Caturday!

Well! Hasn't this been an exciting week!

• Bishop Willard "Mitt" RomneyCare started the week claiming to have created 100,000 jobs while at vulture corporation Bain Capital, but ended it whimpering something about "6,000 jobs."

• After claiming that Romney won the Iowa state caucus, the GOP had to reverse itself and announce that Santorum actually won (Headline: Santorum easily slides ahead?)

• Jon Huntsman (who? Oh, c'mon! You know! The guy who was polling at 1% or lower but the media still insisted he was in the race, even while refusing to let Buddy Roemer or Gary Johnson speak!) finally took his two million dollars worth of dental work and three hot daughters out of the public eye by announcing that he's dropping out of the race.

  In a slap-in-the-face to all the "liberals" who love him (because the Republicans/conservatives hate his motorcycling ass with a passion), he endorsed Bishop Willard. WTF, Jon? Y U treat us so bad, after telling us that schmuck was unelectable? Did the Temple Leaders threaten to take away your planet, or what?

• Rick Purreh finally took pity on a suffering America and took his moronic undereducated dumber-than-the-last-Texas-hick ass back to N*****head Ranch where I guess he's keeping the local coyotes in fear for their lives and asking God "Why? Why me, Lord?" as he weeps incoherently into his bourbon-and-branch.

  Whom did he endorse? None other than "amoral jewelry-debt piglet"* Newt Gingrich, the man with the plan for trinkets from Tiffany's.

• Meanwhile, the Godbag Faction of the Republican Party met last Sunday to anoint Santorum as their Chosen.

  No, not with santorum, you sick little puppies. In any event, those Fuckus on The Fambly turds, those Christianist Bible-bashers and homo-haters and misogynistic morons of Rightwingnuttia decided that their Not-MittRomney candidate would be Rick Santorum. These assholes were totes backing (P)Rick Perry just last week, so, talk about pivoting on a dime here. Faithless sluts.

• Perennial punching bag and media slut-moron Sarah Palin apparently has lost even more of her brain to whatever deadly disease was making her spew word salad.

  After being informed that Newt's second wife, Marianne Gingrich, would be interviewed by ABC right after the South Carolina Republican debates, Babble Spice snorted that this would help Gingrich soar. Puzzled media bobbleheads have finally figured out that she meant Newt's amoral and perverse sexual shenanigans might have left him a little *sore,* or something. **

• Over in Wisconsin, the Recall Walker campaign announced that it had received more (lotsmore) signatures than the minimum required to achieve their aim. Down, down, down goes Snotty Wanker, erstwhile governor of Wisconsin and rent-boy for the Koch Bros.

So, what's the deal, Republicans? Are y'all just tired of being a party, or what? Because this is some pretty weak fucking sauce, here, jes' sayin. I know we here at La Casa de Los Gatos have been saying for a while that President O could just cold phone it in, but, man? Do y'all have to make it so EASY for him? Y'all spent six years telling us he was a weak-ass n*****, a compromiser who caved on everything and apologised to everyone and bowed to foreign leaders and was morally weak. Meanwhile, he's been kicking y'alls asses nine ways to Sunday every day of the week.

