Did Governor Walker Get Punked?

Only a few short years after Sarah Palin got punked by a couple of radio hosts in Montreal, it appears that Governor Walker was next on the list. In 2008, Sarah Palin took a phone call she thought was France’s Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, where she gushed and tried to sound intelligent. Little did she know, she was live on the air in Montreal with radio comedy duo “The Master Avengers”.

More than willing to follow in Palin’s footsteps, Mother Jones is publishing a telephone conversation between a guy identifying himself as right-wing Richie Rich financier “David Koch” who calls Governor Walker in Madison. Even while losing support from other Republican Governors throughout the country, Walker is more than willing to noodle around great ideas on his strategy to break the protests outside of his office. Amid rumors that the Capitol Police in Madison have begun to shut down wi-fi access in the capitol to prevent protesters (and consequently everybody else) access to left-wing websites, Walker brags about laying off as many state employees as quickly as he can.

Other bragging points include:

• That statehouse GOPers were plotting to hold Democratic senators’ pay until they returned to vote on the controversial union-busting bill.

• That Walker was looking to nail Dems on ethics violations if they took meals or lodging from union supporters.

• That he’d take “Koch” up on this offer: “[O]nce you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.”

Radix malorum est cupiditas, 1 Timothy 6:10

More on that “Liberal Press” for a minute?

One would expect a person like Rush Limbaugh, who went on his show two days after the election, declair an “Obama Recession”. Why should anybody be surprised that Newsweek would be so ready to follow suit?

President Johnson, a Democrat, refused to end the Viet Nam War – and so it was noted as Johnson’s Veit Nam. It was under Nixon that the war was winding down.

But that’s not what we have here. It isn’t “Bush’s Viet Nam”, it’s Obama’s. Of course! Why didn’t we think of that before?!

From the original piece:

True, there are important differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam. The Taliban is not as powerful or unified a foe as the Viet Cong. On the other hand, Vietnam did not pose a direct national-security threat; even believers in the “domino theory” did not expect to see the Viet Cong fighting in San Francisco. By contrast, while not Taliban themselves, terrorists who trained in Afghanistan did attack New York and Washington in 2001. Afghanistan has always been seen as the right and necessary war to fight—unlike, for many, Iraq. Conceivably, Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the successful surge in Iraq and now, as the head of Central Command in charge of the fight in Afghanistan, could pull off another miraculous transformation.

Privately, Petraeus is said to reject comparisons with Vietnam; he distrusts “history by analogy” as an excuse not to come to grips with the intricacies of Afghanistan itself. But there is this stark similarity: in Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, we may now be facing a situation where we can win every battle and still not win the war—at least not within a time frame and at a cost that is acceptable to the American people.

Since we are all now aware of the differences, we’ll ignore them and move on to the similarities.

To be sure, even 60,000 troops is a long way from the half million American soldiers sent to Vietnam at the war’s peak; the 642 U.S. deaths sustained so far pale in comparison to the 58,000 lost in Vietnam. Still, consider this: that’s a higher death toll than after the first nine years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. And what is troubling is that no one in the outgoing or incoming administration has been able to say what the additional troops are for, except as a kind of tourniquet to staunch the bleeding while someone comes up with a strategy that has a chance of working. The most uncomfortable question is whether any strategy will work at this point.

I remember subscribing to Newsweek magazine about eleven years ago, maybe more than that. My husband partner at the time was upset when he found out. I signed up for the subscription in order to help some high school kid to go Europe. My husband partner said; “Time and Newsweek are published by the most conservative editorial boards in print today!” I was embarrassed and ashamed. I felt that I was duped with a high school student used as a proxy. For the next twelve months, without fail, I received my current copy of Newsweek in the US Post. It laid on the kitchen table, on the kitchen counter – dejected and ignored. Secretly however, I read it, and I scoured each issue: Looking for that “conservative voice” inside.

Needless to say, it wasn’t that hard to discover. He was right: Newsweek is a piece of shit magazine that’s nothing short of a propaganda tool for the GOP.

Only today, they’re a lot farther out of the closet today than they were back then. Today; they’ll happily paste a Bush War onto the Democratic Party right on out there on the front page.  It’s a pleasure to see Newsweek compete with a drug addict like Rush Limbaugh for the top spot in the “Obama Smear Machine”.

