Friday Favorite Restaurants

Fuck the chain restaurants. Gimme local.

I love those independent, locally owned and operated places that kick the giant's asses. The ones that you discover by accident, or through a friend, or just because it was on the way and smelled too inviting to pass up.

There are four in particular that, if I could arrange the world to my liking, I'd plunk down right next to my house. Or possibly live in....

Taj Mahal, Prescott, Arizona: I've been going to this one since my college days. It's one of the few things I was grateful to my vegan ex boyfriend for - I'd never even considered Indian cuisine until he dragged me in for dinner. Instant addiction. I ended up there for the champagne brunch regularly on Sundays the whole time I lived in Prescott, and it's the first place I hit whenever I'm in town. They make a great chicken tikka masala, but their butter chicken is absolutely to die for. I never walk out of Taj Mahal: I waddle, stuffed to the gills with some of the best Indian food this side of India.

Pita Jungle, Tempe, Arizona: Another thing I can thank the ex for. He discovered this hip little college town joint and convinced me to yet again expand my culinary horizons. It's a loud, bohemian little place that serves some of the best Mediterranean food ever cooked. Their shawarma weighs nearly a pound: a thick pita stuffed full of rotisserie chicken, onions, lettuce, and pickles, finished off with the best garlic sauce in the known universe. Add a side of garlic new potatoes and a slice of baklava for dessert, and this is another place I have to loosen the belt for. Ye gods. It's the only thing I'm looking forward to when I go back to the Valley next week, aside from friends and family.

Pike Place Chowder, Seattle, Washington: Located right by Pike Place Market, this place doesn't look like much. It tastes like a billion dollars. I'm an inveterate chowder hater - I've never been a soup person to begin with, and chowder was one of my least favorites. I tagged along with a couple of visiting friends who are chowder fanatics, and got suckerpunched by the seared scallop chowder. Seared fucking scallops! They serve it up in a sourdough bread bowl, and it's one of those flavors I dream of on a regular basis.

Pagliacci Pizza, Kirkland, Washington: This was one of those wonderful discoveries made by poking through the intertoobz in search of something a little better than Papa John's when we first moved up here and our dishes hadn't arrived yet. I rely on them to keep me fed and happy most weekends. Their pizza is fantastic - really premium Italian American goodness, with a ton of fresh and exotic ingredients to choose from. Top it off with some sweet cream gelato, locally made, and heaven is at hand, delivered to my door by some of the nicest delivery guys and gals ever. And calling in the order is painless: they've hired smart and fun folks who always make me feel like their most cherished customer. As if they weren't already awesome enough, their pizza boxes are currently printed with voting information.

So there ye go. Just a few of my favorite local establishments. What're yours?

Sarah Palin: Foreign Policy (Avoidance) Expert

So. We all know Sarah Palin can practically see Russia from her window, and that makes her the World's Leading Expert on all things foreign policy. She sez so:

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land -- boundary that we have with -- Canada. [...]

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our -- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia --

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We -- we do -- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where -- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is -- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to -- to our state.

And so, it's probably fair to ask: what has Sarah Palin done to further US/Russian relations? Bugger all:

Opportunities abound for Alaska governors to engage in Russian diplomacy, with the state host to several organizations focusing on Arctic issues. Anchorage is the seat of the Northern Forum, an 18-year-old organization that represents the leaders of regional governments in Russia, as well as Finland, Iceland and Canada, Japan, China and South Korea.

Yet under Palin, the state government — without consultation — reduced its annual financial support to the Northern Forum to $15,000 from $75,000, according to Priscilla Wohl, the group's executive director. That forced the forum's Anchorage office to go without pay for two months.

Palin — unlike the previous administrations of Gov. Frank Murkowski and Gov. Tony Knowles — also stopped sending representatives to Northern Forum's annual meetings, including one last year for regional governors held in the heart of Russia's oil territory.

"It was an opportunity for the Alaska governor to take a delegation of business leaders to the largest oil-producing region in Russia, and she would have been shaking hands with major leaders in Russia," Wohl said.

Take a moment to digest this. Sarah Palin could have met with world leaders, could have supported US foreign policy, and could have furthered neighborly relations with a variety of countries, and pissed it all away.

And now she wants us to believe she has foreign policy experience.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Dear al Qaeda, Here's $13 Billion. Best Wishes! Uncle Sam

And here you thought it was just Cheney and Bush's corporate buddies drinking from the firehose of cash they've aimed at Iraq.

The Democratic Policy Committee continued its series of oversight hearings on Monday.

The testimony was shocking: more than $13 billion in American funds for reconstruction projects which were never built combined with deaths of 32 Iraqi officials charged with oversight. Allegations of widespread corruption, with an accusation that "Iraqi government officials worked with al-Qaeda terrorists at the Baiji refinery to steal oil to sell on the black market."

So... we're funding terrorism now. Does that mean America has to declare war on itself?

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Senator McCain goes to Washington to rescue the economy, and fucks everything up beyond recognition:

Earlier today, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress announced that they had reached a “fundamental agreement” on a government bailout of the nation’s financial system. But following a meeting at the White House this afternoon, which included Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL), there are “fears the Wall Street bailout deal is falling apart.”

