made the following offhand remark:

finding plaintiffs should be rather straightforward since, as with tax protestors and sovereign citizens, one cannot toss a birfer across a citizen grand jury without hitting a convicted fraudster.

which prompted the reply:

someone should make a birther/lowlife venn diagram.

which got me thinking ...

this first one requires a bit of nuance since one can argue that many if not most birthers fall into all three categories.

in the wingnuttosphere, even those that reject birthers (breitbart, beck) still feed into their mania.

odd duck birther martyr and former army surgeon terry lakin doesn't fit into my standard model but i came up with this just for him and his fellow high stakes losers.

the fluke contraception deception

the numbers are out and in a surprise to no one but conservatives, it turns out that women do not like being called "sluts":

the biggest change came among women under 50. in mid-february, just under half of those voters supported obama. now more than six in 10 do while romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. the president leads him 2-1 in this group.

republicans' traditional strength among men "won't be good enough if we're losing women by nine points or 10 points," says sara taylor fagen, a republican strategist and former political adviser to president george w. bush. "the focus on contraception has not been a good one for us ... and republicans have unfairly taken on water on this issue." (usa today/gallup)

"unfairly"? well, cry me a river ... one which appears to be roaring right through our favorite wingnut watering hole free republic, where you will never find a more wretched hive of chauvinism and misogyny.

and they're wond'ring where all the wimmenfolk went ...

unfortunately, to some women, especially single ones, government is daddy, husband, lover and provider all rolled up into one. (scottinVA)

but isn't that the model wingnut family? (cue "dueling banjos")

women are "wired" that way.

the 'rats and their mentor, satan, knew what they were doing when they destroyed the support structure called "marriage" and "family".

the title should say "boosted by SINGLE AND DIVORCED women voters..." (mrB)

bingo - a lot of the women i know politically are mostly selfish, self centered, ditzes who only care about abortion, birth control, etc. (glockThe Vote)

translation: "they didn't wanna touch my glock!"

why do they keep calling these free contraceptives? someone is paying for them. and are rat women so gullible that they'll vote for a guy who is killing us at the pump, thermostat, grocery store and job market - not to mention the little matter of national security, just to get "free" birth control??? (aria)

if these women don't like romney they sure as heck aren't going to vote for santorum. obama's little birth control scheme seems to be working. i think republicans need to do some intense opposition research into obama's donors. the candidates need to start talking about all the dirt that's been coming out on him. make him look like the crooked chicago politician that he is. (jersey117)

riiiiiight. because in four years nobody's tried that yet ...

the social issues bs makes me want to scream. birth control? FNG really???

women voters in general are easily scammed. (glockThe Vote)

that they are. i'm here to tell you — they're buying this issue hook, line, and sinker. bunches of women i know are convinced that EVIL republicans have only one agenda ...and that is to make birth control ILLEGAL in this country.

i kid you not. they are convinced. rational, otherwise intelligent women. this flat out LIE has worked like a charm.

but, who is surprised. america has and is going down due to this very issue at the heart of it. we've contracepted ourselves so much that we've had to import workers. we have aborted so many we dont' have a tax paying base anymore to support all the elderly OR the freeloading immigrants. radical feminism has done its trick on this country ...and continues to do so, destroying marriage, family, and a strong moral base. why be surprised? many women are in love with themselves and their own power and new-found freedom to screw up their lives with oblivion. (libsRJerks)

repeal the 19th amendment. (sharpRightTurn)

sure glad we gave them the vote. (dagogo redux)

because women vote for appeals to emotion. that is the democrat party's specialty. (longbow1969)

and the GOP's specialty? appeals to idiocy ...

young single women want to go on killing their unborn babies. and now they really believe evil republicans are going to completely ban contraception. the fluke contraception deception worked perfectly. (protectOurFreedom)

tricking rush into a three-day tirade was the easy part. tricking wingnuts into defending him? actually, that was easy too ...

woman — being fooled by snakes since the garden. (bmwcyle)

the "war on women" paying dividends.

dems would never win without the woman voter advantage. (tigerClaws)

alas, the unfairness of it all ...

it won't matter -- those ideological women voters are blind to everything except what they want to see, their "vision". by teasing up reproductive issues, obozo is rattling their chains, they just don't know it.

giving women the vote was a civilizational mistake that will kill the republic. women don't want anything like what men do from government, and the republic was constructed around a male electorate. women's brain processes make them the very, very last people anyone anywhere should want next to the levers of republican government, and that's even allowing for real exceptions like margaret thatcher and sarah palin.

overeducated, barren, man-hating democrat women will turn america into a despotate, and then a wasteland -- like something out of hellboy. (lentulusgracchus)

unlike the patriarchal heaven-on-earth that is saudi arabia, or even afghanistan, eh, lentulus?

now i'm pretty sure that free republic, every dittohead's little patch of heaven on the internet, is by no means men-only. i'm pretty sure freeperville has some members that at least have claimed to be female. i'm pretty sure i can remember reading the praises of these culture-war-hardened survivalists for the fierceness and independence of their mothers, mates and daughters. so where are all the wimmenfolk? none showed up today, or more certainly, no one either female or male showed up to crash this little meeting of the "he-man women haters club":

so if not unfettered misogyny, what kind of hate speech proves simply too intolerable for the neanderthals on this thread?

cut it out psycho. santorum can’t be blamed for splitting the vote, but we know who polls lower than rick with women and he is the one with the second fewest delegates.

so cut the hate. (dforest)

... just leave little ricky alooooone!

fright wing

burning up the interwebs this past week was the village voice's cover story on white fright, but i thought the cover itself, by unforgiving longtime favorite stippler of the stars drew friedman, was worth the trip for its own sake. if you've ever wondered who actually got the commission to paint the portrait of dorian gray ... look ye no further:

any day now

y'know, now that i've had some time to think it over, i think you're absolutely right — the goalposts do look so much better over here ...

