What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Kim, honey, you need an intervention. Homofascist, could you please organize a squadron to kidnap her for her own good and remove her from Chicagoland? I could hide her out down here if you needed to.

TJ: ZOMG, complete kitteh tragedy in Oshawa, Ont. 180. Humane Society fire :'(

OK, I definitely need a drink now.

Funny — bloggie and I are on the same wavelength today, in re stupid people. (Me: in re Minnesoda voter who can’t mark a ballot properly.)

[Oh, and you couldn’t write a worse story than that Ontario shelter story. That’s just awful. Terrifying thoughts are springing to mind. Dear.]

Meanwhile, news reports have just come in confirming that everyone in Illinois government is an idiot. Per AP via Sun-Times:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s fitness to hold office.

A spokesman said Wednesday that the court rejected the challenge without comment.

They should have given a comment. It would have been hilarious.

@rptrcub: That’s so sad. SFL, can you light the candle on your St. Francis alter in their honor?

As to these dumbass young girls who keep marrying someone not only twice their age but likely a two-time murderer (not to mention their family and friends, who supposedly love them yet let them go through with it), alls I can say is that it goes to show Teh Stoopid in Illinois is not confined to politics.

@rptrcub: Kim is the one that escaped. Presumably she’s doing something safer, like dating one of John Wayne Gacy’s relatives.

@chicago bureau: Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with the Illinois state government right now? Did they ingest a big batch of Stupid sometime around early November?

@rptrcub: In this case, court was probably right – law was for when someone is incapacitated (like a stroke). If they’d granted the motion, it would have set a precedent. Imagine a Republican party in charge and trying to take out a Dem governor. That’s not something a court is comfortable with – aka the political question doctrine.

@rptrcub: OMFSM, i can’t even read that — I’m in tears just from the headline. I just had lunch and I srsly think I might vomit. I have nightmares about how I would get all my kitties out if there was a house fire. I can tell you I died trying.

As for the future corpse bride, I can’t summon up anything but contempt. If you’re that fucking stupid, thank you for removing yourself from the gene pool. I have to go cry over the kitties, who are far more worthy of my sympathy.

@blogenfreude: And he hasn’t been convicted of anything. Lots of politcians have constituencies that think they’re lower than donkey barf and they still govern.

/TJ/ Ray LaHood is your next Sec’y of Transportation.

The same Ray LaHood that presided over the House debate(ish) over the impeachment of Hillary’s very own Bubba. And the same Ray LaHood which, I figure, would be a rock-solid Senate candidate for the GOP if they wanted to have a special election type of deal here (which is now quite unlikely but still).

If she wants to meet the same fate as her predecessors, I just hope she does it before she decides to breed. No sense passing teh stoopid on to a new generation of dumb broads.

@chicago bureau: Par for the course, as O is getting Rick Warren to give the fucking invocation at the inauguration. A douche who compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia and incest, but said he loves the gays [so does Anita Bryant] and has eaten at their homes.

Come eat at my house, bitch. I’ll give up my policy of not cooking just for your fucking lard ass, and the potential Mr. Rptrcub will help me out in selecting an interesting dinner, of which the results may not be pleasant (leave that to your own interpretation — there’s a spectrum from mere indigestion to death). Yes, I’m evil. Yes, I’m going to hell.

@flippin eck: Candle will be lit tonight. So sad for the kittehs. I was already planning to light the St. Francis candle after I saw that Socks the Cat has terminal kitteh cancer.

@Jamie Sommers: Oh, but they always breed. I’m sure she and her baby daddy will have a wonderful short life together before she falls down a flight of stairs. It’s like all the women who want to marry the men on Death Row – weird.

@rptrcub: Wikipedia says Warren supported California Prop. 8.

@Dodgerblue: Yep, and that’s another reason why I have a bee in my bonnet.

@rptrcub:
You want the Stinquers at the Inauguration of Unicorns and Ponies and Starstreams and Hope and Rainbows to try to disrupt the prayer session?

@SanFranLefty & rptrcubbie:

How about a spontaneous floor show of “A Brand New Day” to disrupt the invocation?

I’ll play the Diana Ross part, of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tROqE9N2nuQ

And file under “Oh Shit”: Chrysler is closing all 30 plants for at least a month as of tomorrow. Merry fucking Christmas indeed.

@SanFranLefty:

From what I understand, the way the “economy” works now is that the Treasury issues more debt, then the Federal Reserve uses the proceeds from the sale of the debt to give billions of dollars to various Wall Street Welfare Queens who pay themselves seven-figure bonuses then plow the remaining pennies into US Treasuries instead of loaning it out. It’s a perfect Mobius Strip. QED.