I have heard Republicans telling me for six years or more about the fight against terrorism and how y'all are going to follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, and y'all know where he is and will take him out but only if we elect you (WTF? Treason much?). So, do we wanna talk about who might actually have taken bin Laden out? Because, you know, I don't remember that Republican President we had before Mr. Obama, you know, the one that NOBODY seems to want to talk about, I mean, they're *still* talking about Clinton and Carter, but you know, that guy, seems like everyone's done gone and forgotten about him, when he said he didn't care about bin Laden any more, and he disbanded the task force that was supposed to be looking for bin Laden, I don't recall ONE SINGLE Republican saying anything then. Not one word about following him to hell, or they will pay, or none of that shit. No, sir. None a that shit. And now Mr. Obama, he took out that Mr. bin Laden, and he took out that Mr. al-Zawahiri and he took out a whole bunch of these here, what the Republicans was calling "terrorists," round about ten years ago. He took them all out. And what do you suppose our fine Republican friends did about that? Did they say "Thank you, Mr. Obama"? Did they say "Thank you Mr. President, for keeping our country safe"? No, sirree, they did not. They said he illegally invaded a sovereign nation. These people, who had no problem with the US invading the sovereign nation of Iraq, which was NOT involved in any attacks against us, got all upset because Mr. Obama had to send a surgical strike team to take out the man who masterminded the most recent attack on American soil, who was being sheltered on Pakistani territory, by our "allies." Imagine that. Did you think you'd live to see the day when a bunch of "America, right or wrong! America, love it or leave it!" assholes would be more upset about the rights of those who shelter our enemies than about our right to pursue those enemies who kill our citizens?

And when he's not the Caveman-in-chief, he's supposed to be some kind of Superman who is singlehandedly preventing yon teabaggers from getting anything done while shoving unpopular measures down the collective throat of the American people. He's a Marxist, a Stalinist, a Fascist, and an Islamist, he controls the courts (which, nevertheless, stubbornly refuse to rule in his favour on certain issues, why, no one can say). He's using mind control techniques to hypnotize the weak willed sheep who are cowed by his bullish tactics even as they are seduced by the pork he proffers. Geez, no wonder we're obese. Half our metaphors are about spectator sports and the other half about food. Oh, NOEZ!! He's forcing states to take care of sick people, disabled people, poor people, babies and children who might be hungry, starving people, old people! How AWFUL!

What the FUCK kind of world are we living in where these nutbags can turn reality into something resembling sausage, i.e., chopped up, mixed up, and stuffed up a pig's anus? Seriously. There is a styful of pigs on the Republican side of this election. Fortunately, it's thinning. Still, the choices fucking suck.

So it's off to Florida for Mittens and Newt and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, while the rest of America stabs itself in the eye with a fork over and over and over, just to dull the pain.

Happy Caturday, y'all!

* Forever indebted to Kirsten Boyd Johnston of Wonkette for the so-fitting sobriquet of "amoral jewelry-debt piglet" for Newtie.
** Apparently, Bobblehead Barbie was correct, and them South Carolinians just LERVE them some amoral pigfuckery of the adulterous, wife-dumping, intern-humping, vow-breaking Nouveau Papist variety. Newt Gingrich just won South Carolina.

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You did good, Bill ...

Congratulations to former President Bill Clinton for meeting with Kim Jong Il and escorting American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling back to the United States. The Huffington Post reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and staff have been busy negotiating the journalists' release for the past month.

Huffington headline:

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Does Bill Really Want Hillary In?

Photo by Jim Young

Frank Rich in today's NYTimes talks about something that I have been saying to PolCat for weeks: Bill Clinton has not been an asset to his wife's campaign. My thought is that he secretly harbors ambivalent feelings: he wants back in ... but he's not really sure he wants his wife in the top job. See, I don't really believe that either Bill or Hillary are feminists. Is Bill's sexual behavior towards women the act of a feminist? (And is Hillary's behavior toward Bill's accusers really feminist?)

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2008 Elections: Helen Clark and New Zealanders Respond To Senator Clinton

Ward Sutton's Sutton Impact Hillarytoon

We actually went looking for some response to Clinton's recent nasty remark about Helen Clark, the PM of New Zealand. It's bad enough that Clinton is so lacking in insight and self-reflection that she thinks a misogynistic remark about a fellow female politician is "a joke." What's even worse is that the so-called joke is distinctly unfunny, along the lines of "Hillary nutcrackers" that are sold by purveyors of cheap gimmickry.

Worst of all, Clinton can't even get her facts straight. She referred to Ms. Clark as "the former Prime Minister." Ms. Clark, a former lecturer at the University of Auckland, is a well-respected and popular feminist and intellectual. She is currently serving her third term as PM of New Zealand.

