Ass Warfare

President Barack Obama:

Either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. Either we gut education and medical research, or we’ve got to reform the tax code so that the most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don’t get. We can’t afford to do both. This is not class warfare. It’s math.

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Scrumbags

From THE IOWA INDEPENDENT:

Thursday, Dallas Morning News editor Bruce Tomaso asked, in a rhetorical sort of way, just what to make of the photos of Gov. Rick Perry getting in U.S. Rep. Ron Paul’s face at this week’s GOP presidential debate.

The photo, taken during a commercial break and circulated by Reuters, shows Perry with one hand clutched on Paul’s wrist, and the other up in a reprimanding wag.

…snip…

The Guardian ran a three-part series of photos from the moment, including a Godfather-like hand gesture and glare that Perry followed with after former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman stepped in to, possibly, break up the scrum.

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Stoopid Warmed Over

From THINK PROGRESS GREEN:

The heat wave now battering much of the nation is centered on Oklahoma, where record heat and drought have crippled the state for the entire summer. With August on the way, there is no end in sight. The prolonged heat — Oklahoma City has been above 100°F for 30 days this summer — has probably killed over a dozen Oklahoma residents […]

…snip…

The oil-rich state is also the epicenter of global warming denial, led by its senior U.S. Senator, Jim Inhofe (R-OK). The oil-funded senator has a long history of finding humor in the misery caused by extreme weather disturbed by greenhouse pollution, including the record snowstorms of this winter. This deadly heat wave is no exception. In a tweet on Thursday, Inhofe’s press office mocked the killer heat, arguing that Al Gore could cool it off:

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Dim Bulb Barton

From Bloomberg:

U.S. House Republicans urged passage of a measure to block a phase-out of traditional light bulbs, as the Obama administration called the bill anti-consumer.

The legislation, which was debated on the House floor yesterday and may be voted on this week, would cost Americans $6 billion in energy savings in 2015, the White House said in a statement yesterday.

Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, introduced the proposal to invalidate lighting efficiency standards that would effectively ban bulbs similar to the one invented by Thomas Edison more than 130 years ago. The requirements were included in a 2007 energy law signed by Republican President George W. Bush.

You remember ol’ Joe Barton, dont’cha, kids? He was the one who called the deal worked out between President Obama and BP in which BP would set up a $20 billion fun to pay for damages after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a “shakedown,” and who apologized to Tony Hayward when he testified in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
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Holy Crap

From Mark Warren at Esquire  (I’m providing snippets, but you really should just go over and read the whole thing. There’s a video, too):

Lord knows they’d like to water the tree of liberty here in Texas — right now, before it’s too dang late — as the Obammunists pillage and seize everything that’s not tied down, and hollow out the Constitution and enslave us and subvert our food pyramid. Trouble is, it hasn’t rained in, like, a year down here. All the trees are parched, and a bunch of them are on fire. And so as a 21st century man, the governor, Rick Perry, did the only reasonable thing recently and had a resolution passed through the legislature asking for all of his fellow Texans — Mooslims and everybody — to pray for rain […]

…snip…

Now, as the Republican field of likely and announced candidates fails to excite anybody, and as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lurches to his knees like a tranquilized elephant, and his staff quits en masse and heads to New York City where this week Governor Perry was the featured speaker at a gathering of the city’s roomful of Republicans, speculation is high that Perry is the candidate who will force a complete recalibration of the Republican field and Republican chances next fall — that he is the change we’ve been waiting for, just the man to retake the White House for Texas. (This despite the fact that he is barely more popular than the president in his own state.)

Especially now that Perry has increasingly become the subject of Republican powerbroker fantasies, take a good look at his rain resolution.

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Nightmare Girls

From Andy Ostroy at OpEd News:

It’s the hottest band in politics: Sarah & the GOPettes. Ya got Palin, Michelle Bachman [sic], Nikki Haley and Christine O’Donnell. They’re young, personable and attractive, and are out there on the 2010 Tea Party Tour whipping the radical right-wing fringe base into a veritable frenzy. O’Donnell’s the latest addition, with her stunning defeat of 42-year Delaware Republican career-politician Mike Castle in Tuesday’s Senate primary. Heck, I’ll even throw the 61-year-old Sharon Angle [sic] into this group.

(From far right to even more far right: Little Chrissie O’Donnell, Princess Sarah Palin, Batshit Michele Bachmann)
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Old King Coal Has a Very Dark Soul, and So Do His Buddies

From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

These aren’t the best of days for Don Blankenship, whose systematic downplaying of safety concerns as the CEO of Massey Energy helped lead to last week’s deadly mining disaster, and got him named the “seventh scariest person in America.” But by next January, things may be looking up for the hard-charging coal boss: He could have a very close friend in Congress.

Elliot [sic] “Spike” Maynard is running in the Republican primary to take on Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.V.), whose district encompasses the heart of West Virginia coal country. Maynard, a former State Supreme Court judge, has said that his campaign “is about protecting the coal industry, including all the jobs associated with it,” and has charged that Washington Democrats have “declared war on the coal industry.”

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Can he balance a ball on his nose?

From Forbes:

Five and a half hours before showtime Glenn Beck still isn’t quite sure how he’ll provide tonight’s entertainment, “The Future of History”–two hours of monologue (and answers to preselected questions) before a nearly sellout crowd of 1,000 or so people at the Nokia Theatre in New York City’s Times Square. “But that’s me–I’m the next-event guy,” says Beck, flanked by two bodyguards as he walks the four blocks between the Fox News Channel studio, where he has pretaped the day’s show, and the theater. He won’t have to create tonight’s performance from scratch, since he’s left a long trail of words–millions of passionate, angry, weepy, moralizing, corny, offensive words–in his wake. “The body of work is pretty much the same,” explains Beck, 46. “What I’m trying to do is get this message out about self-empowerment, entrepreneurial spirit and true Americanism–the way we were when we changed the world, when Edison was alone, failing his 2,000th time on the lightbulb.”

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(In the back,  the Faux News Bimbettes, l to r: Greta Van Susteren, Megyn Kelly, Princess Sarah Palin, Gretchen Carlson, and Rupert Uncle Rupie Murdoch in the top corner)