Same sex marriage equality in Columbia, South America

Oh the irony: The Cocain Capitol of the Planet gives same-sex marriage equality while Californian’s watch their own marriage rights burn to the ground:

Gay and lesbian couples in Colombia are entitled to the same rights as straight couples in common-law marriages, the country’s Constitutional Court ruled yesterday.

In April 2008 gay rights group Colombia Diversa, the Centre for Law, Justice and Society (Dejusticia) and the Group of Public Interest Law at the University of the Andes, filed a lawsuit for equal rights for unmarried heterosexual and same-sex partners.

The court’s ruling means that civil and political rights such as nationality, residency, housing protection and state benefits will now be granted to same-sex partners.

Homosexuality in Columbia was decriminalized in the 80’s, and hate-crimes against GLBT people in this predominantly Roman-Catholic country of 45 million people was obviously out of control. It’s the fact that the GLBT people of Columbia, South America enjoy more rights than my “husband” and I enjoy here in Minnesota is nothing short of outrageous.

Columbians have more rights than we have here in the US!?

If you’re interested, the Republican Party is struggling to fight a same-sex marriage act going on in the Great State of Maine. It’s only interesting if you’re a lobster fanatic or if you’re a Stephen King junkie.

Found in President Obama’s Oval Office trash-can

From the Huffington Post:

Bush's Private Note to Obama

It’s what I would expect from a C Average student from Yale, don’t you think?

Barbara Bush will be the only person on the planet who will tell you that George W was “special”. The rest of the Planet? …Not so much!

Camp Coleman: It’s an excercize in Stupidity

Aww…Come on! That was a great title! And, I’m right: Camp Coleman is an exercize in stupidity!

Consider just last December 31, in a hurry to get rid of ballots, Camp Coleman began driving around Minnesota to inform the voting public who’s ballots wouldn’t be counted.

Shirley Graham was astonished to learn that a lawyer from Norm Coleman’s campaign on Tuesday blocked her absentee ballot from being added to the U.S. Senate recount.

Awww – – Poor Ms. Graham! I’m betting Coleman’s Volkswagon full of clowns informed her by using a lot of polite words like “Ma’am”, and “Please”… and “Buttress“. Especially when they were informed by Ms. Graham that she’s an election judge!

“I’m an election judge,” said Graham, of Duluth. “I expected to be the last person whose ballot wouldn’t be counted.”

At that point, I’m guess Coleman’s band of merry Dunces dropped their jaws on the floor and said slowly: “Duuuuuuuuuh”.

You see, Ms. Graham’s ballot was signed by a witness who dated their signature that didn’t match the date Ms. Graham dated her own signature. In other words, I wrote this blog on January 27, 2009, oops, I forgot – today is the 28th! “Duuuuuuuuuuh.”

So, Coleman threw the ballot out. “Too bad! Your vote didn’t count! You are…. The MISSING LINK! Good bye!” and with that, Coleman’s 198 clowns packed into the Coleman Clown Car and the Beetle whizzed away with a HONK! HONK! before turning the bend.

The last two sentences of the article:

“I want to see my ballot,” said Graham, who added that she’d consider going to court, if she must, to get her vote counted.

A final irony: She voted for Coleman.

See what I mean? In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: “What a maroon.”

Today, the exercise continues because now – those same clowns are out of the Beetle and in our courtroom and wasting our Minnesota tax payer’s money.

Now, three and a half-weeks later, they’re trying to find people who’s ballots were thrown out and hoping for sympathy from the judges and the rest of us. They’ve promised that they’re not cherry-picking who they’re finding to be a witness to this case based on party affiliation! No matter who they find, they were NOT going to ask if the poor Minnesota voter was a Republican, Democrat or even an Independent! Scouts Honor! Honest to John! Stick a needle in their eye!

