The Hungry Boy in the Back

I was able to pull one quote out of the post-debate interview with Fred Thompson, but at that point, quickly became entranced by the drama that had been unfolding in the background. Yes, I know I'm going to hell.



I just really hope that poor kid had some cake at home.

Notes on the FOX News Republican South Carolina Debate

Ugh, *gasp*, ...burnout - 2 more Republican Debates, 3 more Democratic Debates before the conventions. This is getting tired.

So for those of you who don't want to dig down into the bullet points, here's the short short version: McCain drones racist, Thompson whips Huckabee, Huckabee says "gates of hell," Romney can't say "Ahmadinejad," everybody laughs at Ron Paul, no one will acknowledge what a benchmark in Iraq is, and the flashy background lights and Wendell Goler's tie distracted viewers from all of it.

Oh, and Ronald Reagan.



...and here's those witty bullet points you all so love:

• While I'm glad to see that they haven't shut out Ron Paul for good, I'm disturbed by the recent reports of decades of racist newsletters published under his name.


• The anti-Huckabee ad never showed. :(


• McCain's tone is so droning that he rendered 30% of the FOX audience comatose and paramedics lined up stage left should he slip into a coma himself.


• Note to Giuliani: "oversuing" is not a word or a reality - the only people who want tort reform are the medical insurance companies and the tools who are wrapped around their various appendages.


• Thompson with the big guns, goes down the line on why Huckabee's version of the Reagan Coalition is the policy of the Democratic Party. Ooh, snap. Too bad he's about 4 months too late in gaining a pulse.


• Huckabee on Iran pseudo-scuffle: The enemy should set their sites on the American ship, then know that the next thing they will see "will be the gates of Hell." Did you really just...yes you did.


• Distractions - Stop the twinkle lights in the background and tell Wendell Goler to tone down the Zebra Stripe Gum tie. I'm trying to watch a debate, not slip into an epileptic fit. Granted, with McCain's monotone, it was one of the few things keeping me conscious.


• Ron Paul points out the Bush Administration's saber-rattling, how they were disappointed in the NIE, and how we need to be way careful before pushing the Iran Go button. Hume makes snide comment about direct question he had asked another candidate and everyone has a laugh at Ron Paul. Ron Paul is apparently not in the Ronald Reagan Club.


• Note to Romney: If you want to be The Leader of the Free World, you might want to practice the names of other leaders in the world, like "Ahmadinejad."


• Note to McCain as old-fashioned sexist: it's not 1953 anymore. Time appoints a "Person of the Year," not "Man of the Year."


• Note McCain as new-world racist: Saying you don't want to trade with Al Qaeda because they only want to trade burqas, and don't want to travel with them because they only buy one-way tickets might be seen as inflammatory to anyone with a sense for such things. Ass.


• McCain has "the greatest respect and affection for" Giuliani. Did you mean "admiration" or can we look forward to a the McCain/Giuliani version of Madonna/Britney. Pop culture nuance note: McCain will also French kiss Thompson; no one will remember.


• Carl Cameron to Ron Paul: "Electability...do you have any?" Carl Cameron is a dick.


• Nitpicking Huckabee on referencing Hispanics as "some of the ones." Some might see that as dehumanizing minorities. Non-whites are people too.


• Thompson's post interview summed up the overall view of how the Iraq Surge is a winner: "The only benchmark is success." I would've gone with the 9/18 benchmarks; at least there you get 50%.

So another debate dies and we breathe deeply before January 15th's Democratic debate, if it's aired. I guess I'll figure that out by then. Cheers!

Republican Debate, Huckabee Gets Spanked

Huckabee will be a part of the Republican debate tonight, but he'll have to contend with the fact that this scorcher will be viewed during a break:



Nice.

Limbaugh, Liberals, Race, and Ron Paul

Today on his show, that preternaturally epic bag of douche, Rush Limbaugh, was in a tizzy. He attempted to veil it, but his shouts that something happened, he didn't know what, but Democrats better find out what it was rang only of "The polls said Hillary wouldn't win! Kryptonite! Somebody whine with me!" And his manhood, it shrunk - two more sizes - that day.

Rush then went on to explain to his attentive sheep that the liberals are horribly disorganized and completely terrified that there might actually be a "woman" or "black" nominated for the presidency. Why would Rush say such a thing? According to the El-Rusho, Conservatives are the inclusive folks, and us Liberals are the real closet racists and sexists. And according to him, we're scared as hell that a woman or black might get the nomination. Incidentally, we also don't believe that elections are about issues, but about posturing and marketing. And we killed Baby Jesus (no, he didn't say that).

Mr. Limbaugh then vaulted into Hillary getting teary-eyed, how calculated it was, and the Oprahization of the country, a term he apparently coined along with every other pop culture reference.

But the segue here departs from the tirades of the over-medicated conservative medium to the issue of race and how it applies to Ron Paul, the net-roots juggernaut candidate of the Republican Party. As James Kirchick of The New Republic states, "If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you."

Well, he does want to end the illegal war against Iraq...

But before Ron Paul entered the world of politics, he published many, many newsletters, newsletters that "were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him."

Who wants excerpts?

• On the LA Riots: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began."


• "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks."


• 1992 Bulls Celebration: "blacks poured into the streets of Chicago in celebration. How to celebrate? How else? They broke the windows of stores to loot."


• On MLK Day: "What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day."


• "One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that 'Welfaria,' 'Zooville,' 'Rapetown,' 'Dirtburg,' and 'Lazyopolis' were better alternatives."

I think that's enough.

Please read the article for the rest of the foul story. And never again equate Ron Paul with the ideals of Dennis Kucinich or anyone else who actually has the welfare of all people in America in their heart.

