Pour Some Four Loko Out (If It's Still Legal In Your State) For Alan Grayson

I know I already gave a sort of epithet for soon-to-be-out-of-office Rep. Grayson but I have to add this clip from tonight's installment of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell (absent O'Donnell himself for some reason), in which Grayson drops an unthinkable expletive for an American politician: CLASS WARFARE!!!!!!! He drops the CW bomb while talking about the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich that the Republicans in Congress are obstinately for in spite of the fact that the only way that they can justify it is in terms of "trickle-down economics," which is, of course, a theory almost universally panned by economists, with decades of history and a collapsed world economy to discredit it empirically. The whole segment is pretty good (particularly the bit in which the other Congressman on for the segment cites the hypocrisy of an incoming Republican Congressman who ran on the repeal of healthcare who is petitioning to have HIS GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE kick in now, instead of when he is sworn in), but if you want to skip to the part I'm talking about it starts right after the 7:30 mark.

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On a similar note...

Wisconsin man votes against Palin TV dance... with shotgun

(AFP) – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A rural Wisconsin man this week joined a minority of viewers who opposed Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol's advance to the finals of a hit US dance show -- by shooting his TV with a shotgun.

Steven Cowan, a 57-year-old with a history of mental illness, was arrested Tuesday morning after a 15-hour standoff with police called to the scene by his wife, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The couple had been sitting in their living room watching "Dancing with the Stars" Monday night when Palin appeared on stage.

"The (expletive) politics," Cowan yelled, before racing upstairs. His wife later told authorities that he didn't think Palin was much of a dancer, the daily said, citing the official complaint.

A beet-red Cowan came back down 20 minutes later, loaded a single-barrel shotgun and blew away the TV. He then demanded his wife retrieve two pistols that had been taken away from him for safety reasons.

Cowan had in the past taken medication for bipolar disorder and had been out drinking earlier that evening, the paper said, citing the complaint.

His wife, fearing he would turn the gun on her, fled and called the police, who arrived with hostage negotiators and a dog team, the daily said.

Cowan, who has no previous criminal record, was charged with "recklessly endangering safety" and the use of a weapon, according to court documents.

Bristol has advanced to the finals by winning over the public despite receiving poor marks on her dancing ability from the show's judges.

That has led to allegations by some viewers that the conservative Tea Party movement that glorifies her mother is behind her rise on the popular televised contest, where celebrities partner with professional dancers.

Bristol's success comes as her mother, the former governor of Alaska, solidifies her own life in the spotlight with a reality show launched at the weekend, fueling speculation about her 2012 White House plans.

The elder Palin burst onto the national stage in 2008 when Republican presidential nominee John McCain picked her to be his running mate.

Bristol Palin has a nearly two-year-old son with her on-off boyfriend Levi Johnston. Her unplanned pregnancy made her America's most famous teenage mother during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Poison For Your Eyes and Ears

Police said Siebenmorgen assaulted a man at a Milwaukie TriMet bus mall on Oct. 21 and minutes later was spotted jumping on the hood of a parked car with a driver inside.

Less than an hour later, police say Siebenmorgen began throwing rocks at a woman near Milwaukie Market Place on Oak Street. That woman suffered minor injuries.

Stewart on Maddow

Jon Stewart did a nearly 50 minute interview with Rachel Maddow tonight, which he claims he wanted to do to discuss some of the criticisms of the rally, with at least the implication being that he wanted to clear his name a bit and clarify what it was really about as opposed to how it was perceived. What really happened, in my opinion, was that he made himself look even more foolish than at the rally. I'll embed it below, but first list a very few thoughts on things that jumped out to me (so just go down to the video if you don't care).

- Stewart takes aim at some of the charges leveled by Bill Maher, both directly and indirectly. His response that really jumped out and was the most absurd was concerning the "claim" that George W. Bush is a war criminal. He accepts the charge as "technically" true, but then goes on a very misguided polemic about why it is somehow not worth asserting because it is a "conversation stopper." His logic here is that the moment that you assert this fact to someone on the right, they will stop taking you seriously, pigeon-hole you as an extremist, etc.. This is ridiculous on a number of levels, the most obvious being that just because a truth isn't popular doesn't mean it is any less deserving of attention. In fact, the better argument would be that it is more deserving of attention. Secondly, and even more absurdly, he goes on to compare Bush to a number of of other war criminals, particularly Saddam Hussein, and draws the conclusion that, well, sure, Bush may be a war criminal, but he isn't as bad as those other war criminals. As if that excuses his war crimes! This is absolutely heinous. War crimes are not judged against other war crimes, they are judged against the law. This comes back to exactly what Maher was talking about when he discussed Republicans staking out a position that is further and further to the right, and then demanding Democrats to meet them in the middle. Only now we're talking about acts that even the United States recognizes as "crimes against humanity." Finally, I would add that the illegal wars perpetrated by the Bush administration, now carried out by the Obama administration, made life a lot worse for a lot more people in the Middle East (and certainly in the US) than Saddam Hussein did, and in a remarkably shorter time period.

- You can see Maddow getting progressively more frustrated with Stewart throughout the interview, and Stewart remaining remarkably smug throughout. The claim that Maddow seemed most frustrated about, and rightfully so, is Stewart's claim that he has repeated ad nauseum over the last decade that he somehow isn't a member of the media, and that people don't take him all that seriously. Maddow on multiple occasions pressures him on what the difference is between their two shows, and as a response Stewart only concocts vague metaphors that entail him throwing things at people in the political arena (Restoring sanity indeed!).

- The one point Stewart makes well is that the discordancy should not be between Democrats and Republicans, but rather between, as he puts it, "corruption and non-corruption", or, to put it a bit more legibly, the have's and the have not's (though I don't think that that is how he would ever put it).

BROCIALISM

hey that bill maher quote down there is pretty spot on, reading his words and not having to see his face go smugasfuck after every sentence is a step in the right direction for him

Some Clever Title

I have very mixed feelings on Bill Maher, but most of them are good. The only times that they are bad is when he says things like he is "alarmed" at the large number of people named Mohammed in Western society, and then tries to cover up the racism inherent in his words by claiming to be "saying that as an atheist." But then again he does say a lot of good things which make his show worth watching every week, if you get HBO. Here is a sample I particularly liked from last weeks show, concerning the "Rally to Restore Sanity":

"Now, with all due respect to my friends Jon and Stephen, it seems to me that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and reasonable. And not try to pretend that the insanity is equally distributed in both parties.

"Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts. The other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake; that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right; that unions are just as powerful as corporations; that reverse-racism is just as damaging as racism."

"When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is dominated by people on the right who believe Obama is a socialist and people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But, I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama is a socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin, all of them. It's now official Republican dogma. Like tax cuts pay for themselves, and gay men just haven't met the right woman.

"As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded, but thinking Bush is a war criminal, that's the opinion of General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib.

You see, Republicans keep staking out a position that is further and further to the right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which is now not the middle anymore. That's the reason healthcare reform is so watered down. It's Bob Dole's plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade. It was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now, the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax."

"Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King spoke on that mall in the capitol, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those Southern sheriff's with the fire hoses and the German Shepherds, they have a point, too!" No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare."

Also, for the illiterate, here's Glenn Greenwald explaining to Lawrence O'Donnell why moving to the right is not a blueprint for success for Democrats: