Sad Day for Aquaman

Most recently via Oliver Willis.

BP Treats President, American People, Like Chumps

Not that I would expect anything less, but the company that is in the process of spilling fucktons of oil into our sea and onto our beaches just bussed in hundreds of "temp workers" in an apparent ploy to make the president, who visited the Gulf Coast today, think that BP has a larger workforce that it actually does.

I'm beginning to wonder how long before BP's contempt for American citizens and our president pushes this into the realm of an international incident. Special relationship, my ass. This company has shit on us at every turn and the British government needs to step in and make sure these people start acting correctly.

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal Advances

The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell appears close at hand.

Still, John McCain will not pass up an opportunity to further debase himself. Meanwhile, Charlie Crist, now an independent, is free to vote his conscience, or pander to the center-left, depending on how you interpret his recent, though very welcome, flip on the issue.

Skippy had the same thought I did--"So now if we ask, ya gotta tell."

Here's Some Poopy

I will eat the monitors in the control center if any of the nonsense floated in this puff piece comes to pass.

Dylan Ratigan Leads the TYT Army Into Battle

Polished media pro goes indie for fun and no profit, eh? Why this is happening, I have no idea, but I smell sitcom.

Similarities Between 1979 Ixtoc I Oil Spill and Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Abound

Rachel Maddow looks back at the Ixtoc I oil spill, the largest accidental oil spill in history.



Incidentally, the worst oil spill ever was Saddam Hussein's post Gulf War hissy fit that dumped around 11 million barrels into the Persian Gulf.

Lightning Round--Sam Seder Calls Bullshit, Atheist Anger, Smackdown in Connecticut, Teen Wolves, More...

Sam Seder: Sam's back with a new series of video clips wherein he tackles media bullshit. Here's the debut, We're not Greece.

TPM: The Connecticut Senate race is down to a triple-threat match... actually, it's more like a number-one contenders match between two Republicans--former WWE CEO Linda McMahon and former Congressman Rob Simmons. The winner will throw down with Richard Blumenthal for the seat being vacated by Chris Dodd.

Godless Girl: Earlier this month GG wrote a post about how to get past atheist anger.

Walking the Room: Two of America's more authentic comedians, Dave Anthony and Greg Behrendt, have launched a new podcast. Podcasting is a war of attrition where good and decent shows seem to die off every week or so while nonsense rides a wave of unprecedented popularity, so good luck guys, I'll be listening.

Film Drunk: FD's Vince Mancini presents the greatest lede of all time.

KENS5--San Antonio: Teen wolves. Seriously.

I Hate the Government So Much I Want to be Senator

When Ronald Reagan reduced the role of the federal government to a campaign trail punchline, he could not have framed a libertarian take over of the Republican party any better.

Thirty years later, the Republican Party has nominated a libertarian ideologue named Rand Paul for Senate. In this clip, Paul goes on the Rachel Maddow Show and Rachel gives us a crystal clear look at how this whole libertarian business works. Paul takes a very moral position on racism. Unfortunately, his own morality is irrelevant because libertarianism operates on naked principle, which is this: anything goes in private places. Oh, by the way, as a libertarian he also believes there shouldn't be any public places. So, laws like the Civil Rights Act moot.

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Nailed It!

So, it turns out I was right when I predicted early yesterday that Arlen Specter was toast. Not the most amazing act of prognostication you're likely to see, since the race was essentially a toss up.

Even though a late Sestak surge made it an 8-point win, from a strategic standpoint, Specter was probably right to try to win the Democratic nomination. The Republican electorate has become too intractable for someone playing at being moderate to prevail against Pat Toomey, a darling of conservative fund raising dynamos the Club for Growth.

A Charlie Crist/Joe Lieberman-style independent run wouldn't have worked as well in Pennsylvania, where Sestak was a much stronger candidate than Kendrick Meek appears to be in Florida or Alan Schlesinger was in Connecticut. Trying to thread the needle between Sestak and Toomey would have probably left Specter in third place.

Who's Alan Schlesinger you ask? Exactly.

Specter is gone and if Sestak can replace him, then great. The Senate gets a major upgrade. If, however, Toomey wins I'm pretty sure he'll make us miss unctuous ancient Arlen quicker than you can smoke up your supply of Dutch cleanser.

