TILT TILT TILT

This has taken me completely by surprise. I did not see this coming.

@Benedick: Is this normal Benedick talking, or Ronnie Benedick? Doesn’t matter, I guess.

State of play: Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the number-fourish ranking Democrat, is coming with an amendment to knock out estate tax breaks in a little over a half-hour, or perhaps longer. If that passes, the GOP caucus in the Senate will balk on that too. Which would mean that Barry got JACK SHIT out of the Deal.

CALL THEIR FUCKING BLUFF, REID!!! CALL THEIR FUCKING BLUFF! Make them filibuster. 60 is the new 50 only when you lack the stones to CALL THEIR FUCKING BLUFF!

/apologies for all-cap screaming on my rant

No shitting toy dachshunds until you pass your bills.

@SanFranLefty: A little late on the request for Harry Reid to use his balls, I’m afraid. I appreciate the sentiment, though.

Meanwhile, in the House, Nancy is calling for an amendment to the tax bill. She’s not fully on-side with Barry. The separation-of-powers thing is dandy when you think about it.

You know, C-SPAN would be a lot better if they played the background music from Marv Albert’s “Albert Achievement Awards.” Or the Benny Hill theme.

Sidebar: how cool would it be if Scott Brown were bounced in 2012 by Barney Frank? I’d pay good money to see that.

@SanFranLefty: Last I heard, the ball-less wonder had agreed to just extend funding–as Repugs wanted, natch– rather than vote on a spending bill. You think he has the cojones to make the Repugs actually reveal themselves for the vile reptiles they are (apologies to our lizard friends out there)? I swear to god, I think he’s a closet republican, a mole, if you will.

I hate Harry Reid with a burning something or other.

After Senate Republicans, this country’s biggest problem is Harry Reid.

@chicago bureau: Bounced in bed or bounced in the polls? The debates might be painfully delicious to watch, for no other reason than Barney Frank is one of the smartest and funniest guys on the Hill.

@karen marie doesn’t want to know: Yeah, a burning case of the clap. That man must be a Republican mole, as Cynica points out, for no other reason than the Teabaggers ran someone as batshit crazy as Sharron Angle against him. Had they run a ’71 Gremlin against him, he would have lost.

Hey, BTW: Jon Stewart is taking the Senate GOP to the woodshed in re the First Responders. If only Harry Reid took notes on this guy.

Confidential to ‘Catt: What’s this weird Disney Xmas cartoon with freaky looking elves exchanging double entendre dialogue that came after Charlie Brown’s Christmas? ;-P

@chicago bureau: Wasn’t that Monday night?

@SanFranLefty: Nope. Jon had four first responders on in a roundtable where they made fun of McConnell getting weepy on Judd Gregg shipping out.

And… cut on estate tacks stays. Final vote rolling now.

Boy, that was quick — already past 218 in favor of the deal. Black Eagle WIN. Maybe. Sorta. I guess.

[headdesk]

Apropos of nothing, was checking out TLo and came across this wonderfully bizarre tableau.

@chicago bureau: Well, he needs somebody to fund his 2012 campaign, now that everybody else is checking out.

@mellbell: OMFG if Nojo doesn’t use it first for an illustration for a post, I am SOOOO using that.

And is it just me, or is Shelley Oh getting more buff?

ADD: LOOOVE that dress, am not a big fan of the ginormous earrings, but how adorable are Sasha and Malia? Malia is what, 12, and she is easily 5’11” judging on how she measures up against her 6’3″ dad and 6′ mom. Sasha all of a sudden no longer looks like she’s 7, she looks like she’s 12. God, looking at those two, I worry about hormones in this nation’s milk and water supply. But, if Black Eagle loses in 2012, Malia can easily support the family with her modeling career.

ADD2: WTF? Is that a very pregnant Mariah Carey and Ellen DeGeneres with the Obamas in the third from last or penultimate photo?

ADD3: Why are all the elves three year old Aryan Nation white children?

/I swear I’ll stop, or start a new comment

@SanFranLefty: If I don’t use it in the morning, it’s yours.

@nojo: Deal.

It’s obviously been too long since we had a little fashion session here at Stinque, so I have more comments for the Stinque Fashionistas. The first one is a little more serious.

(1) – or ADD4: Seeing Malia in the Aryan Nation elves photo series made me suddenly realize that she no longer has those fucking awesome and adorable twists that she was working in the summer and spring. I know the topic of African-American women’s hair is fraught with great angst and scholarship (or maybe I just know too many SF/Oakland/LA women of color with dreds/shaved heads/gorgeous short Afros who have masters theses prepared to explain their hair choices), but something inside of me felt sad to see Malia with the straightened hair. I understand why Michelle could never do the non-straightened hair (exhibit A: New Yorker cover with the Angela Davis ‘fro; exhibit B: the dumb fucking bitch from Glamour magazine who went to a law firm last summer to explain to female interns why “natural” black hair was “unprofessional”) because it’d scare the white people more than they are already scared of her, but I guess I had hoped that the girls would be able to do whatever the fuck they wanted to do with their hair. If they wanted to go through the not fun and time-consuming process of straightening, all the power to them, and it’s their choice, and I hope that it was their choice, and not something forced upon them by society or others’ views of what would be “good” hair.

(2) or ADD 5 – on a much lighter note: Chicago fashionistas, enjoy your shout-out on this TLo post.

