The American two-party system is fracturing, as both sides are struggling with immense war debt, a crippled manufacturing base, and a Federal Reserve that is devaluating the currency in order to prop up financial institutions that gambled trillions and lost; their bets became our losses as they were “covered by the house”. Progressives have been decrying the centrist wishy-washiness of so many Democrats for years, and there was an outspoken expectation that once the Democrats were in power, new, more liberal parties could emerge to challenge the old-guard Democrats to veer left or be shown the door. The surprise is that the right beat them to it (and here's why that's fine...)

10/1/09

4:00 [tapper] yeah, i didnt have the Grayson quote in front of me. Paraphrased it wrong. Apologies. But Gibbs knew what i was talking about. actual Grayson quote is that GOP health plan is "dont get sick...If you get sick America:...Die quickly." bad paraphrase by me

3:50 [fertik] why did @jaketapper recklessly misquote Grayson? "the Republican solution to healthcare is they want everybody to die?" http://bit.ly/21p66D

3:00 [tapper] Today's Qs for O's WH - Predator attacks, Grayson's charge, Senate Finance Cmte amendments > http://bit.ly/GyzuG 

9/18/09

Update 1: ROTFL! A female McCain advisor used the joke as the title of her book!

Yesterday Barack Obama mocked John McCain's message of change:

"You know, you can put lipstick on a pig," Obama said, "but it's still a pig."

The McCain campaign pounced on that old joke to create a rightwing sh*tstorm, accusing Obama of a sexist attack on Sarah Palin. Huh???

How the hell did that non-sequitur get turned into a sh*tstorm? Glenn Greenwald maps it out.

1. Jake Tapper of ABC News pulls sh*t out of his ass (how the hell does he know what any one person is thinking, let alone any group of people???)

The crowd rose and applauded, some of them no doubt thinking he may have been alluding to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's ad lib during her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last week, "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

A few short weeks ago, Republicans manufactured a shitstorm (TM) over Barack Obama's joke about not looking like the guys on dollar bills. In angry tones, they accused him of "playing the race card" and the Corporate Media discussed nothing else for days.

So will the Corporate Media have a shitstorm over Rush Limbaugh's outrageous use of the "race card"?

I think this is a classic illustration here where affirmative action has reared its ugly head against them. It’s the reverse of it. They’ve, they’ve ended up nominating and placing at the top of their ticket somebody who’s not qualified, who has not earned it. […]

It’s perfect affirmative action. And because of all this guilt and the historic nature of things, nobody had the guts to say, well, wait a minute, do we really want to do this?

Update 1: Limbaugh played the race card for a second straight day:

It’s — you know, it’s just — it’s just we can’t hit the girl. I don’t care how far feminism’s saying, you can’t hit the girl, and you can’t — you can’t criticize the little black man-child. You just can’t do it, ’cause it’s just not right. It’s not fair. He’s such a victim.

Our likely nominee Barack Obama now leads John McCain by 2.7% in the RCP Average - an astonishing achievement given the month-long Corporate Media sh*tstorm over Rev. Wright.

This is fantastic news for Democrats because the endless primary has been fairly negative, although not nearly as negative as many pundits and bloggers have claimed.

Exit polls in NC and IN showed a lot of Clinton supporters are angry at Obama, and this is depressing Obama's polls. When Clinton eventually drops out and endorses Obama, that will give Obama's polls a significant boost - possibly adding 5% to his lead.

And then Obama will be able to raise and spend huge amounts of money to go after McCain, while McCain scrounges for pennies.

Imagine if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama were breaking the law while campaigning - I guarantee there would be a shitstorm (TM) on cable news!

But John McCain is breaking campaign finance laws right now - the very law he wrote!

On Tuesday, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission and I was proud to sign it.

By his own admission, John McCain is breaking the law. His latest spending report has him $4 million over the limit he imposed on himself when he accepted public financing.

We're not about to let this stand, so on Tuesday we filed an FEC complaint against the McCain campaign (check out the video of delivery to the right). Now we're set for a second larger delivery, on behalf of the thousands of Americans who won't stand by while John McCain breaks the law. 

Faux News is manufacturing a rightwing shitstorm (TM) over Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and Democratic "surrender monkeys" are running in terror. Here's TPM reader JB:

Paul Rosenberg provides a handy summary of recent rightwing Shitstorms (TM).

The latest example is Pete Stark attacking the GOP for opposing SCHIP.  Before that it was Moveon.org for criticizing His Holiness General Petraeus, using language his colleagues and troops had used for years.  Back in 2006, there was Kerry flubbing a joke about Bush's inept leadership in sending troops to Iraq.  (Bush, of course, never mis-speaks.) In 2005, Senator Durbin was attacked for comparing Guantanamo to Nazi or Soviet prison camps.  And in 2004, there was Edwards daring to mention that Cheney's daughter was gay--which was appreciated--followed by Kerry mentioning it, which was attacked.  And, of course, there was also Moveon.org letting someone's proposed ad comparing Bush to Hitler on their site. These are just a few of the examples that come readily to mind.

Republicans are in manufacturing yet another Shitstorm (TM) over Pete Stark's remarks:

"You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement."

Republicans aren't talking about the money - unlimited funds to cause destruction in Iraq but none for our children here at home - but rather about the accusation that Bush is amused by the Iraq disaster.

But guess what - he is! This is Bush on March 24, 2004 - one year and five days after the invasion, when 589 American soldiers had been killed looking for the WMD's he cited as the main reason we had to invade Iraq.

For entirely crazy reasons, the biggest news story of last week was Moveon.org's ad in the NY Times.

Was it the biggest news story because Moveon questioned a sacred General? Hardly. American generals have been questioned throughout American history, starting with Gen. George Washington's defeat at Brandywine Creek.

The only reason is because FOX News created a Shitstorm (TM) over the ad.

What is a Shitstorm (TM)? It's when FOX News takes a bullshit topic and turns it into a tornado by pumping it full of bullshit for a major chunk of each news cycle for day after day.

There have been innumerable Shitstorms since FOX went on the air. FOX actually has two going right now - the Moveon ad and the visit of Ahmedinejad to Columbia. If you tune in for any given hour you'll get at least 10 minutes of both.