In an interview with CNN this evening, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) said the meeting became “contentious” when “all of a sudden there was some new core agreement floating around, which no one had heard of before, until we sort of got to the White House.” Asked who introduced it, Dodd said it was McCain and the House Republicans...

[snip]

Aggravated from having “spent seven straight days at this,” Dodd said that the surprise proposal at the meeting “looked like…a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours.” “It took us away from the work we were trying to do today,” said Dodd.

I'm sure we're all just shocked. And you're going to be super duper shocked when you learn what McCain and his cronies' alternate proposal was:

CBS News reports that the alternative plan McCain floated would "include fewer regulations and more corporate tax breaks for businesses."

No one could have ever anticipated that, eh?

After a week of hearing it was lax regulations, rampant speculation, and predatory lending that led to these current dire straits, McCain spent a couple of hours sniffing out the real culprit:

During an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric yesterday, McCain said that the current financial crisis “is of the utmost seriousness and a crisis of enormous proportions.” But sticking to his mantra, McCain strangely cited earmarks as “one of the major reasons why we’re having difficulties”:

McCAIN: [W]e’ve got to take tough decisions and one of them is government spending by the way. One of the major reasons why we’re having difficulties is we let spending get completely out of control — earmark and pork-barrel projects. Senator Obama asked for over $900 million in earmarks pork-barrel projects, that’s not part of the answer thats part of the problem.

You'll love the list of other things earmarks are responsible for. They'll probably be blamed if he loses the election, too.

Sarah Palin knows exactly why it is that we should bail out Wall Street instead of Main Street:

The question was provocative, but hardly unexpected given recent events. Couric asked Palin, "Why isn't it better, Governor Palin,
to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?"

Palin, in a rambling and largely incoherent response, responded, "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation."

Apparently, McCain's advisors have filled her so full of talking points that they just sort of spurt out in a random, incoherent jumble when she opens her mouth. And she had a little help:

Worse, if you watch the clip, you might notice that Palin was intermittently referring to notes. In other words, this is the kind of response she offers on a question about the Wall Street bailout with
help.

No wonder the McCain campaign is terrified of having her go up against Joe Biden.

And speaking of campaign, remember how McCain suspended his? Heh, yeah:

So, what does a "suspended" campaign look like? As it turns out, it's eerily similar to a regular ol' campaign.

What have we learned since McCain suspended his presidential campaign?

* McCain campaign offices in battleground states are open and operating, just like yesterday.

* McCain's television ads are on the air, just like yesterday.

* McCain media flacks are all over the news networks, just like yesterday.

* McCain's campaign staffers are working, just like yesterday.

* McCain's campaign website is up, soliciting contributions and promoting McCain's message, just like yesterday.

* For the big White House meeting today, Barack Obama was told not to bring any campaign aides, so he's bringing a legislative assistant from his Senate staff. John McCain is bringing a campaign advisor.

That's an interesting definition of suspend. Hell, I thought that meant you don't do any fucking campaigning - after all, when we suspend someone's service, it means they don't get to make any calls, and when a school suspends a student, that means they don't attend any classes. We expect the word "suspend" to mean something akin to "stop." Alas, we were reading from Webster's, not The New Republicon Dictionary. In TNRD, it clearly states that "to suspend" means "to grandstand in an effort to snooker voters and trick your opponent into stopping their campaign dead while yours continues ahead full steam."

I think we might want to look up "honorable" while we're at it:

OK, let me get this straight. (I think I'm going to be using that phrase a lot over the next few days.) Mr. Bipartisan Statesman rushed off to Washington because it was urgent to knock some heads and agree on some principles that would help get the bailout plan moving. So Barack Obama proposed a list of principles that includes oversight, taxpayer protection, CEO pay restrictions, help for homeowners, and no earmarks. These are all things McCain says he supports. President Bush says he supports them as well. But McCain refused to sign on:

So the question is: Why wouldn't McCain agree to a fairly innocuous, Mom and apple pie set of conditions for a bill?

Democrats fear this morning that McCain is setting up a scenario in which he will vote against the bill, rally conservatives to his side and, most importantly, distance himself from both President Bush and Congress before the election.

That's Taegan Goddard. But why would Democrats be so suspicious that they're about to be double crossed? John McCain is too honorable
a man to do that, isn't he?

Hmmm. Let's see what TNRD sez.

Honorable(adj): A word used to describe a complete rat bastard desperately trying to fool people into trusting him so that he can then fuck them over royally.

It's all clear to me now.

I Do Believe McCain's Set a New Record for Dumbfuckery

It's been quite the day for the McCain campaign. I don't think any presidential campaign in the history of America has ever had this many missteps, embarrassments, lies, gaffes, and damn fool moves in a single week. McCain's managed it in one day.

The sad thing is, the following list is probably far from exhaustive. But I'll do my best.

After slamming Obama for non-existent ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, the campaign had to engage in some desperate damage control after it was revealed that campaign manager Rick Davis's lobbying firm had been paid $15,000 a month by none other than Freddie Mac:

Today, McCain campaign spokesperson/blogger Michael Goldfarb published a 700-word response to the news, and by any reasonable measure, the statement is a complete mess. In the very first sentence, Goldfarb says the reports charge that Davis "was paid by Freddie Mac until last month," which Goldfarb insists is false. Actually, the reports charge that Davis' lobbying firm was the one paid until last month, which is true.

