Whiskey Fire

What's Worse

Mark Haperin deserves to be fired -- indeed, he deserves to be stripped naked, daubed with excrement, pelted with garbage, and dropped headfirst into a vat of rancid potato salad.

On general principles. That he called Obama a dick, meh.

(Flashback.)

Well Then

I would have just peed on the fucker.

Oh, all right, I wouldn't have. But "I went out in public in New York City and got fucked with and then I cried about it...?"

Right.

If you escape from NYC with only a malicious wine spill, well, just be glad you didn't have to battle your way from the Bronx back to Coney after being falsely accused of shooting Cyrus, as is more typically required.

Wankers... come out to playaaaay....

Finest News Source

Even for the Politico, this is pretty amazing: an article about Jewish Dems' attitudes towards Obama that doesn't cite a single poll, but does contain an extensive secondhand anecdote about a dinner party.

Also of interest:

Most of those interviewed were center-left American Jews and Obama supporters — and many of them Democratic donors. On some core issues involving Israel, they’re well to the left of Netanyahu and many Americans: They refer to the “West Bank,” not to “Judea and Samaria,” fervently supported the Oslo peace process and Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and believe in the urgency of creating a Palestinian state.

The "many Americans" there does an awful lot of work. "Many Americans" are indeed right wing extremists, I suppose.

The only value of the Politico is as an indicator of how strange the insider "normal" has become.

Part Douche

Oh hooray Walter Russell Mead has more.

Our original assessment holds. What impresses about Mead's latest emanation is how wonderfully puffball it is. Nowhere does Mead actually engage Al Gore on what Al Gore actually says. Here is the extent to which Mead manages to quote Gore directly:

Gore simply bellows:  “What’s the matter you soul-dead, hired flack of the evil oil companies, don’t you believe in Science?”

Which is not, you know, something that Gore wrote, and so is not, er, a quote.

Mead is such a fucking weenie fraud. 

Key graph.

The real issue here is not climate science.  It is true that, as many critics attest, Gore fundamentally misstates the nature of the scientific discussion of climate change and, especially, the extremely complex questions associated with interventions in it.  He overstates what is known, disregards the inherent uncertainties involved in the study of a complex system like the climate, understates the significance of the remaining gray areas, and demagogues the science to get more out of it than his case really merits.  The contrast between the intellectually unscrupulous propaganda he makes (the green-friendly UK has ruled that Gore’s Oscar winning film can only be shown in schools if teachers alert students to its errors of scientific fact) and Gore’s self-presentation as a condescending, de haut en bas Great Explainer patiently enlightening the rubes so infuriates many of his opponents that they cannot help themselves.  They start arguing with him about hockey sticks and CO2.

There is a lot of noise here, but only one testable claim about as to whether or not Gore is, you know, right on the science.

And that would be this: "the green-friendly UK has ruled that Gore’s Oscar winning film can only be shown in schools if teachers alert students to its errors of scientific fact."

Horseshit. I mean shit... The judge:

The judge concluded "I have no doubt that Dr Stott, the Defendant's expert, is right when he says that: "Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate."

Mead in other words is demostrably guilty of talking crap, and yet his whole thesis is how Gore is a hypocrite.

Right.

Mead assaults Gore for being naive about ever thinking that somehow climate could be solved, but from a non-loony perspective, that argument falls apart into gibberish cynicism if Gore is correct on the science.

And Gore is. Broadly. Which should be good enough for government work.

That we have a political system that cowers hapless in the face of planetary calamity may provide yuks at Al Gore's expense, but from an "I don't want to die" point of view, there may be less fun on offer.

Cuckoo for Gaga Puffs

It's been a while, but here is another shrieky CNSNews squawker performed by one "Penny Starr" -- which is, as we have previously observed, clearly a ridiculous pseudonym adopted by a former youthful pekingese owner who grew up on Starr Boulevard. As usual Starr is providing a shocking expose of the Tyrrany of the Gay.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday that the State Department played an instrumental role in “sealing the deal” for pop-rock star Lady Gaga to perform at a gay pride rally in Rome, Italy.

