Our Betters: The Vice-President offers to help raise some money for a good cause

INT. RAHM EMANUEL’S OFFICE

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: So, yeah, I’m going to need you to move those last two meetings around.

White House Personal Secretary Katie Johnson: Will do, Mr. Emanuel.


Emanuel: Then I’m going to need you to set up a meeting with Majority Leader Reid and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. We have some Financial Reform conference committee strategies to go over.


Johnson: I’ll schedule it for tomorrow sir.


Emanuel: Just one more thing…


Johnson: …OK


Emanuel: This time you have blocked out on my schedule..


Johnson: …Erm


Emanuel: It seems to go from now to either 15 minutes from now or seven hours from now, and has a bunch of question marks all over it. Plus there’s this cartoon drawing of what looks like a demented devil in a straight jacket, drinking out of one of those cartoon moonshine jugs with the three x’s on the side…


Johnson: You see, the thing about that is…


(dives out the window into the bushes)


Emanuel: Oh God, you didn’t. You rotten bitch! You didn’t!


(off-key singing of "I Wanna be an Airborne Ranger", drawing closer)


Emanuel: Shit.


(door flies open)

Vice-President Joe Biden: Rahmmy! I'd walk a million miles… For one of your smiles, My Rahmmy! Rahmmy-- Rahmmy, I'm comin'!


Emanuel: *sighs* Sir, that’s a little offensive.


Biden: Kid, I knew Al Jolson. Hell of a man. Literally taught me that song. Except I changed out Mammy for your name! You see what I did there.


(aggressively motions towards Emanuel, ice and bourbon spilling out of his glass)


Emanuel: …Yes. Surely you didn’t come here to sing an old, racist Al Jolson song to me.


Biden: Naw..... not entirely. Sorry I'm late. Was visiting the US World Cup team with Bubba and Barry, pretending to give a shit about soccer. It's a pastime of mine. Bill kept going on an on about their shoes, God love him. I finally just had to leave him.... I think he was going to try to fuck one of the players. Barry was trying to pry him off of Landon Donovan... Anyway, I have big things to discuss, Rahm. Big things. Hey, was that Flo that I saw diving out of the window into the bushes?


Emanuel: Yes…


Biden: Hell of a girl. God love her. Gotta remind myself to thank her for penciling me in here. It took a few weeks but I finally wore her down. I remember her crying with joy as she yelled to me that she was putting me on your schedule.


Emanuel: That poor woman. So what’s this ‘big news’ you’re here for?


Biden: Ah yes. It’s come to my attention that my reputation for using salty language in the vicinity of microphones during important ceremonies and in front of children when cameras are rolling has been of some considerable financial boon to this White House. Ducats. I’m talking piles of money, Rahm.


Emanuel: I assume you’re referring to those health care “Big Fucking Deal” shirts we’re selling?


Biden: The very same. Gotta ask, what’s that money being used for anyway?


Emanuel: Mostly for Organizing For America… and other… special projects…


Biden: Like what?


Emanuel: *coughs*cybortions*coughs*


Biden: Barry’s robot abortionist project? Outstanding.


(Emanuel taps nose, nods)


Biden: Anywho, I figure that makes me the official White House sloganeer. I figure I’ll spitball some new catchphrases and we can whip up some t-shirts and really start pulling in the coin. You know, let me apply myself creatively and help out some good causes. Hell, I’ve even been shootin’ some phrases at Flo over the past few weeks to see if they catch on and play with the kids.


(looks around)


Biden: Flo? FLO!


Johnson: (weakly, from the azalea bushes) Yes, Mr. Vice-President.


Biden: Have any of my phrases caught on with you kids? I’ve been workin’ ‘em into all my speeches and forcing my grandkids to use ‘em in public.


Johnson: I don’t know… could someone call a gardener?


Biden: What about ‘bean shooter’? Anyone using that? “Wise guy’? “Clambake’? “Schnook’? “Bee’s knees’? ‘Sawbuck’? ‘The gibbet’? “Tinker’s cuss’? “Queer as a three dollar bill’?


Johnson: Not that I can recall.


Biden: Aw hell, those kind of phrases were the cat’s pajamas when I was growin’ up in Scranton. I can’t believe these aren’t catching on. I just thank God my beloved mother has been struck stone cold dead, so she couldn’t see me fail like this. God love her and the timeliness of her death.


Emanuel: Look, if this is it… I have some meetings with the National Association of Teachers, and--


Biden: Teachers? I have a “meeting” “scheduled” with a teacher later on, if you know what I mean.

(leers suggestively at Rahm)

Biden: Sex. With my wife. Who is a teacher. Been sleeping with her for years. She’s also a doctor. Been sleepin’ with a doctor for years. Sexually. Name’s Jill. Got three jobs. Teacher. Doctor. Keepin’ Papa happy in the sack.


Emanuel: You really need to stop saying that in public.