My goodness, what a shock: they tried to lie and obfuscate themselves out of a tough corner. And that was only the beginning.

Davis, perhaps realizing what a bloodbath it would be, decided to skip lunch with reporters. Better to look like a sissy than have to face tough questions about your business buddies, I suppose.

Especially in light of the fact that, you know, the campaign kinda sorta blatantly lied about him not having anything to do with the lobbying firm he's - whoops! - still director of.

Sarah Palin, horror of horrors, got asked a question by a reporter. The campaign earned itself jeers by hustling said reporters out of the room before she could so much as open her mouth, thus proving that whatever else she might be, vice presidential material she ain't.

Then came a poll showing Obama with a nine-point lead. Freakout! They promptly proclaimed the poll bogus, then belied that assessment by showing raw nekkid fear. What else explains McCain's impetuous decision to suspend his campaign in order to rush back to Washington to play economic savior?

Obama, Pelosi, and Reid all took the opportunity to explain to McCain that a) his presence in Washington wouldn't be helpful and b) people who hope to become President should know how to handle more than one thing at a time. Americans everywhere are now being treated to the novel idea that their President should be able to multi-task, and McCain has proven he's incapable of doing so.

As far as political stunts go, this one is roughly equivalent to Evil Knievel trying to jump the Grand Canyon and ending up spattered all over the bottom. It's working out just slightly better than McCain's choice of Palin as a veep. Let us turn now to the spectacular series of serious embarrassments that is the Palin Political Pick:

Karl Rove, when asked if Palin would make a good president, said, "I don't know." Seriously. Even Turd Blossom can't make this shit smell like a rose.

Laura Bush chimed in with this brutally honest response when asked by CNN if Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience: "Well, obviously — Of course she doesn’t have that." Geez, Laura, what happened to "Hey, I can see Russia from here!"?

Then there's the ominous rumblings from Alaska. Seems like the campaign's about to be dealing with a scandal a whole lot worse than Troopergate - an Alaska state rep is calling for an investigation into criminal witness tampering, and his evidence-loaded finger is pointed right at McCain staffers.

But that almost pales in comparison to the disasterous interview with Katie Couric. Go. Watch. Wince. There's something terribly wrong with the anchor being orders of magnitude more intelligent than the vice presidential candidate. Stunningly stupid quotes are already flying thick and fast - and this was only an excerpt. The whole thing has yet to air. Betcha McCain's goons try to get it quashed.

Speaking of quashing... McCain's not only trying to get this Friday's debate with Obama punted, he wants the October 2nd vice presidential debate nixed. Something tells me he's terrified that what's left of his campaign is going to get blown to smithereens the instant Palin opens her mouth on a stage with Joe Biden. He's right. Biden won't even have to say a word to win this one.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, McCain's effort to portray himself as so deeply concerned about the economy that he felt compelled to suspend his campaign, attempt to weasel out of the debate, and rush back to Washington was belied by his lies. He said he was meeting with key advisors to discuss the crisis, when in reality he was meeting with Lady Lynn "I Hates Elitists! Hates Them!" de Rothschild. He then begged off Letterman by saying he was at that very moment flying back to Washington - which would be true only if Katie Couric's studio got moved onto his campaign plane. Letterman responded by indulging in a rather thorough and accurate McCain bashing session while Keith Olbermann looked on in wonder.

And, as if all of that wasn't enough, McCain's volunteers in Colorado didn't get the list of campaign suspension talking points - the media did. It turns out that McCain's not the only one in his campaign who doesn't understand how to send an email. The money quote: “Fuck, tell me I didn’t send it to the wrong list.”

Oh, but you did. It's good to see McCain keeping up the tradition of Bush-league incompetence in his staff.

A complete musical comedy could be written around just this single day. If McCain somehow manages to lie, cheat, and steal his way to the White House, we can be assured of one thing: that while we may be bankrupt, at war with everyone in the entire world, choking on endless pollution, boiling in our own global warming juices, facing illness without the benefit of health insurance, suffering from the further erosion of our civil liberties and subjected to a Sarah Palin Dominionist crusade served up with a heaping helping of painful stupidity, at least we'll never be short of breathtaking dumbfuckery to marvel at.

They're Not Even Pretending Anymore

The Bush regime has absolutely no fucking respect for the American people. It doesn't even have fake respect.

So they come asking us for $700 billion dollars, no strings, and you know how they came up with this almost trillion dollar figure? They pulled it out of thin fucking air:

Forbes writes on part of the reason that the American public is so skeptical of the Bush administration’s bailout proposal:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Translation: How much do you think we can take these suckers for?

Fuck Guantanamo. These fuckers need to be shoved into uniform and sent to Afghanistan to fight in the wars they started. They wanted glory - they can fucking have their glory.

Good luck, dickheads.

Where Be Ye, My Elitist Bastards?

It's time to go a-cruisin', but I don't spy many o' ye on the docks. What, are ye too elitist to enjoy a good cruise? Do ye think that just because we're sailing in luxury means we're on vacation? Nay, ye elitist dogs! There's still a job o' work to be done!

We may be enjoyin' our own little world aboard ship, full o' feasting and drinking, but we still be sailin' the seas o' ignorance. We be needing a boatload o' wisdom to counter it.

