And finally…

In case you haven’t heard, it seems Senate Democrats WILL kowtow to Joe Lieberman tomorrow.

Via Roll Call;

When Senate Democrats meet Tuesday to decide Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (ID-Conn.) fate, leaders are expected to propose that he keep his gavel at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee but lose his Environment and Public Works subcommittee chairmanship.

Senate Democratic sources cautioned that the proposal is intended to serve as a starting point for the discussion over whether Lieberman should be punished for his aggressive criticism of President-elect Barack Obama’s candidacy, as well as his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Those sources said the proposal could change based on what Lieberman says to the Conference and how Senators react to both his explanation for his actions and the proposal itself.

Either way, Senate Democrats are expected to vote on whether to sanction Lieberman for his disloyalty.

Lieberman chairs the Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection subcommittee. Even if he were to lose the gavel, however, he is expected to retain his seniority on the full committee.

Lieberman also chairs the Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland. There had been speculation that he might also lose that chairmanship, but that option appears to be off the table for now.

Taking the subcommittee on global warming away from Lieberman may be seen as a stinging rebuke, given that he used the panel to push himself to the forefront of the climate change debate in the Senate earlier this year.

Starting point??? WTF?

As I said in last week’s ‘Rewind’, “(Lieberman) needs to be stripped of his chairmanship, pure and simple. If that prompts him to caucus with republicans, fine. Let him act like a spoiled brat, it will just push him down further in his home state of Connecticut. […]Strip him, give him something smaller and make him sit in the proverbial corner for 2 more years, allowing him to only be seen and heard when we need him to. Otherwise, let him leave and caucus with the gop, a party that has such serious identify issues now that he’ll be lost in the shuffle and be even more politically insignificant than he is now.” Perhaps a few more Democrats can grow a pair and treat this malcontent the way he treated his party… by screwing him with his pants on.

And finally…

In case you haven’t heard, Ralph Nader is still a tool.

While Nader has done some commendable things in the past, for the last eights years he has been nothing more than a nuisance with an over-inflated ego.

While there is no question his affect on the 2000 presidential election when he garnered 2.7% (2,882,955) of the vote, his numbers have been falling steadily since then, grabbing a middling 0.38% in 2004 and a virtually nonexistent 0.05% this year.

It proves that Nader needs to hang up his political aspirations. Unfortunately, I doubt that’s going to happen as he continues to overplay his place in politics; “We believe history will treat the Nader/Gonzalez initiative kindly in part because its reading of the necessities of the American people was accurate as was its condemnation of the concentrated powers that have for so long denied them livelihoods of decency, security and voice.”

Yeah… that or you’ll fade into political insignificance like Joe Lieberman.

Hey, a guy can hope can’t he?

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, French President Sarkozy has managed to put some kind of positive spin on Bush’s foreign policy… as a deterrent for other foreign leaders.

Back on August 12th, Mr. Sarkozy told then Russian President Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. Naturally Mr. Putin was unconcerned by international reaction and said; “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls. […] The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

To which Mr. Sarkozy replied; “Yes but do you want to end up like Bush?”

After pondering that statement for a moment, Mr. Putin reportedly said; “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Nice…And there ya go, one positive aspect of the Bush(whacked) Administration’s foreign policy: if you want a foreign leader to behave, ask them if they want to end up like “President” Bush.

That’ll get ‘em in line…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, President-elect Obama released a statement today announcing his resignation from the US Senate effective Sunday, November 16, 2008;

It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate. In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who’ve taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children’s future. It is these Illinois families and their stories that will stay with me as I leave the United States Senate and begin the hard task of fulfilling the simple hopes and common dreams of all Americans as our nation’s next President.

· The Senate Office will remain open for a period of time, but no longer than 60 days after the President-elect's resignation from the Senate, in that time, the staff will be archiving the Senate documents for the Presidential library and contacting constituents to inform them as to how any open casework will need to be handled.

So you know the people of Illinois WILL continue to be served as casework will be handled so as to ensure constituents receive the assistance they need, but that hasn’t stopped some people making a fuss about doing him resigning so many days before the inauguration, arguing that he should be staying in the Senate so he can help with the auto industry bailout.
Meh.

The bailout will or will not happen regardless of Obama’s status as Senator… and in resigning now he has the ability to focus on the transition, and due to the myriad of factors facing the nation right now, a smooth transition is VERY important.