Squawk squawk bwak bwak bwak poop flutter squawk. Surely you grasp... the horror? As a CNSN commenter remarks:

Hillary spent too much of her time munching at Janet Reno's fish taco to be able to see this issue is not to everyone's liking.

For, you see, as Starr explains, in case you forgot,

Gaga sparked controversy earlier this year when she released a video of her song “Judas” on Easter Sunday. The video depicted Gaga as a Mary Magdalene figure--in a motorcycle gang—who becomes enamoured with Judas. “The video opens with a motorcycle gang cruising down a freeway, as Gaga clutches onto a Jesus-like figure who wears a golden crown of thorns,” said a Billboard.com description of the video.

“Oh, I'm in love with Judas, Judas,” says the song. “In the most Biblical sense I am beyond repentance. Fame hooker, prostitute wench, vomits her mind.”

So, uh, yeah. This is the worst thing ever. Though maybe my perspective here is not exactly that of the commenters, who point out,

Another little problem is the growing presence and influence of Islam. They have a totally different take on homosexuals- they kill every one they can get their hands on. Sorry, folks- the Koran, which is the word of Allah himself as revealed to the prophet Mohammad, specifies that the gays must go, either by hanging or stoning. They will not hear any arguments to the contrary.

Obviously a gig for Lady Gaga in Italy is a big mistake --"Italy" and "Islam" both begin with the letter "I," after all. Jeez! Why can't gays in America be happy they live in a country where the official holy book, the Bible, doesn't have anything in it about gays being killed for gay sex? Ingrates!

Just remember, kids:

this is the face of satanic tyranny. hillary is insane or otherwise demon possessed, and should be removed from office and put into a padded room, like Obama, Bernanke, Pistole, Napolitano, Sunstien, McCain, Bush's, Cheney, et al.

Because, ha ha ha... wait, damn. That's actually not a totally unreasonable hypothesis, kinda sorta.

MAS. More choice brown trout from the right wing hatcheries.

That explains why Lady Gaga’s ratings are in the toilette.

According to Drudge, Gaga’s popularity has experienced a rapid decline in the past month.

Well then.

Walter Russell Mead is a Fucking Asshole

Walter Russell Mead, Asshole, blathers some shit about how everybody should hate Al Gore because even though Gore is right about human-inflicted climate change, he has a big house.

There are gospels that can be preached by the comfortable and the well fed.  But radical environmentalism is not one of them.  If you want to be Savonarola, you must don the hair shirt.  If you want a public bonfire of the vanities, you must sleep on an iron cot and throw your own cherished treasures into the flame.

Fuck you.

Climate change is what it is. And Al Gore was and is right about what it is.

It is The End.

Strictly Comedy

Maggie Bigot Gallagher:

New York Republicans are responsible for passing gay marriage. The party will pay a grave price.

No they won't.

The NY GOP bowed, finally, to the will of their constituents -- such as it is.

It's not correct to say that most New Yorkers support gay marriage in regards to the principle of the thing. Oh to be sure, maybe about half of us do. We're the good guys!

But the real reason gay marriage passed in NY this year -- and I am, to be clear, whoopin' hollerin' glad it did -- is that most New Yorkers are of the opinion that "fuck this who marries who shit, I need a job, or need to keep a job, or my kids need a job, and by the way, job jobs jobitty job job job."

Anyone attempting to make gay marriage repeal a cause in NY is invited to waste their time and resources. Which are basic qualifications for GOP statewide candidtates overall, who have been astonishingly wingnutty awful for quite a while now.

NY moved on before the vote, which is why, as any NY political observer will tell you, the vote even happened.

