RNC Racism Part 2 (this week)

From Politico:
Steele offers Jindal 'slum love'

In an interview with Curtis Sliwa on ABC Radio last night, the host and RNC Chairman Michael Steele jokingly linked Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to the film "Slumdog Millionaire." Steele offered Jindal "slum love.

Here's the transcript:

SLIWA: Now, using a little bit of that street terminology, are you giving him any Slum love, Michael?

STEELE: (laughter)

SLIWA: Because he is — when guys look at him and young women look at him — they say oh, that's the slumdog millionaire, governor. So, give me some slum love.

STEELE: I love it. (inaudible) ... some slum love out to my buddy. Gov. Bobby Jindal is doing a friggin' awesome job in his state. He's really turned around on some core principles — like hey, government ought not be corrupt. The good stuff ... the easy stuff.

Hello? Bobby Jindal is American. He was born right here in America. He's been American his whole life. But because he's of Indian descent he must have some relationship to Slumdog Millionaire? Racist. Not to mention stupid. What kind of moron takes that bait from a radio host? A competent answer would have been, "Well, I don't know about that, Curtis, but I certainly have lots of respect for Governor Jindal..." And the use of the word "friggin'"? Really? I have the biggest potty mouth on the planet, but even I know to clean it up if I'm being interviewed. Wow.

How else to say it? Even The Black Guy at the RNC is racist.

Racist AND stupid. But I Repeat Myself.

The GOP clueless racist juggernaut continues apace. The Mayor of Los Alamitos, California sent out a card with the White House surrounded by watermelons. With the caption: "No Easter Egg Hunt This Year." His response? "It wasn’t sent to offend...anyone — from the standpoint of the African-American race.” Because watermelons are a universal way to make fun of Presidents from Chicago? Presidents whose dads were born in Kenya? Presidents who say Yes We Can? Riiiiight.

Wonkette covers it beautifully, this "cheap fucktard racist joke:"
wonkette.com

American Idol Again

Short version: Almost everyone sucks.

Thanks for tuning in!

State of the Union

Not news: Obama gave a good speech.

News: Bobby Jindal brought the CREEP to my TV! Did you see him deliver the GOP response? Oh my hell! My immediate thought was, "Infomercial." He was talking to the camera while smiling in the way that guy does as he says, "That's right, Jim, for just pennies a day you can place small ads in newspapers around the country--and become a millionaire in just 6 weeks!" One friend wondered if he was going to provide literature and try to talk about Jesus. It was serious creep-ola.

To be fair to Obama, his speech did what it needed to do in terms of speaking to Joe Sixpack. He touched on the banking issue-as-greasing-credit-for-average-Americans, on Iraq, on the economic outlook in general: "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken...we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."

For the Republican haters, see the polls (this one from the WashPost):
Obama Approval = 68%
Stimulus Approval = 64%
Congressional Republican Approval = 34%

You can keep saying No, but you also have to have something for people to say Yes to. Which the GOP does not have. No soul, no clue, no sense of the zeitgeist.

Advantage: Obama.

For Your Enjoyment, Jindal's Lowlights (and Fox News commentators):

Fund Accounting

A great article by two professors at UT Austin. It discusses the ludicrousness of the big banks' claims that they can't possibly accurately account for how the TARP funds are spent. Especially since nonprofits are required by law to do so every day of the year. Handcuffs await the boards of those who don't.
NYT

Fiscal Responsibility Summit

Amazing day today. Think about it. The President of the United States opened the floor for 45 minutes of questions from his rivals: Senators, Governors, economists and others. Took the first question from Senator John McCain. Whatever your politics, you have to admit that this is a different kind of presidency.

Here's the transcript of the Q & A:Q&A/

Oscar Blogscar

Here we go as Hollywood pulls a muscle patting itself on the back...

Just watched some red carpet. They must be desperate for young viewers. How else to explain the appearance of Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus?

Here comes host Hugh Jackman with a totally entertaining opening number.

The Best Supporting Actress nominees are each being announced by former Best Supporting Actress winners. Goldie! With the dress barely covering the nipples! And the unpleasant side cleavage. Goldie is cute--but there comes a time to wear age-appropriate clothing. Now might be that time.

Penelope Cruz just won. But she doesn't even speak English! ;)

MILK wins best screenplay. Slumdog Millionaire wins Adapted Screenplay. Both presented by the very funny Tina Fey and Steve Martin.

Jennifer Aniston and Jack Black are presenting some animation thing. Camera cuts to poor Angelina Jolie, who must smile the entire time lest she be accused tomorrow of giving Jen the Stinkeye. You know, Jennifer Aniston is cute. I don't get the haters at all. The winner of Best Short Animation is Japanese and speaks very little English. So his speech was "Thankyouacademee..." etc. Then he said, "Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto." Funny!

