Louisiana Representative admits out loud that his vote can be bought.

Courtesy of The Hill:  

Rep. Vance McAllister (R-La.) was franker than most lawmakers, when he admitted last week he expected to receive a campaign contribution after he voted against a bill. 

The congressman, perhaps best-known for getting caught on tape kissing a staffer and returning to Congress despite vigorous calls for his resignation from Louisiana GOP leaders, said he was relaying the advice allegedly given to him by a colleague in the House as a cautionary tale of how "money controls Washington," according to The Ouachita Citizen. 

In comments made to a meeting of the Northeast Chapter of Louisiana CPAs last Thursday, McAllister said he “played dumb” with the colleague, who told him to vote “no” on legislation related to the Bureau of Land Management because he would receive a bigger kickback from a special interest group that way. 

“I played dumb and asked him, ‘How would you vote?’ ” McAllister said. “He told me, ‘Vote no, and you will get a $1,200 check from the Heritage Foundation. If you vote yes, you will get a $1,000 check from some environmental impact group.’ ” 

“‘Are you serious?’ ” McAllister said he asked the colleague, “and he told me, ‘Yeah, wait and see.’ ” 

He wouldn’t offer the lawmaker’s name because he “did not want to put their business out on the street.” 

It’s unclear what bill McAllister was referencing, but he said he ultimately voted no but received no check, because the group and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) are “upset with me.” Jindal and the chairman of the state Republican Party called for McAllister to resign, after the video of him kissing a staffer who was not his wife went public. 

No way can I be surprised by this, except for the fact that this moron said it out loud of course. 

Of course this guy has never demonstrated a great deal common sense or integrity.

Hey remember how the Koch brothers denied they had lobbied to defund Obamacare and were behind the government shutdown? Yeah, well they lied.

Do you remember this letter?  

“Koch has not taken a position on the legislative tact of tying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare,” Philip Ellender, president of government and public affairs at Koch wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to senators. “Instead, Koch has focused on educating the public about reducing our nation’s debt and controlling runaway government spending.” 

Well it was all bullshit.

This from Open Secrets:

But new reports show that the company did lobby Congress to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to a 10-year debt reduction plan -- a concept developed and championed earlier this year by libertarian and tea party groups like the Heritage Action, Family Research Council and Club for Growth; those are some of the same groups that pushed the Obamacare-shutdown linkage. 

According to its third quarter report, Koch Industries, which spent $2.1 million lobbying from July 1 through Sept. 30, disclosed that it lobbied Congress "to increase the debt ceiling in conjunction with reducing government spending consistent with a 10 year path to a balanced budget." 

That's exactly the language used by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) in his budget proposal. And the idea that the debt ceiling should be raised only with the acceptance of a 10-year budget plan, was first floated last winter by several conservative groups, including the libertarian-oriented Heritage Action, which has its own ties to the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who control Koch Industries. The Kochs, through a 501(c)(6) group they spearheaded, Freedom Partners, have given $500,000 to Heritage Action. 

The plan is likely what Koch meant when, in its Oct. 9 letter, it said that "We believe that Congress should, at a minimum, keep to sequester-level spending guidelines, and develop a plan for more significant and widespread spending reductions in the future."

So much for the idea that the anti-Obamacare movement was driven by grass roots support. 

This thing was thought up by the Heritage Action, paid for by Koch brother money, and implemented by their paid operatives in Washington.

NOTHING about the government shutdown had anything to do with helping the American people or getting spending under control. It was ALL about sabotaging the government and proving that it, and our President, were ineffective.

Sarah Palin joins Ted Cruz in an attempt to distract the American people from the fact that the government shutdown was the brainchild of THEIR financial backers. Update!

Granny Grifter, Sancho the sidekick, the ghost of Joe McCarthy, and Greta Van "Sucking the integrity out of journalism."

Courtesy of USA Today:  

A crowd converged on the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, pushing through barriers Sunday morning to protest the memorial's closing under the government shutdown. 

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who gathered Sunday morning, along with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, according to WTOP radio. Cruz said President Obama is using veterans as pawns in the shutdown. 

"Tear down these walls," the crowd chanted. Protesters also sang God Bless America and other patriotic songs as they entered the memorial plaza. 

