Michael Steele Can't Stop Won't Stop

Actual Quote from today's speech:

You know it’s real. You can see it, and you can feel it. This change, my friends, is being delivered in a teabag. And that’s a wonderful thing.

The man is redefining how unintentional comedy will be seen for generations.

Teabagging Fail

BUT WHERE WILL THEY SYMBOLICALLY DUMP THEIR TEA??? (Via Atrios)

But a funny thing happened en route to a visually pleasing Tax Day protest. The National Park Service said the tea party protesters didn't have the proper permit to dump their bags.

. . .

"We have a million tea bags here, and we don't have a place to put them because it's not on our permit," said Rebecca Wales, lead organizer of D.C. Tea Party.

. . .

A local think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said it would allow the dumping of the tea bags in its 12th floor conference room instead. Not quite the same impact, though.

Not all is lost for those teabagging in DC, this guy showed up:

What a human hero.

Six Days

That's how long it took for this post from a right wing message board:

ACORN is "gate busting" Tea Parties nationwide. These far-left goons are attending them and mispresenting their allegiance. They are getting petitions signed, misrepresenting them as opposition to the Obama agenda. They explain something different than that written on the petition. More fraud, and lies from Obama Acorn people. Please be careful when signing your name to anything at these Tea Parties. We are still not sure what these whackjobs are using the names for, these people are known for violent criminal acts,bullying tactics, fraud and harrassment (just to name a few). Groups like ACORN and CODEPINK are nothing but Anti-American criminal organizations. BEWARE.
I just stocked up on Pepper spray at http://shop.christmascentral.com/items/item.aspx?itemid=63674 JUST IN CASE

To be treated as a legitimate story by Foxnews.com:

(A Screen Cap from 30 Minutes ago, Front Page of Foxnews.com)

Sadly, the Fox News story leaves out the source's call to stock up on pepper spray from Christmas stores.

Fox News and the Teabagging

I realize that Fox News acting as a PR arm of the right is nothing new, but you'd think this would be getting a little more mainstream attention/criticism:

Despite its repeated insistence that its coverage is "fair and balanced" and its invitation to viewers to "say 'no' to biased media," in recent weeks, Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with "tea party" protests across the country, which the channel has often described as primarily a response to President Obama's fiscal policies. Specifically, Fox News has in dozens of instances provided attendance and organizing information for future protests, such as protest dates, locations and website URLs. Fox News websites have also posted information and publicity material for protests. Fox News hosts have repeatedly encouraged viewers to join them at several April 15 protests that they are attending and covering; during the April 6 edition of Glenn Beck, on-screen text characterized these events as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties." Tea-party organizers have used the planned attendance of the Fox News hosts to promote their protests. Fox News has also aired numerous interviews with protest organizers. Moreover, Fox News contributors are listed as "Tea Party Sponsor[s]" on TaxDayTeaParty.com. Media Matters for America has compiled the following analysis of Fox News' promotion of the tea-party protests. (Most transcripts are taken from the Nexis database.)

While it would be nice for Democratic officials to take a stand and not grant access to a network that exists solely to attack their policies, I'm not gonna hold my breath. Instead I'll take the next couple days to enjoy the comedic gold that these protests give us. Thanks to media matters, a sample of what we can expect on the 15th:






Ladies and gentlemen, your modern day Republican party!

The First Shot of the Great Douchebag Revolution: Nationwide Teabagging

Image via Wonkette

The Great Douchebag Revolution has unveiled their latest plan to shake up the liberal establishment: They're going to start teabagging parties throughout the United States.

No, I'm not joking. In fact, like RIVERDAUGHTER, I'm pretty sure I couldn't come up with anything nearly that funny.

Wingnuts across the country have been planning these gatherings for last couple months, and have settled on the name "Tea Parties". Get it? The Boston Tea Party was an act that protested an empire's right to tax it's colonies without representation, where as a wingnut tea party is a place to protest the very existence of taxes, Barack Obama, Black people and bane of all right wing existence... ACORN!

Dont' worry though, Michelle Malkin is on the case:

For the next 9 days, the left-wing blogosphere and left-wing clueless pundits will hammer away with their unreality-based Tea Party smears.

