P.J. Gladnick's blog

Okay boys and girls. It's time again to play that favorite NewsBusters game...Name That Party!

Today's game is a real challenge. The politician in question was a Broward County Commissioner sentenced to prison for money laundering. Hmmm... Broward County? Could the clue as to the party label be found from that fact? Nope. Too tough. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel does us no favors by completely avoiding political labels in its story about former Broward County Comissioner Josephus Eggelletion on his way to prison:

Former Broward Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion turned himself in around 2 p.m. Friday and began serving his 2-1/2-year federal prison sentence, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Eggelletion, 61, of Lauderdale Lakes, checked in at the Federal Correctional Institution in Jesup, Ga., 100 miles from Jacksonville.

Your humble correspondent is not exactly going out on a limb here by claiming he has better yo-yo skills than self-proclaimed "champion" K-Strass aka Ken Strasser. After a pair of real yo-yo champions from the Phillipines put on a performance for our third grade class in Puerto Rico, I was inspired to learn a series of basic yo-yo tricks such as "walk the dog," "around the world," and "rock the cradle."

If you don't believe that I am more skilled than "champion" Strasser, then I invite you to watch this very painful video of  K-Strass in action on one of the five news shows that he appeared on in the Midwest. So how did someone with such horrible performance skills get on all those news shows? Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel attempts to explain:

Kenny Strasser, who either lives in Antigo or Neenah, Wis., or maybe somewhere else, says he a yo-yo champion, loves talking to schoolchildren and wants to save the Earth.

He has been divorced twice, doesn't have any kids and has personal issues with members of his family. He also says he has had drug and alcohol problems.

Or so he says.

It's not entirely clear who Strasser is. What is clear is that a person who called himself Kenny Strasser, Kenny Strassburg, or K-Strass managed to persuade at least five television stations — four of which are in Wisconsin — to put him on live television in recent weeks.

Two other stations — both in La Crosse — came close to putting him on, but were warned ahead of time that Strasser was not who he says he is.

His latest appearance occurred Thursday morning on KQTV's "Hometown This Morning," in St. Joseph, Mo.

"He got us," said Bridget Blevins, the station's news director. "I hate that we got duped."

And how good was he with the yo-yo, a skill Strasser has said made him a champion? "He did some really lame things. He hit himself in the face and the groin with his yo-yo," Blevins said. 

The cactus in the photo at right planted along the Arizona border with California gives a pretty good indication of the reaction of that state to the boycott directed at them by the Los Angeles city council over the new immigration law. However, what is the opinion of folks in California? If a Los Angeles Times poll showed overwhelming support for the boycott, do you not think this would be front page news? Well, the results were overwhelming...97.6% of the respondents to this L.A. Times poll were opposed to the boycott of Arizona. The poll question: "Was the L.A. City Council right to pass a boycott of Arizona?" Here are the results:

Yes. Arizona needs to feel the consequences of enacting a bad law. 2.1% (378 votes) 

Yes, though the boycott should be more of a symbolic gesture than an official measure. 0.4% (64 votes) 

No, but only because doing so is probably illegal and not in L.A.'s interest. 4.2% (771 votes) 

No. The city should mind its own business. 93.4% (17,030 votes) 

It seems that the U.S. News & World Report is in some serious competition with the Associated Press over who can put the most positive spin on April's increase in unemployment. So the unemployment figure rose last month from 9.7% to 9.9%? Great news according to Rick Newman in his U.S. News blog titled, "Why a Rising Unemployment Rate is Good News." And why is it good news? Newman explains...sort of:

It sounds dreadful. After drifting down consistently since last fall, the unemployment rate has suddenly shot up again, from 9.7 percent in March to 9.9 percent in April. But don't despair: A rising unemployment rate is actually one of the best signs yet that the economy is bouncing back.

The unemployment rate rose for the right reason. Instead of shedding jobs, employers added 290,000 jobs in April, the strongest showing since 2007. The reason the unemployment rate went up is that a lot more people are suddenly looking for work. The government said that the labor force swelled by 805,000 people in April. That's more than three times the number of new jobs, so the proportion of people looking for a job but unable to find one went up. Still, that big increase in the labor force marks an important shift in sentiment among people on the fringes of the economy.