The memorial has become a political symbol in the bitter fight between Democrats and Republicans over who is at fault since the shutdown began. Earlier rallies have focused on allowing access for World War II veterans visiting from across the country with the Honor Flight Network. 

Sunday's rally was more political. A protest by truckers converged with a rally by a group called the Million Vet March at the World War II Memorial. Participants cut the links between metal barriers at the National Park Service site and pushed them aside.

I'm sorry the 30 truckers that were supposed to close down Washington merged with the handful of vet and Tea Party politicians who showed up for this, and it is news worthy?

Let me just remind everybody, though  I am sure the majority of you know this, that this entire debacle is the result of year long work by organizations funded by the Koch brothers, and that it is only after seeing how poorly it was received by the public that they tried to call their dogs off.

However Sarah Palin,  Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Teabagger contingent, are rabid, poorly trained mongrels, who do not readily respond to a jerk on their chains once they think they smell blood in the air.

So they find these examples of the hardships caused by THEIR actions, and in a truly disgusting and vulgar manner use them in an attempt to turn the blame back onto the President. However the American people are simply not buying it and none of this grandstanding is going to convince them otherwise.

Here is their shameful attempt to deflect blame as it appeared on Fox News.

(Oh I think Cruz is going to regret allowing himself to be filmed standing next to the Wasilla Wendigo.)

And let's face it, once this whole thing blows over, and everybody starts going back to doing the jobs they were elected to do, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee will be severely marginalized. They will have lost any semblance of leadership and be forced to sit in the back while the grownups run the country.

(Hey isn't that Rick Perry's jacket? Why yes, yes I think it is.)

And as for Palin, well after this disintegrates into nothing, Steve Lonegan gets his ass handed to him, and Obamacare is accepted by all as the law of the land, she will have to go back to pretending that she lives in Alaska while hiding out in Arizona and waiting for the next minor political molehill to come along just begging to be made into a mountain of misrepresentations.

But don't worry as long as there are ignorant people in the world,  there will always be a need for a Sarah Palin around to remind them that they are not alone in their ignorance.

(Photos courtesy of Twitchy.)

Update: Poor Todd:

On Sunday, Palin and her husband, Mark, appeared at the World War II and Lincoln memorials with Sen. Ted Cruz in Washington, D.C., where she continued her rant against the White House.

Damn how did I miss this one? Not only did she apparently divorce old two tone, but according to  Yahoo News she has already married some guy named Mark.

Update 2: Uh oh, somebody's wig is slipping.

Source

After their year long plans to shutdown the government have been made public, the Koch brothers attempt to deny culpability. Too late!

Courtesy of the Atlantic: 

The Kochs appear to be distancing themselves from the movement they've helped to create. In a letter released Wednesday, Koch Industries' chief lobbyist, Philip Ellender, says the company does not favor the House's push to defund Obamacare as a condition of keeping the government open. Koch Industries would prefer to see Congress focus on fiscal issues: "We believe that Congress should, at a minimum, keep to sequester-level spending guidelines, and develop a plan for more significant and widespread spending reductions in the future," Ellender writes. 

Ellender's letter came in response to Democrats' attempts to pin the shutdown on the Kochs. Speaking on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "Very rich people in America who don’t believe in government have used Obamacare as a conduit to shut down the government .... This has been led by, according to the news article, a former attorney general of the United States, Ed Meese, and the Koch brothers, who have been raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get us where we are right now," Reid said. He added, "By shutting down the government—and that is what has happened—we are satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering." Reid cited a front-page New York Times article on Sunday that traced the government shutdown's origins in a network of right-wing pressure groups opposed to Obamacare, many of them funded by Charles and David Koch. 

But Ellender, in his letter, accuses Reid of distorting Koch's stance. "Koch believes that Obamacare will increase deficits, lead to an overall lowering of the standard of health care in America, and raise taxes," he writes. "However, Koch has not taken a position on the legislative tactic of tying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacrare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare." 

In addition to keeping spending at sequester levels, Ellender adds, "We also believe that Congress should work to rein-in rampant government spending so that it becomes no longer necessary to continually raise the debt ceiling." 