Biden: Me and sleepin’ with a teacher… goes together like tits and grits.


Emanuel: Actually, I’ll stop you. “Tits and grits”. I like that. I might put it in my swear rotation. Might only cause the President to dock me a buck for saying it. You come up with that?


Biden: Hell, I’d like to claim ownership, but that phrase dates all the way back to General Stonewall Jackson. On his tombstone. “Tits and grits, the South will rise again. General Stonewall Jackson 1931-1976.”


Emanuel: He could not have possibly said that, had it carved onto his tombstone, and those clearly aren’t the dates of his birth and death. What are you talking about?


Biden: Stonewall Jackson. Fullback. 1966 Baltimore Colts.


Emanuel: I don’t think that man existed.

Biden: Who the hell am I thinking of?


Emanuel: I wouldn’t even venture a guess. Your mind is a tortured thicket of madness.


Biden: Outstanding. Look, since you like the phrase so much, we can literally start printing up these t-shirts and start literally printing up money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.


Emanuel: I don’t think that’s such a good--


Biden: We’ll give the money to breast cancer research and the society of coarsely-ground corn manufacturers.


Emanuel: No, this is an awful…


Biden: I’ll get Barry, tell him the good news. We're doin' good work here, people! Flo!


Johnson: (from the azaleas) Help!


Biden: You call up and get me a estimate on printing costs. Rahm?


Emanuel: *sighing* Yeah…

Biden: Let’s do this thing. For charity.

On those war things that are still happening

Rep. Alan Grayson is fed up with our two wars and how we pay for them. Yeah, that's right, we're still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Surprised the hell out of me when I heard it too.

Grayson isn't happy about this. Moreso, he isn't happy about all the money we have to pay to keep these wars going. Especially considering that Congress is just about to pas a $159 billion “emergency” spending bill to cover the most recent tab. So, he's proposing some new legislation. He call sit The War Is Making You Poor Act. Let him explain.

“The purpose of this bill,” wrote Grayson last week, “is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars.” It’s not just the costs of active shooting wars; with hundreds of bases overseas, as far as the defense budget is concerned Americans have been on a permanent wartime footing, to varying degrees, since Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. “War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape,” wrote Grayson, “so much so that no one notices it anymore.”

So what does the bill do?

* Limits the amount of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
* Takes the $159 billion and uses it as a tax cut for Americans, effectively eliminating the federal income tax on the first $35,000 of every American’s income ($70,000 for married couples)
*Makes the Pentagon take the $159 billion for the wars out of their $559 billion dollar defense budget.
* Cuts the Federal deficit by $15.9 billion.

This makes sense, people would like it, it would cut the deficit, and rein in the ridiculous amount we're spending of defense. So of course it'll go over like a loud fart in church and will probably never be allowed to be voted on.

Even Secretary Gates, who is openly advocating for the cutting of billions of dollars worth of projects and telling the President to veto any defense bill that doesn't make the cuts he wants, has to be looking at Grayson and going "Pay for these wars out of money already appropriated?" *makes wanking gesture* "Get fucked, buddy."

So even though nothing will probably happen, Grayson's attempt to make sense will never get through and Gates' request that that Congress stop wasting money on pet military projects for their own districts that the military has no use for will also be ignored, it's nice to see the two attempting to inject a little rationality into our defense debate. Combating the conventional wisdom that wars are free and that defense spending doesn't count as spending is hard to do. Here's hoping that these forthcoming failed attempts don't scar them so badly they they never try again.

Naive kids, trying to act all reasonable and shit. Will wonders never cease?

Tubes part 2

One of the most heartening things about the US Senate is that sometimes extremely elderly men with no knowledge of things like technology are put in charge of making laws and regulating things pertaining to technology. Who can forget Ted Stevens' immortal "the internet is not a truck... it's a series of tubes" argument? Less funny was the fact that he was in charge of the committee tasked with regulating the Internet. On and on this goes, with 70+ year old men faced with laws and votes on things they can't understand; like the magic elves that cool their food inside that big white rectangle in their kitchens, the invisible string that allows them to talk to Mabel on their pocket tin can, why we have pleasant diplomatic relations with the Kaiser, and on and on.

Of course this kind of ignorance extends to the current financial reform debate. There, this is not so much a disadvantage, as no one understands what the hell it is Wall Street and banks do. Strike that, the people who are getting copious amounts of money from the financial sector do and they write in lots of wonderful loopholes. But surely our geriatric elected betters' unfamiliarity with technology wouldn't be making things difficult during floor votes for financial reform, would it?

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been fighting unsuccessfully this week for a vote on his proposal to limit the fees charged for using the ATM of a financial institution other than your own.
...
[Ben Nelson] pleaded ignorance when asked this week whether Congress should cap ATM fees. Nelson said that while he's no fan of unnecessary fees, he's unfamiliar with the charges.

“I've never used an ATM, so I don't know what the fees are,” Nelson said, adding that he gets his cash from bank tellers, just not automatic ones. “It's true, I don't know how to use one.

