Holy Joe

This is an old link I never got around to but it's still relevant. In case you were wondering what Joe Lieberman is doing now:

This is what the political afterlife looks like for the 71-year-old Stamford native, who is starting his second month as a part-time senior counsel at the Manhattan commercial litigation firm of Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman.

"This is Broadway. Right around the corner is `The Book of Mormon' and `Chicago,' " he says. 

Mother of God, please don't let this happen:

Going forward, Lieberman envisions playing a role similar to that of George Mitchell and the late Warren Rudman, former Senate colleagues who found second careers as independent investigators and strategic counselors. In Mitchell's case, he investigated steroid use in Major League Baseball. Rudman looked into the abuses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

And sweet Jebus will this phony narrative never die?

"I think outside of the far left, he never stopped commanding great respect on both sides of the aisle and particularly among people who were serious policymakers," Gerstein says. "When he speaks, he still will have an impact and influence because he is known for being thoughtful and independent in his thinking."

"Independent" meaning go for the big grift and throw in with GOPers, like this:

Lieberman's ideology is reflected in some of his current endeavors, including serving as co-chairman of the American Internationalism Project with former GOP Sen. Jon Kyl. The program is run by the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank associated with neoconservatism.

Lieberman is also partnering with former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, another Republican, as co-chairs of the Bipartisan Coalition for American Security, a 501(c)4 advocacy group that expects to run television spots highlighting lawmakers' records on military spending. Asked if that could pit him against any of his former colleagues from Connecticut, Lieberman grins. "It's possible."

(Restrains impluse to fly to New York simply to bitchslap that smug smirk off his face)

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Cult of irrationality

Dear "serious" news channel: This is not helping:

On Friday, CNBC anchor Joe Kernen described climate science as a “bona fide cult” of “enviro socialists” in an interview with the former CEO of Shell Oil.

The two of them yukked it up over this "foolishness." The CEO laments we're "not dealing with the real problems." I assume by that he means, his profit margin is simply not obscenely high enough yet. He'll never get that gargantuan bonus without it.

It's not surprising CNBC would be in the pocket of BigBusiness but ye gods, they're working against their own self-interest when they promote denialism like this. It's irrational.

CNBC has long-misrepresented climate change to its viewers, including Larry Kudlow and Rick Santelli. In fact, a study from Media Matters found that over half of CNBC’s climate coverage miscasts the science.

Meanwhile, that "cult" of climate scientists may not have all the solutions, but 97% of them sure as hell have identified the problems. So what do these short-sighted idiots on CNBC expect to do with all the money they make on fomenting denialism? By the time they extract every last penny of value from ravaging the enviroment, the planet won't be habitable anymore. They'll have nowhere to spend it.

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Glenn Beck again

By Capt. Fogg

"We are going to be greatly divided as a nation in the next ten days and you are going to witness things in American history that have never been witnessed before" Said Glenn Beck yesterday despite his recent claim that his vocal cords no longer worked. I was hoping that might have been the one true thing ever to escape his mouth.

It's true -- you're going to witness the last half of June, 2013 -- a historical first.  I'm pretty sure you're going to witness another spell of embarrassment for Glenn Beck too, not that he'll necessarily notice or acknowledge it.  There's a document, he says, that will "take down pretty much the whole power structure, pretty much everything" and he's going to announce it sometime today.

Those who remember back to last April, a set which obviously doesn't include his fans, might speculate that this new revelation will be as spurious and idiotic as his earthshaking revelation of a connection between Saudi Arabia and the Boston Marathon bombing.  Is anyone still waiting for an admission of error or a hint of humble retraction?

Of course to those folks who follow Beck in the way people used to mock dancing bears or court jesters, this is nothing new.  Students of buffoonery  and the charlatans who move their card tables and shells from one corner to the next in search of fresh idiots may not even notice this latest tantrum, but the clock is ticking Mr. Beck and there's not much time before the waitress brings you another plate of crow.  Do us a favor -- take a bite.

UPDATE:

Well days have gone by now and no whistles have been blowing and Beck has only some mumbling about immigration which is hardly the stuff of unprecedented division much less something to "take down the power structure."  

Do his faithful listeners remember as far back as a day or two or are they just so choked up on each new day's revelation that they don't care about yesterday?

So, want so fries with that crow Glenn?  Can I supersize it?

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C is for clueless

I make it point to avoid the right wing crackpots as much as possible so I'm not exactly sure what the genesis of this particular bit of cluelessness is about. I gather it has something to do with the general pants wetting that went on among the crowd that sees evil Mooslim terrorists in every shadow. When they heard the Boston bomb kids were born in Chechnya, they apparently started calling for immediate retribution against the evel furriners. The problem being they were confusing Chechnya with the Czech Republic, or more probably the now defunct Czechoslovakia. Which led the Czech embassy to release this statement:

As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect. The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities - the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.

This of course launched a snark contest on the twitters. The winner being:

Atrios: time to invade chechnyaslovakia

So much of the fear of the far right extremists is based on pure ignorance, fostered and reinforced by the grifters who profit from manufactured terror. Helluva cruel way to make money.

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