once BO leaves office, however, there will be a thorough public discussion and a race by *renowned* journalists to publish blockbuster exposes. WRT rush [limbaugh] — IMHO he may be a closet birther but does not have access to irrefutable evidence and will not risk his reputation at this point. BUT once BO becomes a former POTUS — rush's career will be sustained & enhanced by bringing up all the clues that were ignored by the congress and the media with special reference to his, rush's *prescience* in the matter.

be patient grasshopper! The Truth will eventually come out! it always does ...... i believe that obama will be turned out in 2012, and if re-elected, someone in the congress will object, forcing obama to withdraw or be forced to defend the indefenseable in court. as an alternate scenario, i believe that obama will not run for re-election (placing him squarely in the ranks of failed preidencies by that simple act alone) and, after the fact, a court case will be allowed to rise up the system to the USSC court who will re-affirm the constitutional intent and definition of NBC as born of the soil to 2 citizens ..... negating obama’s presidency in toto ......

rush will strike when the iron is hot.

i pray that you are right. it's been more than 2 years. it's like "waiting for godot".

i stopped holding my breath long ago.

semper fi, birfistani!

not worth rescuing (revised)

sometime during the last half century, blacks pulled off a most amazing trick: they kidnapped a word. they kidnapped it from the white majority that had been using it to demean and oppress them.

there are two parts to this trick that make it so amazing. first, the word's ongoing captivity has served to extend its natural lifespan and potency far beyond that of its increasingly quaint contemporaries. second, blacks have convinced whites that what they've taken from them is something of real value, something that they need to take back.

most offensive words have only a limited shelf-life. whatever signifigance that originally makes them offensive is usually bound up in the zeitgeist of the period in which they are born. eventually, after the passing of enough generations, whatever context that gave them life and power becomes drained by everyday usage and is lost to those who grow up never having personally felt their emotional sting. the surest sign that an offensive term has hit its expiration date is the lifting of any bans on its public usage. after the word "bitch" became allowable on public airwaves, it has since become so flaccid (despite an initial period of titillation) that the slang term "bee-yatch" was squeezed from it in a naked but ultimately futile attempt to milk new life from it.

but in a feat drawing the envy of professional outrage manufacturers and propagandists everywhere, blacks have locked the n-word away in a kind of linguistic cryogenic freezer, safe for blacks' own endless private indulgence, whose continued undisguised flaunting of their hostage has now driven self-annointed self-help counselor and moralist dr. laura to commit professional suicide.

black guys use it all the time. turn on HBO and listen to a black comic, and all you hear is n****, n*****, n*****. i don't get it. if anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. but when black people say it, it's affectionate. it's very confusing.

their exclusive use of n-word is one of the few possessions that blacks have that whites don't, but most whites fail to realize that its enjoyment comes not from being able to say it, but from being able to watch the veins jealously swell up in the foreheads of racists and race-baiters as the word gets stuck in their throats, trapped there because the consequences of freeing it have become so personally damaging. comedian elon james white conveniently enumerates for us all the different types of outrage he feels free to unleash upon a white person unwise enough to utter the word:

listen, i'm not saying that white people can't say the word "ni**er", okay? what i am saying is that if you say it, i can also hate you, okay? i can mock you; i can not buy your product; i can ask for your firing; i can write letters, march, chain myself to shit. i can do that, okay? but you, you can totally say the word "ni**er". go for it!

to many whites, but especially to shock-jocks and professional rabble-rousers like dr. laura, rush limbaugh, andrew breitbart and sarah palin, being deprived of the use of one more insult is "very confusing" and simply too unfair and blacks are being too oversensitive about their attempts to use it.

well, duh!

of course it's unfair! slavery was unfair. segregation was unfair. redlining was unfair. what happened to shirley sherrod and especially what happened to her father was unfair. that's the whole point! so get used to it, guys!

besides, do whites really want to go to the mat over the right to demean their former chattel? it's just not a fight they're going to win, not when it's being fought for by paid and pampered blowhards, cranks and cynics.

still, there are two ways the n-word will die the natural death it is certainly long due. option one: when blacks release their hostage and no longer exact a price from whites for daring to use it, which, considering its continued effectiveness, as dr. laura can surely attest to, is not bloody likely to happen in this lifetime.

realistically then, this leaves us in the present with only option two: when whites let go of their n-word envy and realize that this is one hostage that's not worth rescuing. it seems most whites already have.

---

addendum: like every white person before her who grossly miscalculated that they could juggle the n-bomb without detonating it, dr. laura and her supporters want to turn her darwin-award-worthy implosion into an heroic constitutional auto-da-fé:

... my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and i have made the decision not to do radio anymore. the reason is: i want to regain my first amendment rights. i want to be able to say what's on my mind, and in my heart, what i think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent, and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. i'm sort of done with that. i'm not retiring. i'm not quitting. i feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that i believe need to be said for people in this country.

i'm not sure which document she's referring to, but the first amendment of the united states' constitution protects her freedom to speak or write from infringements by the government.

so, if president obama had picked up the phone and said to attorney general holder:

yo, eric ... i'm sick of this dr. laura bee-yatch getting all up in my peeps' grills with her shizz. man, she took it to goddam eleven this time. even clarence's gotta get behind us on this one. put the word out: her hole is closed — today.