“But I could learn how to do it just like I've . . . I swipe to get my own gas, buy groceries. I know about the holograms.”

"The holograms". By which he means "bar codes". This man is an elected official and he doesn't understand ATM's, ATM fees, or how banks gouge people with those fees. And so Harkin's amendment is having trouble getting any traction. "Surely Nelson is the only elected oaf who doesn't understand how the magic money card machine works, right?" Nope.

Mike Johanns (R-Neb) opposes the attempt to cap fees at $.50... he admits to having used one around 5 times in his entire life. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is on the fence about the issue. He says he hasn't reviewed the proposal but wants you to know that he understands the concept of ATM's but that he has "a credit card, but I don't use it for cash”, which shows that he doesn't understand things. And these are just three of the four Senators the Omaha World-Herald interviewed for a small story on an ATM fee amendment due to their proximity to Omaha.

So don't worry, dear readers. Adults are in charge and making laws for you. And while they are completely baffled by something you or I use every day, they want you to know that while they don't use it, they know about the holograms and the cash credit cards. They know about the holograms. Sleep tight.

Awwww

According to Sarah Palin "We're all Arizonans now". Which I guess means we all just a tad racist and prefer our cut rate immigration laws to to have the illusion of doing something while adding that special 1930's German tinge that most of our laws are lacking. Hell, we were forced to legalize racial profiling and authorize police to demand your papers and violate the Constitution. You know, because... uhhh... of those... I'm not sure, but I bet the answer is because of Hollywood liberals in Washington.

So, since we're all living just outside Tempe now, I guess we don't find things like this all that funny.

The City of Phoenix -- a convention hot-spot -- is facing a "near economic crisis" caused by lost revenue stemming from organizations canceling events in response to Arizona's controversial immigration law, according to its mayor.
...
"We have an image and public-relations problem of what might be unprecedented proportions," Krietor told the Arizona Republic.

Haw-Haw. Esto es increíblemente divertida. Maybe things will get so bad that Mexico will have to build a wall to keep Phoenix city government officials from trying to sneak over to find work in a city government that has an operating budget.

Sadly this isn't a reality yet, only an early projection based on some early cancellations. But, they estimate that the city could easily lose $90 million this year just because a few conventions might go "maybe tying our event to a hostile political battle and a seemingly racist state isn't the best thing for the International Convention of Dental Drill Assemblers right now... we've been through too much already."

But already the state and the law supporters are crying foul and getting angry about various boycotts. See, this is a freedom of speech/state sovereignty issue. See, they have the freedom to do whatever they want and no matter how morally/ethically/legally/socially reprehensible you find it, you are required to keep money flowing into their state. There's no backlash allowed. That's how freedom works.

So if you can get over Sarah Palin retroactively reassigning your birth to a small hospital just outside of Nogales and the Arizona pride/Mexican revulsion flowing through your veins, take time to pause and laugh at the Copper State. They honestly didn't see stuff like this coming.

Broken in Brief: Whole goddamn neighborhood air-conditioned

ATLANTA-Residents of the Firebush Street section of the Haber Heights community must have awoken in complete fucking shock today as they found out that, contrary to the recent uptick in temperatures, their entire goddamn neighborhood had been goddamn air-conditioned to a cool, comfortable 65 degrees.

Authorities point to the source of this goddamn development being a local residence where the fucking door had been left open for 10 fucking minutes, causing the entire goddamn temperature transference.

Sources close to the home in question have revealed that an area man Tom Caruthers’ ingrate children had left said goddamn door open and this was not the first fucking time it had happened either.

Sources further reveal that this man, who works his ass off for a goddamn living, has repeatedly told his damn kids that this air-conditioning shit isn’t free and that they don’t know the goddamn value of a goddamn dollar or what it’s like to work for a goddamn living.

But that is of little value to neighborhood residents who are enjoying the cool temperatures and don’t even give a shit about the struggles Caruthers has to go through to put fucking food on the fucking table. They’re just a bunch of moochers just like his goddamn kids who don’t fucking listen.

According to estimates from the local energy concern, this is going to cost a fucking fortune and Caruthers isn’t made of fucking money. Furthermore if this happens one more goddamn time, Caruthers has claimed he’ll call up the local heating and cooling place and have them haul away the fucking air conditioner and then he’ll see how everyone likes it then.

According to neighbors, these threats have been taken with a grain of salt and Mr. Caruthers feels like he’s talking to a brick fucking wall. As of press time the goddamn front fucking door is still fucking open.

What could possibly go wrong?

Even though the Gulf oil spill is still occurring, clean-up efforts are already underway. Now if there was one phrase you wanted to hear about this massive environmental undertaking, what would it be? Well, if you were hoping for "Hey, let's dump millions of gallons of this dangerous toxic oil dispersant into the water" have I got some good news for you.

British Petroleum and government disaster-relief agencies are using a toxic chemical to disperse oil in the Gulf of Mexico, even though a better alternative appears to be available.

As the Deepwater Horizon oil spill spreads, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard have conducted tests with Corexit 9500, a chemical designed to break oil slicks into globules that are more quickly consumed by bacteria or sink into the water column before hitting shore.

The decision has been a controversial one. A few scientists think dispersants are mostly useful as public relations strategy, as they make the oil slick invisible, even though oil particles continue to do damage. Others consider Corexit the lesser of two evils: It’s known to be highly toxic, adding to the harm caused by oil, but at least it will concentrate damage at sea, sparing sensitive and highly productive coastal areas. Better to sacrifice the deep sea than the shorelines.

But even as these arguments continue, with 230,000 gallons of Corexit on tap and more commissioned by BP, a superior alternative could be left on the shelf.

Ooh, they even referenced a decision to avoid using a superior alternative. That's the happy cousin to "let's dump millions of gallons of this dangerous toxic oil dispersant into the water". What is this superior alternative? It's called Dispersit and is EPA approved. In testing, Corexit was 54.7 percent effective at breaking down crude oil from the Gulf and Dispersit was 100 percent effective. In addition, Corexit is three times as lethal to silverfish and two times as lethal to shrimp. Good thing those aren't important things to the Gulf ecosystem or Gulf economy.

On the other hand -as I'm sure we'll find out- the makers of Corexit probably gave more money to our elected betters than the makers of Dispersit did. Scientists agree that money to politicians is the most effective measure of effectiveness in an oil dispersal product. Plus, Corexit is a more deftly handled oil clean-up related pun than Dispersit.

So if the only environmental and ecological hope you were clinging on to was "Well, at least we probably aren't making things worse", well.... we'll get back to you. But it doesn't look good.

Things you don't want to hear analysts say

When we all heard that Goldman-Sachs was being sued by the SEC for purposely selling bad products to its customers and betting against them, the reaction was mixed: we couldn't decide whether to laugh, pump our fists, high five the nearest bystander, yell "'bout fuckin' time", or just prepare for the inevitable disappointment when nothing of any importance happens to them as a consequence. We chose instead to wait outside Matt Taibbi's house for what we assumed would be one of the most exultant and joyous celebration keggers in recent memory.

Of course the SEC lawsuit caused them a hit in their stock price. Alleging massive fraud tends to do that. But not to worry, our financial betters see rosy clouds on the horizon and decided to state it in the most naked way possible:

Analysts Bullish On Goldman's Stock, Citing Political Relationships

Doesn't that headline just warm the cockles of your heart? Why does Fitch Ratings give Goldman an "A+" rating, FBR Capital Markets give a "Outperform" rating, Bernstein Research note that the bank's long-term potential remains "attractive", and Rochdale Securities said the stock is still worth buying? Why, because of how well Goldman has entwined itself within the levers of power and among our elected betters. Something about a vampire squid wrapping itself around something, jamming its blood funnel into something.

So don't shed a tear for Goldman Sachs. No, they'll make out all right. Little things like SEC lawsuits that say you engaged in a conspiracy to defraud your own customers don't matter, you're still a good buy. Why? Because you used all that money you sucked out of the corpse of this country to buy some powerful BFF's. Well done. In fact, buy their stock. It's probably the only surefire way to get your money back after you listened to their investment advice.

We're all rich

Via Clusterstock comes this look at how the US Government is set to make around an $8 billion smackeroos profit off the "bailout" of Citigroup. In fact it's also conceivable that we'll break even on our "investment" in AIG.

So if the net profit off both AIG and Citigroups is $8 billion... divided by... carry the one... each American stand to make $26 off the bailouts. Excuse me, $26 dollars... and five cents. Oh yeah baby, we're rich. "Going to the movies with a date and getting a small popcorn" rich! Which, comparatively, is like "owning a sports team" rich was before the economy had its throat slit.

So sit by the mailbox, I'm sure that as soon as Geithner finalizes these sales you'll have your motherfuckin' movie check sent out to you, post haste.

The entire economy collapses and we all get $26? I told you this would all work out in the end.

Ballin'

As we are a massive blog empire with millions, nay billions, of committed readers (read: a few dozen of our friends... if that) we are likely to assume that our vast demographic variety (read: a bunch of white liberals in their twenties) also includes some Republicans.

Perhaps in a fit of pique or some race based vapors over Obama or health care, you might have decided to donate some money to the RNC to help retake the House, Senate, and overthrow the socialist network that has been built in this country in one short year. Why? Because it is marginally more entertaining than flushing that money down the toilet. Plus, it doesn't enrich the sewer people. Scofflaws and government teat suckers the lot of them.

But you might wonder what your donation to the RNC will get you. Well, the answer is "a hell of a good time for RNC Chairman Michael Steele".

