Money Shot:

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she strung together key words and talking points into nonsense verse: "I think this is indicative of what is coming in November. I think that there will be that sweeping of change and you will see that takeover, if you will, a positive, a good valuable takeover of common sense conservatives back in Congress." That's not actually a sentence with a logical progression of ideas. But it does contain words that the slavering teabaggers in the room could understand. It's the conservative version of pointing and grunting.

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Republicans in a Nut (House) Shell:

Bob Herbert:

If you're all fired up about Republican-inspired tales of Democrats planning to send grandma to some death chamber, you'll never get to the G.O.P.'s war against the right of ordinary workers to organize and negotiate in their own best interests - a war that has diminished living standards for working people for decades.

Rude:

Indeed, the right has so successfully torqued the country into what our enemies believe it is, it's almost as if the GOP is a subversive arm of al-Qaeda. They have nearly bankrupted us, thus making any great social advances impossible; they have turned mild dissent into sedition; and they have turned the Constitution into a loophole-ridden contract, filled with more fine print than a subprime mortgage. They did most of that shit when they were in power. Now, out of power, the right is seeking, as it did in the Clinton years, but even more insidiously, to undermine the very functioning of government. And, frankly, it ain't like the Obama administration is doing a whole lot to stand up to these political forces. Close Gitmo. Try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York. Say, "Fuck you, cowards everywhere. This is what a country does that ain't intimidated."

Rude, Justifiably So...

The Rude Pundit sums it up:
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4. Fuck off, Rudy Giuliani. A ghoulish, greedy bastard who should have been whipped into the streets like a rabid cur after 9/11. Instead, in the greatest non-Bush manipulation of the event, Giuliani parlayed the attack on his city into a fucking bonanza. And it seemed like every mainstream pundit went along with it: why wouldn't you want the man who presided over the degradation of his fire and police communication systems, thus leading to hundreds of potentially avoidable deaths, to be your president? Why wouldn't you trust the judgment of the man who put his emergency command center in the very building attacked once before and who recommended a sub-bouncer thug like Bernard Kerik to head up the federal department charged with securing the homeland? The final insult is that he profits mightily off the security consulting firm he runs, which is a little like John Wayne Gacy running a daycare center.

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Tsunami:

Here's a video progression of umemployment across the nation. Keep your eye on Michigan. You can see some what I'm guessing are conservative districts with lower unemployment. Grand Rapids represent! Eventually, the shit storm catches up to them.

What do you think of your George W. Bush now?

War is Over...

...if you want it:

Click to embiggen.

Kunstler on the Moronic Overpopulation:

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Moron culture in the USA really got full traction after the Second World War. Our victory over the other industrial powers in that struggle was so total and stupendous that the laboring orders here were raised up to economic levels unknown by any peasantry in human history. People who had been virtual serfs trailing cotton sacks in the sunstroke belt a generation back were suddenly living better than Renaissance dukes, laved in air-conditioning, banqueting on "TV dinners," motoring on a whim to places that would have taken a three-day mule trek in their grandaddy's day. Soon, they were buying Buick dealerships and fried chicken franchises and opening banks and building leisure kingdoms of thrill rides and football. It's hard to overstate the fantastic wealth that a not-very-bright cohort of human beings was able to accumulate in post-war America.

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Maher on Vaccinations:

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I believe in science and I believe in studies to determine the truth. I also believe Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon was correct when he said recently on MSNBC: "If you've got a checkbook in this town, you can get just about any set of facts you want." So if I remind you of a conspiracy theorist, you sometimes remind me of Britney Spears when she said "we should just do whatever the president says to do, and not ask questions and just support him." The medical community can be brutal on dissent, which would hold more weight if I thought this was a terribly healthy country, which it isn't. Health care is one sixth of our economy, and we spend way more on it than any other nation. The elephant in the room of the health care debate is that we are going to have a high health care bill every year no matter what law they pass because we're sick -- we need a lot of drugs and services.

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I Wish I Had This Guy as an Econ Professor:

Getting past the first 0:30 of advertising is so, so worth the price of admission.

The Crux of the Problem

One Big Slice of Holy Shit:

Blackwater founder implicated in murder.

Taibbi Goes Yard:

RE: Healthcare
I really hope this article gets some coverage/action. To wit:

This whole business, it was a litmus test for whether or not we even have a functioning government. Here we had a political majority in congress and a popular president armed with oodles of political capital and backed by the overwhelming sentiment of perhaps 150 million Americans, and this government could not bring itself to offend ten thousand insurance men in order to pass a bill that addresses an urgent emergency. What’s left? Third-party politics?

Straight Up Ripping This Off:

Because this needs more exposure. Steal it from here and pass it on:

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Published on Friday, July 24, 2009 by Huffington Post
New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit
by Bill Maher
How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves -- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason -- who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you're going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world;s largest prison population -- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it."

But maybe they aren't. Because unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That's why it wasn't surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies.

And finally, there's health care. It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.

But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O.

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!

© 2009 Huffington Post

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Submitted Without Comment

First Rule of Fight Club Is...

You like Fight Club?You Like Tyler Durden? Worried about your 401k? I posted a new link over there to the left titled ZeroHedge. Check it out.

Matt Taibbi Is On Fire.

I'm not sure you read the original piece yet, it's not online, but Taibbi's follow up on his blog is just as awesome.

UPDATE:
Oh, and then there's this. Thanks Jann.

You Need to be Reading Taibbi RIGHT NOW!

He's our David to the elite's Goliath. And get the latest Rolling Stone to read what's causing Goldman Sachs to refer to everyone as Senator Durbin.

Thinking of the Good Doctor

This can't turn out well. Aren't reunions usually about remembering the good ol' days?

UPDATE

Drugs Win.

What he says.

I'm Not Sure Where to Begin:

PDX. Professional Sports. Municipal graft. Private greed. Speechless. Next you're gonna tell me it rains as much there as Chicago.