The idea that people need credit and jobs is pre-9/11 thinking.

@rptrcub:

Come to think of it, it appears that after winning the nomination, Obama has fully commited to the Demoncratic tradition of flipping the double-bird to his supporters–especially teh gaze.

@SanFranLefty: Just found out that my father’s auto parts plant will be closing, too. They supply Ford with diesel fuel injectors. But instead of a sudden shutdown, it will be a slow 12-month bleed, and I haz Fear that the economy will not be back up enough for my father, who has no college degree, to find a job. So, stroke scare over; job angst starting.

SHOES AIMED AT DETROIT & DC IN 3….2…..1….

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKETY FUCK.

@rptrcub: The news gets worse minute by minute. I’m so sorry.

Oh boy, the Obama cabinet noms are going from bad to sucktacular:

Lisa Jackson, former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, for EPA:

“If the EPA is saying that New Jersey’s enforcement is bad, you know there is a serious problem,” says Robert Spiegel, executive director of the Edison Wetlands Association, a New Jersey based non-profit that closely monitors several Superfund sites throughout the state. Spiegel says he had urged Jackson to take more immediate action on some sites, and that Jackson’s field staff had done the same, but their pleas had been ignored.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/113370/obama%27s_controversial_epa_pick/

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack for Agriculture:

As a state senator, he voted for the infamous House File 519 in 1995, which stripped counties of the right to impose restrictions on CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations]…

After stepping down after his second term in 2007, Vilsack ran for president. When that bid failed, he joined the Minneapolis-based corporate law firm Dorsey & Whitney. The firm’s broad range of corporate clients include food giants Cargill and Conagra. He also serves as a distinguished fellow at Iowa State University’s Biosafety Institute for Genetically Modified Agricultural Products, where he sits on the advisory board with representatives of Monsanto, Dupont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred, and the World Bank.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/16/2326/6775?source=rss

Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar for Interior:

“The Department of the Interior desperately needs a strong, forward looking, reform-minded Secretary,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. “Unfortunately, Ken Salazar is not that man. He endorsed George Bush’s selection of Gale Norton as Secretary of Interior, the very woman who initiated and encouraged the scandals that have rocked the Department of the Interior.”

– voted against increased fuel efficiency standards for the U.S. automobile fleet
– voted to allow offshore oil drilling along Florida’s coast
– voted to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to ignore global warming impacts in their water development projects
– voted against the repeal of tax breaks for Exxon-Mobil
– voted to support subsidies to ranchers and other users of public forest and range lands
– threatened to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when its scientists determined the black-tailed prairie dog may be endangered
– fought efforts to increase protection for endangered species and the environment in the Farm Bill

@SanFranLefty: From Think Progress

Chrysler announced today that it would shut all 30 of its North American plants for a month, starting this Friday. ABC News reports that while 46,000 union workers will be shut off from their regular paychecks, the “white collar” management will continue to receive their salaries:

These [UAW} workers will not be receiving their regular income. There will be an unknown number of white collar workers who will not be working as well, but the expectation is that they will continue to receive their regular salaries during this time.

Chrysler said that union workers will receive “state unemployment benefits as well as supplementary payments from Chrysler” based off “a union negotiated formula.” (HT: Marcy Wheeler)

@rptrcub: Sorry to hear about your dad’s plant. If only they’d brought their European diesels here instead of making more fucking Expeditions.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

@ rptrcubbie:

With any luck the economy will start to turn around in the next six to twelve months. Fingers crossed

@rptrcub:

I’m so sorry to hear that. Wish there was something I could do….

@rptrcub:
I was thinking of your pops when I posted that news. Crap! The retrenching of blue-collar workers into new areas is very difficult. Are there any other jobs where they live (not counting Sprawl-Mart)?

12 months to retrench his job skills….oy.

@rptrcub: Sorry. I guess no one is buying diesel pickups — or any Chrysler products. What’s the over and under on when GM and Chrysler file Ch. 11?

@Original Andrew: Disap-POINT-ed!! Mr Agribusiness and an idiot who wears his fucking cowboy hat to the press conference. And Pastor Megachurch. Thank FSM it’s time for a cocktail.

@Mistress Cynica: I’m too fermished to recall if I’ve bored y’all with the sad tale of my meeting with the Obama transition team on the Federal Maritime Commission. Pro-business up the wazoo. Oy.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: You could do something – go buy a diesel Focus. If only they FUCKING SOLD THEM HERE!!1!!

@Mistress Cynica:

Yeah, he really stuck the shiv in with Jabba the Brokeback Preacher.