@chicago bureau: HOO.LEEE. FUCKING SHIT.

I think this is the best episode of Jon Stewart’s show I’ve ever seen.

HOLEE SHITE.

@SanFranLefty: And Huckabee is hedging on the Fox angle. Dude, you’ll never get a better chance to show some integrity, and you’re blowing it.

@SanFranLefty:
my guess is she straightened it because that’s what mommy does, her primary role model. we frizz heads suffer before we come to terms with it, if we ever do, and it’s a shame that one hair type is considered “better” similar to skin color. i am a woman of color (according to the aryan nation) and i have the hair to prove it, a jew-fro, if you will. i have it flat ironed within an inch of it’s life to maintain what i consider acceptable. hair shame. when it dries naturally i look for the nearest bag to jump under. and i’m not 12, so i get it.
ADD 12 was the age i started making my grandmother iron my hair on the ironing board.

@SanFranLefty:
all day i’m going to be disturbed about those 10 soldiers who were 11 when we started winning over hearts and minds. war is peace.
ignorance is bliss. please pass the soma.

where’s my fucking saviour? where is al franken? send harry his balls, he’s not using them. dis-a-POIN-ted. and how is it that the only one immune to what they must be pumping into the water over there, is barney frank? i hear he did some fine busterin. wasn’t watching c-span because it interfered with the FINAL EPISODE of dexter. where is HOWDY, the only other fan i know. we must discuss. (i KNEW deb knew, didn’t you?)

@baked: I get it. I also have a Jew fro. As a kid my mom (who had straight hair) would try her damndest to make my hair straight. Iron, blow dryer, etc. Then really short cuts would keep it straight. But if my hair got more than 2 inches long it would turn into a frayed Q-tip or like I stuck my finger in an electric socket despite her efforts (and then, my efforts). One day in middle school, quite accidentally, I was running late and went to school with my hair still wet. I got more compliments that day about my “pretty curly hair” than I could have imagined. So combine my natural sloth/minimalist approach with a desire to not look like Mrs. Frankenstein, and I embraced my hair’s natural look. I haven’t used a hair dryer since I was 12. It was only in the past 10 years that I learned two other tricks that we chicks with thick curly hair can do – only use shampoo once a week (just massage and rinse with water the other days), and but every day condition it and leave the conditioner in your hair and don’t rinse it out.

/sorry for boring the rest of you…

I wish somebody would beat Harry Reed with a cane like that.

@baked: Deb knows? I’m only on season two. Thanks a lot, Baked.

@baked: My Iraq vet buddy and I were talking about that one day recently when we were loading up some firewood in his truck.

@SanFranLefty: One of Mrs RML’s friends started a website called naturallycurly.com for alla you wimmiz like that. She’s the one on the right, Michelle.

http://www.naturallycurly.com/about-us

@redmanlaw: That’s an awesome website!

@baked: @SanFranLefty: If it makes you girls feel any better, my grandmother hated my naturally straight (and thin and fine) hair, and put it up on those wretched pink sponge rollers every night of the world until I was about 12 and just rebelled. I had to sleep on those things for 10 years of my life. When I was in high school (the Farrah years) I used to put my hair up in pincurls when it was wet and spend 2 hours under a hair dryer so it would look thick and curly. We won’t get into the thousands of dollars and hours I spent coloring it for 25 years, because I was prematurely grey. Bottom line: NO woman is ever happy with her hair. And if she is, she’ll never admit it because all her girlfriends will hate her forever.

Dept. of LadyBits TJ: Last night the GOPers blocked passage of the “International Protecting Girls By Preventing Child Marriage Act,” which had passed the Senate UNANIMOUSLY. The excuse given was that the bill might be an argument to overturn anti-abortion laws in foreign countries. WTF?

@Mistress Cynica: You have gorgeous hair, my dear.

@SanFranLefty: I think I won the hair lottery — naturally curly in medium-large curls when it’s shortish (I currently keep my hair about 3-4″ long if you pull it straight, but it looks 1″ tall on my head), and lots of it. Slowly going grey at the temples. No signs of impending baldness, although I’ll probably lose about 1/4 of it by the time I’m 70, if my grandparents are any indication.

I once dated a woman who has your hair regimen: wash once a week, conditioner every day. Her hair would be a frizzy mess if she didn’t do that. She’s also a hairdresser, so she knows all the tricks. She still cuts my hair, but I have to pay for it now. ;)

@SanFranLefty:

Duh. The smallish fraction of the GOP that’s not otherwise occupied fapping to Congressional pages and/or displaying a “wide stance” in their nearest public washroom is busy contemplating how they can build a harem of underage girls. Plus there’s their ultra-LDS allies to consider – it’s a lot easier to talk a 12-year-old into becoming a “sister wife”, methinks.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One:
i’m soo sorry tommie!!! i didn’t ruin anything. hey, she’s a great cop, how could she not? but you don’t find out til the last 5 minutes in a stunning final episode. enjoy all the story lines and grisly murders, it shouldn’t ruin it. i didn’t tell you what happens to him, so enjoy!

curly tops: i have a note pad with peanuts sally that says, “people expect more from you when your hair is naturally curly.”
i just recently learned the stop-washing-it trick…and product product product–anything that says “frizz” on the bottle.

reds: you and your buddy were talking about what? hair? dexter? al franken? lerve your friends site!