Even as the Kochs attempt to disavow the defund movement, their money has supported it. The brothers have given half a million dollars to Heritage Action, which toured the country rallying support for defunding Obamacare over the summer, Politico reported Wednesday. Heritage Action continues to insist the way to end the shutdown must be defund or nothing: Talk of a fiscal deal constitutes "losing focus," according to a Heritage Action blog post on Tuesday, and "the House should use its leverage to battle President Obama's failed health care law." The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity officially supports repealing Obamacare, not defunding it, but state chapters in New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia have voiced support for defunding. 

Just like Victor Frankenstein, there comes a time in every madman'[s life when they realize that the creature they have created must die.

The question is, will it die quickly, or will take on a life of its own and ultimately leave a path of destruction in its wake?

Actually to be fair the destruction is already taking place:

During the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Republicans were pretty unpopular. After eight years of George W. Bush, same. But never in the history of Gallup polling has the party been more unpopular than it is right now.

Good job Koch brothers.  No really, good job!

This may have seemed like a controversial episode of the Newsroom last year, but I imagine that the majority of Americans would now agree with it 100%.

I imagine that most of us here at IM were cheering when the Jeff Daniels character, Will McAvoy, made those statements, however there was still an angry and energized minority of Americans who thought the comparison to the Taliban seemed unfair.

Somehow I have to imagine that that minority is even smaller in light of what is happening right now in Washington.

Eric Zuesse. an investigative historian has written a long and incredibly detailed explanation for how this American Taliban was able to take control over our government, as well as who funded them over at HuffPo.

Here is a portion I thought you might find interesting:

Sarah Palin had resigned her Governorship of Alaska, in order to become rich quickly via speaking tours and book deals; and on August 7th at her Facebook page she issued her "Statement on the Current Health Care Debate," and said that if Obama's health plan were to pass, people "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." (The phrases 'death panel' and 'level of productivity in society,' weren't in any proposed legislation, but came from Palin's own imagination.) The extremely conservative audience at aol.com was online-polled about this, "Do you agree with Palin's characterization of Obama's health plan as 'evil'?" and within a few days 200,000 respondents entered their opinions, 59% saying "Yes," and 41% "No." When asked "In general, what's your impression of Palin?" 50% said "Mostly positive," and 42% said "Mostly negative." Newt Gingrich on ABC TV's "This Week," on August 9th, was asked his opinion of Palin's Facebook statement, and Gingrich said he agreed with it, because Obama and the Democrats were planning "euthanasia" for old people. Despite ABC's strong Republican tilt, their George Stephanopoulos pointed out that there was nothing of that kind in any proposed legislation, but Gingrich went right on charging that this was the Democrats' intent. The thrust of Republicans and of the healthcare lobbyists and their "grass-roots" fronts was unmistakable: Obama's plan was to euthanize old people, and it was evil. Sometimes, major media were even compelled to correct misrepresentations of their own news reporting that was spread by Koch-allies.

The article of course is much more detailed, and I think everybody needs to read it. However I want to remind all of you that during the time mentioned above Sarah Palin was NOT the bedraggled used up skeletal harpy that we see today, Back then she was the Queen of the Tea Party and had tons of media attention paid to her every ridiculous utterance.

It was citizen journalists who eventually turned her into a laughingstock and rendered her all but impotent. And it is that same kind of grass roots reporting, and dissemination of information, that will ultimately prove to be the downfall of the Tea Party.

We can do this, but we have to be diligent, aggressive, and tireless.

Don't forget the other side, Breitbart, The Blaze, The Daily Caller, and others, all have the backing of big business to pay their bills and to help them push their agenda.

All I have is you.

(Oh, and coffee. I have coffee too.)

The internal split within the Republican party widens as the powerful pro-business Chamber of Commerce offers to help politicians battle against Tea Party challengers if they will vote to raise the debt ceiling.

Courtesy of TPM:  

The letter circulated by the Chamber of Commerce urges lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling "in a timely manner and remove any threat to the full faith and credit of the United States government." It also acknowledges Republican fears over the unsustainable growth of major benefit programs such Medicare and Social Security and the need for a more business-friendly tax system. 

But in a rejection of the tactics of House Speaker John Boehner, the letter urges Congress to pass first a short-term spending bill, then raise the debt ceiling, "and then return to work on these other vital issues." 