Now the onus falls onto Illinois Governor Rod “George Ryan II” Blagojevich to select a replacement for the vacated seat before the end of the year.

Stay tuned.

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the folks at conservative blog P*w*r L*n* are mouth-breathing, Kool-aid drinking morons.

Consider this (the emphasis’s are all mine);

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

Bush is an excellent model for good public speaking?? Bush never gets sloppy when speaking??? Whatever this columnist is smoking, I want some… because it apparently has transcendent qualities that allows for people to see things through such thick rose-colored glasses that one needs a forklift to put them on.

Speaking as a public speaking specialist, Bush is – hands down – one of THE WORST public speaking president’s in the modern age. His articulation and enunciation are shoddy… his delivery is monotone… his choice of words is suspect… and he mispronounces the simplest of words, and to claim otherwise shows that the author of this post (whom I refuse to cite lest I give him ore publicity) is truly a lemming ready to go over the cliff with Bush’s approval numbers.

Have a nice trip.

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, since we have a ‘special’ Weekly Rewind appearing tomorrow, we decided to branch our CTotW to a separate post… and here it is.

Our search for tool of the week was, once again, a massive undertaking following President-elect Obama’s landslide victory Tuesday… but after scouring the intertubes, we found 2 equally deserving winners: Glenn Beck and Robert Novak.

First, Beck. On the same day that right-wing blog Red State launched “Project Leper,” in an attempt to professionally punish McCain staffers that, according to Red State’s Erick Erickson, wronged Gov. Palin (wronged? What the hell is this, the old west?), Erikson told Glenn Beck that she was “the best thing that happened” to the McCain campaign, to which Beck agreed, saying many conservatives told him they supported McCain in hopes he would die in office and elevate Palin into the presidency.

Shows you how stupid and partisan-blind these people are… hoping that Palin, THE most unqualified person to run for VP, would become president is not only an insult to the citizens of this country, but would have been extremely dangerous. But here these two are, hoping that she would have become president just because she’s a conservative’s wetdream come true.

The second CTOTW is none other than eternal putz Robert “Whack ‘em” Novak.

We knew, whatever the margin of victory was Tuesday, that conservatives would be spinning their wheels to maintain the illusion that it was as large victory as common sense says.

One such putz is right-wing pundit, and crappy driver, Robert Novak.

Back in 2004 when “President” Bush inexplicably won re-election and spoke of his so-called “political capital”, Novak couldn’t wait to get down on his knees to christen Bush’s victory as proof of a conservative mandate. When asked in a CNN interview if 51% of the vote was really a mandate, Novak replied “Of course it is. It’s a 3.5 million vote margin.”

So color people confused when Novak says that President-elect Obama’s popular vote margin of 7,401,289 (which is MORE than twice Bush’s 04 vote margin) and his staggering electoral vote margin (63 more than Bush ’04) does NOT make a mandate.

That’s right, you heard me… it DOESN’T make a mandate… ostensibly because that would require Novak using his own brain and NOT following the other lemmings off the gop cliff.

And because of their hate-mongering and their inability to accept reality respectively, Beck and Novak are our conservative Tools… of the Week.

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the bickering between Sen. McCain’s aides and Gov. Palin’s aides is continuing , with the Palin prank call acting as the latest catalyst.

From Newsweek;

“According to one participant, who declined to be named, aides went back and
forth venting their frustration. “Does anyone not think it’s strange that the
French president would want to talk to a candidate in the final 72 hours of the
campaign,” one senior McCain aide demanded, noting that the White House and the
National Security Council would likely be involved in any such phone calls.
“It’s appalling.” Bigger picture, the episode provides a glimpse at what have
been increased tensions between the McCain plane and the Palin plane in the
final weeks of the campaign.”

The bickering and name-calling has been building up for some time and, should McCain lose tomorrow, it’s almost guaranteed that McCain will throw Palin under the bus…

Stay tuned…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the conservative backlash towards Gov. Palin is continuing.

Yesterday it was Lawrence Eagleburger, secretary of state under President George H. W. Bush, who said that Palin is not qualified… today, it’s President Reagan’s former COS, Ken Duberstein endorsing Sen. Obama for president.

