So there’s this great new show we’ve been watching, which we think is an SNL spinoff starring a bunch of clever improv comedians as Republican Presidential candidates. In the last episode — get this — one of the fake candidates (Kristen Wiig in a fright wig, we think) accused another (Will Ferrell? Hard to tell) of deliberately infecting Little Girls with STDs and making them retarded, while the “studio audience” whooped and hollered at the thought of a sick young adult being ignored by doctors because he’s uninsured.

We’d swear Michael O’Donoghue is behind it, but he’s dead.

The next episode of the GOP Debate Open Thread/Performance Art Showcase begins in a few minutes. Let’s have a watch party before it’s canceled!

“LA City firefighters are under investigation for allegedly taking part in porn movies on the job, Cpt. Jaime Moore of the Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to NBC4 LA. This is the second city department this year where employees have been investigated for alleged involvement in porn movies while on duty.” [via TPM]

Our guest columnist is SarahPAC, which literally wants to know whether you are worthy of Sarah Palin.

September 20, 2011

Dear [Sucker],

As you may know, Gov. Palin is on the verge of making her decision of whether or not to run for office.

It’s one of the most difficult and important decisions of her life. And I want her to know that she has our support.

Read more »

Not since the bank run in It’s a Wonderful Life have we seen such a concise explanation of how the American system works:

I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is…” whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

In case that gives you a debilitating case of Warm Fuzzies, may be recommend Ned Beatty’s speech in Network as a chaser?

[via Weigel]

It was probably 1982 when we had the conversation with the McMinnville school superintendent. We were reporting for the local rag, but the conversation wasn’t professional — at least not the line we still remember clearly three decades on:

“The Sixties were an aberration.”

The superintendent was in his forties, maybe fifty. We were 23.

What gave rise to the line is lost to memory, but we were probably discussing some social issue of the day. And we — personally — probably expressed some form of shock at an unpleasant turn of events: But Americans aren’t like that!

Based on our experience, of course. Which, conveniently for our perspective, began in 1959.

Read more »

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

[Amnesty International: Georgia Kills Troy Davis]

[Sister Helen Prejean: Would Jesus Pull the Plug?]

Barack Obama demonstrates how to erase a World Leader from the official record without using Photoshop.

Barack Obama joins Open Government Partnership for group photo [MSNBC]