Eric Holder on a Spit

post from Taylor Marsh on 12 October 2011 10:25:33 PM. © Taylor Marsh

Listening to Sean Hannity briefly today, because I can only take this cretin in short stints, he had Rep. Issa on for an interview over the “Fast and Furious” imbroglio that is lighting up the right. Between the two of them they flayed A.G.[...]

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Bullets, perms, and curls.

post from field negro on 12 October 2011 10:00:29 PM. © field negro

The guy standing in the pic that goes with this post walked into a beauty salon today and killed eight people. Eight! Apparently his wife, an employee of the salon, did something to piss him off. (From the looks of him she might have hid his workout videos.)

Anywhoo, it's just another day for the "Falling Down" crowd here in A-merry-ca.

"A gunman opened fire Wednesday in a busy hair salon, killing eight people and critically wounding another while leaving bodies scattered throughout the business in a normally sedate California beach community.

The gunman got into a car and drove away from Salon Meritage after opening fire about 1:30 p.m. He was stopped by officers about a half-mile away and surrendered without incident, said police Sgt. Steve Bowles.His name was not immediately released.
Police were struggling to determine the motive for the killings."There may be something to the motive as to a relationship with somebody in the salon, that is our assumption," Bowles said.
Seal Beach has seen just one other homicide in the past four years.Police responding to a report of shots fired found six people dead and three wounded. Two of those three died at a hospital. The other person was listed in critical condition.
Bowles said bodies of the victims were scattered throughout the salon, along with two of the wounded. The other wounded person, a man, was found outside the building. It wasn't clear if he was trying to flee when he was shot or if he was the one survivor.
"We're unsure at this point if he shot from the entrance and people, as they were shot, ran in seeking cover or seeking shelter, but we have fatalities throughout the salon," Bowles told reporters at a news conference outside the business."From my observation, it did look like people were seeking shelter at the time," he said.
He said the salon was busy at the time, with every hair-dressing station in operation.
He didn't know what type of weapon was used or if the man used more than one.Salon employee Lorainne Bruielle, who wasn't working Wednesday, told the Long Beach Press-Telegram the gunman was the husband of another employee.Bruielle said she talked to the husband of one of the employees involved, who said one employee locked herself in the salon's facial room and was unharmed while another man locked himself in a bathroom but was wounded.
The suspect was cooperative when officers, following a description of the shooter, stopped him nearby. He told them he had multiple weapons in his car, Bowles said." [Article]
"Multiple weapons". Where have we heard that before?

Finally, congrats to Herman Cain, I see that he is the flavor of the month right now in the republican party. Wingnuts just love the plain spoken black man who isn't afraid to put down his own people.

Memo to Herman: Poll numbers can't buy air time.

Yes, Herman is still popular with certain closeted bigots who need a mouth piece. But sorry Herman, they ain't giving you their money. Poor Herman's campaign is still woefully short of cash.

Maybe Herman should stop saying nine nine nine so much and start saying dollars dollars dollars.

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But what does #OccupyWallStreet want

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 12 October 2011 10:00:24 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow has a pretty brilliant toon up at Daily Kos on the refusal by many, particularly in the media, to acknowledge that #OccupyWallStreet has a very clear conception of what they are protesting. Go give it a read.

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Even Republican Voters Support Tax Hikes, Why Not
The GOP Congress

post from Crooks and Liars on 12 October 2011 10:00:18 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Timothy Noah gets through this entire post, noting that even the tea partiers mostly agree with tax hikes, and is still wondering why Republican officials are so out of step with most Republican voters -- without mentioning the famous pledge to Pope Grover. Nobody likes a primary challenge, Tim!

This has been said before but it cannot be said enough. Republican presidential candidates and Republican members of Congress are out of touch with Republican voters on the necessity of raising taxes to reduce the budget deficit. A Washington Post-Bloomberg News poll conducted Oct. 6-9 found that 68 percent of all voters and 54 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters favored raising taxes on incomes above $250,000 (i.e., the Obama plan) to tackle the deficit. On the question of whether to reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits to reduce the deficit, 83 and 82 percent, respectively, of all voters opposed. For Republicans and Republican-leaners, these proportions were only slightly lower: 79 and 77 percent, respectively. Entitlement spending will have to be cut, of course, to reduce the deficit, because entitlement spending represents a majority of all federal spending. (Only one-fifth of federal spending resides in the "non-defense discretionary" category currently being whittled to the bone.) But that option is pretty unpopular with just about everyone and it is therefore politically unwise for Republican politicians to try to balance the budget through spending cuts alone.
It's also economically insane to contemplate hacking away at government spending at this particular moment, when unemployment is stuck above 9 percent and the median income is dropping like a stone. As my grade-school friend Daniel Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital, writes in a new report for the New America Foundationcoauthored by Robert Hockett of Cornell Law School and New York University economist Nouriel Robini:"Under existing conditions of weak global demand, austerity would simply lead to a vicious circle of yet weaker demand, weaker investment, more unemployment, and still weaker demand, ad infinitum ? the familiar ?downward spiral? of all ?great? depressions wrought by the ?paradox of thrift.? This is especially true if austerity is pursued simultaneously in Europe and the United States, as now is in real danger of happening owing to European measures that are just as wrong-headed as now-voguish American ones. And if the emerging economies in Asia and elsewhere begin to experience slower growth rates, as is now being projected, U.S. austerity will do yet more damage."
Have a nice day!