Has Clinton apologized for her stupid remark? Not to the best of our knowledge. But then again, this is the same woman who thought it was "funny" and "a joke" to refer to Mahatma Gandhi as the proprietor of a gas station in St. Louis.

Helen Clark, fortunately, has a wry wit and sense of humour. She chose not to be offended by Mrs. Clinton's remarks, stating only, in reference to Mrs. Clinton's husband, the ex-U.S. president:

"As a current prime minister I spoke with him as a former US president in London only two weeks ago," she said.

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton should speak with her own husband more often, so that she does not "misspeak" on the campaign trail. Or perhaps her husband's right, and she's too old at 60 to be anything but forgetful at 11 pm.

As far as New Zealand's Dominion Post is concerned, the joke's on Hillary.
Wonder if she's going to "misspeak" at 3 a.m. as she did at 11 p.m.?

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2008 Elections: Sound Judgment Trumps Experience

When Joe LIEberwhore (I-Me) of Connecticut ran for his state's Democratic Party nomination, he was roundly defeated by challenger Ned Lamont. Whereupon he decided to run as an independent and by dint of some questionable tactics, managed to win the election.

A lot of voters responded to LIEberman's assertion that he had the experience necessary to represent them in Washington. After all, Ned Lamont, although he had all the right qualities and promised to work to end the illegal, immoral war of occupation in Iraq, didn't have the EXPERIENCE.

Well, the Connecticut newspaper, TheDay, decided to endorse LIEberman, based on his EXPERIENCE. They appear to be learning the painful lesson that, just because you've been doing the wrong thing for 20 years or more doesn't mean that you'll apply all that EXPERIENCE to doing the right thing later on down the line.

Rather than building the bridges The Day expected when it endorsed Sen. Lieberman, he appears busy burning bridges with the party of which he is allegedly still a member. Perhaps the senator is positioning himself for a top cabinet post in a McCain presidency. But if the Democrats prevail, and enlarge their control of the Senate, it is hard to imagine this Connecticut senator being welcomed back with open arms.

The only good thing to come out of this is that Joe LIEberman (Asshole-AIPAC) is finally being exposed for the snake that he is. All his hypocritical moralizing about where Clinton's weenie was, was just posturing. Who is more immoral, Clinton for his sexual obsessions? Or LIEberman's for failing to disclose that his wife, Hadassah, was a "senior counsellor" for Big Pharma, whatever that means. Apparently it means you can function as a lobbyist without having to register as one. It should come as no surprise that Big Pharma showed their appreciation for Hadassah Lieberman's "counsel" by pouring money into her husband's campaign. As the Salon article (registration required) says:

Among Hill & Knowlton's clients when Mrs. Lieberman signed on with the firm last year was GlaxoSmithKline, the huge British-based drug company that makes vaccines along with many other drugs. As I noted in July, Sen. Lieberman introduced a bill in April 2005 (the month after his wife joined Hill & Knowlton) that would award billions of dollars in new "incentives" to companies like GlaxoSmithKline to persuade them to make more new vaccines. Under the legislation, known as Bioshield II, the cost to consumers and governments would be astronomical, but for Lieberman and his Republican cosponsors, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the results would be worth every penny. Using the war on terror as their ideological backdrop, the pharma-friendly senators sought to win patent extensions on products that have nothing to do with preparations against terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Which translates to, "once a whore, always a whore." So much for that "morality" for which The Day praised the Senatewhore.

We're facing a major election soon. One that could change this nation. Hopefully, TheDay's saga illustrates the relative importance of experience versus judgment.

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2008 Elections: Character Counts

We might have mentioned that we're noticing more of our friends who were pro-Clinton (mind you, in our little enclave, we're mostly long-time Clinton supporters) are beginning to change their minds and move to Barack Obama. We too have joined the crowd. Mostly because the Clinton campaign has disillusioned us with her character and her husband's.