So, my swarthy crew, get your posts in to elitistbastardscarnival@gmail.com by this Friday eve. 'Tis all right if ye choose a post from the days o' yore instead o' penning something new. Wisdom be timeless. I know ye've got something ye be proud of, a piece o' writing so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel!

Ye don't want to be left on the docks while the rest o' us drink all the good liquor. All aboard!

Time to Apply the Whip

Our Fearless Fuckwit-in-Chief got on the teevee last night in a blatant attempt to fearmonger the nation into opening their wallets to Prince Paulson. Sarah "Golden Retriever" Palin told Katie Couric that we could be facing the next Great Depression. And Johnny "Don't Wanna Debate!" McCain is rushing back to Washington (after dissing Dave Letterman and flirting with Couric instead) to Save the Day.

This, as far as I'm concerned, settles it. Wall Street's in sorry shape, but we're nowhere near a total collapse. When the Republicons scream that the sky is falling, what they mean is that a roof tile came loose, and you must give them $700 billion or else your whole house is coming down. Never mind the fact that all you actually need is a roofing nail, a hammer, and a ladder.

But there are disturbing indications that knees in Congress may be weakening. So it's time for Yet Another Email reminding them that nobody's buying this Chicken Little crap except those who stand to profit politically or financially from it.

This one's arranged by Avaaz.org, and it goes out to Representatives Pelosi, Boehner, Hoyer, Frank and Bachus, and Senators Reid, McConnell, Dodd and Shelby. Give it to 'em with both barrels, my darlings. Let them know you see through the smokescreen.

If they really want to hand Wall Street $700 billion of our dollars, they'd fucking well better make sure there's something in it for us, or that deal is going to utterly destroy them.

Enough fuckery. Fuck the fear mongering. We're done here.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

John McCain has discovered yet another shark to jump:

It's not at all unreasonable to wonder if there's just something wrong with John McCain.

McCain suspends his campaign, and asks to postpone Friday's debate, to address the financial crisis.

Both candidates have been marginal players; McCain, though, seems to have the potential to make himself a major one, and his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going.

But in terms of the timing of this move: The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling.

Apparently, as McCain sees it, 10 days after the Wall Street crisis began, now he wants to head back to Capitol Hill to do some work. Of course, lawmakers and administration officials have been working quite a bit, but McCain, who has played no direct role in the negotiations thus far, wants to swoop in and tell everyone what they need to do. This from a man who
hasn't shown up for work at all in literally months.

What's more, after whining incessantly for months about the need for one-on-one debates, McCain has decided, just 48 hours before the first official debate, that everything should be postponed. And Barack Obama should go along with all of this, because McCain says so.

I've never even heard of a presidential candidate acting in such a reckless, compulsive, and ultimately haphazard fashion. McCain just decided to "suspend" campaign activities? This rivals picking Sarah Palin for the ticket on the list of desperation moves.

This might deceive some extremely gulliable voters, but I do believe the majority are going to see this for what it is: total fucking useless grandstanding. The last person capable of solving our economic ills is John "Keating Five" McCain.

Here's what I think: he's shit scared of Obama. He knows he's going to get trounced in Friday's debate. He knows his campaign is fucked beyond recognition. He's watching his poll numbers sink like a 700 billion pound anchor, and this is all he can pull out of his ass. It's pathetic.

Obama is, justifiably, quite amused:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) just gave a press conference responding to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) suggestion that they both suspend their campaigns, postpone Friday’s debate in Mississippi, and return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Obama said that he would like to the debate to go forward as planned because “it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once”:

With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once. I think there’s no reason why we can’t be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand and where we want to take the country.

I can hear a quiet chuckle under all that. It's absolutely pathetic that a man who wants to be Commander in Chief can't handle campaigning while also doing his job as a Senator. If the moron can't multi-task, he's unfit for the duty.

But that's politics, you might be saying. What if Senator McCain is desperately needed during this crisis? Let's see if anybody else thinks so.

Harry Reid:

A Democratic source says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just spoke to John McCain today, and told him on the phone that it "wouldn't be helpful" for him to return to Washington.

Noper. Nancy Pelosi?

Today on NPR, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Someone had suggested that he wanted the debate to be postponed so he could come here to work. I mean, he’s so rarely here that that would be interesting. But, nonetheless, I think there’s plenty of time for the debate to take place.”

Hell to the no.

It might be a good idea, then, for McCain to give up on the idea of riding to Wall Street's rescue and turn his attention to figuring out how he's going to make Sarah Palin capable of answering questions from the press:

John McCain and Sarah Palin met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and in a break from preferred campaign policy, reporters were briefly allowed into the room for the photo-op. Big mistake.

McCain then looked around the room and gestured as if to welcome questions. The AP reporter shouted a question at Gov. Palin ("Governor, what have you learned from your meetings?") but McCain aide Brooke Buchanan intervened and shepherded everybody out of the room.

Palin looked surprised, leaned over to McCain and asked him a question, to which your pooler thinks he shook his head as if to say "No."

[snip]

The McCain campaign apparently believes the Republican vice presidential nominee is some kind of child, under strict instructions not to speak. Palin has no doubt been receiving extensive briefings on a variety of subjects, and could probably handle a random question or two, but the McCain gang is so convinced of her incompetence, they're just not willing to take the risk -- even after a genuine media backlash has begun in earnest in response to the campaign's heavy-handed approach.