Folks, I'm already bored with this show. I've been flipping to Confessions of a Teen Idol and that disgraceful Ray J show, if that's any indication of how I'm doing so far. I may not make it to the end.

Oh! My boyfriend Daniel Craig is up! Nice. I don't know what the category or winner is. I don't care because I'm busy looking at Daniel Craig. Thank you lord for putting Daniel Craig on this earth. I seriously want to climb through the TV. Best Makeup Artist went to Benjamin Button. As the BBDD says, "Hellboy was robbed!" The guy who accepted is all Jiminy Glick, that Martin Short character. He seems to have stopped his speech to burp! Awesome!

Okay, I'm out. I can't do it. Not even for Ben Stiller impersonating Joaquin Phoenix... Maybe you guys can let me know who wins. :)

The GOP-H

Grand Old Party of Hypocrites. ThinkProgress has a list of all the GOP senators and reps (22 and counting!) who voted against the Stimulus but who are now "fighting for their fair share" of the money and touting the jobs it will bring to their regions. Florida Rep. Mica's staffer had this to say: “It’s possible to oppose the entire bill on principle and favor certain sections of it.” Yeah, certain sections that benefit YOUR constituents. Fucker.

This is what a party without a soul looks like.

A Great ForeCAST

I am getting my cast off in 2 weeks! So please hang with me while typing is hard. I swear I'll be back to my usual prolific boringness in a mere fortnight. I got a new cast yesterday and thank god. I had made the error of involving myself in the making of a tuna sandwich while wearing an unwashable and unremovable cast. You don't need me to tell you how rank that situation was...

Stay tuned, lovies! More bloggage tonight. And thanks to the inimitable Utah Savage for sending so many nice people to the neighborhood. Thanks!

TARP Details

TARP Details, courtesy of JJP. Some heavy good reading:

http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/9148/folder/70874

Idol's Back!

We're down to the top 36, so now I feel like writing about American Idol. But only some of the contestants.

Stevie Wright, 17 years old. Oh bless her heart. NO, no, no. She sounds like me singing while I'm vacuuming the house. Kind of out of breath, and lame. She has a good voice, but she bit the big one tonight. Simon, "Stevie, it was terrible."

A few words about Ryan Seacrest: say what you will, mock how you will, but Ryan is perfect for this gig. He makes it look easy, and if you think about it, it is just not. Making random people seem interesting, filling air time when the B-roll malfunctions, you name it, Ryan Seacrest is on it.

Anoop Desai. What a voice. Weird song. Thank God he is the anti-Sanjaya.

The next chick whose name escapes me doing Everything Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police. Total cruise ship. She's bad Jessica Simpson. Picture that. The BBDD says it is High School Musical. Weirdness by her mother too, after she was demolished by the judges. Just way too much investment by mom there. Weird. And one pointer: you never, never publicly, seriously sing The Police unless you have just been invited on stage by The Police to sing with The Police.

I'm already bored, y'all.

Okay, this next guy, is THE JAMS. Know what I mean? He's doing Michael Jackson's Rock With You, and it's all sweet sweet lovin' all the time, baby. Children will be conceived to this man's voice. You heard it here first. He sang it not great, but he's all about The Jams.

Okay let's just boil this whole show (what my Dad would have called A Goddamned Ordeal) down to one point: If you are 17 and amateur, you should not sing:
Whitney Houston
Michael Jackson
Aretha Franklin
The Police

Just sayin'.

One final note: Tatiana del Toro is just this side of your totally psychotic ex-girlfriend. Please let her go to the next round, because that is some serious Crazy.

Can We All Just Vaccinate Our Kids Now, Please?

http://www.popehat.com/2009/02/12/us-court-of-claims-rejects-junk-science-in-vaccine-case/

Finally!! MMR does not cause autism. But you already knew that.

A-ROle Model

I'm Sexist

Thank you, thank you very much. I'm so honored to accept this award for Hypocritical Sexist of the Year. I really appreciate that clip you all showed, because that scene captured the actual moment of my sexism. Where Bambina's preschool friend (whose father is her daytime caregiver) wanted her to come over for a playdate, but I had to be home for an appointment, so I said we'd reschedule. Then when he countered that I could just drop Bambina off so the kids could still play, and I had an utterly visceral "Not an effing chance in hell!" reaction, well, you can see the acting I did as I politely demurred. The truth being that, as truly nice as this man seems, there is no way on God's green earth that I am leaving my 4 year-old unsupervised with a man not her father, uncle or grandfather. I recognize that this is deeply sexist. I know it and I own it. But I'm still not going to do it.