... well, then she'd have something to complain about.

but the first amendment does not protect you from public criticism. it does not protect you from your listeners, your sponsors, your owners or your neighbors. and it certainly does not protect you from your own big mouth.

so if dr. laura thinks she can find a venue somewhere on this planet where she can spew her special brand of wisdom "without somebody getting angry" (translation: without someone cutting off her income stream), well then, good luck to the lady. wherever that is, i'm sure it's pretty crowded there already.

failmonger fail

mr. "i hope obama fails" ... fails:

NFL commissioner roger goodell failed to offer support of rush limbaugh’s bid to buy the rams on tuesday and said the talk-show host’s ‘divisive comments’ would not be welcome in the league.

bad americans

former leading member of the christian evangelical movement frank schaeffer says enough is enough! and he's pointing fingers and naming names.

maddow: do you think that calling the president a "nazi" ... calling the president "hitler" ... is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?

schaeffer: yes i do. in fact this rings a big bell with me because my dad who is a right wing evangelical leader wrote a book called a christian manifesto ... and in that book he compared anybody who was pro-abortion to the nazi germans; and he said that using violence or force to overthrow nazi germany would have been appropriate for christians including the assassination of hitler. he compared the supreme court's actions on abortion to that. and that has been a note that has been following the right wing movement that my father and i helped start ... so what's being said here is really two messages: there's the message to the predominatly white, middle-aged crowds of people screaming at these meetings trying to shut them down; but there's also a coded message to what i would call the "looney tunes" — the fruit loops on the side — that's really like playing russian roulette. you put a cartridge in the chamber and you spin and once in a while it goes off, and we saw that with dr. tiller, we've seen it happen numerous times in this country with the violence against political leaders whether it's martin luther king or whoever it might be. we have a history of being a well-armed violent country. and so, really, i think that these calls are incredibly irresponsible. but the good news is is that it shows a desperation. the far right knows they've lost. they've lost the hearts and minds of most american people ... but they also know that they have a large group of people who are not well-informed, who listen to their own sources, who buy the lies ... and these people can be energized to go out and do really dreadful things and we've seen it in front of abortion clinics — i'm afraid we're going to see it with some of our political leaders. and the glenn becks of this world literally are responsible for unleashing what i regard as an anti-democratic, anti-american movement in this country that is trying to shut down legitimate debate and replace it with straight out intimidation. ... these are very bad signs and i'm not at all optimistic about how this is all going to end in terms of violence although i do think that obama is going to win the day in terms of most americans. the problem is we're not talking about most americans. we're talking about a small angry group of white people who — to, y'know, paraphrase bart simpson, "the election broke their brains." they're angry and they're ready to do just about anything to stop the process at this point because they'd rather see us all lose than admit defeat. that's where they're at. ... you have a group of people who, like rush limbaugh, would rather see the president and the country fail, and their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very sinful, and that is "go for broke". when you start comparing a democratically elected president who is not only our first black president but a moderate progressive to adolf hitler, you have arrived at a point where you are literally leaving a loaded gun on the table, saying "first person who wants to use this, go ahead, be our guest." now, all these people, when something bad happens, will raise their holy hands in horror and say "of course, we didn't mean that, we were just talking about being americans. it's american to protest ..." B.S.! they know exactly what's out there. there is a whole public there who went out and stocked up on ammunition and guns thinking obama would take away their weapons. one such person shot down three policemen in pittsburgh. i'd like to know exactly what glenn beck and fox news will say the morning after someone takes a shot at our president or kills a senator or congressman ... and if it's one of the people who we find a little note in their car or their literature or their television watching habits who's tied to these people who are stirring the pot, or tied to these foundations that people like dick armey are running, trying to use insurance company money to make look these fake grass roots movement, then we'll see what happens. but at that point we'll be in a new zone, and it'll be too late. so my warning to my old friends on the right ... without the work of my father, c. everett koop and myself, there'd be no pro-life movement, no religious right to be fomenting these things from, it's this same cast of characters. i came to a place in my life when i realized that i'd made a big mistake. now we've crossed a line into which hate and vitriol have gone to a point where it is anti-democratic and anti-american. these people do not want america to succeed. they'd rather see our system go down than have a black president, someone with different political views, someone appointing people like sotomayor, hispanic people, women and others, and we've arrived at a point where enough is enough! so these people are hate-mongers ... spreading this rhetoric, spreading these lies ... these are bad americans and they're putting us all at risk.

certifigate: a birther miscarriage

of the many ongoing heart-wrenching travesties of the certifigate drama, almost worse than birthers' failure to keep the kenyan usurper from stealing the election or boot him out of office, is the silence kept by a-list conservative movers, shakers and talkers on this excruciating constitutional crisis:

although i've heard explanation after explanation as to why there's a TOTAL CONSERVATIVE BLACKOUT of this topic, i still am not satisfied with their reasoning. just why in the hell are rush, hannity, beck, coulter, malkin, FoxNews, DrudgeReport, (and you fill in the blank) REFUSING TO DISCUSS THIS? what's in it for them? what in the hell are they afraid of? it's a total BLACKOUT. incomprehensible that not even ONE OF THEM HAS TOUCHED THIS TOPIC. this is disgusting!!!!!!!!!!! the guy is a muslim, kenyan born, illegal alien, doesn't even have a selective service number, is commander-in-chief of our armed forces, is sitting in the white house, bowing to our enemies, making a fool out of our constitution, trashing our country, and on and on and on. and NOT ONE WORD FROM ANYONE THAT WE'VE BEEN RELYING ON ALL THESE YEARS ... ONLY FREEREPUBLIC. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON????????

those few that have spoken up thus far have chosen to drink the obama-aid:

bill o'reilly, fox news:

steven, troy il: why haven't you or the media addressed the questions regarding obama's birthplace and birth certificate? steven. steven, steven, steven ... how many times do i have to do it? how many times? i've already adressed it, many, many times. the birth certifigate is legal. he was born in hawaii. we have a copy of it. unless there is a masive fraud in the state of hawaii, which i couldn't prove, he's legal.