You know, if you're chosing a running mate, it seems like a good idea to pick one that's capable of facing that nasty liberal media instead of being kept in a protective bubble. Just sayin'.

Of course, when she is allowed to speak to the press, you can kind of get an idea as to why the campaign would rather she keep her mouth shut:

In her interview with Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) tonight, CBS’s Katie Couric noted that the governor has said, “John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business.” “Can you give us any more examples of his leading the charge for more oversight?” Couric asked. Palin, however, refused to answer the question directly, instead going on about how McCain is seen as a “maverick.” When pressed further by Couric, Palin was unable to name any examples of McCain pushing for more regulation:

PALIN: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.

COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

PALIN: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.

Brilliant. She's not a pit bull with lipstick: she's a golden retriever.

The McCain campaign's habit of endless lies, political showboating, and denying press access is causing some folks in the press to draw parallels to other countries - you know, the kind of countries we excoriate for their political and human rights abuses:

Yesterday, media covering Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) visit to the United Nations revolted when the McCain-Palin campaign tried to back out of its promise to allow journalists to cover
the governor’s meetings with various world leaders. Last night on MSNBC, chief
foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell compared the whole affair to her experiences trying to cover the regimes in North Korea, Syria, and Sudan:

MADDOW: You have covered these sort of high level meetings with foreign dignitaries, getting at least one editorial staff member in the room to represent the entire network is standard practice, right?

MITCHELL: It is standard practice. It’s standard for the White House, for the State Department. And often we are in foreign countries where it is not standard practice, like in Pyongyang or in Damascus.

When the McCain campain reminds reporters of the repressive habits of dictatorships, it's really not a good sign.

We're About to Cough Up $700 Billion - and it May Not be Necessary

File this under "Oh my fucking god:"

Let's dispel the Henny Penny idea that if we don't act in the next 10 minutes, the sky will fall. The argument for a government bailout goes something like this. If the finance sector crashes, the credit market could lock up and businesses won't be able to get the short-term credit they need to stay afloat. A large chunk of our businesses depend on short term loans and would fail in a matter of weeks or months after such a lockup. Its really not the financial industry per se, then that's the problem, its the many businesses which rely on short term loans that would dry up if the investment banks fail. There's one problem with this line of argument. The connection may not be there.

Both conservatives and liberals are beginning to have doubts. For instance, Alan Reynolds of the Wall Street Journal and a senior fellow at the far right Cato Institute writes:

The financial storms over the past year have -- before last week -- been largely confined to securities markets and to interbank loans among commercial and investment banks. Bank loans to commercial and industrial business, real estate and consumers continued to expand nearly every month. Commercial and industrial loans exceeded $1.5 trillion this August, up from less than $1.2 trillion a year earlier. Real-estate loans exceeded $3.6 trillion, up from less than $3.4 trillion a year ago. Consumer loans were $845 billion, up from $737 billion. Credit standards are tougher, which is surely a good thing, but interest rates for creditworthy borrowers remain low.

The ongoing slow but steady availability of bank credit helps explain the much-remarked contrast between Wall Street and Main Street -- the shaky condition of exotic financial markets compared with relatively benign statistics for industrial production, retail sales, employment and the rest of the nonhousing economy. Most people go about their business without depending on investment banks or exotic varieties of commercial paper.

From the left, NYT Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston writes:

Ask this question -- are the credit markets really about to seize up?

If they are then lots of business owners should be eager to tell how their bank is calling their 90-day revolving loans, rejecting new loans and demanding more cash on deposit. I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.

If the problem is toxic mortgages then how come they are still being offered all over the Internet? On the main page AOL generates for me there is an ad for a 1.9% loan (which means you pay that interest rate and the rest of the interest is added to your balance due.) Why oh why or why would taxpayers be bailing out banks that are continuing to sell these toxic loans?

Good question, Rocko! If we the taxpayers are supposed to cough up endless cash, putting our chance at affordable healthcare, clean energy, and a better life out of reach, then the fucking assholes we're bailing out had better fucking need it desperately, and they'd better stop the fuckery that got us into this mess to begin with.

If we find out after the fact that these ratfucking greedy sons of bitches never needed a bailout in the first fucking place, I think we'll be within our rights to demand they be thrown into Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants and subjected to some of that "enhanced interrogation" John McCain cleared the way for.

I hope to fuck that Congress doesn't lose its spine today. I know a huge number of Republicons and nearly all the Dems are smelling a rat and digging in their heels. If they smell smoke, they'd better realize that the only fire they're dealing with is the rat Bush just set on fire to try to scare them into letting him and his cronies raid the Treasury on the way out the door.

(I've added links to the referenced articles. Read them both. Your energy costs will go down - you'll be steamed enough to boil water on your scalp, thus negating the need for a stove. Feel free to eviscerate Alan Reynolds' right-wing deregulation bullshit in the comments - the paragraphs quoted above are the only ones that remotely make sense, and the rest is just a lot of nonsensical bleating about how deregulation didn't get us into this mess. Funny, but none of the non-partisan economists seem to agree. Gee, I wonder why that is?)

Campaign of the Absurd

Are you sitting down? Are your drinks fully swallowed?

Good.