Prediction--Macho Arlen is Going Down

Not going to miss Arlen one bit. Good luck Rep. Sestak. Full rundown on other internet sites as news breaks.



By the way something, the line about smoking Old Dutch Cleanser--recycled! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean the old Dutch oven.

Just Wait

On the long road to her success or failure in the 2012 Republican primary, Sarah Palin is going to be on the TV, the radio, the computer, your phone, your fax machine, even your pop-up toaster. She's only getting started. She's dropping ridiculous claims daily, recently asserting that the president has a secret agenda to ban guns. What!? Before the president knows who will be his 2012 general election opponent, Sarah Palin is going to be a constant, relentless presence in our lives.

And that, my friends, is a presence that will give many of us focus and clarity.

The many divisions that have deepened on the left over the last few months will largely be forgotten. Still, there is much unrest within the left. I'm a pragmatist. I like Democratic presidents to be very careful. I think that the president is being more cautious than even I recommend, so I am not surprised that a growing number of progressives are pissed. I agree with many of their criticisms. I also empathize with these progressives. I understand that it's deeply frustrating when the candidate you supported still won't allow you and your fellow Americans to get the social justice we deserve.

I give Obama a pass on a lot of this stuff because he won. He stopped John McCain from being president right now. Stopping disastrous presidents is often the best thing any president ever does. Jimmy Carter's biggest failure? Losing. Losing to Ronald Reagan. 12 years in the wilderness ensued.

None of the top candidates for the Republican nomination even rises to the caliber of John McCain. Barring a shocking shift in our political culture, the next Republican presidential candidate is going to be another Bush administration waiting to happen. No progressive is going to sit out that fight. We have short memories too on the left, but not that short.

BP CEO's Powerful Spin Propels Entire Spill Out of Gulf, Into Low Earth Orbit

The people at BP are desperately trying everything they can think of to stop the Gulf Oil Spill. They dropped a dome on it. Then a "top hat"... is that right? They sent a robot. Next up I believe are sharks with freakin' lasers.

Now, they've resorted to the last refuge of the rich and powerful when they're totally fucked--sheer, unmitigated spin. BP CEO Tony Hayward actually said this:

We will fix it. I guarantee it. The only question is we do not know when. The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.

Masterful. He leads with, "We will fix it." Very forceful and confident. He doubles down by guaranteeing it. Then he slips in some fine print, "The only question is we do not know when." So, He vows to fix it. Guarantees he'll fix it. Then he slides in the fact that it may take quite some time. Like, when the last of the oil gushes out of the pipe, maybe?

So far, this is very pedestrian PR work. But then, sensing he has his audience off balance, Heyward unleashes a gem that will go into the Spin Hall of Fame on the first ballot when it's eligible in five years. "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean," Hayward said, "The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

See, guys, it's just a little bit of oil in the great blue-brown sea. It's like peeing in an Olympic sized swimming pool. Nothing to worry about. Why are you guys so mad?

In my mind's eye I can see it: somewhere, Karl Rove slowly tips his hat in appreciation of a supremely skilled peer.

Jon Stewart Decodes Media's Bush/Obama Equivalency Fetish

Watch as the master skillfully dissects the super-annoying voodoo calculus flim-flam run by conservative think tanks and talk show hosts, that is then fed through the media echo chamber that equates anything Obama does or doesn't do to some supposedly equivalent Bush administration failure that these same people have spent years defending and mitigating.

Oh thank you, Jon Stewart! Thank you and your magical media-trotting editing machine for collating the evidence of this hackery.

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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Lightning Round--The Tea Party Deck, Battlefield Executions, Wally Hickel, Marc Maron Interview, More...

Mediaite: Our old pal Tommy Christopher has a post up about how The Shenandoah Valley Tea Party Patriots (yep, there's a The Shenandoah Valley Tea Party Patriots) are selling decks of cards similar to the ones issued to soldiers during the early days of the Iraq occupation. Those cards featured Saddam Hussein and other members of the Baath Party. "The Tea Party deck," Tommy writes, "features members of the US Congress whom they identify as part of the 'progressive cancer,' along with some creepy marching orders."

Michael Moore: Speaking at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva last month, Seymour Hersh reported that battlefield executions are taking place in Afghanistan.