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Duberstein offered his endorsement of Obama and then proceeded to rip Palin a new one, saying (emphasis is mine); “I think it has very much undermined the whole question of John McCain’s judgment. You know what most Americans I think realized is that you don’t offer a job, let alone the vice presidency, to a person after one job interview. Even at McDonald’s, you’re interviewed three times before you get a job.”

Nice…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, conservative talker Bill Cunningham is an idiot.

Speaking on his radio show yesterday Cunningham made the outrageous claim that people who are poor in America are not poor “because they lack money” but rather “because they lack values, morals, and ethics.”

Let me see if I understand this properly… they’re poor because they lack morals, values and ethics… I guess I’m missing something somewhere because there seems to be a whole lot of wealthy republicans out there who are nothing short of the collective embodiment of those three traits.

I’m just sayin’…

And finally...

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the republican calls for Sen. Ted Stevens, a republican himself, to resign his senate seat are getting louder and more plentiful by the minute.

Earlier in the week Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have suggested Stevens should resign, as have republican senators Jim DeMint (SC), Lindsey Graham (SC), Gordon Smith (OR), and Norm Coleman (MN). …

Today it was Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (r-KY) telling The Lexington Herald-Leader; “I think he should resign immediately. [..]If he did not do that … there is a 100 percent certainty that he would be expelled from the Senate.”

And then you have republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska, who is also under investigation by federal officials by the way, who told the Anchorage Daily News; “I can remember Richard Nixon, you know, his years of service, what he's done, and everybody [was] ridiculing him, and he ended up being the greatest president in the history of our century. ... The Senator will be re-elected. He will appeal it. When he does go, he will win it because there's no way this is a jury of his peers.”

Um… okay.

First, let me just say this; Richard Nixon, ‘greatest president of our century’… really? What would Ronnie say?

Second; it’s clear that some people are SO immerse in their corruption that they don’t even recognize the reality or severity of their crimes… Mr. Young, like Mr. Stevens, is one of those people.

Third; with the ever-growing calls for Stevens to step down, what exactly is he waiting for?

And finally...

In case you hadn’t heard, the in-fighting in the McPalin camps is not only getting better and better; it’s also becoming increasingly public.

Last week we heard that one McCain adviser labeled Palin “a diva” who “takes no advice from anyone.”

Now Mike Allen of Politico is reporting on a top McCain adviser’s criticism of Palin that she’s “a whack job.”

Nice…

When asked to respond to the report that she’s “going rogue,” Palin avowed that the reports were; “… absolutely, 100 percent false. […] “John McCain and I, and our camps, are working together to get John McCain elected.”

I always thought a running mate was running on the presidential nominees ticket and not their own… but notice how Palin says ’camps’… plural...

Uh-oh.

I mean; Ha Ha!

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, McCain’s rhetoric is getting rather odd.

Yesterday, Sen. McCain said; “I have been tested. […] I’m gonna test them. They’re not gonna test me.”

Um… did McCain just imply that rather than respond to an international crisis provoked by others, he intends to provoke one himself?

Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

And dangerous?

And finally...

In case you hadn’t heard, 96-year old essayist Studs Terkel and Democratic Strategist James Carville had some of the best quotes this week.

Carville on Joe the Plumber; “The reason Republicans are happy about Joe the Plumber is they're glad they got somebody hanging around a toilet other than Larry Craig.”

Terkel on Gov. Palin; “She's Joe McCarthy in Drag!”

Sometimes the snark writes itself… this is one of those times.

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, Sen. Orrin Hatch (r-UT) is a tool.

Everyone reading this blog knows that since George W. Bush ascended to his perch in the Oval office the world standing of the United States has taken a beating.

Everyone can see it, except apparently for Hatch.

Appearing on Fox “News” earlier in the week Hatch denied that America’s standing in the world had fallen under Bush and insisted that world opinion of the US is as strong as it ever was and instead labeled other countries feelings of malaise towards us as “jealousy.”

Said Hatch; “There’s a lot of jealousy of the United States, especially in Europe, and France in particular and some of the other nations as well. So naturally they’re constantly poking holes at the United States. […] Yeah there’s some irritation with the United States but mainly it’s because we’re so powerful and strong militarily and economically and otherwise.”

I’m sorry, what? It has nothing to do with jealousy you pompous ass… it’s frustration, frustration with the absurdity of a George Bush presidency… and one only needs to take a glance at a handful of polls for verification and support.