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Lt Dan Choi Evokes Love, Courage for National
Coming Out Day

post from Firedoglake on 12 October 2011 09:40:22 PM. © Firedoglake

Lt. Dan Choi spoke at Cal State Northridge Tuesday night for National Coming Out Day. Wow. Wow. Wow. His speech took us from the Triangle of Death in Iraq to his parents' home in Orange County, California and back again, through his falling in love for[...]

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Taliban, Amish Announce Merger

post from Talking Points Memo on 12 October 2011 09:00:44 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Well, not precisely. But it does seem that the wave of religious zealotry washing from Pakistan to Iran to the West Bank is lapping up against the Amish archipelago in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other American states. Five Amish men in Ohio were arrested[...]

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Tony Perkins Dismisses Ron Paul's Value Voters
Straw Poll Win

post from Crooks and Liars on 12 October 2011 09:00:42 PM. © Crooks and Liars

The Family Research Center conducted their own straw poll, which is made up of the James Dobson faction of the religious right - and lo and behold the winner was Ron Paul. That should be a significant victory for Paul, but Tony Perkins, their new leader and Value Voters organizer dismissed Paul's victory as an outlier and in essence denounced his own voters and the legitimacy of his own poll.

The "Values Voter" summit was held in Washington this past weekend. The event was sponsored by The Family Research Council, a social conservative group. The weekend got off to a rousing start Friday night when Robert Jeffress, a prominent Texas pastor, criticized Mitt Romney and his faith, calling Mormonism a "cult."
And in the Values Voter straw poll, Rep. Ron Paul came out on top with 37 percent of the vote.
This morning on American Morning, CNN's Carol Costello talks with Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, about Jeffress' controversial remarks and why he believes Ron Paul's straw poll win is insignificant.

He was so ridiculous that the TeaNN host just laughed at his rationale for dissing Paul's win.

Costello: So Ron Paul probably means nothing and Herman Cain does.
Perkins Well, this is...the majority of the people came there for a summit to hear all of the candidates. They didn't come there to support a particular candidate. They came to listen to the candidate and express their preference. Ron Paul bused in over six hundred people on Saturday morning not to attend a conference, but to just to hear his speech and vote.

There was early news made at this summit when Pastor Jeffress openly attacked Mitt Romney's Mormon faith by calling it a "cult." The results of the straw poll show a couple of other bad signs for Romney, the Republican Villagers choice for the nomination. First, the type of evangelical that is attracted to the FRC does indeed not trust Romney's religion at all and secondly, he finishes behind everyone one of the remaining GOP candidates outside of Gingrich, who align themselves with religion. Well, they all pander there, but still. Not good, Mittens.

Paul 37%
Cain; 23%
Santorum: 16%
Perry: 8%
Bachmann: 8%
Romney: 4%
Gingrich: 3%

Cain's strong showing is also indicative of the dissatisfaction the right-wing base has with its field and with Romney in general. Perry's immigration stand has eroded his support entirely in the Christian community and put his bid in terrible jeopardy for the nomination. So, they are trying to show America that they aren't racists this early in the process and are flocking to Cain, even though he has no chance of winning.

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Speaking of Steve Jobs's passing, we do know he's
not in Christian heaven, don't we Plus Bob Mankoff offers a cartoonist's Jobs tribute

post from DownWithTyranny! on 12 October 2011 09:00:17 PM. © DownWithTyranny!

Probably I was the only viewer of this cartoon who didn't
who didn't pick up on what's wrong with it, right?

"It may be hard to remember how transformative the Macintosh was when it débuted in 1984, but it changed my life."
-- New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, in his
newsletter/blogpost tribute to Steve Jobs this week (see below)
by Ken

I'm sorry I didn't notice Daryl Cagle's Monday blogpost on his Cagle Post cartoon website in time to incorporate it into my post last night prompted by the passing of Steve Jobs. Actually, when I finally did notice it, I got stuck on the Nik Scott cartoon he heads with, reproduced above, because although I must once have known that Jobs was a Buddhist, the fact had long since slipped my mind. (Most everything seems to slip my mind these days. More and more often, I no longer know just what it is I know. Or knew.)

I think what really got my attention, though, in an abbreviated version of Daryl's post was the reference to the passing of George Carlin. Yes, I suppose George would have had quite a lot to say about the heaven into which so many of his eulogists plunked him. But then, George would have had a lot to say about all sorts of stuff. I'm still steamed about the fact that he's stopped.