And on the ground, the tax-subsidized and Soros-subsidized troops are going to try and wreak havoc every way they can. Many readers and fellow bloggers have seen signs that ACORN may send in ringers and saboteurs to usurp the anti-tax, anti-reckless spending, anti-bailout message.

In case you were wondering, that link leads to a right wing message board where a person said this:

Groups like ACORN and CODEPINK are nothing but Anti-American criminal organizations. BEWARE. I just stocked up on Pepper spray at http://shop.christmascentral.com/items/item.aspx?itemid=63674 JUST IN CASE

Some nut who buys pepper spray at a Chrismas store says it's true? I'm sold. But if you thought that one unproven comment wouldn't lead to more insanity, you would be wrong. Thers:

Anyway, here's some sound advice from the Founding Bloggers comments on how to keep these ACORN goons from getting Teabaggers from signing their phony "petitions":

A very good friend of mine had a great suggestion for signing these peitions…let’s all sign…with the name John Galt!

While I think this is an excellent idea since John Galt is an Ayn Rand character in her book Atlas Shrugged that represents the power of the individual — I would like to suggest a twist on this suggestion. What if we all sign the petition Barack Obama so the connection between Obama and ACORN becomes more obvious to everyone. What could be more fitting than to advertise that Obama SUPPORTS Obama’s agendas listed on the petition? A kind of conflict of interest there — wouldn’t ya think?

Oh I’m so torn between signing John Galt or Barack Obama. Hmmmmm- Now I’m hoping someone asks me to sign just so I can do that. It’s great we are making them into nervous ninneys.

Imagining writing imaginary names on an imaginary petition circulated by imaginary "saboteurs" at a protest meant to redress imaginary grievances is, well, pretty damn imaginative.

These people are amazing. And even better, organizing this type of idiocy is how the right has decided to harness the power of the internet. Kos:

Back in our early years, we had better things to do with our time, like organizing for upcoming elections -- the things that actually matter in our modern political system. But the wingers have never been much for electoral organizing, what with their dreams of becoming the next Rush-Limbaugh style media sensation. Their single-minded obsession with punditry leaves little room for the hard work of fighting for an electorally viable Republican Party. And given that it's their ideology specifically that has made them toxic to the voters, they'd have to come up with ideas and whatnot. That wouldn't exactly play to their strengths, know what I'm saying? I mean, their best idea right now is to wave tea bags.

The tea parties take place on April 15th, and personally I can't wait. The idea of wingnuts form all across the county coming together to publicly put their testicles in each others' mouths errr... protest Obama/Socialism/Taxes/Black People/ACORN is better than any entertainment money can buy. So good luck wingnuts! And here's hoping this guy shows up:

Just Say No! (To Whiny Douchebags)

The Washington Redskins are trying to make my head explode.

If the mess surrounding the whole Albert Haynesworth thing wasn't bad enough (oh, and look! It just got messier!), reports are saying that the Skins are now actively pursuing disgruntled Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler.


Anyone with half a brain that has watched the Redskins with Jason Campbell at quarterback could tell you that he is not to blame for the team's offensive struggles. The people who say he isn't good enough either aren't paying attention or don't understand football.

That being said, I do think that Jay Cutler is a better quarterback than Campbell (I almost said JC, but look at the initials for both... that's funny). But will Cutler make the Redskins a better team? No. It's a matter of the personnel we put around him. We have made an upgrade at one spot on the o-line, but still have depth issues. And our wide receivers simply are not getting it done. As much as I love Santana, he is likely a No. 2 receiver on most NFL teams. Randle-El is at best a 3rd or 4th WR. Devin Thomas needs to improve so teams can stop keying in on Cooley and taking him out of the game. Basically, teams around the league figured out that if you double Santana and deny Cooley aggressively and make the Skins beat you with somebody else, we can't do it. Until someone steps up or another weapon is added, I'd expect Cutler to have the same problems.

The Player Hater's Ball shares my sentiments, and what I hope are the sentiments of most Redskins fans:

If the 'Skins get that double-chinned, crybaby douchebag, I may have to reconsider my support of the team. (And they're likely going to. When's the last time the Redskins didn't get a player they wanted? Lance Briggs?) He's a whiner. He's a child. He looks like a goober. His defenders says he's a great quarterback with a shoddy defense, but I'm pretty sure Denver's defense didn't throw those 18 interceptions last year. And the gaudy numbers (4,200 yards, 24 TDs) he put up last year came, in large part, to an offensive line that only gave up 11 sacks. With the 'Skins front-five, Cutler would surpass that number by October.