Greg Palast: Ever heard of Wally Hickel? They should write a movie about this ambitious individual, who recently died at the age of 90. He served as Alaska's governor twice and got into all kinds of zany nonsense. According to Palast he engineered Sarah Palin's run for governor and even once had designs on creating an Arctic Empire that would have included "Siberia, Alaska, sub-polar Scandinavia and northern Japan, tied together by a rail tunnel under the Bering Sea".

Suite 101: Christine E. Taylor interviewed comedian Marc Maron about his critically acclaimed podcast WTF, which has included great interviews recently with Robin Williams and director David Wain formerly of The State.

Oliver Willis: The Clintons are still paying off their campaign debt to Mark Penn.

Writers on the Inside

In this edition (MP3) of C-SPAN's After Words, Piper Kerman, an upper-middle class Smith College alum who went to prison for a year over a decade after being involved in drug trafficking, spoke to author Ted Conover about her time in prison and her recent book about the experience, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison.

Conover is an ideal match as interviewer because he too spent a year in the prison system as a writer who goes undercover as a CO at New York's Sing Sing prison, resulting in Conover's 2000 classic Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

Planet Earth, That's a Wrap, We've Been Humanity, Thanks and Good Night!

According to a new study coming straight out of Australia--the Earth has about a fifty-fifty shot of being too hot for humans by 2300. That's not that far off, station nation. The good news is Antarctic, Lunar and Martian property values will rise considerably. The other good news is we'll all be dead by then anyway, which is a really big part of the problem.

Okay, Start Ruing

If conservatives weren't ruing the day that Michael Steele became RNC chair there will very likely be plenty of opportunities ahead. Not only is he a giant bad press magnet in his own right, it appears that potentially serious shenanigans, the kind that gets prosecutors and grand jurors involved, may have been taking place at the RNC on his watch.

Frankly, I don't get why this is such a big deal. I know I report my jewelry store and/or fly fishing purchases as meals all the time. WTF am I talking about? You gotta read the story, buddy.

Obama Nominates Kagan

This is who I thought he would pick the first time out, so it's not a huge surprise. So far, everything I've seen suggests that this is a fine selection. Three out of nine justices being women is a nice start.

Here's the press conference announcing the pick:

By the way, if, for some reason, you happen to have an abundance of faith in humanity today, then I suggest you take a few seconds and read the comments for this clip on YouTube. It'll snap you right out of that dream world.

She's More Than Likable Enough

I'm watching tonight's 60 Minutes profile of Secretary of State Clinton. I was amazed to hear that her approval rating is at 77 percent. That's basically everyone except for the tea party. It helps when Amy Poehler gets off your ass.

Here's a clip:

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Prosecution of President Obama Off to Bad Start

Rachel Maddow covers the sad, yet hilarious, also terrifying tale of birtherism gone wrong. As if it could ever go right. TPM has the story as well.

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This is not the only potential trial the president faces. Pastor Manning has a stark vision of how exactly the trial of President Obama will go down. It may, in fact, not be legally binding. I'm not clear on the specifics.

By the way, citizen's arrest is pretty risky business, people. If you have to come up with some kind of convoluted plan to address all the injustice in the world that hinges on a citizen's arrest, whether you're stalking Karl Rove with fuzzy pink handcuffs or the Grand Jury foreman who ignores your crazy pleas to indict the president, you're probably the one who's going to go down.

Traveling while Hispanic

If you are Hispanic, or any other ethnicity of a darker-skinned variety, and plan on driving through or visiting Arizona, go to GringoMask.com.

They provide a free service to help you blend into the population. Use the free download to enable yourself to pass. Simply download, print, then cut out a face-sized mask. If pulled over by the police, simply attach and you'll not be detained or questioned.

Lightning Round--Ambrose a Fraud?, Nuke the Spill?, I Pity the Fool, NWA Movie, Taiwanese Politics, More...

The Wall Street Journal: Google is jumping into the E-book market. As per my request, independent author David Derrico kindly left his take on this development in comments.

The L Magazine: They're making an NWA movie. Kinda like Boyz N the Hood with rappers.

Daylife: A riot broke out in the Taiwanese parliament over whether or not to allow mainland Chinese students into Taiwanese universities. Check out how they cut off debate over there. For more in depth and balanced coverage of Taiwan, check out RealTaiwan.Com which is well run by a good friend of mine.

Overthinking It: Overthinker Lee delves the limits of space and time to produce a thorough examination of practice of fool pitying.