Christian Heaven for Buddhist, Steve Jobs

By Daryl Cagle | October 10th, 2011 | 49 Comments

My Australian cartoonist buddy, Nik Scott, reminded me that Apple?s Steve Jobs was a Buddhist, which makes the many heavenly cartoons that were drawn after his passing rather, erm ? off the mark? That?s Nik?s take [in the cartoon I've put at the top of this post -- Ed.].

We often see editorial cartoonists imposing Christian imagery on non-Christians when they die. (After all, only one religion can be right, huh?) Comedian George Carlin, a famous atheist, found a Christian heaven in many editorial cartoons. When Beatle George Harrison, a Hindu, died, the editorial cartoonists drew dozens of cartoons with George showing up in Christian heaven.

Perhaps it is insensitive to impose your own religion on someone else when they die ? but what the heck - readers and editors love it. Among the cartoonists we syndicate, the Jobs Pearly Gates cartoons were the most reprinted.

Here are just a few of the cartoons -- including the one above -- that Daryl chose to include with this blogpost. (You can click on any of them to enlarge.)

What's remarkable is how many of the commenters on Daryl's post (the 49 is as of this morning) talk up, down, and around the simple point he's making, apparently without getting it. In fairness, there are naturally a few sane, lovely comments.

MEANWHILE, BOB MANKOFF OFFERS HIS PERSONAL
JOBS TRIBUTE: A CARTOONIST'S COMPUTER HISTORY

Regular readers know how much I look forward to New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's weekly newsletter-slash-blogpost. His tribute to Steve Jobs takes the form of the story of his history using computers for cartooning. (You can sign up for the free newsletter on the magazine's home page. I can't find a weblink for this week's, but here's last week's "Drinking Games," Bob's tribute to prohibition -- inspired by Ken Burns's PBS Prohibition series -- as chronicled in New Yorker cartoons. I'll add the link to the new post when I can.)

Bob starts with a cartoon he produced in pre-Mac days, drawn for Saturday Review in 1982 on a Radio Shack TRS 80-Model III -- and includes a picture of that ancient beast. ("That it could do anything at all with 16K of memory is a marvel.")

Three years later, however, he had acquired an original Mac ("with 128k of internal memory and a 400k disk drive"; again, a picture is included), and he produced this cartoon:

"Amazingly," Bob tells us, "you could draw on it with this thing called a mouse [he includes a contemporaneous Mac ad trumpeting the wonder], in Mac Paint. "In practice," however,

it wasn?t so amazing -- it was like drawing with a bar of soap, and the cartoons didn?t look very good on a dot-matrix printer. When I showed them to Lee Lorenz, my predecessor as cartoon editor, he wondered what the point was. I had no good answer then, but I liked the Mac so much I wanted to come up with one.

His Plan B, to "draw the cartoon on paper and get it into the computer," hit snags. "Trying to stuff them into the disk drive didn?t work," but he discovered that with an early handheld scanner he could scan a drawing in a mere two passes; "then the software would stitch the image together."

As scanners got better and Macs more powerful, I began store all my cartoons on the computer. From this it was not much of a leap to think I could store all my friends? cartoons, too, and sell them, which is how the Cartoon Bank got started twenty years ago.

Bob rattles off a coterie of fellow Mac-devoted New Yorker cartoonists, and signs off with "this cartoon that Danny Shanahan sent in as a trbute to Jobs":

Sweet, Danny, and as always thanks, Bob!#

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NBC/WSJ poll: American Jobs Act wildly popular
with public

NBC/WSJ:

Even though the United States Senate on Tuesday blocked President Obama's jobs bill, the legislation's specifics -- as well as the idea of taxing the wealthy to pay for it -- are popular with the American public, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

When asked simply if Congress should pass the legislation or not, 30 percent of respondents answer yes, while 22 percent say no; 44 percent have no opinion.

But when the legislation's details are included in a follow-up question -- that it would cut payroll taxes, fund new road construction, extend unemployment benefits, and that it would be paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy -- 63 percent say they favor the bill and 32 percent oppose it.

What's more, 64 percent of respondents agree with the statement that it is a "good idea" to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations, because they should pay their fair share and can afford to pay more to help fund programs and government operations.

Democrats need to be careful with this. The public is ambivalent on "health care reform," but they love the details of it, as we learned in previous polls. Just because the public likes the details doesn't mean that the GOP won't be able to convince them to hate the deal overall. Don't get me wrong, these numbers are great. But they still contain a warning for Dems that messaging counts.

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These 2 Solar Stocks are a Major "Buy"

Despite all the recent negative publicity surrounding solar power, such as diminishing government subsidies due to austerity measures and the Solyndra scandal (the Obama administration gave the company a $528 million loan as a part of the 2008 stimulus package, whereupon the company later went belly-up), the U.S. solar-power industry is doing better than many expected.

Solar companies are evolving, and their stocks may now be at reasonable buying levels.

After the spectacular collapse of Solyndra, Evergreen Solar and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) spinoff Spectrawatt, the perception is that the U.S. solar industry, despite government loans, is in a death spiral. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of the U.S. solar industry are greatly . . . → Read More: These 2 Solar Stocks are a Major "Buy"

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