Here, for example, are comments from Bill Clinton made in Charlotte, North Carolina to members of the press:

"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election between two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interests of the country and people could actually ask themselves who is right on the issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

Two people? There are three running for election. Which two did you mean, Mr. Clinton?

It turns out that Hillary's husband was referring to Hillary and John McCain. So this is another sneaky sidewise assault on the patriotism and bona fides of Barack Obama, designed to feed the worst instincts of the mob. Why? Why sink into the gutter like this? Can't you attack his political positions? Tell us how his health care plan differs from your wife's? What his attitude is towards labour? Taxes? Women's rights? Anything factual?

Here, in contrast, is Senator Obama talking about Senator Clinton to the press:

"Senator Clinton is smart, she is capable and she is tenacious. She would be a vast improvement over the status quo... she’s gotten caught up in the conventional thinking in Washington. When I get that phone call at 3 in the morning, do what a good president should do, which is to get the facts, to talk with your advisers, to gather good intelligence and then to exercise good judgment. Senator Clinton, all too often I think, all too often over the last five years on foreign policy debates, has calibrated her responses based on politics instead of good judgment. That’s what happened on Iraq.

Now, here’s the condensed version of the difference on both domestic and foreign policy. It’s a question of leadership. I believe that it’s not enough just to change political parties. We have to change the culture, and part of changing the culture is recognizing that the special interests, the lobbyists, the insurance companies, the banks, the drug companies, HMO’s, they have come to dictate the agenda in Washington. The only way you break out of that so that ordinary people’s voices are heard is if you stop taking money from PACs and lobbyists like I have- she still does- and you recognize that they’re a problem- she doesn’t.

If you believe in transparency and accountability, which is why I passed the toughest ethics reform legislation since Watergate last year- this is not an issue she’s ever worked on because she doesn’t think it’s a priority- I passed laws to post on the internet a searchable database of every dollar of federal spending out there. Your tax money will continue to be wasted until you know when a "Bridge to Nowhere" is being built. She doesn’t believe in transparency and hasn’t even released her earmarks just like she hasn’t released her income tax returns. She doesn’t believe, I think, in bottom-up democracy, and if you don’t believe in that, then you’re not going to change Washington. You’ll tinker around the edges, but you’re not going to bring about the kind of changes the American people are desperate for. That’s why you should vote for Barack Obama."

This is what we want to hear. He's respectful towards Senator Clinton, but points out how he would be better for the job.

If he weren't respectful, we'd give up on him as a misogynistic bastard of an opportunistic politician. But he has handled the Ferraro issue and Clinton's character attacks so well and with such dignity that we are moving closer into his camp with each passing day.

Character counts, Senator Clinton, and President Clinton. For you to say what you're saying is unacceptable. Either tell us why Senator Clinton would be a better match for the job, or step down now. Personally, we're sick of this vicious bullshit. It doesn't sit well with us and we're sensing that it doesn't sit well with lots of other people too, Senator Clinton &mdash most importantly, the Party faithful and those apolitical types who rallied to support you when the rightwing smear machine funded by Mellon Scaife was all over you. If you're no different than them, why the hell should we support you?

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2008 Elections: Barack Obama Speaks!

OK, Hillary Clinton forced us away from our support for her. We struggled throughout to remain neutral in this election struggle, in large part because of our long history of support for Hillary and her husband.

So although Bri lent us his copy of Dreams From My Father, we put off reading it for months, not wanting to find out more about candidate Barack Obama. Then we read it, and were impressed with the clarity of Obama's thinking, and his political positions.

Then Bri lent us his copy of The Audacity of Hope. We put off reading that because we found Obama so fascinating. And we didn't want to vote for a fascinating outlier of a candidate who wouldn't have a prayer against Hillary Clinton, the inevitable candidate, or John Edwards, whose political positions we largely agree with. We chose to go with a symbolic candidate, Dennis Kucinich, whose positions are the closest to our own of all the available candidates. When Kucinich bowed out, we naturally opted for Edwards. Then Edwards bowed out, and we were forced to make a choice.