We've already seen the NBA politicized over the new Arizona illegal immigration law in the form of the Phoenix Suns basketball players engaging in PC groupthink by wearing jerseys that say "Los Suns." However, this act of mixing politics with sports wasn't enough for Sports Illustrated columnist Melissa Segura. She also wants major league baseball to inappropriately engage in the politics of illegal immigration. She starts off her SI column by misrepresenting the  Arizona law and it goes downhill from there:

All it took was three little letters: L-O-S. With that change to the front of their jerseys during the NBA playoffs this week, the Phoenix Suns became "Los Suns" and Arizona's basketball franchise let the world know where it stands on its state's controversial immigration law.

The law -- Arizona Senate Bill 1070 -- requires law enforcement in the state with a "reasonable suspicion" to question and arrest anyone who can't immediately prove they're in the country legally.

Remember the "Crash the Tea Party" guy? He is Jason Levin, seen in the photo at right with his "disguise" with which he hoped to crash a Tea Party in order to discredit it. Levin, an Oregon schoolteacher, was placed on administrative leave before being allowed back in the  classroom. However, it now appears that he is vying for another job: news writer. His blog analysis about who was behind the Times Square bomb plot fits almost perfectly into the mainstream media pattern in reporting on the plot. First Levin, like many in the MSM (and NY mayor Bloomberg) who at least made that charge by implication, blamed the Tea Party people:

UPDATE MAY 03 Suspect currently being questioned by law enforcement.

Anonymous sources have reported that a suspect is currently being questioned in the Bridgeport / New Haven CT area. The suspect is a middle age white male, has a history of strong political views, and considers himself a Sarah Palin Tea Party express activist. An arrest is expected within days.

...Anonymous sources at the scene have reported that the terrorist attack is likely related to theSarah Palin Tea Party movement. "Much like the 911 attackers, Sarah Palin's Tea Party movement also has shown a strong dislike of the United States government." one source reported.

My eyes! Oh, my burning eyes!

That must have been the reaction yesterday of many liberal Boston Globe readers when they read what must have been to them some very painful truths in a Joan Vennochi column about denial of reality by government officials over who was behind the Times Square bomb plot. Vennochi could have also been writing about many in the mainstream media such as MSNBC's Contessa Brewer who were hoping it was a Tea Party member behind the plot:

AMERICANS CAN handle the truth. But when it comes to terrorist acts on American soil, government officials are reluctant to give it to us straight from the start.

Instant analysis of the Times Square bomb scare kicked off with the usual official disclaimers: Don’t presume a Muslim extremist had anything to do with it.

It was likely a “lone wolf’’ operation, suggested Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, or, as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speculated, “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something.’’ Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, said it was being treated as a “potential terrorist attack’’ but it could be a “one-off’’ or isolated incident.

It appears that it wasn't only media types such as MSNBC's Contessa Brewer who were disappointed that the Times Square bombing suspect turned out to be a Muslim. They were joined by virtually the entire leftwing blogosphere in their frustration that the suspect wasn't a tea party activist or a member of a "rightwing" militia group.  Before the identity of the bombing suspect was  made known, Kossack "waterboard sean" conducted a poll on who the perpetrator could be. And here are the hilarious results of that poll (I am using Kossack terminology here):

An al Qaeda terrorist  ---4%

An American sympathetic to al Qaeda ---5%

A militia wackjob  ---30%

A teapartier ---32%

A religious wackjob ---9%

Shhh!

Don't tell anybody but Congress is scheduled to vote today on H.R. 2499, a bill that could end up paving the way to Puerto Rican statehood, that is being presented with such incredible stealth that it has been given almost no coverage in the mainstream media. In fact, about the only person in the media shining a light on this bill until recently has been Glenn Beck. Liberals can be expected to write off Beck's criticisms of H.R. 2499 as just another example of "right-wing kookery." Frances Martel of Mediaite has already mocked Beck for his opposition to this bill.

