Fact-esque

Happy Demons-Take-Your-Soul-and-You Die-in-Hell Day

Never let it be said that we are prejudiced only against white crackers, wingnuts, and right-wing religious crackpots. In a spirit of bipartisanship and equality, we state categorically that we are also prejudiced against black, brown, and/or polka-dot crackers, wingnuts, and religious crackpots. Like, say, Kimberly Daniels. (Via SN) A black "minister", Ms Daniels affects to believe a lot of - I think it's safe to say - odd things about Halloween. Like that it's a holiday (it isn't) and that Halloween candy carries curses.

No. Really.

Friday Palin: The Rouge Rogue Gets Her Gold (Updated)

Some time back I made note of TBogg's reasoning in re Sarahcuda's sudden blasting out of the governorship of Alaska: that it had a lot more to do with raking in mucho wingnut welfare $$$ than a realistic grab at the GOP nomination in '12. Frankly, I didn't see any reason why she shouldn't expect to corral both. At any rate, it seems she has the bucks, The SPI reported this week that Sarah collected a whopping $1.25M advance on her not-so-autobiography - you know, the one Lynn Vincent whipped up in a few short weeks with a massive 4 hours worth of help from the actual 'Cuda. (What does that work out to per hour? $300 and somethin grand, eh? Not bad, Almost what Disney's Michael Eisley used to make. Might help to explain why she looks so...chunky...in the pic at right.)

The final public disclosure filing by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin shows a $1.25 million "retainer," obviously the first part of the advance on her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," which hits book stores on Nov. 17.

The lucrative deal, with a book subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, far outstrips Palin's gubernatorial salary from January 1 to July 26, when she left office: Palin was paid $73,000 in salary and $6,370 in per diem expenses.

(emphasis added)

"Going for the Wingnut Welfare Gold" it is. Still, another poll also hit this week and, like the last one, it isn't good news.

Ford Workers Buck Gettelfinger's Sweetheart Contract

Ron Gettelfinger, UAW's Pres, talked tough last year, banging his fist on the podium at the annual meeting and shouting "No More Concessions!" Almost as soon at that conference was over, Gettelfinger negotiated a series of sweeping concessions at Chrysler and GM which did not prevent the threat of bankruptcy mostly because the amount of workers' wages had nothing whatever to do with the long series of bad management decisions that killed sales along with the worsening economy.

Ford was the only car company that rejected govt help, and it did so in the expectation that it would be able to get major concessions from Gettelfinger. Which it did. That's not the problem. The problem is that Ford is bragging about its sales on the one hand while demanding Gettelfinger's major givebacks on the other, and the union members have had enough bullshit thrown at them from both "sides". They look like they might just turn down Gettelfinger's management-friendly contract.

Union Backtalk at Delphi

Well well well. It seems that after 30 years of abuse it's finally paying off to be the member of a union, and the "I spit on unions - pah! pah! - what have unions ever done except take dues money?" crowd ain't at'all happy about it. To quote chief NYT whiner Bruce Gump, "I’m being thrown out with yesterday’s trash." Mr Gump's complaint? Union members at his company are having their pensions fully paid out while Mr Gump and his fellow non-union members might have theirs cut. Too bad.

Huge Health Insurance Price Hikes for Small Businesses - What a Good Idea!

OK, Quiz Time: If you were a health insurance corpo exec during the first national discussion of healthcare reform since Truman, a time when the public is pressing for a public option on the assumption that it is going to be way cheaper than anything private for-profit investor-driven health insurors have any intention of offering what with the continuous price hikes we've seen for the last 30 years running alongside a deteriorating healthcare system in which everything is a pre-existing condition and it always seems to turn out that nothing is covered and said public already, like, hates your guts, would you: Raise rates on smll businesses, the core of GOP and conservaDem voters, both of which parties are desperately trying to protect your profits in the face of enormous public opposition?

Would I go too far if I assumed your answer to that question is a resounding "Good grief, NO!" If not and that's actually your answer, um, you're wrong. That's precisely what the insurers are doing and promise they will continue to do right up to the point a real public option makes them completely irrelevant.

Saturday Palin: Teh Cuda Endorses Non-Pub in NY

This will not, repeat NOT become a regular deal but this was just too delicious to pass up. Yesterday I passed on some info about the Palin Yes/Palin No/Assholes Disunited controversy at the Conservative Conference. At that point I said I didn't known Sarah was going to be the object of this tug-of-war. Today I tell you something else I didn't know (but probably should have expected): Sarahcuda isn't just the object of the war, she has become an instigator. She has stuck her nose into an election in upstate NY and endorsed the Conservative Party candidate instead of the GOoPer. (Via Norwegianity)

Sarah Palin's decision to endorse the Conservative party candidate over the Republican nominee in a special House election in upstate New York is the latest example that the former Alaska governor's allegiance is to her conservative principles rather than the edicts of the party.

"Republicans and conservatives around the country are sending an important message to the Republican establishment in their outstanding grassroots support for Doug Hoffman: no more politics as usual," wrote Palin on her Facebook page.