sean hannity, fox news:

now, the only thing, i don't know about the comment about god. but -- and he is an american, as far as we know, in spite of that birth certificate controversy, but we believe he is. so we've got to put those issues aside.

michelle malkin, national review:

i believe trig was born to sarah palin. i believe barack obama was born in hawaii on u.s. soil. i believe fire can melt steel and that bin laden's jihadi crew -- not bush and cheney -- perpetrated mass murder on 9/11. what kind of kooky conspiracist does that make me?

the traitorous repudiation and cowardly silence of mainstream wingnuts has deprived birthers of a vital source of validation that the right-wing noise machine has provided for twenty years.

until today, that is.

for reasons i'm sure we'll never know, after months of criminal silence, lord limbaugh, official crack supplier of what remains of the conservative movement, finally came out, on air, as a born again birther:

... obama does have something in common with god ... god doesn’t have a birth certificate either!

and there was much rejoicing in the land of the free:

WOOOOO HOOOO !!! thank you, rush!!!

i don't believe what i have just heard. thank you rush.

rush is flat out on fire......air tankes ain’t gonna control this fire

he mentioned the birth certificate 3 times already! maybe someone’s going to finally open up some worms.

man, i think rush is FED UP with the CRAP this loser and administration are doing to this country and he’s gonna FINALLY get this ball rolling! FOUR times so far in the last half hour?! how can any of those rush haters avoid this? this is like sticking a fresh slab of bloody meat in front of a den of lions!

THERE HE GOES AGAIN!! HOLY COW!! he’s gonna get this in the news for sure!!

the problem, of course, with opening up some worms and fresh slabs of bloody meat is that one never quite knows what one will catch:

associated press: an 88-year-old gunman with a violent and virulently anti-semitic past opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded u.s. holocaust memorial museum on wednesday, fatally wounding a security guard before being shot himself by other officers, authorities said.

talking points memo: he also wrote an internet posting complaining that obama's birth certificate and other documents have not been made public.

while i can't see more than a coincidental link between rush's bellyflop into the deep end of the birther cesspool and this shooting, his timing couldn't have been worse, and he knows it, as fox news' own shepard smith — one of their saner anchors — explains:

smith:	i read a lot of email around here. and the email, to me, has become more and more frightening. it's not a new thing, it's been happening over the past few months. it's been happening, y'know, to some degree, since the election process went along. i mean, we had a woman, we had a black man, he had y'know a lot going on. and there are people now who are way out there on a limb and i think they're just way out there on a limb with the email that they send us. 'cause i read it and they are out there. i mean out there in a scary place. i'm gonna read to you a little bit, from one, and i'm not gonna read the name, but this is, i promise, a representative sample of the kinds of things that we get here: shepard, how dare you tell us to get over obama not being a u.s. citizen? where is the birth certificate? where? he won't show it so why are you so trumped up to believe it? i cannot stand hussein! he is a socialist marxist who is at fast rate destroying our country. if you're one who believes that abortion is murder, at what point do you go out and kill someone whose performing abortions? well, i think we just learned from the killer of dr. tiller. if you're someone who believes these sorts of things about the president of the united states — and i could read a hundred of them like this! —
guest:	thousands.
smith:	i mean from today! people who are so amped up and so angry for reasons that are absolutely wrong, ridiculous, preposterous! yet they are mad, and they're very mad that i just called it preposterous.
guest:	well, if anybody wants to, to know the level of anger or, or whatever you want to call it, crazy, just take a spin around the blogs out there and on the internet, and just take half an hour, and go through, and randomly see what is being said, um, it is, um, frightening on a lot of different levels. and part of the problem, i think, is that they're feeding each other.
smith:	they are.
guest:	people are not going out there and, and ...
smith:	that's right. there on websites, the same people feeding each other fact, um, hate, that's not based in fact. and it's ginning itself up and i think if that's what you want to do with your time then that's what you do. but more and more it seems like people are taking the extra step of getting a gun out and ...

shep knows, as well as lord limbaugh's promoters, advertisers and sponsors, that email boxes and phone lines at msnbcbsabcnnfox will be clogging up at triple-rate after today. and that can't make them happy.

this is the reason, i suspect, rush waited so long. there have been no new revelations vindicating the birthers, so he obviously wasn't waiting for evidence. no, rush always knew the birthers are, as fellow conservative gasbag michael medved put it:

crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters

... and rush knew there was a risk of certifigate spiraling out of his control, and he doesn't want to deal with their brand of headache. because, if you've got his megaphone and his money and you believe the president is a fraud, why wouldn't you shout it to the rooftops every hour of every day? and i'm sure rush does not want to talk about this every hour of every day.

but the birthers will demand that kind of commitment and will never be satisfied with anything less. this is one of those rare times when limbaugh's gonna wish he'd kept his drug-addled big fat idiot mouth shut.

quote of the day

from eric kleefield @ talkingpointsmemo:

rush limbaugh says that nominating sonia sotomayor to the supreme court is like appointing david duke. so why isn't he supporting her?