However, liberals will have a hard time writing off similar criticisms of the stealth Puerto Rico status bill being made by liberal Democrat Luis Gutierrez of Illinois who is of Puerto Rican descent. While reading Guiterrez slamming H.R. 249 in his Huffington Post blog, you sometimes have to slap yourself  as a reminder that these criticisms are not coming from a conservative Republican...or Glenn Beck:

H.R. 2499, the Puerto Rico statehood bill was brought to the House this week after a surprise announcement last Thursday. Debate on this bill has been severely limited by the way Democratic Leaders are managing the process. Democratic Puerto Rican Members of Congress are being shut out of the process and will be severely limited in their ability to debate the bill and offer amendments. Under the current Democratic Leadership, there will be less opportunity for Members and for the people of Puerto Rico to gain a better understanding of the bill. 

Just how bad have things gotten at the low rated CNN? So bad that the CNN co-founder, Reese Schonfeld has written in his Huffington Post blog that it is at risk of becoming a bad joke:

I think CNN is at risk of becoming a bad joke. Late night comics and cartoonists are already using them as a gag line. Newspapers are asking "experts" how to save them. It's time for a major change, before moving from "joke" to "tired joke". Writing this is getting tired, too. It's making me feel cruel, and, even if April is the cruelest month, I'd rather be writing about something else.

Does anyone out there remember the Coffee Parties?

You can be forgiven if you have forgotten them. They made a brief appearance due to media driven hype over a month ago and then quickly disappeared from view when they inspired a collective yawn from the public. The photo at right shows a typical Coffee Party "rally" from back then. Typical in that few people showed up to protest against private ownership (aka free enterprise). Even the organizer of the Coffee Party non-movement, Annabel Park, seems to have lost her enthusiasm for the cause as evidenced by her Twitter page. After an initial flurry of posts, Park's interest pretty much petered out as you can see.

However, despite the utter failure of the liberal Coffee Parties to counter the popular Tea Parties, the MSM continues to hype them to the point of absolute absurdity.  And the latest entry in this category comes from Steve Tuttle of Newsweek with his claim that the Coffee Party now has 200,000 members and that they had 500 meetings one day recently.

Here is Tuttle in the midst of extreme hype mode. Please be prepared to have your BS meters fly off the scale while reading:

Did Ronald Reagan inspire one of the most famous lines in movie history? The widely quoted Dirty Harry "Do you feel lucky?" line.

That is what The Atlantic senior editor, Christopher Orr was wondering. Most of us would enjoy that premise. In the case of Orr, he found it "creepy." The Atlantic had posted a fascinating video clip from a 1954 General Electric Theater episode in which Ronald Reagan as a doctor confronts juvenile deliquent James Dean. Here is the analysis of that video from Orr:

...It's commonplace (and, I think, entirely accurate) to describe the "Dirty" Harry Callahan persona that Clint Eastwood wore to such effect beginning in 1971 as a harbinger of the Reagan Revolution. But who could possibly have imagined that, nearly two decades before Harry uttered his iconic, "Do you feel lucky, punk?" monologue--yes, I know the quote's not exact, but it's the accepted shorthand--Reagan himself would have uttered lines so uncannily alike? As Dean points his pistol at Reagan, the latter replies (shortly before the four-minute mark in the clip):

It's only a .32. It's not a very big bullet....You gotta be lucky, and if you're lucky--very lucky--then you've killed another man.... If you're not lucky, that bullet isn't gonna stop me.

Hot sparks flew on the set of MSNBC's Morning Joe today igniting a brief but entertaining firestorm. The cause? Joan Walsh somehow being unable to name any leftwing extremists. This set off an angry reaction from co-host Mika Brzezinski which included a funny impersonation of a conveniently clueless Walsh. It was one of those moments that needs to be viewed in order to be fully appreciated but here is a transcript of the heated exchange:

JOE SCARBOROUGH:  ...I think it helps us all to say there are extreme voices on the left, there are extreme voices on the right, and it's our responsibility to call out people, I believe, on our side.  