The idea is to make us all believe that our election judges (like Ms. Shirley Graham) were far too incompetent to count ballots and had no right to throw out in the first place! It’ll give credibility that this whole entire voting “thing” was conducted deep in the hull of a Spanish Galleon filled with thieves, pirates and whores victimizing the voting public. And here, Camp Coleman’s Clowns call their next witness – Peter DeMuth:

The Coleman team is continuing to call as witnesses some aggrieved voters to complain that their ballot was wrongly rejected … One of them was college student Peter DeMuth…

Upon cross-examination by Franken attorney Kevin Hamilton, DeMuth said he was contacted by the Republican Party and told about the problem. “They asked me if I knew my absentee ballot had been rejected. I said no,” said DeMuth. “They asked me if I was a supporter of Norm Coleman, and I said yes, and they proceeded to ask me if I would like to go further.”

Let’s think about this for a moment: Over the last several days, the Coleman camp has said repeatedly that they are not cherry-picking who they’re helping out, that they don’t know who the people they’re advocating for actually supported, and for all they know they’re helping out Franken-voters.

Hrmmm… Perhaps they should consider asking Shirley Graham to come on down and ask why Coleman wouldn’t count her vote!!

Idiots! Blithering Idiots!! I just ran out of fingers and toes counting the ways… But I’m going to hold up my middle fingers on both hands and let Coleman’s Clowns know I’m counting on two points where they’ve proven themselves to be northing short of an excercize in Stupidity.

Bush, The Unloved

Aww… This is sad news!

But wafting around Bush on Tuesday were sights and sounds that his tenure, which began with controversy eight years ago, had ended in controversy as well.

Just as demonstrators protested his court-mediated victory in 2000, so the disenchanted lined Avenue on Tuesday to express dismay with the way the presidency turned out.

As he drove with Obama to Capitol Hill, he passed protesters carrying signs reading “Arrest Bush.” When Bush made his entrance onto the grandstand, the crowd below began singing, “Hey, hey, hey — good-bye.” One man waved his shoe.

And when Bush’s helicopter lifted off from the Capitol, cheers rose from the throng below.

LOL! One dude waved his shoe… LOL! It was 15 degrees in Washington DC at that time, but some dude took the time-out to whip out a shoe and threaten Bush with it.

The last time I had that many laughs was reading the story about that ambulance driver right after Hurricane Katrina blew the snot out of everybody in New Orleans and everything within a 50 mile area. DICK Cheney was trying to look important giving an interview and the guy from behind the camera lens was shouting “Go Fuck yourself Cheney!” and the journalist standing nearby immediately asked: “Do you get a lot of that Mr. Vice President?”!

LOL! The dude threatens Bush with a shoe. I’m going to be laughing about that all day today. LOL! Bush, The Unloved. LOL! Bush is in Texas, America’s “Shit Hole State” and all he has is Laura to convince that he’s wonderful. LOL!

Syanara muthafucka!! …with a shoe!!

News Flash! A Democrat found his spine! News Flash!

Rut-roh Scooby! It would appear that Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) has found his spine! In an unprecedented move on behalf of any Democrat, Congressman Conyers decided to write a spiffy little piece in the Washington Post today calling an investigation into the Bush Administration!

I know! I know! It’s incredible, don’t you think!! By the way – that thud you just heard was your jaw hitting the floor.  I heard it all the way over here, too!  It was more like a “thump” than it was a “thud”, don’t you think?

This week, I released “Reining in the Imperial Presidency,” a 486-page report detailing the abuses and excesses of the Bush administration and recommending steps to address them. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. popularized the term “imperial presidency” in the 1970s to describe an executive who had assumed more power than the Constitution allows and circumvented the checks and balances fundamental to our three-branch system of government. Until recently, the Nixon administration seemed to represent a singular embodiment of the idea. Unfortunately, it is clear that the threat of the imperial presidency lives on and, indeed, reached new heights under George W. Bush.

For seven years I’ve said this President was the embodiment of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes“. True to the story, I’ve always felt I was the little kid in the crowd to shout out: “Yo! That dude is naked as a jaybird!!” and nobody paid me any attention. Now that Conyers has begun calling on this “Imperial President”, I can only assume he was thinking about me.

Conyers complains about the needless War in Iraq (and the bullcrap that Bush threw at us to go into Iraq in the first place), the Bush Administrations warrantless wiretapping of Americans, detentions and interrogations, politicizing of the US Justice Department, ravaging our regulatory system, using signing statements to override laws and silencing whistle-blowers to name just a few. (Whew! That’s a lot of bitching!) Which I think would be scratching the surface of all the crap that Bush has done. As much as I love say that Bush is an Idiot, I have to hand it to him; He was pretty good at breaking the law (and everything else on the Planet).