[rimshot]

there goes the hispanic vote

as lord limbaugh hands down his marching orders:

i doubt that sotomayor can be stopped. she should be. she is a horrible pick. she is the antithesis of a judge, by her own admission and in her own words. she has been overturned 80% by the supreme court. she may as well be on the ninth circus court of appeals, given all the time she’s overturned. she has been reprimanded by a truly strong hispanic judge, jose cabranes. she has been rebuked in writing by cabranes for opinions that she wrote that had no bearing on the constitutional issues before her in the case that was being decided. details on that coming up. but here is why, even though she may not be able to be stopped, here is why sonia sotomayor needs to be opposed by the republicans as far as they can take it, because the american people need to know who barack obama really is, and his choice of sonia sotomayor tells everybody, if we will tell the story of her, who he is.

the new girl

even if the s.s. gop has opted to sulk in dry dock for the next four years, lord limbaugh can still count on the party to keep his cabin quarters supplied with freshly-spanked talent.

tax day, april 15th — kansas rep. todd tiahrt, when asked "by a kansas city star editorial board member whether limbaugh was now the de facto leader of the GOP."

no, no, he's just an entertainer.

four days later — tiahrt spokesman sam sackett tells the wichita eagle editorial board:

the congressman believes rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in america — not a party leader responsible for election losses ... nothing the congressman said diminished the role rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement.

considering tiahrt's turnabout took longer than the customary 24 hours, it looks like experienced deck hands michael steele and phil gingrey have a new recruit to break in.

the short happy life of chairman steele

well, as everyone seems to be saying this week, that was quick, wasn't it?

but i'm not talking just about the apology. i'm talking about the whole transparent charade that the g.o.p. has been staging over the last month.

when michael steele proudly beat crypto-racist katon dawson after six contentious rounds of committee voting, conservatives heralded his victory as a bona fide statement that republicans were ready to "rebrand themselves" and reach out to the hearts and minds of voters outside the shrinking circle of old white men now composing the increasingly bitter rump of the party.

the georgetown university-trained lawyer and seasoned veteran of television talk shows is expected to become a highly visible spokesman for republicans. his moderate views and charisma could help the party combat the impression that it is insensitive to minorities, working people and those with divergent views on social and economic issues. he's also likely to bring more openness and diversity to the rnc. in his victory speech, mr. steele promised something else that rank-and-file republicans are hungry for — election wins.

who knows if steele really believed his own pandering hip-hop hype, but he certainly believed he had new muscles to flex and new capital to spend, presumably bestowed upon him by the shiny new epaulets he'd just won. it was a belief brought abjectly to its knees just 31 days later.

even if the u.s.s. g.o.p. weren't already imploding on seemingly a dozen different decks, whatever's left is in no danger of being overrun by eager multiethnic recruits after steele's groveling performance. he'd bragged, just a day earlier, in front of millions of viewers, that he was the commander, and lord limbaugh showed him, just a day later, in front of millions of listeners, that the crew belonged to him, as it always did, and that steele was just another one of his cabin boys, a punk, a wayward prag.

yeah, that's the kind of ship i want to serve, where an ambitious cadet, from any background, can move up the ranks on his own merit — all the way up to cabin boy. where race truly no longer matters, because now anyone can work hard for a place in line servicing a loud, loathsome, bloated bigoted gasbag.

no, steele won't be winning over any new hearts or minds, which renders him useless, since that was the whole point of his election — expanding the party base. groveling eunuchs don't inspire enlistment, so his emasculation is complete. he didn't bring with him anybody who wasn't already on board and who hadn't already pledged their allegiance to lord limbaugh, who with the back of his hand, and with everyone watching, showed steele what steele had either forgotten or pretended wasn't true. now no one can pretend any longer.

in hemingway's "the short happy life of francis macomber" the title figure is pitied by his game guide as a "boy-man", after macomber succumbs to panic during a close call in the field, then loses his wife to the guide. but when macomber helps kill two buffalo the next day, he gains a measure of manhood, enough to stand up to his contemptuous wife:

... some of them stay little boys so long, wilson thought. sometimes all their lives. their figures stay boyish when they're fifty. the great american boy-men. damned strange people. but he liked this macomber now. damned strange fellow. probably meant the end of cuckoldry too. well, that would be a damned good thing. damned good thing. beggar had probably been afraid all his life. don't know what started it. but over now. hadn't had time to be afraid with the buff. that and being angry too. motor car too. motor cars made it familiar. be a damn fire eater now.

however, macomber's newfound "happy life" is cut short when his wife shoots him as a buffalo charges — and not quite by accident, the guide suspects.

the weekend drama "the short happy life of chairman steele" illustrates a sad reversal: the title figure gains a measure of manhood after a close contest. he succumbs to over-confidence and publicly insults his contemptuous patron. a swift edifying bitchslap forces him to publicly renounce his pretend manhood and affirm his cabin boyhood. thus ends steele's "happy life".

lord limbaugh's bitchslap educated steele at a time when the world's most famous and most popular non-white leader is exercising, in stark contrast, not pretend power, but real, far-reaching power, not only over his own party but also keenly felt by his rivals, who are desperately trying to pretend that their own "magic negro" is just as good. even now, nancy pelosi, the first female house speaker, is batting away divisive rumors that she herself is wielding too much power of her own.

so, really, which ship would you rather sign up with?

the one looking for just a few good "boys" ... ?

jindal gets his breather

josh marshall @ talking points memo:

dems gloat after rush awards himself sole custody of steele's testicles.

i'm loving michael steele. i mean, i'm not sure how else to put it. this guy has to be about the worst, most embarrassing party chair we've seen in recent memory. it's embarrassing enough that steele is like, what? ... the third republican to criticize rush and then make it less than 36 hours before being forced to undergo the 21st century republican version of a maoist self-criticism session. it's sad for the republican party that no one can criticize rush without having to be hauled out for this sort of humiliation a day or so later. but for steele not to have realized that or not to have been sufficiently in control of his mouth to avoid saying this just shows once again that this dude is really, really not ready for prime time.

digby @ hullaballoo:

but [limbaugh] is, as some of us have been pointing for years, the true leader of the republican party and we were told that he was a harmless, mainstream entertainer and we should all just lighten up, even as luminaries of the republican party and the luminaries of the conservative movement bowed and scraped like abused streetwalkers at the feet of their violent pimp. they defended his comments about abu ghraib, fergawdsake. he can literally do no wrong.