We didn't know much about Obama. We had deliberately chosen not to know. But in order to come to a decision, we needed to know something.

We finally read his book. Once again, we were blown away. But somebody's book is, of course, going to show them in the best possible light. No one's going to write a book that makes them look like a schlump.

Then came Bill Clinton's unfortunate remarks on the campaign trail. They did not make us think worse of Obama, but they certainly made us take a hard look at Bill. And, by extension, at his wife. We were offended, but not enough to switch our support openly to either candidate.

Since then, Clinton has threatened to sue the Texas Democratic party; insisted on seating the delegates of Florida and Michigan, even though she had signed a pledge not to campaign in either state, but broke her promise and failed to take her name off the ballot and campaigned anyway; accused Obama of plagiarizing when he borrowed parts of his close friend Deval Patrick's excellent speech &mdash with permission; and implied that those Democrats, liberals, and left-leaning voters who did not want to vote for her should throw their votes to senile warmonger John McCain.

Still we resisted finding out about Obama, but we were starting to feel strongly that Clinton's approach was not to build herself up as the best candidate, but to tear down the other Democrat seeking the nomination. We really don't care much about plagiarism in politicians (it would be different if Obama were making money off his plagiarism like a certain White House appointee of ill-fame). We happen to think voting to support a very unpopular war is a much bigger issue.

Then Geraldine Ferraro, another person we had long admired, made an incredibly divisive, unpleasant, racist attack against Obama and against the people who were supporting him. We can mostly accept that politicians will attack each other, although we were deeply disappointed in the Clintons' descent into the worst gutter politics. But to attack other Democrats, other voters, for supporting the other candidate &mdash coming on top of all the other unpleasantness &mdash was more than we could stomach.

We had already heard infuriating comments from various branches of NOW across the country telling women that they were stupid or disloyal for finding Senator Obama's message &mdash not his looks, or his clothes, but his political message &mdash more attractive than Senator Clinton's.

Today we heard Barack Obama speak. Here, we offer you the YouTube video of his speech.



Senator Obama has not descended to the level of the Clinton machine, but that's beside the point. In this speech, Obama shows why he deserves to be our nominee and our president. His clarity, lucidity, and understanding of the issues are no less than his great empathy. This man has the seeds of greatness in him.

Today, we celebrate not the negative issue of being pushed away by Hillary Clinton; but the very positive issue of resonating with Barack Obama.

Everything he is saying is something we strongly support. Not this time, he says. Not this time, we won't be distracted by sex scandals, or race scandals, or gender issues. We can work together, despite all our differences. Because only by working together can we overcome the horrendous mess that the country is now in.

Barack Obama inspires us to reclaim our dreams and hopes for this nation. We can, once again, rise to the heights we were meant to achieve. We can live up to the words of the Declaration, we can form a more perfect union, and believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Yes. We. Can.

Addendum: We have, since the attack dogs began attacking, started researching Senator Obama's positions on various issues. There is no doubt in our mind which candidate's position is closer to ours. We're not interested in a cult of personality or adoration of a politician. Politicians are elected to do the will of the people. We believe that Barack Obama's greatness lies in his willingness to listen to ordinary people.

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Former President Bill Clinton, quit awready!

A couple of funny blogs

From ScrappleFace:

...Associates of former President Bill Clinton privately tell reporters they would not be surprised if he announced, as early as this week, that he’s dropping his White House bid...

To read the whole thing, go here.

Then there's The Zoo via The Borowitz Report:

Hillary Sends Bill on Campaign Trip to Antarctica Will Remain There Until Convention, Aides Confirm

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, on a “special campaign trip” to Antarctica that could last “six or seven months,” Clinton aides confirmed today.

“From here on in, Bill is going to be our man in Antarctica,” said top Clinton strategist Mark Penn. “We have sent him down there with enough food and firewood to last until the Democratic convention this summer.”

To read it all, go here.

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