Thank you, god bless you, and god bless all the awesome dads out there I'm nonetheless unapologetically distrusting.

Daily Show Excerpt

SO FUNNY!

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

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - The Stimulus Package

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

We Are The Losers

Day after the stimulus passes and the big talk is who won and who lost. Now, I'm not naive. I studied politics, worked in it, I get it. But this just pisses me off. I don't give a fuck if Nancy Pelosi feels blindsided or if Eric Cantor is now a GOP rising star. This entire process was one big exercise in dick swinging by our elected leaders in Washington. Grandstanding, pontificating, and blowharding by every one of them. It's easy to see who in America has not been affected one bit by the economic collapse: they all have a job, a gym membership, paid health insurance, and who knows what all other kinds of insulation from the winds that buffet lesser mortals like us.

It's all in the wrist

I want to blog, my friends. I have stuff to say. But seriously: it is taking me hours to type anything, never mind constantly having to correct typos. Short of just plain Control-C'ing everything I read or hiring a Mad Men-era secretary to take dictation, I'm afraid that things are going to be lame here for a while.

I'll try again tomorrow. Stay tuned!

The Press Conference

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/09/obama.conference.transcript/

That's the transcript of President Obama'snews conference last night. Because I've only got one typing hand at the moment, and because I've had 4 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours due to a sick Bambina, I will just encourage you to read it and compare the knowledge level with any speech by his predecessor. It's retroactively terrifying to be reminded how uncurious and uninterested GW Bush really was.

What a Twit

From CQ:

Congressman Twitters an Iraq Security Breach
By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff

A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.

But the cat’s out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.

A delegation led by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich., the entire world — or at least Twitter.com readers—now know they’re there.

“Just landed in Baghdad,” messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.

Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons. A few media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly, learned about it, but agreed not to disclose anything until the delegation had left Iraq.

Nobody expected, though, that a lawmaker with such an extensive national security background would be the first to break the silence. And in such a big way.

Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning.

Since it’s already a matter of public record, here are some of Hoekstra’s twitter dispatches, typos and all, delivered in just 140 characters or less:

“On the way to Andrews Air Force base.12 hour flight to mid east. Be back on Mon instead of tues. Votes mon. I’ll keep you posted,” he wrote on Feb. 4

In his last dispatch today, he wrote: “Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here [sic].”

Who Do You Have to F**k To Get an 'A' Around Here?

Have you heard? "We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion." Courtesy of The Corner. You know, the withdrawals, the stimulus, the Gitmo closing. All weakness. All failure.

Really? I'll let Wonkette answer: Truly, it is embarrassing that the President and the majority party have had to negotiate with the minority party on a major bill, so as to produce the best bill possible. It’s almost as if this is exactly how our government should work!

Or, as I'm going to answer:

-Signed SCHIP
-Restored due process
-Banned torture
-Lifted the abortion gag rule
-Restored the FOIA
-Took out some terrorists in Pakistan
-Made Middle East peace a priority

No, I'm going to say that the FAIL here belongs to The Corner.

She Ain't Nice; She's My Daughter

I often wonder how I'm doing as a parent. As psychotic as it sounds, I review the day in my head every night to see where I did the good stuff and to think about how I can do the other stuff differently next time. Don't get me wrong. I'm not aiming for perfection or anything resembling it. I just like to give some thought to my parenting so I can assist the BBDD in his vow to "keep her off the pole." Some days I feel like I am the greatest mom ever. Other days I pray to God that I'll make it to her bedtime without bloodshed or a psychotic break.

Today was one of those days where I felt like I must be doing something right. I was watching Bambina in her toe tapper class. There is a little boy in her class who just loves her, while she is totally noncommittal due to her current distaste for boys. This kid is so sweet and a little off-beat. He wears dresses to school. And girls' pajamas. And he loves pink and purple. (I'm digressing here to say that this is why I love 4 year olds: they don't care about stuff like that. This kid has other boy friends, and nobody cares about the dresses; they don't make leaps of judgment based on their biases. Except, the kids' parents do, and worry that this dress thing might be abnormal or amoral or--gasp!--communicable. Same with me and Bambina. I was offering her peanut M&M's before class, then I kissed her and said "I love you; have fun!" A kid near me said, "You are her mommy," and I said, "Yes I am!" A lady comes over and asks me if the petite blond one is mine; I say "No--she is mine, and have to finally say, after pointing 5 times--'the adorable Asian girl' to get her to comprehend that a total Aryan appearance does not require an Aryan child. The kid got it without all the adult assumptions: you are the person who loves this girl; you must be her mommy.)

Anyway, boy dancer wants one of the purple dancing ribbons but gets yellow instead. He was so sad that he started to cry inconsolably. I could see Bambina--purple ribbon in hand--looking at him and walking toward him.