FreeCreditReport.com: Fuck You

Aside from the obvious Pastafarian upside, here's the spot:



The bepirated teller of this sad, catchy tale explains that he had his ID stolen. Said misfortune has somehow caused him to forgo his chosen vocation in order to take up waiting tables at some Long-John's-Lobster-esque joint. However, the decrepit crooner relates, if he had gone to FreeCreditReport.com (and apparently enrolled in the Triple Advantage version of the program which runs $15/mo), he would've "seen it coming like an atom bomb."

The pirate job, while snazzy, doesn't relate to ID theft. Is this an extra job? Why? If you shred your important documents, have a reasonable firewall, and aren't pissing your information all over the goddamned internets, ID theft is relatively rare. Hell, LifeLock is only $10/mo and that stops a life hack cold. This commercial doesn't make sense!

Round 2:



Here we have the same, unfortunate schlep, this time he has married his "dream girl," but did not know her credit was bad before going through with the nuptials. He then states that if he had gone to the aforementioned website and apparently pulled divining rods out of his ass (because you check your credit there, not someone else's), he would have seen that she had bad credit, kicked the woman with whom he has chosen to spend his life's skanky ass to the curb, and now be living in some masturbatory fantasy world where a single-income guy who can't afford to buy a house with the aid of his wife's income could somehow afford not only a house, but a dog as well, if that interest rate was just a couple points lower. Poor son of a bitch is now doublefucked, as you can see his accursed pirate hat in the foreground. This commercial doesn't make any fucking sense either!

So why all the goddamning and fucking? I listen to television all day - mostly Headline News. One of these two commercials appears repeatedly during the day on most stations (Time Warner buy, no doubt) to the point not just where it's not just "stuck in my head," but I dream these songs and hear them vividly playing upon waking. And my daughter sings them.

"Well, Ricky, you're just giving in to the what the advertisers want you to do," you say.

No shit. I love you all, but in my viral-induced misery, I sneeze on you. Share my hell.

Glenn Beck Had Ass Surgery

I posted Glenn's YouTube video Sunday and I've listened to the radio show (now I'm subscribed to Beck and Hannity...sheesh) and watched the Headline News spot, which both covered roughly the same items:

• "Ass surgery" gone "awry"


• Woke up under anesthesia


• Cocktail of Morphine, Phentanol, Toradol, Percocet, Synthetic Morphine Drip for pain


• While some good doctors/nurses, he was often treated poorly, ignored, and looked at as nothing more than a number


• "Don't talk to me about health care, don't talk to me about HMO's" until you can talk about compassion, until folks involved in health care start seeing people as human beings


• Med cocktail brought darkness, drained hope, caused hallucinations of grotesque death and children having their faces chewed off by dogs


• On his TV show, discussed putting the Care back in healthcare, how insurance-based systems are big part of problem, and about the over-medication of Americans: better living through pharmaceuticals

I don't wish this experience on any human being and do feel compassion for Glenn Beck. Unfortunately, it usually takes a negative experience - although not nearly as horrid as this one - to open our eyes to the sad state of American health care.

The "I hate Michael Moore and America's teh bestest" argument does not stand and it shouldn't be such a partisan issue; all Americans suffer because the insurance companies in charge of us receiving health care make money by not allowing us to get health care. It is broken. For everyone.

And if you'd like to pull this into our current election process, Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate who thinks insurance companies should not be in charge of our health care. If he does not win, we need to make it clear to whomever does that insurance company-run, profit-based health care is not an option.

If they don't care about a nationally-syndicated radio and television host, do you really think they give a shit about you?

Update Note: ABC's Good Morning America had Glenn on this morning where he shared his story again, this time with his wife (video at link). But I couldn't help notice the banner posted above the story:



Yes, that's Pfizer's logo on the right. Today, Glenn Beck's medical and pharmaceutical horror story was sponsored by a keystone of the very industry that caused it.

Brave New Films in New Hampshire

If you're tired of the mass media telling us how to think about the elections and the results of the elections, give Brave New Films Live Online Coverage a try. They're currently taking live suggestions and comments about what they should discuss/address for the evening. Current lineup is as follows:

7:10: Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
7:40: Matthew Yglesias, The Atlantic
7:50: Robin Abcarian, L.A. Times
8:00: Billy Wimsatt, League of Young Voters
8:10: Rachel Sklar, The Huffington Post
8:20: Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake
8:30: Jim Dean, Democracy For America
8:40: Steve Clemons, The Washington Note
9:00: Lane Hudson, News for the Left
9:10: Isaiah Poole, TomPaine.com
9:40: James Rucker, Color of Change
10:00: Liza Sabater, Culture Kitchen
10:10: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters

Help support independent media and not, like I just heard on Headline News, extrapolation of New Hampshire Primary results based on how Dixville Notch, NH - with 17 voters - fared. FOX News too:

McCain with 4 votes, Mitt Romney with 2 votes, Rudy Giuliani with 1 vote. Those were the only Republican votes cast.

On the Democratic side, Obama won a landslide 7 votes compared with 2 for John Edwards, one for Bill Richardson and none for Hillary Clinton.

That's right: "a landslide 7 votes." WTF?

Of course, I'll be suckling from the teat of the mass media because someone's got to let you know the outrages that seep from their assuming, power-addled minds. Remember to be discerning while listening, and to decode while digesting.

Kucinich in New Hampshire

Davis Fleetwood reporting.

Glenn Beck on Monday

As I posted Friday, Glenn Beck's had a bad experience with American Medicine, and he's hinting at naming names and spouting compassion for the Average Joe.

I will listen. I will watch. I will report.

Glenn Beck can be heard on the radio at 9am Monday morning on local stations and seen on CNN's Headline News Monday night at 7pm EST.