@SanFranLefty: Some, but SC has an official unemployment rate of 8%; Georgia’s is officially 7%. He might have better luck here in metro Atlanta. Atlanta used to have a much stronger economic engine revving the region, but it’s succumbed to the same economy-FAIL (TM) like everyone else. So, we’ll see. Still, he’s not being turned out immediately like the Chrysler workers.

@Tommmcatt Yet Again: Ohhh, I know something that could make me feel better….. liquor. (Wait, did you think I would have said something else?)

@blogenfreude: The irony is that his plant was once owned by the krauts at Siemens, who treated the workers half-way decently, even though they were in a non-union state. Continental owns them now.

@Original Andrew: I think I’m heading toward Hope (TM) fail right about now. Or perhaps I need to up the Xanax or something — baked, can you help me?

Thanks, everyone.

@rptrcubbie:

John Aravosis is kickin’ ass with an imaginary Hopey-DiFi dialogue at HuffPo:

BO: So you mean, by promoting a guy who represents none of my goals, ideals or hopes that the majority of the country voted for, and by devastating my own supporters on what was supposed to be a day of celebration and national rebirth, I’m actually promoting “change” by publicly undermining it?

DIFI: Exactly!

BO: But won’t I be screwing the gays, women, and pretty much everyone else who got me elected?

DIFI: Never stopped me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-aravosis/leaked-obama-transcript-e_b_151914.html

Started a new Chrysler RIP thread.

It’s not just the Master-Pastor Douchebag thing. It’s also the campaign finance, domestic spying, munnies for religious nutcases, telecom immunity, Joe Lieberman, shitty/mediocre economic team, foreign policy & cabinet appointment things.

Put all those things together, and there’s an unmistakable pattern of continuation of the failed Clinton/Bush policies. The ship is goin’ down and we ain’t got time for this shit.

It’s like people who are right about stuff are forever barred from working in the US Government forever and ever and ever, and are never allowed to influence our pwecious, almost comically corrupt and incompetent political and media “e-lites.”

Have there ever been people who were so arrogant with less reason?

P.S. Hold me!

@Original Andrew: I’ll hold you. If Mr. OA doesn’t object.

You say the clouds are gathering, and yet I remain unready to call the storm until the rain starts falling January 21. I wanna see what Barry’s motley crew actually does.

On the other hand: Rick Fucking Warren? Was Dobson unavailable?

Obama is selecting an ideologically diverse Cabinet, as he explicitly promised to do. They’re not the people I’d put in charge, but it’s hard to feel disappointed exactly.

@nojo: Does it really matter? Barry’s a mooslim, so he’s just goofing on all the jeebus nuts.

Srsly, who really thought we were getting the Socialist? Did anyone think that Amory Lovins would become Sec of Energy, Jim Hightower Sec of Ag, or that Rev Wright would give the invocation?

Dude has to get shit done. Let’s give him his honeymoon – 100 days? – then it’s fair game.

@nabisco:
As much as I think Rick Warren is a cheesy-ass SoCal Hummer-driving hypocrite, unlike a lot of fundies he does at least give lip service to some social justice issues. And since I think religion of almost any type other than the college theology discussion sections known as UU is a myth, it isn’t that big of a deal to me who he got. I find religious ceremonies mixed with politics objectionable, so whether it’s Billy Graham, Rick Warren, or some openly gay lesbian rabbi, it’s still putting the religion in the politics and I roll my eyes during the invocations of God/Allah/Community Organizer in the Sky.
I like the selection for no other reason that it also does a nice strategic move of shutting up the “Barry took the oath on the Koran” when the biggest televangelist of them all is up on stage with the crazy Mooslem blessing his administration.

P.S. I would have lurved having Jim as Ag. Secty. That would have been all sorts of awesome up there with putting Willie Nelson in charge of the War on Drugs and Diesel gas.

@SanFranLefty: Agree on all points. So long as Barry can move on after this and not have to be seen toting his bible on Sunday mornings, we’re good to go.

re: JH. Plus he totally shames Salazar in the ten gallon hat department. I was there when he strengthened pesticide regulations and jump started organic farming across Texas, and sadly also when Rick “the Hair” Perry beat him by taking all the urban voters.

@SanFranLefty: OT: My seething rage continues now that my state has 7.5% official unemployment; meaning it’s really probably around 13-14%. There goes my dad’s chances here. Oh, and adding to the SC unemployment thing, the state fund there is running out of money and Gov. Mark Sanford is refusing to not seek federal dollars to help unless he gets a list of reforms. Yeah, probably needed but you’re going to fuck people over.

@nabisco:
Didn’t now Gov. Good Hair get all the urban vote for Ag Commish because of the gheyz knowing he was a fellow Friend of Dorothy?

@rptrcub:

Yeah, you let me down there, Little Cowboy….