The Daily Caller reports that “FEC filings suggest Steele travels in style”:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,946.25 spent at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Although Steele’s high-flying ways have angered GOP donors, RNC communications director Doug Heye explains, “It takes money to make money.”

Ballin'! Though as I would know Sean would know, no "nightclub" that has dancers lezzing it out in bondage gear has them "simulating" anything. Maybe the bondage thing was a metaphor to illustrate how they're using procedural tricks to tie up Congress and the lesbian thing was a thematic expression piece to illustrate the dangers of gay marriage and gays in the military. Or maybe it's just the only way Michael Steele can relax after a hard day of yelling "Armageddon!" on the TV.

My favorite part of the story is the $.25 part of the tab. It either suggests that the person signing it was too cheap to bump the tip up an additional $.75 (it would just encourage the lesbian stripper's poor life choices and wouldn't empower them to find better work) or Steele was there with a bank roll of quarters, tossing them up on the stage and asking for fifty cent lap dances. Possibly nickel lap dances.

Takes money to make money. And trips to bondage clubs, it also takes trips to bondage clubs to make money. Just imagine the cash they'll rake in for next month's Palin/Bachmann duo show at the Spearmint Rhino in Vegas. $100 buck cover, three drink minimum, and no touching.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.18

Green-Bashing Exposes the Rot at the Core of Modern Conservatism
Peter Daou looks at how recent studies showing the rise in US skepticism on global warming coincide with more and more scientific studies showing the existence of global warming and climate change, and contrasts it with right wing and corporate messaging that attempts to discredit science with that of left wing and scientific messaging that. It isn't pretty. Sure the might be a global scientific consensus that id fortified with data that only increases their case year by year, but on the other hand: Al Gore is fat and that is funny. So you can see why science and knowledge has trouble combating a campaign that lets regular people feel like they know better than egghead scientists.

Who’s Buried in the History Books?
A NY Times op-ed on how a conservative campaign to get Grant knocked off the $50 and replaced by Reagan is based in a general disrespect of history, the elevation of misinformation, and the cheapened intellectualism of the US. Wait, knowledge, history, and intelligence sacrificed in the name of political myth-making and political gamesmanship? In America? Sounds like someone is talking crazy.

Post Mortem: Who Killed The Public Option?
With health care about to pass and recent attempts to get the public option passed through reconciliation apparently dead (Shocking! But all those Senators said they were for it, I can't believe that it didn't happen), Talking Points Memo goes through the exact history of how a popular and sensible program that improved the health care system for Americans got removed by our elected betters. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was popular, sensible, and improved the health care system for Americans. Read it. You know, just in case you had a wound you wanted to rub salt in. Which, incidentally, isn't going to be covered in any new health plans.

The HBO Auteur
The NY Times does a profile on giant brain man and TV Jesus, David Simon, while he worked on the about to premiere show Treme, about life in New Orleans post-Katrina. As if a massive article on the conception process of the man who created the best show ever, the Wire, isn't enough to get you excited for Treme, Dominic West, McNutty himself, went out and said that it'd be better than the Wire. Can I just cook this show up and shoot it into my veins already? I need something that distills America into a bleak portrait of poverty, crime, and good people being beaten down by the system.

TOP TEN TURNS 60: The List Known ’Round the World
It is the 60th Anniversary of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, so in celebration I think we need to get together, find some tommy guns, give each other colorful nicknames, and go on a multi-state bank robbing spree that results in our violent death at the hands of the feds. Deal? The FBI has decided to celebrate the occasion by putting up a historical article and linking to the mugshots and wanted posters of everyone who has ever been on the list. YMMV. I like my way better.

Keep the money flowing, boys

It's been a banner year for people who think that corporations, industries, and big money donors don't have enough influence and power within our political system. First there was the Supreme Court affirming the rights of corporations to spend as much money as they want in our elections. Now, we have a Congressional ethics panel affirming the right of our elected betters to trade votes and influence in return for campaign contributions.

The House ethics committee ruled Friday that seven lawmakers who steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm had not violated any rules or laws by also collecting large campaign donations from those contractors.

In a 305-page report, the ethics committee declared that lawmakers are free to raise campaign money from the very companies they are benefiting so long as the deciding factors in granting those "earmarks" are "criteria independent" of the contributions. The report served as a blunt rejection of ethics watchdogs and a different group of congressional investigators, who have contended that in some instances the connection between donations and earmarks was so close that it had to be inappropriate.

Finally! I was worried for a second there that the nakedly shady relationship between corporate donations and earmarks would be seen for the open graft and corruption that it is.

Thankfully we have a supposed ethics panel to tell us that "Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member's actions are being influenced by campaign contributions," and that as long as there is some nebulous, invisible "independent criteria" for handing over million and billions of government contracts in return for a couple thousand in campaign contributions, everything is copacetic. Sure that kind of thing might look like and, in most cases, actually be pay-for-play, but.... it isn't. Because.... HEY LOOK OVER THERE!