Conyers lays out a three-point plan, which I think is pretty good:

First, Congress should continue to pursue its document requests and subpoenas that were stonewalled under President Bush. Doing so will make clear that no executive can forever hide its misdeeds from the public.

Second, Congress should create an independent blue-ribbon panel or similar body to investigate a host of previously unreviewable activities of the Bush administration, including its detention, interrogation and surveillance programs. Only by chronicling and confronting the past in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion can we reclaim our moral authority and establish a credible path forward to meet the complex challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world.

Third, the new administration should conduct an independent criminal probe into whether any laws were broken in connection with these activities. Just this week, in the pages of this newspaper, a Guantanamo Bay official acknowledged that a suspect there had been “tortured” — her exact word — in apparent violation of the law. The law is the law, and, if criminal conduct occurred, those responsible — particularly those who ordered and approved the violations — must be held accountable.

That’s fairly well thought out. Conyers also notes the sensitivity of the subject matter which shows credit to his intellect:

I understand that many feel we should just move on. They worry that addressing these actions by the Bush administration will divert precious energy from the serious challenges facing our nation. I understand the power of that impulse. Indeed, I want to move on as well — there are so many things that I would rather work on than further review of Bush’s presidency. But in my view it would not be responsible to start our journey forward without first knowing exactly where we are.

We cannot rebuild the appropriate balance between the branches of government without fully understanding how that relationship has been distorted. Likewise, we cannot set an appropriate baseline for future presidential conduct without documenting and correcting the presidential excesses that have just occurred. After the Nixon imperial presidency, critical reviews such as the Church and Pike committees led to fundamental reforms that have served our nation well. Comparable steps are needed to begin the process of reining in the legacy of the Bush imperial presidency.

Nicely worded and he’s absolutely correct! And, I think the topic is dead before the Washington Post even went to press. The Republican Party will find it very difficult to let Conyers, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, continue on with any investigation. The Republican Party will not let Bush be investigated without crying like babies. They’ll paint the picture in the media as political revenge. However, they’ll dig themselves deeper by preventing Conyers to go on ahead and investigate. “If Clinton can be impeached for getting a hummer in the Oval Office, are you saying everything Bush has done is okay?!” You see what I mean? The logic doesn’t flow.

Lastly, I think there are some Democrats who are as thick at thieves with the GOP and the Bush Administration and I don’t think they’ll be too thrilled to see the train coming at them either. You’ll never convince me that people like Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) were clueless about torture and rendition going on in Gitmo. Especially when it was Feinstein who lead the charge to go ahead and confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General without answering the simple question regarding water-boarding; “Is it torture?” The Dems are going to have a lot of difficulty protecting themselves during the investigation and they’ll be caught in the same pinch.

Found under a wine bottle

Redneck Hospitality

CHICAGO—The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on Jan. 5.

The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”

It remained unclear who on Bushes guest list outranked the incoming President.

I’m going to guess who’s going to be “occupying” the Blair House: The Bush Twins, that’s who. Jenna and Barbara will be pulling off their final and last week-long bender complete with bathtubs converted into giant sized bongs, kitchen hand beaters exchanged with vibrating dildos and the largest pot garden within a 90-miles growing in the Master Bedroom… complete with automated irrigation.

But that’s only a guess.

Ineptitude

Private information at bargain prices. It was a high-tech flub at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in Arlington when Fox 5’s Investigative Reporter Tisha Thompson bought a Blackberry device containing confidential campaign information. […]

The hottest item? Blackberry phones at $20 a piece. There were only 10 left. All of the batteries had died. There were no chargers for sale. But people were snatching them up. So, we bought a couple.

And ended up with a lot more than we bargained for.

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

Your Daddy drinks too much because you laugh at the GOP.

Hope

The state canvassing board just voted unanimously that absentee ballots that were initially rejected because of clerical errors — and the current estimate from the hearing is that there could be nearly 1,600 of them, based on some extrapolation — should be counted, probably the single biggest issue that the Franken campaign has been hammering ever since this recount began, and which really seemed up in the air going into this hearing.