That advice is being ignored by the GOP-led House. 

"There is an element of the more independent, tea party coalition Republicans that, frankly, don't listen to very many people," said John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan and now president of the Business Roundtable, one of the groups that signed the chamber letter. "They are on a mission, often defined on the basis of their view of the world, and they aren't paying very much attention to what this means beyond maybe their own districts." 

Concerned, the Chamber of Commerce is preparing to participate in political primaries, protecting friendly lawmakers from conservative challengers. "Clearly we're getting to a point where we need a Congress that's going to be productive, proactive and create a stable environment for economic growth and job creation," said Scott Reed, a Republican political consultant who is advising the chamber on its strategy.

Well this is certainly going to get a certain Arizona based political pundit's panties in a twist. 

It is really only the threat of uber conservative primary challengers that is keeping a number of these Republicans in line due to the fact that they are too afraid to cross Ted Cruz and his Teabagger minions. If the Chamber of Commerce has the funds on hand to actually accomplish this tactic of funding primaries around the country that will surely inspire the Koch brothers and Heritage Action to up the ante, and we could see local elections spending multiple millions of dollars for seats in relatively small districts that were once conservative strongholds.

Which by the way might leave coffers somewhat depleted when it came time for the general election against a democratic challenger.

Gonna need some more popcorn I see.

Plans to shutdown the government in attempt to derail Obamacare were months in the making. Color me unsurprised.

Courtesy of The New York Times: 

To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known. 

With polls showing Americans deeply divided over the law, conservatives believe that the public is behind them. Although the law’s opponents say that shutting down the government was not their objective, the activists anticipated that a shutdown could occur — and worked with members of the Tea Party caucus in Congress who were excited about drawing a red line against a law they despise. 

A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?” The suggested answer was the one House Republicans give today: “We are simply calling to fund the entire government except for the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.” 

The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation. 

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam. 

The groups have also sought to pressure vulnerable Republican members of Congress with scorecards keeping track of their health care votes; have burned faux “Obamacare cards” on college campuses; and have distributed scripts for phone calls to Congressional offices, sample letters to editors and Twitter and Facebook offerings for followers to present as their own.

I don't think this is particularly surprising to any of US who have been paying close attention to the behind the scenes manipulations by Freedomworks and the Koch brothers, or who remember that infamous secret meeting held, on the night of Obama's first inauguration,  by certain Tea Party and GOP types, which laid out their strategy for denying the President ANY POLICY that he wanted to get passed during what they believed would be his first and ONLY term as President.

Hell Freedomworks even advertised online what they would be willing to see done to stop this law from being enacted.

And this is what needs to be brought up EVERY time the media asks who should get the blame for this shutdown, or anybody attempts to suggest that it is the Democrats or President who is being unreasonable for allowing it to continue.

The Heritage Foundation has another article written for Sarah Palin to claim as her own. Don't worry they made it folksier with hunting metaphors.

"Wait how far is it to the nearest bathroom?"

Courtesy of some defunct blog left behind by a dead guy: 

A simple fact is missing from all the media hysteria and political establishment temper tantrums over Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee’s attempt to defund Obamacare. (Oh this ought to be good!)

Americans are getting slammed by Obamacare right now. Workforces are decimated as health care prices rise. Public opinion is on our side. If now was not the time to unite and fight it, when was? Those who are attacking Cruz and Lee’s efforts have forgotten how negotiations are won. (Okay this might be a good place to remind everybody that Obamacare does not officially kick off for three more days, so there can be NO "decimated workforce" or "rising health care prices" that can be attributed it. IF in fact any such data existed, which it does not! Actually quite the opposite data is available which refutes these statements completely.)

Use as an example the negotiations a governor of energy-rich Alaska must engage in with powerful multinational oil tycoons. In my experience, I found that the key to achieving success for the people you’re elected to serve is to take a firm position, stand solid, and negotiate from there when the other guy is ready to take you seriously. You fight as hard as you can with whatever small edge you’ve got until the other guy respects you enough to wise up, sit down, and come to a mutually acceptable agreement. You get nothing at all if you preemptively surrender before the battle even commences. (After which of course you leave office and the successor YOU chose completely guts the signature legislation that you are bragging about up above.)