Whew! We almost lost the self-perpetuating low ethical and moral standards of Congress. Some form of common sense and a pointing out of the obvious was not allowed to worm its way into the conversation or block off the money spigot between our elected betters and our corporate masters. We, as a country, have dodged that bullet.

Chart of the day

Click to embiggen

The good people at, uh, Good and Column Five have put together a chart, uh, charting the distribution of income amongst the various religions within these United States based on this Pew survey. What are the money religions? Where should you place your faith to get the most bang from your buck? Who does the baby Jesus prefer to reward with riches or curse with poverty completely irrespective of whether or not they believe in him?

Well, clocking it at 46% and 43% of member of their faith taking in $100k+ are Judaism and Hinduism, besting the national average of 18% *cough*stereotypesareaccurate*cough* Also doing well spiritually and financially are Christians (Mainline) at 21%, Christian (Other) at 23%, Orthodox at 28%, and Buddhists at 22%. Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and Godless savages are all at the national average, while Jesus has punished Evangelicals, Black Churches, and Jehovah's Witnesses with lower rates of return on their spiritual investment.

Hindus also show higher than average placements within the $75k+ bracket, while also showing, along with the Jews, lower than average numbers in the $50k and below, poverty stricken wretch category. So I think the message is clear: Shiva and Abraham for your financial and spiritual well being.

Laugh now Jews and Hindus, you may beat us Catholics in the percentages and percentiles, but we smash you in raw numbers and overall money pile size. Plus our church is way richer than yours. Have you seen how decked out the Pope is? This all proves that Catholicism is better than Hinduism and that our improving of the Torah was a prudent financial plan. Because isn't that the best way to measure religions: by fat stacks of cash? I think that's what God would have wanted were He still alive.

Chart of the day

Via Marginal Revolution comes a look at various measures of how to measure Haiti aid from different countries in terms of pure dollars, as related to GDP, or per citizen. It seems on a per capita basis, Ghana cares the most.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.28

Bernanke Confirmed for Second Term as Fed Chief
The Republic is saved! Praise be unto the only man on the planet who can do this job, Ben Bernanke! Sure, he didn't see any of this coming and by any measurable standard is doing his job poorly, but we all have to pretend like society will collapse if he isn't there to advocate for cutting social security and medicare while doing nothing to combat unemployment. The vote was, however, a stunning rebuke. He only was confirmed by a 40 vote majority, the smallest ever for a Fed Chairman. That must be a tremendous blow to his ego. We at These Bastards wish him luck at completely not seeing the next crisis.

In 3-2 Vote, SEC Requires Companies To Disclose Climate Risks To Investors
For the first time ever corporations are going to have to divulge to their shareholders the risks posed by their policies and actions to the climate and the risks of climate change and laws to prevent climate change will have on their business/hubbahubbahubbamoneymoneymoney. While this sounds all well and good, I'm sure the reports will just say what most companies have been saying for years about climate change "It's a hoax, everything's fine, do not look behind the curtain." But props to the SEC for making companies pretend to care about science and stuff by tying it to money.

Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to the U.S.
Good news everyone! Now your Europeans friends eyes will no longer bug out of their heads when you tell them how long a train ride in this country takes. No longer will you have to explain how it's quicker to walk. Now they can only look down at us for our inadequate social safety nets, our terrible health care system, and lack of architectural period arches on our money. But, starting in Florida and California, our moribund commuter rail is getting a high speed bullet train kick in the ass.

Defense Analysts Blast Military Exemption to Spending Freeze
It seems that there are these weird creatures in Washington that the Washington Independent has tracked down and interviews... and hopefully tagged for future study. It seems these silly and unserious people don't believe that wars and defense infrastructure are free! Furthermore they believe that this kind of spending counts as spending! Not only that, but they think that the defense budget should be subject to the spending freeze/strategic cuts that every other department is, just because it happens to be the one most rife with fraud, waste, pork, bloat, blork, fraste, and what is generally called a "wide and varied scheme to piss away billions." Thankfully they have been pointed out and named publicly so we can sterilize them.. lest they never breed and spread their filthy ideas about defense appropriations again.

Karzai Sees Taliban Pact as Central to Ending War
Hamid Karzai doesn't want to rain on your parade, but you know Afghan police and military forces? The ones we've been training, arming, and equipping for like eight goddamn years? Well apparently we won't be done training, equipping, and arming them for another 4-5... or 10....or 15 years, if you want Hamid to be really honest about it. Why is it going to take that long? Because apparently there's something about the space/time continuum in Afghanistan where instead of training taking a few months, like it does in America, training takes close to two decades. It has something to to with quantum physics. Just in case you thought we were going to be out of there any time soon.. nope. Your grandkids' grandkids are going to be fighting over there.