JOAN WALSH: Who would you have me call out? I mean who would you say on the left is comparable to Rush and...

SCARBOROUGH: Don't do it.

MIKA  BREZEZINSKI: Mmm-mmm! No thanks, Joan. We're good. We're good.

SCARBOROUGH: Can we talk about the Chinese now?

MIKA: I think it's all very obvious.

WALSH: Is it obvious? Who on the left is comparable to Rush and Glenn on the right?

MIKA: Okay, Joan, if it's not obvious to you I'll talk to you off-set.  I mean, my God! Alright so let's read from the Washington Post...

Ka-ching!

Whenever a liberal columnist gives some "friendly" advice to a Republican who is running for public office, you can be sure that he almost always has an ulterior motive. Such was the case with columnist Michael Mayo of the ailing Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Not only did Mayo urge Charlie Crist to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, he also cynically advised Crist to open himself up for bribery ala Ben Nelson should this year's elections result in a deadlock between Republicans and Democrats:

Democrats now have a 57-41 edge over Republicans in the Senate, and there are two independents who align with the Democrats, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

With 36 Senate seats up for grabs in November, Democrats and Republicans could end up virtually deadlocked for the majority.

Could you imagine if there was a 49-48 split and Crist were one of three independents?

Anything Florida wanted, Florida would get.

How about this idea: Our junior senator could broker a deal where all Florida homeowners get affordable windstorm coverage through national catastrophe insurance. In exchange, we allow expanded oil drilling off Florida's shores.

I say go for it, Independent Charlie.

For Floridians, it could have a nice ring — and ka-ching — to it.

Robert McCartney, the liberal Washington Post columnist, has done something that Chris Matthews and his fellow leftist MSNBC hosts have yet to do: attend a tea party rally without being confrontational and/or snarky. McCartney went to a tea party with an open mind last week and this is what he discovered:

I went to the "tea party" rally at the Washington Monument on Thursday to check out just how reactionary and potentially violent the movement truly was.

Answer: Not very.

Based on what I saw and heard, tea party members are not seething, ready-to-explode racists, as some liberal commentators have caricatured them.

Oops!

On the heels of a story a couple of days ago which used Congressman Heath Shuler as a source about how racial slurs were probably hurled at the Washington, D.C. Tea Party on March 20, the Associated Press has been forced to backtrack.  Here is how AP writer Jesse Washington used what Heath Shuler supposedly heard to promote the idea of a Tea Party chock full of racists:

A fourth Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, who is white, backed up his colleagues, telling the Henderson (N.C.) Times-News that he heard the slurs.

Unfortunately for Mr. Washington's premise, this little fiction has now been undone by Shuler himself. Here is the AP correction:

Rep. Heath Shuler is denying a report that he heard racial slurs yelled from a crowd of angry health care protesters outside the U.S. Capitol.

Aha! ...Aha! Aha! Aha!

Associated Press writer Jesse Washington has investigated the March 20 incident in Washington, D.C.  at which members of the Tea Party supposedly hurled the N-word at black Congressmen. Well, no recording of that word being used could be found but that hasn't stopped Washington from blaming the Tea Partiers...for posting the "wrong" video of that incident on YouTube. I kid you not:

Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists say the lawmakers are lying.

What does the video show? Not much. Indeed, new interviews show that a much-viewed YouTube recording cited as evidence by conservatives was actually shot well after the time in question.

 ...A reconstruction of the events shows that the conservative challenges largely sprang from a mislabeled video that was shot later in the day.

Get caught with your pants (but not black socks) down consorting with hookers after hypocritically spearheading investigations of prostitution rings? No problem if you are a liberal. There is always a chance for political redemption with the aid of the mainstream media. Such was the case this past week with Client # 9 aka Eliot Spitzer. First Spitzer lets us know about the terrible pain of irrelevance in a Fortune magazine article:

...But he also says he is "in unceasing agony" and "incredibly frustrated" over no longer being "where I would like to be" -- finishing his first term as governor of New York. "Anybody who says disengaging from it in any way is easy is not being straightforward," he says. "Obviously, removing myself the way I did is that much more painful."