Imagine how much stronger the GOP’s hand would have been if every Republican (and those Democrats who’ve finally admitted Obamacare’s devastating flaws) stood together against cloture in order to prevent Harry Reid from cutting off debate and stripping Obamacare defunding from the bill? (Yes, imagine the government grinding to a complete halt. Or simply read history to determine just how stupid this idea would be.)

Not only would there have been pressure on red state Democrats up for re-election (She's talking about you Begich.) to join the right cause, there would have been pressure on Reid and the White House to negotiate agreements. Even if the GOP couldn’t have defunded all of Obamacare, they could have negotiated some relief for average Americans who now feel they can do nothing but brace for the coming train wreck. (The law will have virtually NO effect on the vast number of already insured Americans beyond lowering their health care costs. There are currently some companies stripping their part time workers of their health insurance benefits, but that will not last once the health care exchanges are up and running. Really it is estimated that only 1% of companies will stop providing a health care plan to their employees.) We average Americans know we’ll never get the exemptions and favors Obama gave his political cronies and Congress, (This, of course, is a purposeful misrepresentation of what Congress gets, and here is an article that explains it fully.) but any relief for the middle class would have been welcomed. (You mean like relief in the form of affordable health care?)

But Republicans got nothing from squabbling with each other and denouncing (on and off the record) the brave men who tried to do something. (Well except credibility for being serious about their responsibility that is.)

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee fought to fulfill the campaign promises every Republican made (To shutdown the government?), and their actions have been revelatory for all of us. 

Hunters know what flushing dogs do. (Yes they do what their masters tell them to do and assist them in achieving their goals.) Cruz and Lee were acting as the grassroots’ ("Grassroots" in this case meaning the Heritage Foundation and the Koch brothers.) flushing dogs. Their actions showed us who was willing to stand up for hard working Americans and who wasn’t. We thank Senators Vitter, Paul, Crapo, Enzi, Fischer, Roberts, Scott, Heller, Grassley, Toomey, Moran, Rubio, Shelby, Risch, Inhofe, Portman, and Sessions for standing with Cruz and Lee. (That's right, name them all. Any politician who is endorsed by Sarah Palin is guaranteed to have a troubled future.)

In 2010, a galvanized grassroots rallied against Obamacare to carry Republicans to victory. But in 2012, many in the grassroots stayed home, and we saw how that turned out for the GOP. (And get ready for a repeat in 2014.)

Unfortunately, the message of some politicians today seems to be: “Whoopsie, seems I can’t fulfill my election promises, but vote for me again and I promise to do what I promised last time.” 

Sorry, that doesn’t cut it. America, you deserve better. If they can’t do anything with the power you gave them through their elected office, then you deserve someone else to give it a try. (Yes keep right on electing unsophisticated idiots who do not understand how government functions. Look how well that has worked out so far.)

2014 is just around the corner, and we’re ready for it. Support those who do us a favor by flushing out politicians wanting to hide. Retrieving liberty must be the point in all this. 

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling" cried Chicken Little Brain.

Personally I am over the moon that the conservatives have become so desperate that they have resurrected Sarah Palin's moldy corpse and have it shuffling around snapping and clawing at everybody who dares stand up for fixing our broken health care system.

Her reappearance has helped numerous pundits point out the ridiculousness of the conservatives argument, as well as helping to identify the many lies proffered by the Koch brother sock puppets. After all who better to draw attention to the bullshit than Ms. "Death Panels" herself?

As the President would no doubt say if he was even aware that Palin was still alive, "Proceed half-term Governor turned reality show loser, proceed."

Palin adviser, and SarahPAC treasurer, used "dark money" group to fund attack ads against Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Color me unsurprised.

Courtesy of The Nation:

Last year, a “mysterious non-profit” called the Government Integrity Fund appeared in the midst of the campaign season and began airing campaign commercials in support of Republican Josh Mandel’s bid to unseat Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). 

Although the Government Integrity Fund does not disclose its donors, a recently released tax form shows that a group run by Tim Crawford—a Republican known for his work as a close adviser to Sarah Palin, who also serves a a spokesman and treasurer of SarahPAC, Palin’s official campaign committee—provided $627,000 to the pro-Mandel mystery fund. 