andrew sullivan @ the atlantic:

comrade steele dutifully apologizes to the great leader and offer his regrets to his fellow comrades in the movement. re-education camp will follow shortly. this climb-down marks the end of establishment republican resistance to the poujadist pontificator. it’s rush’s party now. so why shouldn’t he run for president in 2012? make palin his veep — and be done with it.

dnc chairman tim kaine:

chairman steele’s reversal this evening and his apology to limbaugh proves the unfortunate point that limbaugh is the leading force behind the republican party, its politics and its obstruction of president obama’s agenda in washington.

white house press secretary robert gibbs:

i was a little surprised at the speed in which mr. steele, the head of the RNC, apologized to the head of the republican party.

mark silva @ the chicago tribune:

the democrats are laughing all the way to the blood-sport bank.

dittohead central @ free republic:

... this makes steele even look weaker. we need someone with cojones to lead the RNC, not a backstabber like steele. he had no business going on hugley’s CNN show ...

next time you go on a talk show or news program and another “brotha” tries to turn you against limbaugh...i want to hear you scream from the mountain tops, that limbaugh is a force to be reckoned with and is right 98.8% of the time.

to see the way the CNN host was manipulating steele so easy was just horrible. hughley heaps praise on him and speaks about his new level of respect for steele. steele's response was a pie eyed nod in agreement. hughley could have had him agreeing to recreational drug use in the whitehouse if he wanted.

unless blacks start seeing themselves as men, and not blacks, then nothing will change.

michael steele is the one that took the bait and helped the democrats with this whole thing. they have been baiting for weeks now..surely steele is not that clueless.

i went back at that tape and i realized words that i said weren’t what i was thinking wow! that inspires confidence.

one of those things where i thinking i was saying one thing, and it came out differently one of those things? happens to everybody all the time, huh? sure, malapropisms, a lapsus linguae now and then, but no, no one says "bite me" when they mean to say "i love you."

i was maybe a little bit inarticulate. hey a-hole: you're the chairman of the republican national committee. you can't afford to be "maybe a little bit inarticulate." you know, don't you, that media whores from CNN to CNBC to god knows where are quoting you and using your "little bit inarticulate" stupidity to hang racism around your party's neck? you do know that, right? why are we cursed with dumb f*ckwads for "leaders." i give up.

grovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovel

nothing says you’re sorry like, “i resign”.

rush had his “A game” today, but is still man enough and smart enough to accept the apology from steele.

i left the GOP today and i’ll be damned if i go back. i’ve had it. perhaps one day with god’s grace the grand old party will learn how to treat conservatives who fight the hardest, vote in droves and give freely pf time, talent and cold hard cash.

his master's voice

white house chief of staff rahm emanuel shoots ... and scores!

(okay ... i'll admit it, this one was a gimmie, big time.)

rnc chairman michael steele, yesterday:

hughley:	you know what we do, we talk like we’re talking now. you have your view. i have mine. we don’t need incendiary rhetoric.
steele:	exactly.
hughley:	like rush limbaugh, who is the de facto leader of the republican party.
steele:	no, he’s not.... i’m the de facto leader of the republican party.
hughley:	you know what? i can appreciate that. but no one will actually decry down some of the things he says. [ ... ]
steele:	... let’s put it into context here. rush limbaugh is an entertainer. rush limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. yes, it’s incendiary. yes, it’s ugly.

emanuel, yesterday:

schieffer:	we talked about newt gingrich a lot this morning and now you bring up rush limbaugh. who do you think now speaks for the republican party?
emanuel:	you just named him: it is rush limbaugh. he has laid out his vision, in my view. and he said it clearly. ... and whenever a republican criticizes him, they have to run back and apologize to him and say they were misunderstood. he is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the republican party.

limbaugh, today:

so i am an entertainer and i have 20 million listeners because of my great song and dance routine ... michael steele, you are head of the republican national committee. you are not head of the republican party. tens of millions of conservatives and republicans have nothing to do with the republican national committee ... and when you call them asking for money, they hang up on you!

steele, today:

my intent was not to go after rush — i have enormous respect for rush limbaugh ... i was maybe a little bit inarticulate. ... there was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership. ... i went back at that tape and i realized words that i said weren't what i was thinking ... it was one of those things where i thinking i was saying one thing, and it came out differently. what i was trying to say was a lot of people ... want to make rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he's not.

denied w/o comment

oh well ... despite much hand-wringing from the right, who were looking for the strongest validation available, and as well from the left, who no longer trusted the supreme court after bush v. gore, few folks can say that this result wasn't wholly predictable.

as we heard this morning, the diehard obama derangement syndrome sufferers just lost their latest attempt to get the land's highest court to grant real weight to their legal challenge to obama's november victory. this was an important loss because without the court's attention, the case has little if any opportunity to merit attention from the media. even "respected" "mainstream" conservatives such as limbaugh, hannity and o'reilly have kept their distance on this one. had the court accepted the case, the media rollercoaster would have jumped its rails.

it was an entertaining if not entirely suspenseful weekend, watching the semper fidels of free republic twist themselves into knots waiting for this decision. as an unabashed freeper-voyeur, i posted friday's entry "the supremes and the certificate" and sunday's entry "still room under the bus" to invite you to grab some popcorn with me ...