Raw Story: Earlier this week the Russians made a suggestion for how we could successfully cap the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico--Nuke the shit out of it.

ABCNews.Com: Did historian Stephen Ambrose make up many of his interviews with President Eisenhower?

George Will, Defender of Birds Everywhere

George Will actually makes the argument that offshore wind farms will kill more birds than the Gulf Oil Spill (h/t Monkey Muck). You know, even if that is true, fuck him for reducing the energy debate to birdstrike.

By the way something, George Will might be interested in the fact that in the wake of Sulley's heroic ditch in the Hudson, airports have developed technology to avert birdstrike and that technology seems like it would be adaptable to wind farms.

Speaking of birdstrike, here's Eddie Izzard's classic 1996 bit on the subject:

Take Our Former President, Please

McClatchy writer Steven Thomma takes his turn on the historical revisionism merry-go-round, asserting that maybe, just maybe, George W. Bush didn't suck.

These arguments, going back to 2005, when it became clear that the occupation of Iraq couldn't be ended without an horrific civil war and oh, by the way, no WMD here, all hinge on the notion that if Iraq stabilizes, then it was a great move by Bush lying to the American people so he could send a crushing unilateral illegal invasion force to occupy a sovereign country. Though Iraq has stabilized by comparison, I would caution anyone against thinking we are anywhere near writing the history of the aftermath of American occupation, I especially warn against writing it before our forces have fully withdrawn.

Thomma also tries to mitigate Bush's spending spree by pointing out the size of Obama's first two budgets as if the economic collapse of 2008 never happened. How many times do people who know what the fuck they are talking about have to explain that during a crash, government spending is the only way to slow the free fall? If anything, the spending the current president is compelled to do should be on the tab of the former president.

If anything, Bush looks even worse in retrospect, because, as many of us have long expected, his policies will continue to plague this country for decades.

No White House, Daily Show Comedy Cabal

President Obama did have help writing his comedy routine for the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but not from the writing staff of The Daily Show. Obama got his assist from one particular Daily Show scribe, Kevin Bleyer, who was not acting on behalf of the show.

Frankly, if Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and the ghost of Bill Hicks wrote the routine with the president over beers at the White House bowling alley it wouldn't have mattered, even a little, because stand up comedy is often collaborative. Furthermore, while Obama exceeded expectations with his set, it wasn't Bring the Pain or Bill Cosby Himself or anything. The combination of Leno's suction and the president's competence has the media convinced he's the second coming of George Carlin.

The event itself is an abomination to journalism and it puts the president in the position of having to joke about serious, life and death matters. I know a lot of people who didn't think the president should be making jokes of any kind about predator drones. And besides, after Colbert's set in 2006 they should have just ended the whole thing.

Of course, there will be plenty of assholes using this against the president and The Daily Show because many of those people have proven they will say or do anything to criticize Obama, or anyone else they think is liberal. I still hear things about his teleprompter.

Brownie's Got a Slick Conspiracy Theory

Get a load of Brownie:

William the Oily

Dubbed "William the Bloody" for his zealous support for George W. Bush's wars, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol took his tone deafness to a new level by calling for expanded drilling closer to shore and in ANWR.

Kristol also recently used some oily math to predict that the Arizona "papers" law would only violate civil rights 5, 8, or 13 times. No word on whether or not Karl Rove validates these new maths.

President Obama at Michigan Commencement and the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Busy day today for the president. This morning he gave the commencement address at the University of Michigan.


And tonight he did some stand up at #nerdprom. The routine was very funny. The president cooled whatever heat may have been emanating from his stand-up act by striking a somber and resolute tone at the end, especially in regard to the oil spill.


Line of the night goes to the president: "All of our jokes tonight are brought to you by our friends at Goldman Sachs — they make money whether you laugh or not."

Ho, ho, ho.

The Size of Spain?

The Gulf of Mexico, for those of you who stopped paying attention to everything, is flooded with oil now, a "churning slick of dense, rust-colored oil the size of Puerto Rico" according to the AP. That size is expected to grow, as no one knows for sure the magnitude of the disaster.

For those of you that have the Mayan side in the 2012 Armageddon betting pool, you can pair that Puerto Rico-sized oil slick with a Spain-sized plague of locusts in Australia. How bad is it down under? Those crazy buggers have started putting the bugs on their pizza.

Also, lest we forget, the Icelandic Volcano is still erupting.