Glenn Greenwald has a nice little rant posted on Salon, on meritocracy in America, which he put up as a reaction to the totally awesome news that Jenna Bush, who is now Jenna Hager, will be an NBC political correspondent (Suck it, Meghan McCain!).

Greenwald proposes a nice roundtable, with all the little children of famous people, Russerts, Bushes, McCains, Kristols, in some sort of vortex of nepotistic inanity, talking about how Sonia Sotomayor hasn’t earned her spot on the Supreme Court.  Good Stuff.

It’s Time to Embrace American Royalty [Salon]

JPMorgan Chase, which last fall quickly declared it would use its $25 billion bailout to add yet more names to its title, has also been using the time we bought to screw its long-term credit-card customers.

It’s a great scam. Chase spent years deforesting the world to mail low-interest balance-transfer offers to folks who enjoyed generous credit lines — from 2 to 6 percent interest for the life of repayment, in most cases.

If you did the math, even including the transfer fee, it was a sweet deal. Sure, there was fine print — always pay on time, lower-interest balances would be credited first, the usual. But as long as you played by the rules, you were safe.

Presuming, of course, Chase didn’t change the rules.

Which, for an estimated million customers, they have.

Read more »

Two bits of news.

First: you remember that guy who threw his shoes at Dubya?  He’s out of the clink.  No word on whether he was picked up by his brother, driving a used police car.

Second: you know that other party in Japan that got beat more than the Washington Generals?  Looks like they — the Democratic Party of Japan — have laid an ass-whuppin’ on the Liberal Democrats.  And now, let’s meet our next contestant, and Johnny will tell us about him!  [“He’s a industrial efficiency expert who loves to watch baseball!  Meet Yukio Hatoyama!” (Applause.)]

Title: “End the Fed”

Author: Ron Paul

Rank: 36

Blurb: “What most people don’t realize is that the Fed — created by the Morgans and Rockefellers at a private club off the coast of Georgia — is actually working against their own personal interests.”

Reviews: “Rarely has a single book not only challenged, but decisively changed my mind.”
–Arlo Guthrie

“The Federal Reserve, which serves private banks, has compromised our economy and is undermining our freedom. It can and must be stopped now.”
–Vince Vaughn

Customers Also Bought: “The Left, The Right and The State,” by Lew Rockwell

Footnote: Wait, Arlo “Screw My Dad” Guthrie and Vince “CBS Schoolbreak Special” Vaughn are Paultards?

End the Fed [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

Fuckabee:

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate suggested during his radio show, “The Huckabee Report,” on Thursday that, under President Obama’s health care plan, Kennedy would have been told to “go home to take pain pills and die” during his last year of life.

And the right-wing echo chamber keeps going, and going, and going …

Huckabee: Kennedy Would Have Been Urged to Die Earlier Under Obamacare [Sam Stein]

[via]

Destined to join Stuff On My Cat and Stuff White People Like in Internet immortality is the hot new Twitter feed, Shit My Dad Says. Written by 28-year-old Justin about his 73-year-old father, it reads like an undiscovered Walter Matthau movie:

• “You know, sometimes it’s nice having you around. But now ain’t one of those times. Now gimmie the remote we’re not watching this bullshit.”
• “The dog don’t like you planting stuff there. It’s his backyard. If you’re the only one who shits in something, you own it. Remember that.”
• “You need to flush the toilet more than once…No, YOU, YOU specifically need to. You know what, use a different toilet. This is my toilet.”

Read more »