... and join me on the couch for what had to be the first really great sporting weekend since the election. after eight years of tolerating unfettered right-wing contempt and vitriol, few things provide such cathartic entertainment as watching freepers in turmoil.

so how is freeperville taking the news? silly question, i know.

first a statement from the applicant himself, leo donofrio:

the main stream media should stop saying scotus refused to hear the case. it was distributed for conference on nov. 19. they had the issue before them for for sixteen days. yes, they didn't take it to the next level of full briefs and oral argument. but they certainly heard the case and read the issues. the media is failing to acknowledge that. the case and issues were considered. getting the case to the full court for such consideration was my goal. i trust the supreme court had good reason to deny the application. despite many attempts to stop their full review, my case was placed on their desks and into their minds. please remember that. it's important for history to record that.

of course, by dismissing the application, i'd say that the court just put it out of their minds.

surprisingly, at least one freeper agreed with me:

LOL ..., who is this "baghdad bob"???

sure, "i won because 'it's in their minds ...' "... that's a pretty good one ...

but in the land of the free(per), a true patriot never lays down his arms:

nay sayers, hold on now. as the MSM slowly starts picking this up, it's going to titillate the uneducated masses. there still is time ... but buy your guns and ammo anyway. no reason to take any chances.

well, if the masses find this soap opera as genuinely titillating as i do, then obama has nothing to worry about, if he ever did.

but as they say, never say die. after all, there are other cases in the pipeline waiting to be rejected considered:

[the wrotnowski case] makes number two, another was filed this morning makes three and then there is berg's, makes 5. sometimes in order to break the ice on the lake one must keep piling little rocks on top until it breaks.

hmm ... sounds like four to me, but who's counting?

it can be inferred now that you have two justices interested in moving this case. you need four justices.

all that is necessary is for one lowly judge to issue a preliminary injunction on either the electoral college casting its votes, or them being certified by the congress, or the issuance of an oath of office to 0bama. once that happens, all hell will break loose!

i guess it's not over until the "fat judge" sings.

clearly, what these long marginalized voices badly need and what conservatives have long been denied is a platform to get their message out:

what this screams to me is DUHHH! there is a HUGE opportunity for a conservative to buy up a few of these dying media outlets and start a conservative network. there's a lot of pent up demand. there's freepin' money on the table.

i know it's a long shot, but perhaps this is an idea we could get someone like ... i dunno, say, rupert murdoch interested in?

still, throughout greater freeperville, there was much gnashing and wailing and rending of garments:

the chicago tribune is reporting this? do we have a more reliable source of information this morning?

four justices had to vote to hear the case????? so you are saying that roberts, thomas, alito and scalia was not enough or worse are not really conservatives?????

this means that it is no longer the democrats fault for what is to come. blame is and will be placed squarely at the feet of the supreme court of the united states.

i would say "god help us".... but it looks like his response is "i have seen how you (usa) would thank me". bring your judgement god ... we deserve it!

i think we should swarm obama with copies of our birth certificates (i know ... stupid idea) ... but, i'd LIKE to swarm him with copies of our birth certificates. ... something is fishy for him to fight this so much ... anyone know the statue of limitations on what the hawaiian governor did (sequestering his bc)???

we will be hard pressed to deny anyone the presidency in the future. this ruling means that swartzenegger can run for president. maybe even valiente fox or cesar chavez.

oh, the horror! that even someone born in arizona (even a dead one at that), could possibly become president!

well it's OFFICIAL: the united states constitution is NULL and VOID! it's been fun while it lasted!

great. now nutroots on the right are as apoplectic about the SCOTUS decision IRT OHB as the nutroots on the left were about bush v. gore. time to by stock in the companies that produce paxil, zolof, etc, etc.

the nation that the founding fathers turned over to us is dead.

i just hope that they won't now say that the "donofrio case" sets a precedent and deny all subsequent claims ... if they make it to the SCOTUS in the first place.

if it ever comes to pass that his not eligible, I don't want to hear squat from the press or congress, or the DNC ... cowards all.

why can't the SC ask BO to show THEM his BC?

i'm afraid the political climate has changed beyond the point where those in power care about the rule of law or what the public thinks. representative democracy is nearly dead. peasants don't count for much in an elitist's eyes, until they pick up pitchforks and storm the palace. things will have to become very much worse and intolerable before that will happen here.

i'm at a loss. is president bush in the tank for obama? does he not realize that he, the commander in chief, swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the united states? why is he not spearheading the move to get to the bottom of obama's birth certificate issue if he is not part of a conspiracy to destroy our society and make us all a part of his daddies "new world order?"

please. help me out here. is president bush really so vane and worried about his own legacy that he won't do what is right or will he go down as the last great liberal to let the supreme court decide america's fate.

what good is electing a leader that purportedly defends us and our constitution abroad if he is letting our enemies destroy both the constitution and us from within?

"george w. bush: the last great liberal" — who knew? sounds like a bestseller ...

no longer is it: "we the people" but rather..."you people!" (kooks, nuts, radicals, on-the-fringe fruitcakes")

we might as well kiss the us constitution and the freedoms it grants americans goodbye. this proves the supreme court justices are part of the conspiracy to force an illegible alien, marxist, muslim on the american people.

if scotus lets this pass ignoring the constitution, then i guess that gives everyone carte blanche to ignore all laws.

there are times i have a secret desire the next wot attack is in LA, SFO, or D.C.

umm ... not so secret anymore, creep. thanks for sharing.

still, there is one consolation prize they can take home — at least the case is finally getting the prime-time attention it deserves:

funny how the MSM is picking up the story that it was denied — front page at HuffPost, MSNBC, DU, et al. maybe they were worried after all?

thirsty?

this one's on the house, you republican gasbags!