Money, money, money, money... mon-ey

When we all get together at out weekly These Bastards Tea Party meetings, what's the one thing we always say about politics? No, not "kill them all" or "More booze." I'm talking about how we all wish politicians and elections were influenced even more by corporate money. Well thankfully the Supreme Court heard our clarion call and read our feces strewn correspondence written with letters and words we cut out of Ladies Home Journal and came to the same conclusion.

Overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The 5-to-4 decision was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said that allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace would corrupt democracy.

Whew, thank God. Politicians already listen way too much to the will of the people at the expense of large corporations. Now, there will finally be some balance and the little people will finally get to stop imposing their tyrannical reign on poor, poor put upon conglomerates. I mean who can't be thrilled to hear lobbyists respond to the ruling with articles full of stuff like this:

The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election.

“We have got a million we can spend advertising for you or against you — whichever one you want,’ ” a lobbyist can tell lawmakers, said Lawrence M. Noble...

Again, whew. Lobbyists just don't have enough access and wield enough power, finally they'll be able to do God's work more effectively.

Thankfully the Supreme Court is there to tell us that the people need to be made into a electoral underclass, roaming the depths undergrounds, eating what crumbs fall to us, and hissing at the light. Money equals speech and since corporations have more money than us, they deserve even more speech than us. Which is good, we were really drowning Big Oil, pharmaceutical giants, and financial companies out. I know we all thought we had too much influence over our elected betters. Well, the Supreme Court, in their infinite wisdom, agrees.

I can hardly wait for the first ad from a Wall Street company that was funded with bailout money. The 2010 midterms are going to be so great. Our suggestion? You know all that tremendous power and influence you wielded over the past few years? Well, remember it fondly. It was the high point in American Democracy. Why no, that isn't incredibly sad.

This looks good

There is some slight consternation over the Senate race in Massachusetts to replace Ted Kennedy's open seat. With the election coming up on the 19th, polls have the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley anywhere from holding a double digit lead to a narrow 1-2 point lead against Republican challenger Scott Brown. Unfortunately for her, there are a few too many polls showing a 1-2 point lead, so everyone is in panic. Mostly because Brown has run on the "I'll filibuster health care, no reform, do nothing, down with the Union!" platform that so encapsulates the modern GOP and unless the House and Senate get off their asses and decide on a reconciliation bill, Brown would be able to join a filibuster of it.

That's troubling to people who would like to see some attempt to make health care more available and cheaper, even if the bill is intensely mediocre. The only recourse left would be for the House to pass the Senate bill ass is, which would be difficult. So, in an attempt to prop Coakley up and make sure she keeps that winning margin and makes sure health care will pass, groups of concerned citizens have rushed to her aid.

With Democrat Martha Coakley in trouble in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, Democrats could lose vote No. 60 for President Obama's health-care bill. In response, an army of lobbyists for drug companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals has teamed up to throw a high-dollar Capitol Hill fundraiser for Coakley next Tuesday night. The invitation is here.

Of the 22 names on the host committee--meaning they raised $10,000 or more for Coakley--17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care clients. Of the other five hosts, one is married to a lobbyist, one was a lobbyist in Pennsylvania, another is a lawyer at a lobbying firm, and another is a corporate CEO. Oh, and of course, there's also the political action commitee for Boston Scientific Corporation.

All the leading drug companies have lobbyists on Coakley's host committee: Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, and more. On the insurance side of things, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health all are represented on the host committee.

Doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart? Health reform hits a hurdle and who rushes to lift it up? Not regular people, not our elected betters, not health advocacy groups or public policy organizations, not health care unions, but big pharma's biggest and baddest lobbyists with fat stacks of cash at the ready. Gee, it's almost as if the health reform bills currently being reconciled include massive billion dollar giveaways and guarantees to pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

So just in case you were wondering whether or not the reconciliation process was going to lead to some better deals or an attempt to cut prescription drug prices so that we can at least pay something closer to what every other country on the earth pays or that the new Democratic Senator from Massachusetts might be as big a fighter for health care as Sweaty Teddy was, think again. Big Pharma is trying to bail Democrats out and give them what they want, so it can get what it wants; free money. Makes you feel good about all that the health reform bill does, doesn't it? Just be happy for the crumbs you got.

You gotta pay to teabag

My fellow teabaggers, I have news on the groups of people who have attempted to steal our moniker in the service of politics; the tea party teabaggers. I know we were all pissed off that they took our testicle related thing and named their movement after it, but we have to put that behind us. They're in trouble and they're not sure what to do.

In the latest sign of rancor in Tea Party circles, a convention billed as an effort to bring together conservative activists from across the country is being attacked by some leading Tea Partiers as inauthentic, too tied to the GOP, and -- at $549 per head -- too expensive for the working Americans the movement aspires to represent.
...
Tea Party Patriots, which helped put together a September rally that drew tens of thousands to Washington, view the confab -- which is being held at Nashville's swank Opryland Gaylord hotel -- as the "usurpation of a grassroots movement," according to Mark Meckler, a leader of the group. "Most people in our movement can't afford anything like that," Meckler told TPMmuckraker, referring to the price tag. "So it's really not aimed at the average grassroots person."
...
"The Tea Party Movement is about to be hijacked," wrote one activist in an online comment recently.

