John Gibson's Face Looks Like It Was On Fire and He Put It Out With a Golf Shoe

Make fun of Rachel Maddow for how she was born? We'll do the same to you, Testicleface. Hope you liked it.

Sigh

I miss Molly Ivins.

Dependable!

In front of a couple of co-workers just moments ago, I joking said, "Let's see how long it takes Chris Matthews to mention Reverend Wright when I tune into MSNBC right now."

Three seconds after I tuned in, there he was saying "UP NEXT..." and the footage of Wright in a dashiki popped up on the screen.

Two co-workers are still on the floor laughing.

Sid Blumenthal's Downward Spiral

This is just sad. Sidney Blumenthal apparently has been Hillary's hatchet man in the attacks on Obama, using actual right wing smear statements as the basis of his screeds. We really hate seeing good minds reduced to party-killing hackery, but such is the Camp Clinton mindset.

Blumenthal, by proxy, is helping the GOP win in November by propagating this crap. The sad part is, he doesn't even care.

Former journalist Sidney Blumenthal has been widely credited with coining the term "vast right-wing conspiracy" used by Hillary Clinton in 1998 to describe the alliance of conservative media, think tanks, and political operatives that sought to destroy the Clinton White House where he worked as a high-level aide. A decade later, and now acting as a senior campaign advisor to Senator Clinton, Blumenthal is exploiting that same right-wing network to attack and discredit Barack Obama. And he's not hesitating to use the same sort of guilt-by-association tactics that have been the hallmark of the political right dating back to the McCarthy era.

Almost every day over the past six months, I have been the recipient of an email that attacks Obama's character, political views, electability, and real or manufactured associations. The original source of many of these hit pieces are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications. But they aren't being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers -- including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, academics, policy entrepreneurs, and think tankers -- in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists. One of the recipients of the Blumenthal email blast, himself a Clinton supporter, forwards the material to me and perhaps to others.

These attacks sent out by Blumenthal, long known for his fierce and combative loyalty to the Clintons, draw on a wide variety of sources to spread his Obama-bashing. Some of the pieces are culled from the mainstream media and include some reasoned swipes at Obama's policy and political positions.

But, rather remarkably for such a self-professed liberal operative like Blumenthal, a staggering number of the anti-Obama attacks he circulates derive from highly-ideological and militant right-wing sources such as the misnamed Accuracy in Media (AIM), The Weekly Standard, City Journal, The American Conservative, and The National Review.

Thanks, Jer...

The Car Backfires in Moe's Face, and Hilarity Among The Stooges Ensues

It's backfiring on Hillary, but since she's married to the idea, she presses on.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to take on members of Congress over her proposal for a federal gas tax holiday this summer -– “are they with us or against us” –- is tempting fate a bit, as she risks antagonizing uncommitted superdelegates who are members of Congress and who oppose the tax holiday.

Here was her comment at a rally in Jeffersonville, Indiana, on Thursday evening:

“I believe it is important to get every member of Congress on the record. Do they stand with hard pressed Americans who are trying to pay their gas bills at the gas station or do they once again stand with the big oil companies? That’s a vote I’m going to try to get, because I want to know where they stand and I want them to tell us - are they with us or against us?”

If not congress, then common sense is against you, Hill. The Sacramento Bee:

Clinton has proposed a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies to replace the money her proposal would take from the nation's infrastructure budget. The merits of that tax should be fully debated elsewhere. But the irony here is that a gas tax holiday could increase profits for the very firms Clinton says are making too much money now.

Here's why: The gasoline supply for the summer is pretty well fixed. If the price suddenly drops by 18 cents a gallon, however, motorists who have been cutting back on their driving will suddenly drive more, using more gas. That increase in demand will push the price back up again, perhaps to the same level it was before the gas tax was suspended.

And as gas prices float upward, revenue that would have been going for infrastructure would now be pure profit for the oil industry. The only way to avoid this scenario would be to freeze gas prices at the lower level, but that would almost certainly lead to shortages.

Obama understands this, which is why he has refused to pander on an issue over which it is easy to score cheap political points. Clinton and McCain could not resist that temptation, even though they surely know better. Shame on them.

Or, as we prefer, screw the shame and let 'em keep pushing this insane idea. It's Hillary's and McCain's turn to don the big helmets and drive the tank.

From the Pen of: Ann Telnaes

From the Pen of: John Sherffius

From the Pen of: Mike Luckovich

From the Pen of: David Horsey