Gay marriage is a hard issue, but it's also one that is not directly to do with what has Albany all fucked up right now. That is to do with money. That the NY leg finally talked in depth about gays (damn I'm cynical, but I'm right) is an indication of how deeply resistant they are to talk about money.

Now, don't get me wrong -- Andy Cuomo strongarmed gay marriage through the legislature, and he deserves tons of credit for achieving a landmark civil rights victory.

But don't trust him to not want to fuck over NY teachers.

I really hate to say this, but I think I'm right.

I Have Entered a Shiny New Realm

My stepdaughter just turned 21, & she's gay, & we live in New York. It's nice to know she'll live out her adult life having to explain to the generation after her all about how they won't have to deal with the sort of bizarre bigotry that said up until 2011, she wasn't allowed to marry the love of her life (or whoever she thought that would be until she got a divorce, just like not-gays tend to do half the time). I was only a couple of months old when Stonewall happened; now this happened. Most of the political developments over the course of my life have kind of sucked ass, but this... is pretty sweet.

Have to give kudos to Andrew Cuomo for this one. I still think he's an asshole. Don't even think this gives you a pass on union busting, brother. But for now, well done.

MAS. The fact that this came down to individuals and their consciences says everything.

With his position still undeclared, Senator Mark J. Grisanti, a Republican from Buffalo who had sought office promising to oppose same-sex marriage, told his colleagues he had agonized for months before concluding he had been wrong.

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”

The moral logic is inexorable.

What Liberals Think, Explained by a Wingnut to Wingnuts

Michael Barone informs us that "liberals" yearn for the booming postwar economies and high tax rates on the rich of the 40s and 50s, but are so stupid that they forget that the only reason America beat the Nazis was because back then we were comfortable about our racism and homophobia.

There's a longing on the left for the golden years of the 1940s, '50s and early '60s. Income distribution was significantly more egalitarian than it is today, and Americans had far more confidence in big government, the wisdom of our elected officials, and the ability of Keynesian spending policies to stimulate economic growth....

Still, liberals pine for what I call America's Midcentury Moment. It was the product of World War II, lasting from 1940 until the mid-1960s when the wartime experience wore off and the emerging baby boomers led culture and politics in another direction. For those of us who grew up in those years, the Midcentury Moment seemed the norm in American experience. But in fact it was the result of a unique time in U.S. history, when a united nation was mobilized for total war and Americans were, literally or figuratively, put into uniform....

So the Obama Democrats, partially successful in expanding the size and scope of government, largely unsuccessful in reviving private-sector unions, are on the defensive politically. As Mr. Levison and other liberals recognize, most Americans don't accept Keynesian economics and don't favor expansion of government as they did during the Midcentury Moment. Thus the Democrats' 2012 campaign strategy seems aimed more at discrediting Republican alternatives than seeking endorsement of their own policies.

But there is a more fundamental contradiction here, for the Midcentury Moment's confidence in big institutions was inextricably connected with an acceptance of a cultural uniformity that almost all of today's liberals, and probably most non-liberals, would find unacceptable.

Barone, naturally, offers no evidence that any actual "liberals" believe the things he says they believe in or pine for any of the things he says they pine for. Neither is it especially clear why we can't have gay marriage and tax the shit out of rich people. Americans want both!

The reason we can't have nice things in our brave new world, like an effective stimulus or a first world healthcare system, is because conservatives don't want us to have them -- just as they didn't want blacks to sit at the front of the bus, or currently want homosexuals to have the same rights as straights.

It's pretty clear what Barone is up to, the fucko. Conservatives lost the civil rights war then and are losing it now, but thinks he may get some leverage in suggesting that liberal cultural and social victories are the the reason Keynesianism won't work now, sad heavy sigh, even though, as he concedes, Keynesian works perfectly well and everyone knows it (*cough* *WWII* *economic boom* *ahem*). His article is cod sociology meant to soft-pedal the cherished conservative principle that the rich should get richer and every other American should piss off and die.

I'm Going with...

Bullshit.