Finally, what does this say about our priorities? Jason has responded to these reports with the utmost class and professionalism. We're willing to pull the plug on him after 4 years (a guy hand-picked by Joe Gibbs himself) in favor of a guy who cried when he didn't get his way, requested a trade and refused to return Josh McDaniels or Pat Bowlen's calls for 10 days & running now?

Again, the PHB says it better than I ever could have said it myself:

More importantly, Cutler is a sulking whiner who pissed and moaned his way out of Denver because he was too immature to understand that sometimes NFL teams try to trade players. Sure, Josh McDaniels handled himself equally as unprofessionally (I'm sure he learned that from Bill Belichick), but Cutler is supposed to be a man. He's supposed to be a leader. And a man doesn't stomp his foot and refuse to play simply because there was a business decision made that he doesn't like.

So, Skins fans, Who Dey Revolution much?

UPDATE: (5:54pm) Oh thank god! Cutler traded to the Bears for a rather foolish hefty amount. Whew! That was a close one! Jason Campbell, you'll get your chance to prove the haters wrong next year in a Redskins uniform, where you belong.

Douchebag Outrage Comes to an Abrupt End with AIG Bonuses

Remember that asshole from CNBC who ranted that Obama's housing bill being a bailout for "losers"?

You know, the one that was staged in an attempt to start the Great Douchebag Revolution?

Well that all came to a screeching halt when it's about defending his douchebag friends:

SANTELLI: Now, think about it this way. Maybe I'm missing something. But the outrage seems to be about M's, millions of dollars, right? $165 million, OK?

But I would think that it should be looked at as a pretty big positive, because when you go from the M, maybe you should try to go to the B's, which is the billions of dollars, and maybe that's going to even enlighten it for the T, trillions of dollars. You know, $165 million is like worrying about 16.5 cents, while $165 maybe necessitates a little more outrage. What do you guys think?

BECKY QUICK: Hey, Rick, I think the real idea here is just the idea of rewarding bad behavior, which is something you've spoken out against in the past.

SANTELLI: No, I guess what I'm saying is it's an order of magnitude. Don't you think this dynamic that the average guy reading his newspaper is really starting to be in tune with this?

A bill that helps people pay unfair morgages vs. 73 exectutives getting several hundred million dollars of taxpayer money as a bonus for bankrupting a multi-billion dollar business?

Yeah Rick, I'm sure the "average guy" would really be in a bind over that one. Someone should probably tell him that yelling ignorant shit on the trade floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange isn't the best way to guage public opinion.

Time will only tell where the Great Douchebag Revolution goes from here. And to think... they were even forming small groups!

What John Cole Said

On Point:

This just floored me:

“When I hear the constant vilification of corporate America, I personally don’t understand it,” Dimon said in his speech. “I would ask a lot of our folks in government to stop doing it because I think it’s hurting our country.”

That is Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase. Yes, the vilification of corporate America is just mean-spiritedness. It has nothing to do with you clowns spending millions to have the markets deregulated and for laws to be changed to your benefit (including the Bankruptcy laws). It has nothing to do with once you got what you wanted, you guys gambled away billions of dollars on reckless bets, all the while charging exorbitant fees and padding your own pockets. It has nothing to do with the fact that last year, while running your company into a ditch, you earned were paid $55 million.

It has nothing to do with the fact that after you all had run the financial sector into the ground, you then came to the taxpayers for money to ease the credit market that you had screwed up, and then turned around and spent the money acquiring new assets. It has nothing to do with the fact that you guys took the TARP money and immediately began planning on how to spend it fighting card check. It has nothing to do with the fact that corporate America lobbied to not pay the premiums for FDIC and then didn’t for the past ten years. It has nothing to do with the fact that after receiving trillions of dollars, you and your buddies flipped a lid over a paltry sum being spent shoring up mortgages for homeowners. It has nothing to do with the fact that as soon as this mess is fixed, after trillions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted, you all will begin to fiercely lobby against any structural changes to the system.

So stop it, America. Stop picking on Jamie Dimon. Stop picking on corporate America.