She also cited former president Ronald Reagan's belief that "blurring the lines" was not the way to re-build the Republican party and added: "The Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race."

Yah don't fuck wit Teh Cuda, dude. She got teef.

The fact that she has injected herself into a local race is probably faux pas enuff but just in case any of the morans who infest the GOP's MBIW didn't get it, she slapped them upside de haid by endorsing the most extremist batshit insane right wing candidate in the race, telling the MBIW right to their face to, like, stuff it.

Got your popcorn, I hope, cause it's time to melt the butter.

Friday Palin: Inside Gang War

We mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Sarahcuda was becoming the focus of the GOP split between the batshit insane wing (BIW) and the moderately batshit insane wing (MBIW) of the GOP. That split deepened this week when a war erupted over her at the CPAC meeting in California.

This weekend, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, was confronted by conservative activist and filmmaker John Ziegler over his criticisms of Sarah Palin. Earlier this year, Keene had said Palin spent too much time “whining” about the national media’s criticisms of her, was too “resentful” of the McCain camp, and appeared to be “bitter.”

Keene’s opinions about Palin were simply too much for Ziegler, who is a stalwart Palin fanatic and has previously said that any conservative who criticizes her should be “ostracized and punished.” This weekend, Ziegler tried to live up to his word by unleashing his anger at Keene.

Things got more and more heated until Keene walked off the stage and Ziegler grabbed a mic and started calling him "an asshole". Keene, being a conservative, of course responded in kind.

KEENE: You are a liar! … [grabbing the microphone] I said this is over! You got it? Over! … Get out of my face! … I’m not going to hit you, but I’d like to. … I’m not answering anything to you because you’re a jerk. … You’re a scumbag. … You’re an asshole. Got that on the air? Asshole.

We like this.

The Jobless Recovery Is a Problem for Dems? Oh, Yeah

Having joined Bush Economics by giving away the store to the investor/bankster class in order to buy some time for rich people to get a little richer before the bottom falls out again, the Obama Admin and the Democrats in Congress are now trying to figure out how to cut $Trillions$ from the budget because the GOP/Blue Dog ConservaDem Party won;'t sitr still for a deficit created by money going to people who actually need it rather than their Wall Street bosses.

When economists met privately with Democratic leaders of the House on Wednesday, the topic was how to pump billions more into the economy to stimulate job creation. They left with a homework assignment: How to cut trillions from future federal budget deficits.

That seemingly contradictory mix captures the unusual political and policy tension in the White House and Congress these days as the politicians deal with an economy that has begun a slow but jobless recovery and a public that is increasingly fretful about the accumulating debt.

***

“It is a complicated balance because these imperatives point in different directions,” Lawrence H. Summers, the senior economic adviser to President Obama, said in an interview. “Imagine a business if it were trying to execute a plan of rapid expansion for two years, followed by retrenchment and cost-cutting for the next three. It would be a complicated business strategy to execute.”

Uh-huh. Of course, if the business hadn't broken itself in two fighting a hopeless price war with its competitors and then, near busted, gone even deeper into the red to pay its executives giant bonuses, maybe the expansion would be easier and the cost-cutting unnecessary.

Is Jake Tapper That Stoopid? Nope, Just Unintentionally Honest

Avedon Carol links to a Media Matters post in which Eric Boehlert quotes ABC's Jake Tapper as being "completely baffled by the White House designation of Fox as a non-news propaganda channel. Which, of course, it is and has been for years as we all have reason to know. Avedon's jaw dropped - figuratively, natch.

I can find no better example of how right-wing our "mainstream" media is than the fact that they are so upset that the White House acknowledged that Fox News is Republican propaganda, not news. I mean, just look at Jake Tapper.

Boehlert himself seems confused by Tapper's confusion.

Oh my, Tapper has no idea how Fox News is different than ABC News, and he works there. Tapper can't tell what Fox News does differently that his own network. And Tapper was clearly irked that the White House had offered up an opinion that one of the Village's "sister organizations" wasn't professional. "Why is that appropriate for the White House to say?" Tapper demanded to know. (Hint: As a Beltway rule, Democratic White Houses are forbidden from calling out the press by name.)

Boehlert then in essence puts himself in the position of defending ABC - a daunting task which I personally wouldn't care to take on - by listing a number of the ways by example. They're worth going through with your little clicker for sure, very educational, but doing so doesn't really get at Tapper's point. It's not that Eric is wrong exactly about the superficial differences, it's that he isn't exactly right, either. And he isn't exactly right because he's looking at today instead of next year or the year after. Jake is talking about where "journalism" in the MSM is going, and it ain't toward Robert R Murrow.

Honest Numbers At Last: 16% of Americans in Poverty, 17% Unemployed

After nearly a decade of the Bush Admin playing with statistics to ensure no one would know how bad it was, I give full credit to Obama for allowing his National Academy of Sciences to correct their poverty formula (or at least begin correcting it) so it reflects the real world instead of deliberately violating it.

Having said that, I then have to add that the price for the Bush Economy is turning out to be a lot higher than anyone but pessimists like me thought it was. That's the reason Bush hid it in the first place.