Crossing my fingers, anticipating Minnesota’s newest Junior Senator might very well be Stewart Smalley always makes me leak a tiny bit of pee in my underpants.

Hypocracy

Angered by the Republican Senate (a.k.a. “Darth Vader’s golfing buddies”), Chris Dodd (D-CT) points out:

• Worker salaries make up a tiny fraction of the financial challenge facing the automakers.
• The UAW had already agreed to achieve “compatibility and comparability” by March—a major concession.
• We still have the opportunity to fix this and the obligation to try.
• It is “incredible” that the one demand put above all others by Republicans during this negotiation is that workers, who have already been hurt badly by the declining economy, should take another hit.

Yes… As we all know: Republicans are especially patriotic compared to their liberal, labor union and minority middle-class American worker. Watch the Chris Dodd video here.

Leadership

Morgan Johnson, president of the UAW, told General Motors auto workers in Shreveport, LA last Friday:

“I don’t know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we’ve done, it’s time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him, ” said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, “He’d rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers.”

If there’s anybody out there who believes the Republican Party cares anything about the middle class, I have a really nice bridge to sell you cheap. It’s in Brooklyn, NY and it’s purple with pretty red and yellow flowers painted all over it. Seriously! If you’d like to buy it…I can arrange it!

Can anybody tell me – Did Senator David Vitter give his wife Wendy clymidia? Or has that all been cleared up?

The Second American Civil War

Joe Babiasz of Huntington Woods, Mich., launched a Web site, www.boycottalabamanow.com, recently to protest Shelby’s efforts to prevent Congress from passing a package of loans to the U.S. auto industry.

On his Web site, the General Motors retiree takes issue with [Senator Richard] Shelby’s [R-AL] position and claims Shelby’s support of federal grants for Alabama makes the senator a hypocrite. Specifically, the Web site questions grants for Alabama’s fishing industry.

If Big Auto does collapse, the Republican Party can be given credit to damaging the United States far beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams. If you don’t believe me, wind-up your stress meter by checking this piece out and find out for yourself.

Even so, statistics from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor show 239,000 people work in the U.S. for GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. The center, which does research for the auto companies, estimates total job losses would reach 2.5 million if GM failed and 3.5 million if all three auto companies went out of business in 2009.

Predictions are coming through on the GOP throwing Michigan families under the bus just weeks for Christmas will guarantee that Michigan won’t vote Republican for at least one generation of voters. I predict at least three generations.

Found, Wrapped around Fish

Liberal Media

Kevin Diaz, of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, has a column published in today’s press entitled “Pawlenty cool to stiumulus proposals.” Diaz, apparently the Scoop Sleuth of “liberal media” here in Minnesota, was sent to Washington DC to the recent Governors Conference and the best he could do was to write about Pawlenty’s skepticism on Obama’s proposals.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, meeting Tuesday with President-elect Barack Obama, distanced himself from a bipartisan group of governors pressing for federal funds to alleviate state budget shortfalls and boost local economies.

Nice, huh? An entire column that talks about Pawlenty bitching and whining about Obama’s proposals and filled with nay saying jibberish.

I have a couple problems with this:

• Forgive my amnesia, but I don’t recall one single column Mr. Diaz ever wrote on some Democrat criticizing the Buish Administration on anything. For eight very long years, this country has been subjected to the rule of a President who has the diction equal to that of a third grader, and the IQ equivalent to that of a grapefruit. Banks have failed, the US Auto Industry has failed, anti-trust laws broken everywhere, and not one drop of ink spent on a Democrat criticizing the Bush Administration. Not one!
• Exactly how does Governor Pawlenty rate as any political ghuru when it comes to governing anything anyway? Does the Governor propose more bridge crashing, tunnel caving and coal mine collapsing as a viable alternative? Why does Kevin Diaz write all of this crap about what Sour Puss Pawlenty have to say about anything? There’s nothing Pawlenty has to offer in the piece – except criticism. Exactly what we all need at a time like this!!

In the same newspaper, published in the very same issue, the very same Governor Pawlenty gets hawkish on our own Minnesota budget by hinting that he plans to cut more spending. In a piece entitled “Pawlenty to propose cuts with new budget, Pawlenty belches:

While Pawlenty declined to quantify the near-term deficit, he said he expects it to be “noteworthy” but not “unmanageably large.”