Yeah, that just about sums it up.

Jon Stewart Destroys CNBC/ Colbert lets Glenn Beck Destroy Himself

For those who didn't already see it, Jon Stewart at his finest:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Update: I'll add these two Colbert clips too, because this has been one of the best weeks for the Daily Show/Colbert in recent memory. The best part about the first clip, is that you couldn't make up something crazier than what Glenn Beck is actually doing.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Glenn Beck's War Room

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
Joke of the Day

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Doom Bunker - Jack Jacobs and Stephen Moore

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
Joke of the Day

You have got to be shitting me

Tushara knocked on my door this morning to bring me the news that the Redskins had signed former Tennessee Titan Albert Haynesworth to a seven-year, $100 million dollar deal in the first few hours of NFL free agency. This had to be a bad dream, right? Wrong. The Redskins front office has learned nothing. The team is doomed to be mired in a salary cap crunch year after year after year once again, and we are back to being the reigning champs of the offseason. FML.

This comes after last night's signing of cornerback DeAngelo Hall for six years and $54 million. Where is all this money coming from? We just had to restructure four veterans' contracts to get to a measly $10-12 million under the cap (unofficial numbers, somewhere in that ballpark though). This is before signing any of our four draft choices, one of which includes a number 13 overall pick. This all but tells us that we are going to wave bye-bye to that first round pick, in exchange for multiple shittier picks in later rounds (with our scouts & talent evaluators, I can't wait to see how many receivers & punters we can draft in the fourth round!).

Even in a year in which the Pittsburgh Steelers just won the Super Bowl, which should serve as the quintessential blueprint for consistent, long-term success, Snyder and the Skins have reverted to form. Making a "big splash." But for what? I mused last year that the reason we didn't make any flashy signings may have been because there weren't really any prized free agents on the market (see the second-to-last paragraph). Now that theory has been thusly proven.

I'm actually amazed how stupid Snyder and Cerrato are. Does no one remember Dan Wilkinson? Dana Stubblefield? Hell, did anybody pay attention to the deal Cleveland gave Shaun Rogers last year and how little it paid off for them? LAST YEAR?! There was a cautionary tale on why bringing in big money free agents doesn't always bring instant success, but that means nothing to these clowns. They have no plan. They see every year as a year the Redskins can win the Super Bowl. Rebuilding? That's for suckers.

They take advantage of Washington's unusually loyal fan base and give us an inferior product to root for. They don't develop. They don't plan. The real life Redskins serve as Snyder's team on Madden year in and year out. And he actually wonders why Steve Spagnuolo passed on the job last winter?

They refuse to try to lock up Jason Campbell at quarterback, probably in case they decide to go after Vick, or some other as-of-yet undetermind star quarterback, flying in the face of everything they said about valuing continuity last year. So, make JC feel disrepected and under-appreciated, then pay for it when he's lighting us up in a few years wearing a different uniform.

The one tiny positive out of all of this is that Haynesworth is a very good player. However, it's human nature to perform when you have something to prove. Athletes play for that "big pay day" and once they get it, it's hard to play with the same level of intensity. It happens in sports all the time.

My dad once threatened to stop rooting for the Redskins if we hired Steve Spurrier as our coach. He didn't like Spurrier's arrogance, his temper tantrums, his inability to take any blame on himself and his knee-jerk reaction QB substitutions, among other things. We ended up getting Spurrier, but my dad's overarching allegiance to all things burgundy and gold overpowered him; he remained a fan. This is why I can never stop rooting for the Redskins. It's just how I was raised. All I've ever known has been rooting for them, that's the way it will always be whether I like it or not. But now I understand how my dad felt.

Our team is being used and abused by an egomaniacal owner who doesn't care what people say or think about him. He has the money, so he gets to make the decisions. No matter that he has zero football experience and doesn't know what he's doing.

All that being said, I sincerely hope that I have to eat these words. That's one of the reasons I'm writing this; to have it cemented into the interwebs for all to see and when we check back this time next year, I can see whether I was right to be angry about this or not. There's a possibility that this move works out for us and I'll look quite the fool for all these mean things I've said. The thing that worries me, though, is that we've all seen this show before and we have an idea of how it ends. Woo hoo! 8-8, here we come!

The Great Douchebag Rebellion Grows...