A 2007 Pew study not only found that the level of distrust of the US has greatly “intensified across the world” but that feelings of anti-Americanism have intensified since 2002.

Another poll, this one done by Readers Digest earlier this year, polled residents of 16 countries and out of those, only five reported higher percentages of people that label themselves “pro-American government” with a majority labeling themselves as “anti-American government.”

And just in case you need more, another study was done more recently that gives the best documentation of just how much damage the Bush presidency has done to world opinion of the United States… easily seen in this handy-dandy graph we borrowed from The Guardian:

We all know Hatch is trying to shill for McCain now, but trying to put a positive spin on this is like putting $150,000 worth of designer clothes on a pitbull.

It may make it look more attractive, but in the end it still has a brain the size of a peanut…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, Sen. McCain has received an endorsement from a group that NO ONE wants to be endorsed by… al Qa*d*.

Posted earlier this week on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, the terrorist group has some thoughts about the looming election and, in effect, throws their support behind Sen. McCain.

From the post;

“This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier. […] Then, al-Qa*d* will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush. […] If al-Qa*d* carries out a big operation against American interests, this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qa*d*. Al-Qa*d* then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it.”

Not surprisingly the McPalin camp is, shall we say, frenetic about the “endorsement.”

Unfortunately there’s no way to tell how or what al-Qa*d* could do or even what they’re capable of doing at this point… but they’ve tried to influence elections before, witness the Madrid bombings before the Spanish elections and the October 2004 bin Laden tape that the CIA thinks was released in order to boost “President” Bush’s re-election.

Stay tuned…

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the Houston Chronicle is asking the question I’ve been asking for days weeks months now; “Who are the at 15% of people that think the US is on the right track?”

Who indeed…

According to the article those that make up the 15% are older, less educated, conservative and supporters of John McCain.

Kind of says it all right there, doesn’t it?

While the Chronicle’s explanation is good, I continue to maintain that these 15% are among the 23% that still think “President” Bush is doing a good job and see the world in a constant rose-colored hue.

That… or they’re dumb as a box of rocks.

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard… former SOS Colin Powell is not sitting quietly by after his endorsement of Sen. Obama.

Following his endorsement of Obama, Mr. Powell met up with some reporters outside the ‘Meet the Press’ studios… and when asked about the highly negative tone of the McCain campaign, Powell couldn’t hide his disappointment, saying; “And now I guess the message this week is we're going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more or who should be paying less, and for us to say that makes you a socialist is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate.”

Well said Mr. Powell, keep it up.

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, here’s Joe Biden speaking to Jay Leno; “Let me put it this way: I don't know -- the neighborhood I grew up, even the neighborhood I live in now, which is a really nice neighborhood, I don't know many plumbers who are making $250,000 a year and worried about it. We're kind of worried about Joe the fireman, Joe the policeman, Joe the real plumber with a license.” What else can I say but; oh snap

And finally…

In case you hadn’t heard, the Secret Service is now doing something that is, according to Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank a “serious violation of their duty.

“In cooperation with the Palin campaign” the Secret Service is now preventing the press from interviewing attendees at McCain-Palin rallies.

That’s right you heard me… the Secret Service is now preventing freedom of the press.

Said Milbank; “I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they’ve started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty — protecting the protectee — and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it’s unfounded because the reporters can’t get close enough to identify the person.”

So not only would a McCain-Palin win guarantee four more years of a Bush-style presidency, but four more years of a Cheney-like vice presidency.

And finally...

In case you hadn’t heard, Sarah Palin really has no clue about geography.

First she said she could see Russia from where she lives, which is a lie. Yes, you CAN see Russia from Alaska, but only from Little Diomede Island, Alaska, a remote village that Palin has NEVER visited.

Then she called Afghanistan “our neighboring country”.

Today, she said; “It seems like, and in our last rally too, and in other parts around this great Northwest, here in New Hampshire, ya just get it.”

Ahhh, the stupid; it burns!

Um… last I checked, New Hampshire was in the Eastern part of the United States and the Northwest was just slightly south of her home state of Alaska... which, for all intents and purposes, she should know.

Her lack of intelligence almost makes it impossible to mock her… but we shall continue trying because it’s so damn fun… and easy.