The Republican governor said he aims to work with the DFLers who control the Legislature to identify spending that can be pulled back within the next few weeks. He said he could also make cuts on his own through an executive power called unallotment.

I’ll let you dissect that second paragraph there anyway you see fit. But I’m translating that statement as a clear signal Pawlenty has already concluded that he

1. Won’t work with the DFL on anything – but demand the DFL work with him and he’ll plan on bitching and whining because they won’t, and…
2. Goes rogue and pull rabbits out of his Magic Hat by engaging in bizarre and under-utilized terms such as “unallotments”.

He’s going to sit back and criticize Obama’s plan to give money to local and state governments, and yet he’ll scratch his balls and complain about cutting Minnesota’s budget.

It’s clear people: Not enough bridges have fallen in Minnesota for Pawlenty’s liking. There’ll be more! And Minnesotan’s will continue to pay attention to a Republican that cares nothing about them. …And the Star Tribune will continue to print “Right Wing Philosophies” and ignore Democrats because it’s worked so well for us in the past! (err…That was sarcasm, okay?!)

Karl Rove: “Political Genius”

CNN is reporting that Karl Rove, “The Boy Wonder” of the failed Republican Party has gone out to hint that Governor Sarah Palin will be the ultimate subject in a marketplace of ideas.

That liberal “Clinton News Network” has published a piece entitled: Rove says ‘marketplace of ideas’ will decide Palin’s fate:

“Republicans believe in markets, so the marketplace of ideas will decide what the answer [to her future] is,” Rove told NBC Tuesday. “These people are going to get out there, campaign, offer their ideas, offer themselves.”

That’s right – Republicans believe in Markets more than they believe in our troops sitting in their own feces and urine at Walter Reed Hospital. They believe in markets just like they believe in no-bid contracts to the Vice President’s former companies like Haliburton and Bechtel.

Why isn’t Karl Rove in jail? Isn’t he AWOL from two congressional subpoenas or something? Oh nevermind; He’s a Republican. I forgot. If you’re a Republican, you’re above the law. Liberals and Progressives…We’d be in jail faster than a three twitches from a beaver’s tail.

But the best part of the article is the second comment left by someone called “In The Know” who said simply:

Palin who???

My sentiments exactly. “Palin who?!?!” They must be referencing that governor from Alaska who ends every sentence with a prepositional phrase and who’s sentences have ninety-five words or more in them and then are free then there to ramble on with no point at all whatsoever and where she rules from a land that can see Russia from her state and who was called a “Diva” from the John McCain campaign and who helped McCain lose the election there and type things like that. That “Palin”?! Oh, now I know who Karl Rove was talking about…

Ryan Evans: Arclight Zero – It’s not just his IQ level anymore

I have a number of favorite Republican blogs I like to read. Mostly for the entertainment value found in them. Some folks like the Sunday funny pages, I like Republican bloggers! Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News Television, being my all time favorite. But I digress.

Evans is a blogger in a small town over in Chedderville Wisconsin who spends a great deal of his time pontificating on Republican ideology. (As if any Republican alive today would be willing to take credit for the financial debacle we’re currently in right now, makes pontificating anything on Republican Ideology nothing short of stupid. Yes, I said it: “Stupid”. Arclight Zero pontificates on really Stupid Stuff. There, I said it again.)

Mr. Evans blogs a piece that bitches from his side of the St Croix and Mississippi River about those of us in Minnesota and our smoking bans in bars and restaurants. In his piece “Smoking Bans: Learning from Mistakes“, Evans says:

Well, it would seem that the Minnesota smoking ban is doing exactly what it was predicted to do; it is making the anti-smoking crowd feel empowered and driving small bars out of business. Is this what should be considered a success story? I guess if the goal was to stomp out small business in the name of “public health,” sure, let’s call it a success. I’m not rightly sure what else has been gained; of course if you ask the anti’s, they carry a different opinion.

He grabs a “headliner” from that ultra-conservative CBS affiliate WCCO here in the Twin Cities who’s ran a story about a bar that’s closing in Detroit Lakes, and the bar owner is blaming statewide law that bans smoking in bars and restaurants.