I know the McCain campaign jumped the shark a long time ago, but somehow, they keep finding more sharks to jump. They've lied so much there's now a website dedicated to tracking their lies (as of this moment, the count stands at 63). They held a conference call with the press to cry over the New York Times calling them out on their lies, and lied continuously throughout. They've lied so much that even McCain's biggest fans in the media have stopped bringing him donuts and started reporting the lies.

And now we learn that even their "grassroots" efforts are nothing more than factories for lies:

"You can be whoever you want to be," says an inviting Phil Tuchman. "You can be a beggar or a millionaire. A mom or a husband. Whatever. You decide!"

I volunteer in political campaigns now and then. After a series of outings for Obama and a first mission as a phone banker for John McCain, I returned to McCain's headquarters in Arlington, Va. The offer was too alluring to delay -- they wanted to put me into action as a ghostwriter. Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what's written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.

[snip]

The assignment is simple: We are going to write letters to the editor and we are allowed to make up whatever we want -- as long as it adds to the campaign. After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain.

Un-fucking-believable.

The "talking points" the ghostwriters work from include some screamers, including Palin's former 80% approval rating (which was true - up until Alaskans got a good look at her and didn't like what they saw). Let's remember that when Bush first took office, his numbers were high, too. Now he's Mr. 19%.

They also repeat that bloody Bridge to Nowhere lie that's been debunked endlessly. In fact, if we had a dollar for every time that howler's been disproved, we could very nearly pay for Paulson's bailout plan.

You'd think there'd be some embarrassment, shame, and plausible denials put forth by the campaign after such a revelation. A normal campaign would say, "We had no idea this was going on. This was not authorized by the campaign, and the person responsible for it has been tossed out on his ear. We stand for truth, justice, etc. etc."

But we all know the McCain campaign is anything but normal. Caught blatantly manipulating public opinion by getting hacks to write fake letters to the editor (in the best tradition of the National Enquirer, most of whose stories are made up on the spot), they didn't express faux outrage. No, they went with their old standby: yell at the journalist who exposed their lies and then lie some more:

Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, said that Oostveen did not properly identify herself to campaign workers in Arlington. "She did not represent herself as a journalist to the people who work in the mid-Atlantic office." Ostveen, who also wrote a column about an earlier stint phone-banking for the McCain campaign, says she twice explained to different workers in the Arlington campaign office that she might be using her experiences as a volunteer in her columns for the NRC Handelsblad.

Can you believe these fuckwits? They're beyond pathological - I've known compulsive liars, clinically mentally ill pathological liars, no less - who have more respect for the truth than these assclowns.

There's no way America can elect these buffoons and keep its self-respect.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Who's for the bailout? Anybody? Anybody? Beuller?

Today, Vice President Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten spent the day in Congress trying to convince conservatives to accept the administration’s bailout package. Politico
reports, however, that “House Republicans rose up en masse against their vice president.” ThinkProgress has compiled a list of conservatives who have declared opposition to the administration’s $700 billion bailout:

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)

[snip]

"I don't know anyone who's sold on this rescue plan,'' said Rep. Wally Herger
(R-CA).

O-kay. Nobody in Congress. How's about regular Americans?

A new Rasmussen poll conducted on Monday finds that 44 percent of Americans oppose the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout plan, up from 37 percent a day earlier. Twenty-five percent support it, and 31 percent are undecided. Thirty-five percent believe it will help the economy, while 30 percent say it will hurt it. (HT: LA Times)

So. Basically. It's only the quarter of the country that's stupid enough to like Bush that likes the bailout.

Something tells me this was a really fucking bad idea. But hark! A right-wing editor has an answer!

Yesterday on Fox News, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes blamed Democrats in Congress for causing the Dow Jones industrials to close Monday down 372 points. “I think it was Congress stepping in and saying, ‘We’re going to settle the terms of how the Treasury Department acquires these illiquid assets,’” Barnes said. Then, citing opposition to the Bush administration’s proposed plan to bail out Wall Street, Barnes offered Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson some advice: Just don’t call it a “bailout,” call it a “rescue”:

BARNES: We would be in a better situation, or at least the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson would if this were known as “rescue” rather than a “bailout.” “Bailout” sounds terrible. Who is for a bailout? A lot of people are for a rescue.

N-no. No. Still sounds like an incredibly stupid fucking idea. You know what they say about lipstick on a pig...

I think this is taking the Bushies a bit by surprise. They are, after all, used to getting everything they want and more when they scream that the sky is falling. And they're no strangers to manipulation for political gain - you remember all that haggling over timetables for Iraq? You remember how, instead of Obama's 2010 plan, they went for 2011? Yeah:

Negotiating the post-UN mandate security agreement with Iraq, Bush argued for more time and both sides ultimately agreed that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, not 2010, even though Bush has said previously that “if they were to say, leave, we would leave.”

Why did Bush go back on his word? A source tells ThinkProgress that White House communications staff were concerned that Maliki’s
endorsement of the 2010 time line would damage Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign. Indeed, during an interview with Iraqi television last week (according to an Open Source Center translation),
Maliki suggested that the U.S. presidential elections played a role:

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

Uh-huh. Couldn't make Bush III look bad, now, could we? Not even to save American lives, much less respect the Iraqis. Way to support the troops, there.