Now, I know how you want this story to end so it can be One To Grow On, but it doesn't end that way and I'm glad it doesn't. Let me tell you why.

Bambina walked over to him and patted/rubbed his back a few times while nodding at him, then she walked away with her purple ribbon in her hand. (You expected a different ending from a 4 year old?!) I kind of teared up watching her, because her behavior showed all the qualities that I hope every day I'm teaching her:

Empathy.
Kindness.
Confidence.

Notice that I didn't say "niceness." I really pray that my daughter will never be nice. Because when people want girls to be "nice," what they want is for them to be more concerned with others than themselves, to the detriment of themselves. You'll pardon me for not raising a nice doormat. I spent too many years of my life being nice in the suffocating sense of the word, and it did not bring positive people or events into my life. So of course I want her to be an empathetic, kind, and giving person. I want her to react when she sees someone hurting. Of course. But I don't want her to feel like it's her job to fix someone or to be responsible for someone else's happiness to the detriment of her own. She's not spoiled. During playdates she will suggest compromises to work through conflicts with her girlfriends, which often involve her giving something up, so she's not (nor is she allowed to be selfish). But this was a different situation, and one I'm glad occurred as it did.

If that makes me not a nice mommy, then I'll gladly take the rap.

"Those Boys Are Much Too Much"

This is for the BabyDaddy, who consistently brings The Awesome and just quite simply re-sets the bar for rockstar Daddyness. BELIEVE that he has done waaay more embarrassing things than this for the Bambina. BELIEVE.

All That and A Bag of SCHIPs

It might be his Weekus Horribilis, but President Obama did a fabulilis thing today in reauthorizing SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. SCHIP provides coverage to 11 million otherwise-uninsured American children, and who can be against that?

Oh--that's right--Republicans. Here comes the science: "SCHIP was created more than a decade ago to help children in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private coverage. Federal money for the program was set to expire March 31, barring action by Congress. To cover the increase in spending, the bill would boost the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes by 62 cents, to $1.01 a pack." So they are concerned that smokers--mostly poor folks--will help foot the bill. Their bigger concern, however, is that middle class children will be covered as well as poor children. It is--as the WSJ so wittily phrased it--"stealthcare." Those libbruls are tryin' ta give children free healthcare without lettin' us kill it in committee! That's unAmerican!

Again, the Pubs just don't get it. An estimated 4 million Americans have lost their jobs and their healthcare. This seems like a no-brainer to me. Or, as my friend who now holds elective office (and so will remain nameless so as not to be besmirched by his association with a moronic and smutty blog) says: "It's like sunshine vs. cancer, and they're for cancer." I sure hope they've got insurance.

Cheney: Still Evil

Here comes the least-liked man in America to let us know that, in the event of a "highly probable" nuclear or biological terrorist attack, it will be Obama's fault for reversing the policies of his administration: "Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”

I'm calling bullsh*t on Dickie. This is a man whose legacy involves the suspension of constitutional freedoms, torture, and outright deceit to achieve his ends. Why are we listening to this? It's as if he's hoping for an attack so he can justify his appalling behavior. Nota bene that 9/11 was blamed on Bush's predecessor and that further attacks will be blamed on his successor. This is clearly the desperate counternarrative of a failed politician. Let's treat it as such.

Coming Up Blank

Me, that is. Total inability to compose a coherent thought worthy of 10 seconds of your time. Can I blame it on the fact that it is snowing AGAIN? Come on, now!

We can also blame the time-sink that is Facebook. I love keeping up with my friends, but I think I get caught up in the etiquette of it, ie, I need to reply to that email within 24 hours or else it's rude. If someone writes on my wall I feel compelled to write back. Not that I don't want to write back, but again I just want be responsively timely. I was crestfallen when the BBDD reminded me that people are not hunched over their computers awaiting my message. I happen to think that's an outrage if true.

I'm also otherwise engaged with the Bambina who is, as you know, being very four these days: rapturous joy and total fun interspersed with preadolescent attitude problems, various staged coups d'etats attempting to throw off the yoke of bondage, and lots of eye-rolling. She has also been very funny. When discussing where bacon comes from, she decreed it "bad luck for the pig but good luck for us!" Indeed. When she woke up stuffynosed at 3am for the third night in a row she said that she wanted her nose to clear up, "but sometimes boogers just don't listen." Damn those recalcitrant boogers!

In addition to being funny, she has also been very helpful now that I'm operating with one hand for the next 6 weeks. She is very proud of herself because she can hook and unhook my bra for me. I forgot that I was speaking out loud for a moment, because she now tells people proudly that she can unhook my bra--"something lots of grown men have yet to learn."

Yes, I am mother of the year.