bob cesca has a long-overdue message for all those oh-so-deserving and soon-to-be-irrelevant professional pundits, politicians, prognosticators, proselytizers, preachers, peddlers and outright propagandists who've been proven so horrifically wrong for the past six years:

last week, i described a nightmare scenario in which the republicans won the midterm prompting the president, high on mandate juice, to form the department of shut the f*** up, headed by a sock puppet named secretary fiddlesticks. now that the democrats have taken back the congress and 51+ percent of america finally has a voice in government again, i think it's time to seriously let fly. so at the risk of sounding contentious in this all-too-genuine era (several days) of bipartisanship, here now is a roll call of people who must officially shut the f*** up. republican trolls who wrap up their anonymous and incomprehensible criticisms of progressives with the phrase, "and that's why your party never wins," need to shut the f*** up. the cowards who so easily disregard our liberties by shrugging off the president's illegal wiretapping; the cowards who shrug off the military commissions act and the death of habeas corpus; and the cowards who shrug off torture with the phrases, "i'm not doing anything wrong, so i have nothing to worry about," or, "you can't [blank] if you're dead," ought to shut the f*** up. [yes, we're calling you out pat, jeff and john, you buncha li'l skairdy k-k-kats!] anyone who still believes that global warming is a myth? shut the f*** up. rush limbaugh must shut the f*** up. on second thought, strike that. the more we see violet beauregard flapping his arms and mocking parkinson's patients, the better off the rest of the nation will be. in ann coulter's latest column, he wondered when the democrats would be fitting senator-elect jon tester with a "leotard." speaking of tards, mr. coulter needs to shut the f*** up. and this order stands for anyone who claims senator-elect tester is a "conservative democrat." he could very well be the face of the new progressive democrat and one of the most genuine lawmakers elected tuesday. prediction: if he isn't already, tester will quickly become a rock star in this party. i think it was bill maher who mentioned this but it stands repeating here: neocons who have made multiple rosy predictions about iraq need to shut the f*** up and are forthwith banned from making any more predictions. sean hannity, bill o'reilly and other homophobes who use the "san francisco liberal" label for speaker-elect pelosi must... you know. we all understand that it's right-wing code language meaning "homo-values." if that's what you mean, just say it. that is, unless you're not man enough. if you still believe that karl rove is a genius, wizard, architect or anything short of overrated, you must shut the f*** up. one popular vote loss, one win, one near loss to a disorganized opponent and one outright loss means one thing and one thing only: mediocrity. racking up this kind of record by means of dirty tricks, race-baiting and questioning the patriotism of decorated war veterans makes rove a mediocre hack at best. [hmm ... i believe said something along those lines over a year ago.] ed gillespie, the man who's just a neck with a mouth, is officially ordered for the last time to shut the f*** up. the devilish wordsmiths who think it's strategic and clever to refer to the democratic party as the "democrat party" need to stop it. shut the f*** up. the official name of the party is the democratic party, with the "ic" at the end. yeah, i know. newt gingrich and frank luntz invented the idea of saying "democrat party" or "the democrat leadership" or "the democrat voters" in order to emphasize the "rat" syllable, leaving a rat-like subliminal hint in the minds of listeners. president bush, in his so-called "conciliatory" press conference wednesday, used this incorrect pronunciation several times. "and while the ballots are still being counted in the senate, it is clear the democrat party had a good night last night, and i congratulate them on their victories." "this morning i spoke with republican and democrat leadership in the house and senate." "... we'll begin consultations with the democrat leadership starting thursday and friday." "... and now work with democrat leaders in the congress because they control the committees and they control the flow of bills." "we got some tax cuts passed with democrat votes." and finally ... mr. president. saying that you're going to work with congress and compromise for the sake of the nation doesn't mean shoving your unconstitutional terrorist surveillance act and your bellicose anti-u.n. u.n. ambassador through a lame duck session. so if you don't really intend to be bipartisan, then shut the f*** up. you pride yourself on letting people know exactly where you stand and, despite the fact that you routinely stand on dangerous principles, there's at least some cold comfort in knowing what you're up to. but it's clear that that president bush is long gone — replaced by a man who can't even be honest with his own base about things like the iraq war, subsequently leaving his allies alone, confused and scrambling to assuage the anger of an increasingly hostile constituency. this last part? keep it up, thank you. and that's the roll call. i've spent the last several days not only breathing in the sweet aroma of real-life governmental checks and balances, but i've also been evaluating where we go from here. clearly speaker-elect pelosi and the democratic leadership have the daunting task of working with the white house to not only push through vital pieces of legislation, but they also must do so in a way that doesn't raze their chances for further pickups in 2008. it goes without saying that any misstep in the face of this republican party (and its media lapdogs) could spell disaster. so they have to play nice in some ways, but you and i are best served by remaining on the attack and never hesitating to tell those who deserve it to shut the f*** up. update: i've been told that joe mccarthy was the first to use the "democrat [sic] party" misnomer. however, its use became much more pervasive when gingrich and luntz practically made it mandatory in the ranks of the gop.

running on empty

looks like the party of stunts photo ops staged events cheap political manuevers ideas has just run out of them:

washington post: the response so far has been profiles in panic. some conservatives dropped their philosophical opposition to tax hikes and business regulations and began complaining loudly about oil companies and the auto industry. president bush last week announced that he wanted the authority to raise fuel economy standards on automobiles. one aide acknowledged the idea was devised on the fly, with almost no planning or discussion among relevant agencies. this became obvious within hours when white house officials cautioned that bush had no immediate plan to use the authority even if he had it. a few days earlier, bush backed diverting crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, an idea he dismissed less than two years earlier as a political stunt. republican lawmakers likewise have responded with a mishmash of solutions — some barely vetted, others with little chance of becoming law.

the problem? it seems that the citizens of emerald city, even the once-fawning dittoheads, are now paying very close attention to the man behind the curtain ...

new york times: the senate republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude from the very people it was intended to help. aides for several republican senators reported a surge of calls and e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in november. "the conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery," said don stewart, a spokesman for senator john cornyn, republican of texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum. angry constituents have asked, "do you think we are prostitutes? do you think you can buy us?" said another republican senator's aide, who was granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator had supported the plan. conservative talk radio hosts have been particularly vocal. "what kind of insult is this?" rush limbaugh asked on his radio program on friday. "instead of buying us off and treating us like we're a bunch of whores, just solve the problem." in commentary on fox news sunday, brit hume called the idea "silly."