And speaking of not wanting to make themselves look bad, McCain's famous Straight Talk Express has become the No-Talk Express:

Earlier today, the McCain-Palin campaign backed out of its promise to allow print journalists from reporting on Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) U.N. meetings this afternoon. Instead, the campaign wanted to turn it into an elaborate photo op, deciding to allow photographers and a CNN camera crew only. According to Politico, the press have begun to revolt:

But the imbroglio began developing Tuesday morning when Palin’s handlers informed the small print press contingent covering her campaign that the print reporter designated to cover the events, Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal, would not be allowed to cover the sprays. […]

The campaign also at first moved to bar CNN, the television network designated for pool duty, from sending its editorial producer – basically a hybrid print/video journalist – though the campaign budged when the network threatened to withhold its cameras as well.

With increasingly negative press coverage over these events, the campaign eventually allowed Holmes into the Karzai event for a whopping 29 seconds, and has now agreed to let her cover the next two “sprays” before Palins’ meetings with Colombian President Uribe and former U.N. Secretary of State Kissinger. Earlier in the day, the networks had voted to ban any use of photographs and videos from the event, to protest the lack of editorial presence and deny the McCain-Palin campaign of a free photo op.

This is not the way to keep your base happy. And when the media's your base, if the base ain't happy, your coverage is gonna suck. And if your coverage sucks... Let's just say you'd better hope to fuck that the American public suddenly loses all concern for the economy, health care, the war in Iraq, the scandal-plagued fuckwit you chose as a veep, and everything else, because reporters are going to take a fuck of a lot of satisfaction in telling Americans just how toxic your history is, and how insane your vision for this country would be.

It's about fucking time America got to hear the truth.

A Little Levity is in Order

This is the first good laugh I've had all day:

Obama to Nation: "Fuck this shit, I'm outta here"

In the wake of an epic financial meltdown that threatens to derail the U.S. economy for years, Barack Obama announced he was ending his run for President of the United States, declaring to a stunned nation, “Man, this is bullshit.”

In a boisterous and hastily-called press conference, Obama detailed his reasons for the decision. “I was prepared to fight global warming, reform the health care system, repair our crumbling roads, create a 21st century electric grid, find Bin Laden, end the war in Iraq, and bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians. But now you tell me I have to clean up the worst financial mess since the Great Depression too? One that’s going to plunge our economy into a recession for most of my administration while I take the blame? Fuck that. That’s fucking ridiculous. You guys clean up your own shit. I’m outta here.”

I'm glad someone's sense of humor hasn't been bludgeoned out of them by the relentless, criminal stupidity of the right wing.

And, I have to say, if Obama chooses to make this parody a reality, I won't blame him a damned bit.

(Tip o' the shot glass to PZ)

America: You Really Want Us to Love It or Leave It?

Cons have this cute little conversation-stopper they use when liberals and progressives are demanding improvements to America. "Love it or leave it!" they crow.

As if wanting to improve something means you don't love it.

As if love means never questioning your country.

"Love it or leave it."

All right.

What if we did?

What if we decided that, yes, the fact that America isn't perfect means we shouldn't live here anymore? What if every single liberal packed up and moved to a country with a saner political system tomorrow? What if we left America to the cons who "love" her?

I hope the cons didn't love America for her blue skies and clean water. We progressives were the ones who ensured that those things were protected. The Republicons, with their big bidness buddies, will take all of the brakes off of pollution - Beijing's air will start to look downright breathable compared to what will be left here. And it's very hard to drink the water when it's so polluted you can set it on fire, FYI.

I hope the cons didn't love America for her abundant wildlife, her hunting and fishing, her wilderness. Because the Republicons, with their big bidness buddies, want to fill that wilderness with coal mines and oil wells and leave nothing but toxic waste behind. They'll be happy to blast mountains apart and chop down every tree. Last I checked, the salmon and trout and deer and bears don't rent apartments in city centers. And the cons will learn soon enough that the caribou love of oil pipelines is nothing more than a myth. They'll find out just how much the progressives protected for their shooting pleasure.

I hope the cons didn't love America for her opportunity. For every self-made man who becomes a multi-millionaire, there will be thousands toiling at thankless jobs, without the education or the assistance to have a shot at pulling themselves toward the upper middle. And those thankless jobs won't include a minimum wage, so you'd best hope the corporate overlords will somehow find a heart and pay you enough to survive on. Don't count on it, though - all of those whose compassion trumps their greed will have left. (That's assuming all of the jobs haven't been shipped overseas, mind you.)

I hope the cons didn't love their Social Security, their health insurance, or any other program that the Republicons want to privatize. The progressives have tried to ensure that the government programs that keep us from starving or dying of preventable disease aren't eviscerated. We won't be here to save them.

I hope the cons didn't love America for her innovation. The Republicons have never been fond of either funding or teaching science. The progressives have ensured that science education maintains some reasonable standards, and that science has money to innovate. Without us here, creationism will rule the schools, science funding will dry up, and Americans won't be able to compete globally against people who have the education and the science to invent.

I hope the cons didn't love America for her Constitution, or her freedoms, or her democracy. Without the progressives to protect those things, they won't survive as anything more than a memory.

I hope the cons didn't love America for her preeminent place in the world. After a few years of unfettered Republicon rule, America will be nothing more than a has-been bully. And she does not have the military might to bomb every nation into submission.