Crawford used an entity called “New Models,” itself another undisclosed political fund that raised over $4.4 million last year, and dispensed that money to Republican polling operations, Super PACs and undisclosed attack-ad organizations like the Government Integrity Fund. Crawford is the only board member of New Models, which he used to provide himself with a $265,000 salary. Where did Crawford find the cash for these undisclosed political endeavors? Crawford did not respond to a request for comment, but a tax form from the Business Roundtable, a trade association for large corporations, shows that the group gave Crawford’s New Models $600,000 the previous year. 

The Business Roundtable represents companies including J.P. Morgan Chase, GE, Wal-Mart, Honeywell, MasterCard Worldwide, AT&T, ExxonMobil and General Electric. 

This isn’t the first time Crawford has been connected to a mysterious campaign effort. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, New Models was “behind controversial automated calls to Pennsylvania voters made during the 2008 presidential election. The calls told voters that Barack Obama’s aunt was living in America illegally and that he accepted campaign contributions from his ‘illegal alien aunt.’” 

So Palin's crappy treasurer has a side job does he?

Can't say I'm surprised that it involves shady monetary dealings and underhanded political attacks. After all what would you expect from somebody associated with Sarah Palin?  

According to SarahPAC's recent financial report Crawford was paid $138,000. Since that was for half of the year it is safe to assume that Timmy rakes in a cool $276,000 annually from the paint chip eaters who still throw their hard earned money at Granny Grifter.

The fact that he also pays himself a $265.000 dollar salary from this other group means that he is getting over half a million dollars a year.

And they say crime doesn't pay!

So it seems safe to assume that, like Palin, this "New Models" group is undoubtedly funded by the Heritage Foundation and Koch brothers.

As Alice would say "Curiouser and curiouser."

Speaking of Sarah Palin.

This photo showed up yesterday on the Saturday Night Live Facebook page.

Underneath it said: Excited? You betcha!

This is the clearest indication yet that Palin has successfully inserted herself back into the nation's consciousness. Her infrequent appearances on Fox only garnered an occasional ridiculing from blogs and a bored MSNBC host, but lately she has been impossible to ignore.

At first I thought that having Tina Fey mock her on television would irritate her, but of course that is the opposite of the truth. She will love it!

After all the worst thing that can happen to Snowdrift Snooki is for nobody to pay any attention to her, and this last week that certainly has not been the case.

My only hope is that SNL has figured out WHY Palin is back with such a vengeance and will make the connection that she is now nothing more than a sock puppet for Jim DeMint's Heritage Foundation.

I think seeing Tina Fey play a Sarah Palin with puppet strings controlling her mouth and movements would not only be quite humorous, it would also be quite accurate. As well as having the added benefit of actually pissing Palin off.

Hmm, perhaps I ought to submit a script?

With virtually no advertisers left Rush Limbaugh is now surviving on "Wingnut Welfare."

'Hey I'll insult liberals and women for cash. Do you have any cash? How about change? Do you have any change?"

Courtesy of Media Matters:  

As numerous members of the conservative movement flee from the Heritage Foundation's flawed immigration study, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh has maintained a stalwart defense of the organization. 

Not a surprise considering Rush Limbaugh's syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks, is the single largest independent contractor to the Heritage Foundation according to their latest 990 filing with the IRS, receiving $2,236,555 from the think tank. 

With advertisers fleeing his show, and as a result radio companies suffering major losses, the fiscal sponsorship of the conservative movement is now fiscally critical. A "very high ranking" official at Cumulus, the owner of Rush and Sean Hannity's flagship station WABC, told Radio Ink, "Forty-eight of the top 50 network advertisers have 'excluded Rush and Hannity' orders. Every major national ad agency has the same dictate." 

Without wingnut welfare, which has also included sponsorships from FreedomWorks, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity's shows would not be financially viable.

I'm sorry, perhaps this is a little evil of me, but the idea that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, two individuals who attack people who need help from the government every chance they get, are now reduced to nothing more than the Right Wing windbag version of welfare queens, is VERY gratifying to me.

I believe the term for this is Schadenfreude.

And it has rarely tasted so sweet.