Make them all go first!

From HIVE at VANITY FAIR:

America is just over a week into the White House’s “Slow the Spread” coronavirus initiative, which recommends citizens practice social distancing and refrain as much as possible from leaving their homes. But Donald Trump has spent the past few days whining about the struggling stock market and signaling a return to business as usual, despite warnings from his own medical experts that an additional several weeks are necessary to contain the still-growing pandemic. Sending the country back into full-time work mode would undermine efforts to curb the outbreak and will almost certainly lead to more Americans dying—one worst-case model found that 2.2 million people could die if the outbreak is allowed to spread unmitigated. Right-wing media outlets know this, but they’re still backing the White House’s ill-advised pivot in near unison.

In fact, the death cult speed-run to save the stock market already has its first round of volunteers. On Monday night, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick kicked things off by telling Tucker Carlson that he is ready “to take a chance on [my] survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves,” i.e. one in which business is booming. Carlson, who commended Patrick’s comments as a necessary “conversation,” discussed the proposal on Tuesday night with his colleague Brit Hume, who concluded that it is “an entirely reasonable viewpoint.”

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He didn’t lobby, it was just a hobby!

From Joan Walsh at Salon:

Another day, another story about Newt Gingrich profiteering. Well, three stories, actually.

The Washington Post reported this morning that a Gingrich “think tank,” the Center for Health Transformation, collected at least $37 million from health care industry groups, who were promised “access to Newt Gingrich” and “direct Newt interaction” in exchange for their cash. Also in exchange for their cash, perhaps, Gingrich took some interesting positions on health care reform: He supported the “individual mandate” that Americans buy insurance (or post a bond to cover unanticipated illness) as well as measures to encourage “end of life” planning. He ditched both positions, of course, once he realized they were unpopular with the Republican base.

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Too Bad She Can’t Get a Heart Transplant!

Did you see this, kids? Governor Droopy Dog Jan Brewer of Arizona posted it on her Facebook page to wish all her constituents a Merry Christmas. Well, all of them, except those awaiting transplants. Screw those Debbie Downers!

I don’t know why she has to roll up her sleeves in order to ring a bell, but that’s not what’s important at the moment.  As you can see, there’s been a terrible mix-up, and someone on her staff used a picture of some young attractive woman instead of the real hag with a face like a used teabag Governor Jan. Good thing I’m in a holiday mood and not holding any grudges. I’ve corrected the error.

Book ’em, Danno!

Hey, kids,it seems that these days, everyone is getting a book deal.   I thought we’d take a look back at some books of the recent past.  There’s been a lot of talk lately about WikiLeaks, but where was all the Rethuglican hanky-wringing when Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent? They want to string up Julian Assange, but they seemed to be just fine when Chimpy commuted Scooterpie’s sentence, because Scootie has “suffered enough“…
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Rowdy With a Chance of Screwballs

From Betsy Reed at THE Nation:

In the media spectacle that is the 2010 midterm elections, women of the GOP are playing starring roles. They have figured prominently in nearly every plot and subplot that holds any real interest or potential for debased amusement: from Indian-American Nikki Haley’s triumph over her mudslinging male rivals for the GOP gubernatorial nod in South Carolina, to Carly Fiorina’s catty open-mic swipe at her opponent Barbara Boxer’s hair in the first-ever contest between two women for a California Senate seat, to WWF founder and Connecticut Senate hopeful Linda McMahon’s gifts to oh-so-lucky Democratic ad firms (including video of the candidate physically attacking a buxom, scantily clad woman purporting to be her husband’s lover), to the daily dose of clips revealing Christine O’Donnell’s youthful preoccupations with witchcraft and masturbation. Remember when politics was boring?

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Send In the Clones

From The CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR:

Following her tea party-fueled victory in Delaware’s GOP senate primary this past week, Christine O’Donnell has soared to national prominence faster than you can say “Sarah Palin.” In fact, many are likening O’Donnell to the mama grizzly herself.

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Let Us Be Frank. Or Maybe Just Talk Like Him!

From Robert Shrum at THE WEEK (April 15,2010):

Months of death panel promoting, senior citizen deceiving, and abortion mongering have left Republicans immune to facts. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has donned his Frank Luntz mask (maybe McConnell could borrow the pollster’s toupee too), lifting wholesale Luntz’s language designed to mislead the public about financial reform. Playing dummy to Luntz’s ventriloquist, McConnell now shamelessly characterizes the bill that would avert future bailouts on Wall Street as a license for endless bailouts on Wall Street.

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Northern Overexposure

From the Canadian Press:

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin’s weekend admission that her family once travelled to Canada to receive treatment under the public health-care system she’s so often demonized prompted skepticism and ridicule Monday among her critics in the United States.

“My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse,” the former Alaska governor said Saturday night during a speech in Calgary.

“Believe it or not – this was in the ’60s – we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing, and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.”

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