They've invaded Washington Post Chats... in small groups!

NYC: You don’t see it in the media, but there is a groundswell of public anger over the Democrats’ attempt to spend their way out of a spending crisis. There have been numerous small protests—and conservatives haven’t taken to the streets in decades. Do you think this will all go away, or does Obama have a problem?

I think this movement culminates at a Joe the Plumber rally where he denounces various things as "American government" and "welfare".

Douchebags of the World Unite!

The funniest part about this might be how excited he gets taking up the fight for elitist douchebags everywhere. Personally I feel like an appropriate response would be to punch him in the face repeatedly, but since that's not possible, Dday gave a reasoned reply:

The government is promoting bad behavior... I'll tell you what, I have an idea. The new Administration's big on computers and technology. How about this, President and new Administration, why don't you put up a Web site to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the loser's mortgages, or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people who might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people who actually carry the water instead of drink the water...

He gets a standing ovation from the traders at that point, and then he asks them if they want to pay for their neighbor's mortgages, and they boo. Then he goes off about how Cuba used to have mansions and when they went "from the individual to the collective, they started driving '54 Chevys." It's right-wing backlash stuff at its absolute best.

Lost from this complaint is the plain fact of predatory lending, that lenders got cash rebates to put people in crappy, high-interest mortgages, that they hid terms of the agreement and denied disclosure, and that all of those hardworking folks are seeing their property values plummet as a result of millions of foreclosed homes glutting the market. To the tune of $6 trillion dollars in home value.

But I digress. The more interesting part of the video is the part where he calls his buds on the trading floor part of "the silent majority."

These guys are pretty straightforward, and my guess is, a pretty good statistical cross-section of America, the silent majority.

This is all starting to sound very familiar. Paging Rick Perlstein...

It's also obvious that traders on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade are clearly the new face of the average lunch-pail working stiff, isn't it?

The revolution has begun. These workaday stock traders are going to take back this country for the laissez-faire capitalists who are entitled to it.

Sirota frames it as market populism vs. grassroots populism:

The gap, of course, is in the portrayal. If you watch television or read op-ed pages, the Market Populists get most of the attention. Indeed, Market Populism is portrayed as the "centrist" mainstream sentiment in the United States. Just look at David Brooks' New York Times column this morning. He non-sarcastically insists that Santelli's comments were "lustily" representative of mass popular anger at "these injustices" - not the injustices on Wall Street, mind you, but the supposed injustices of people now losing their homes. Meanwhile, Grassroots Populism - ie. seething populist anger at Corporate America - is depicted as the ideology only of a tiny fringe. It's as if the media is a funhouse mirror on society - a bizzaro world where up is down, black is white, and free market fundamentalism is portrayed as a mass-based movement.

When the macroeconomy was doing well, the disconnect between the media narrative and what's going on in the real world certainly caused regular people to lose confidence in the media, but it didn't incite outrage.

Now, though, with the economy in meltdown, I'm convinced that part of why the public is so angry is because what they see on television and in their newspapers is so fundamentally at odds with how they are feeling and what they are dealing with. As Santelli shows, large swaths of the media and political Establishment actively and publicly denigrate the people who are most hard hit by the downturn. Indeed, in the multimedia presentation I gave during my book tour for The Uprising, I have a whole section on this very phenomenon, using Fred Barnes' literally laughing at the "lower class" as my example.

This divide between the Market Populism people are fed through the media and people's own Grassroots Populism is a major catalyst that has turned the last two elections into backlash moments. And as bailouts and handouts now become daily news, and the Market Populists get ever more outrageous, that backlash is intensifying. Channeling it into something positive is the challenge of our time.

The elitist douchebag revolution begins! Get your hair gel and abercrombie shirts ready!

UPDATE: Santelli eviscerated by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs:

"I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives in," Gibbs said during the daily briefing. "But the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their jobs, pay their bills to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don't get sick or somebody they care for gets sick that sends them into bankruptcy. I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for main street. I think the verdict is in on that."

Ouch. But from there it got almost more personal. Gibbs picked up a hard copy of the housing plan from the briefing room lectern and implored Santelli to "download it, hit print and begin to read it." Gibbs added: "I would be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee, decaf." The press in the room laughed.

Damn. NOT FOR THE WEAK HEARTED!