WCCO doesn’t take a look into the bar’s finances … Perhaps the bar has closed because the bar was a crap-hole in the first place? Or, perhaps it became a haven exclusively to the smoking crowd because the non-smokers couldn’t and wouldn’t sit and drink in a cloud of toxic smog? These conversations are never taken into consideration. Never! And as long as the Conservative Republicans run and control our media, they never will.

Evans crabs about the anti-smoker crowd and laments the crappy bar owner in Detroit Lakes as a “poor small business owner” by noting the issue of public health:

They don’t even address the issue, which tells me that they feel that they are above this issue. To them, the issue ends at public health. Everything else is just trivial. I guess they just consider it to be collateral damage that comes with forcing their cause upon the rest of us.

In a country where our health care is for shit already, and people don’t have universal health care, what is the state expected to do? How else is the state going to reduce the number of people rotting in our Emergency Rooms dying from lung cancer because they worked in a toxic cloud as a bartender and a restaurant server.

But, Republicans couldn’t give a crap about “public health” in America, nor could they care about the common worker here in America. If it’s bad for business – Then let’s criticize it! Let’s ridicule it!

Do you remember S-CHIP? When they could offer health care for children, the Republicans felt it would be bad for business and they voted against it! Children, for Christ sakes! They’d rather see children go without health care for the benefit of “business owners”.

Hey, Mr. Evens – Something to be said about our bars and restaurants…

“You can come over here, enjoy a beer or two, and you won’t go home smelling like an ashtray! Because there’s no way I’m going to any bar or restaurant over there in Chedderville if that’s what I’m going to smell like when I leave.

Oh…and by the way… I’m a bartender.”

Sincerely,

Fruit F. Fly

Republicans need to think in different terminologies. The Smoking Ban has lost a lot of customers who smoke. Forcing them outside has inconvenienced them so much that they’d rather stay home and smoke than to hang out with their buddies and have a beer. Bartenders and bar owners have the unique opportunity to be even more competitive in their business without overflowing ashtrays on their tables and bars. But, “competition” and “creativity” are terms that Republicans aren’t willing to explore. They’re lazy. And I’m willing to bet, they are just as lazy as that bar owner up there in Detroit Lakes.

Ann Coulter: Broken jaw-bone = “Shut the FÜ©# Up”!

Page Six, of the NY Times is reporting that Ann Coulter has a broken jaw-bone. Taking a wee-bit of delight in the silence coming from one of the meanest and nastiest people from the Republican Party’s core they said:

THAT although we didn’t think it would be possible to silence Ann Coulter, the leggy reaction- ary broke her jaw and the mouth that roared has been wired shut . . .

The LA Times’ “The Envelope” couldn’t help themselves by giggling at the possibility the story is true and even floating the wonder on how her jaw came to be broken in the first place! In a piece titled ”
Ann Coulter’s jaw wired shut! We’re sooo sad….” they go on giggling like children by noting:

I know, I know. If the report is true, It’s almost as if our prayers have been answered.

Apparently it was broken, but by whom, no one seems to be sure. We could hazard a guess, but why throw roses yet.

The blogosphere is already aquiver over the idea of a forced Coulter Moment of Silence.

Finally, the Right Wing Barbie Doll has to shut up.

With a broken jaw, her mouth has been wired shut. I can only assume they’ve shut her up so that she now looks like this:

Coulter’s personal blog hasn’t been updated since November 19th, less than a full-week. …Some bizarre entry called “Genious, Thy Name is Obama” where she bitches and whines about stupid crap like the rest of the Rabid Right blogosphere. Example:

I don’t recall the media swooning when President George W. Bush reached out to rivals, such as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who was asked to co-write Bush’s education bill. In fact, the way I remember it, Bush is liberals’ most hated president ever (only because they can’t remember George Washington or they’d hate him, too).

Yeah, it’s a stretch, I know….Comparing GWB with GW (Potomic River) within the same paragraph – Stupid.

Name-dropping a political Liberal “Ted Kennedy” who has brain-cancer into the same ridiculous train of thought? …Why, that’s just priceless!

Meanwhile, we’ll all enjoy the silence.