If everyone who loves America enough to want to make her the best she can be leaves tomorrow, there soon won't be much left of her for the cons to love. Where would your "love it or leave it" rhetoric be then?

You'd better be godsdamned grateful we love America enough to stay.

Email Your Congresscritter

The American Freedom Campaign has made it easy to tell your representative just what you think about this insane bailout that Bush and his fat cat friends swear we must give him.

Everything I'm reading today makes it abundantly clear that this bailout as it stands is noxious on a variety of levels. It's going to cost us far more than $700 billion in the end. It's going to ensure our national debt is so insanely high that we won't have anything left over for the social programs that could have made our lives better. Once again, the Republicons bring us to the brink of bankruptcy and walk away with their sacks full of cash, laughing while the Dems tighten the nation's belt, count its pennies, and tell us that in order to balance the checkbook, we're going to have to make sacrifices.

It's not even clear this is necessary in the first place.

And now the fuckers are talking about how they can demand we do this, and then vote against it so they can use it against the Dems in the election (h/t Digby):

Every Democrat should read Patrick Ruffini's post from yesterday at NextRight. He is, I strongly suspect, perfectly reflecting the game that Republicans, including Team McCain, want to play with the Paulson Plan:

Republican incumbents in close races have the easiest vote of their lives coming up this week: No on the Bush-Pelosi Wall Street bailout.

God Himself couldn't have given rank-and-file Republicans a better opportunity to create political space between themselves and the Administration. That's why I want to see 40 Republican No votes in the Senate, and 150+ in the House. If a bailout is to pass, let it be with Democratic votes. Let this be the political establishment (Bush Republicans in the White House + Democrats in Congress) saddling the taxpayers with hundreds of billions in debt (more than the Iraq War, conjured up in a single weekend, and enabled by Pelosi, btw), while principled Republicans say "No" and go to the country with a stinging indictment of the majority in Congress....

In an ideal world, McCain opposes this because of all the Democratic add-ons and shows up to vote Nay while Obama punts.

History has shown us that "inevitable" "emergency" legislation like the Patriot Act or Sarbanes-Oxley is never more popular than on the day it is passed -- and this isn't all that popular to begin with. All the upside comes with voting against it.

Ruffini is exactly right about the politics of this issue, especially for Republicans. Think of this as like one of those periodic votes on raising the public debt limit. It has to pass, of course, but there's zero percentage in supporting it for any one individual. The speculative costs of the legislation actually failing are completely intangible and ultimately irrelevant, while the costs it will impose are tangible and controversial from almost every point of view. For McCain and other Republicans, voting "no" on Paulson without accepting the consequences of that vote is the political equivalent of a bottomless crack pipe: it will please the conservative "base," distance them from both Bush and "Washington," and let them indulge in both anti-government and anti-corporate demagoguery, even as Democrats bail out their Wall Street friends and big investors generally. You simply can't imagine a better way for McCain to decisively reinforce his simultaneous efforts to pander to the "base" while posing as a "maverick."

Democrats are right to demand significant substantive concessions before offering their support for the Paulson Plan. But just as importantly, they need to demand Republican votes in Congress, including the vote of John McCain. If this is going to be a "bipartisan" relief plan, it has to be fully bipartisan, not an opportunity for McCain to count on Obama and other Democrats to save the economy while exploiting their sense of responsibility to win the election for the party that let this crisis occur in the first place.

I cannot express to you my outrage that these goatfuckers are planning to use the crisis they encouraged in order to score politically. They've proven that they're nothing more than common fucking criminals. This is what criminals do: blame the victim for their own lawbreaking. We need to do everything in our power to ensure they don't get away with this.

So send your emails. Make your phone calls. And be sure to tell absolutely every right-leaning friend, acquaintence, and stranger on the street just how stupid the cons think they are.

***

In case you're interested, this is the email I sent my Congressman, attached to the pre-made one from the American Freedom Campaign:

The more I read about the consequences of this bailout package, the more it terrifies me. The lack-of-oversight concerns attached at the bottom of this email are only the most obvious.

1. There's a lot of crowing in right-wing circles about how this can be used to destroy Democrats. The basic premise is that Republicans will vote no while you vote yes, and then they'll put on their fiscal conservative hats and run against you.

2. Every credible economist - right, left and center - despises this bill. And all of them are saying that $700 billion is only the beginning.

3. Paulson demands you pass a "clean" bill, and yet spent this weekend stuffing it with extras for his Wall Street pals.

4. And the saddest part: by simply bailing out the rich kids who got burned, we're doing nothing to ensure that the rest of America has anything left over. If we don't attach requirements that ensure the American people get something out of this deal, how are we going to pay for health care, for science, for social programs? How are we going to afford a better future if all we buy are toxic, worthless assets?

Congressman Inslee, as I sit here, I'm watching our future die. And I am bitterly, bitterly angry that the greedy bastards who murdered it are about to walk away scot-free, not a penny poorer.

Please, please fight this. Please fight for us. Make sure that there is oversight, make sure America gets a chance to earn back some of that $700 billion, and make sure that the irresponsible idiots who brought us to this pass are responsible for helping set things right.

I know I can count on you. You have never let me down. Thank you for all you've done, and all I know you will do.

Feel free to steal any/all verbiage for your own efforts.