Consternations! When did the tea party movement stop being about not understanding what the hell they were protesting, misspelled placards, and inarticulate insanity. Who could have ever foreseen that a movement that had already been hijacked by corporations in order to promote corporate goals, would further be hijacked in order to suck the last remaining dimes out of the true believers?

But why the exorbitant price to wave teabags around? Well, when you have to pay the giants of reactionary, ill-informed stupidity, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, upwards of $100,000 a piece to come speak, the value of such an endeavor has to be passed on to the peasants. But it's worth it. They're getting the premiere clueless conservative harpy tag team of the age. This is like getting to see the Hart Foundation in their prime taking apart some helpless jobbers on a Saturday morning. Only with more teabags and birth certificate conspiracies and less turnbuckle work. Same amount of pink though.

I just feel sorry for he true believers who are being shut out. I'll just take solace in the fact that they didn't understand that they while they were protesting against invisible tax increases they had received tax cuts, that they didn't understand economics or the bailouts, that they didn't understand health care, they didn't understand the facts surrounding the birth of our current President, and that they didn't understand what the word "teabagging" meant to the rest of the country, so they probably won't fully understand what's going on now. I'll just point out that corporations and leaders can't hijack something they already fully owned, advise them to run any name they might choose for a new splinter group through the urban dictionary, and leave it at that.

Chart of the day

From Jonathan Cohn of Kaiser Health News/the New Republic and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, comes a look at how the "soon to be passed before moving on to another tedious and infuriating conference committee negotiation" Senate health care bill actually affects peoples lives and health care costs. The verdict? Pretty good. An improvement. But not as good as things could have been ... FUCKINGJOEIEBERMANANDTHEFUCKINGWHITEFUCKINGHOUSE!!!!!

Excuse me. So whenever the rage boils up inside you, just look at the chart and say to yourself "Alright, they actually did something of some discernible value." Jsut don't think what could have been passed if anyone in the White House or Democratic leadership had pushed harder (or at all) or what could have been passed if our government was actually committed to considering real ways to reform health care in this country. That way lies madness.

Headline of the day

Vermont Supreme Court To Decide What A Dog's Love Is Worth

Let me help: A dog's love is worth the price of whatever it is you're eating when said dog has stopped plotting against you and befouling your lawn long enough to pretend to like you in a naked attempt to get a piece of what you're eating, or at least a chance to lick the plate.

All things being equal, it's the cost of a moderately priced sandwich.

God bless our stupid system of government

You have to love the logic that comes out of our elected betters in Washington, sometimes. While some Democrats took time out at the beginning of the health care debate to mention what they'd really prefer is single payer health care, they know it's a pip dream. For most other Senators the reaction to single payer was NOFUCKINGNOSOCIALISMSTALINCOMMUNISMNOOOO!

Hell, even people like Joe Lieberman and others were deeply opposed to a public option because they thought it was a trojan horse for single payer. But now when you see one of the proposed amendments that has popular support, you find out that our senators fucking love single payer... just in a way that's completely backwards, overly complex, and makes little logical sense. To wit:

Senate leadership has pledged to allow a vote on re-importing prescription drugs from Canada as an amendment to the health care reform bill...
...
On top of the billions it would save consumers, the re-importation measure introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) would save the federal government $19 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Dorgan's amendment would also bust the deal the White House cut with Big Pharma, which has vowed to kill the re-importation provision in "hand to hand combat."
...
When it does come time to vote on re-importation, however, the White House-PhRMA deal may be a bigger obstacle than Republicans. Dorgan's amendment is also championed by health care linchpin Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who pledged last weekend to work to garner other GOP votes. Republican Sens. Charles Grassley (Iowa), John McCain (Ariz.) and David Vitter (La.) are cosponsoring a bill that would do the same thing.

Yes, not only are Democrats largely supportive of re-importing drugs from the socialist single payer health care wonderland of Canada, so are several Republicans. You follow? SIngle payer is something that would mean the death of freedom here in the US, buuuuuut if Canada wants to have it that's fine and oh, by the way, can we completely piggyback off it in order to lower our crippling medical costs?

You know why Canada has lower drug prices? Because they, like every other country in the world that has lower drug prices than us, negotiate directly with drug companies on prices. So of course we'd want to take the long, convoluted path of letting them do the work and then importing their drugs instead of, say, passing a bill that allows our government to directly negotiate our drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. I mean sure, our country is much larger and with much more people and we'd be able to use our leverage to garner much lower prices than Canada, but doing so would be socialism. No, it's makes better sense to import our drugs from socialists.

Don't you love the logic of the Senate? Now do you understand why nothing good ever happens there? Good, now go pass this amendment, Senators.