Listen closely and you can hear the sound of crickets chirping over at the Kansas City Star after their Readers Representative, Derek Donovan, recommended a re-examination by that newspaper of their initial story of a supposed "hate crime" committed at the Capitol steps Tea Party in Washington D.C. on March 20:

I've talked to many, many readers this week about continuing fallout from claims that members of "tea party" protests shouted racial slurs at members of the Congressional Black Caucus and one spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver on March 20.

The Web and the talk shows are awash with reports that the word "nigger" wasn't recorded by people with video cameras. Some have also disputed that Cleaver was spat on, though a video shows pretty clearly to me that he reacted that way contemporaneously. Was it simply spittle from the man yelling in his face, rather than a single intentional spit? You can't tell from the video -- but if someone was yelling at me so forcefully that he also spit on me, I'm not sure I'd make much differentiation there.

As I wrote earlier in the week, the initial report in The Star March 21 should have attributed the claims to the people who made them, instead of simply reporting them as fact.

Yes, a story by William Douglas which was speed written in record time. Of course, the Kansas City Star is now taking its sweet time about actually verifying the "facts" behind the story. One place they might want to start is by Googling "Emanuel Cleaver" and discovering his latest reaction to the spitting incident:

Kudos to William Douglas of McClatchy newspapers. That reporter can write and file stories with amazing speed. One such story was this article that Douglas filed about the March 20 Tea Party protest in Washington, D.C. where racial slurs were supposedly hurled. Jack Cashill of American Thinker was so impressed with the speed in which Douglas wrote his story that he wrote this American Thinker blog about this feat accompanied by a video. Here is Cashill as he observes with awe how quickly Douglas wrote his McClatchy story:

...I checked with my source on the scene, Greg Farrell, to get a timeline on the passage of the Black Caucus members from the Cannon Building to the Capitol and back.  According to Farrell, they left the Cannon Building about 2:30 PM on March 20th and returned about 3:15 PM.  He had no reason to exaggerate.

I asked because at 4:51 that same day, McClatchy reporter William Douglas posted an article on the McClatchy website with the inflammatory headline, "Tea party protesters scream 'nigger' at black congressman."

In other words, Douglas, with an attributed assist from James Rosen, managed to interview representatives John Lewis, Emanuel Cleaver, and Barney Frank, compose an 800-word article, and have it edited and formatted for posting within a 90-minute window.

What does it say about the Huffington Post when one of their religion bloggers traffics in unproven charges about supposed racial slurs hurled at Congressman John Lewis at the March 20 Tea Party in Washington D.C.? Here is Eddie Glaude, Jr., Professor of Religion at Princeton University, performing his Pinocchio impression:

The word n----er found its way back into our national conversation recently. Some tea party activists hurled the epithet at Congressman John Lewis. Along the way they called Representative Barney Frank a faggot and spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. This venom was supposedly provoked by health care reform; it only revealed how debased our public conversation has become.

(UPDATE: The Breitbart prize has been increased to $100,000.)

There is $10,000 just waiting to be picked up by Al Sharpton. That is the prize money that Andrew Breitbart has offered to anyone who can reveal a video of Tea Party protestors in Washington, D.C. on March 20 who supposedly screamed the N-word at Congressman John Lewis. This "incident" first came to light when David Kerly breathlessly reported on it for ABC's World News Tonight:

...In fact, Cleaver, Emanuel Cleaver was together with John Lewis – they were walking over to the Capitol when somebody spit on Congressman Cleaver and yelled the ‘N’ word at Congressman Lewis. Cleaver was taken to police headquarters. He did ID the man, but he is not going to press charges. He’s not speaking about it. Lewis is not going to speak about it...

Yes, Kerly reported the racial invective as an absolute fact. Only one small problem. Despite the fact that many cameras were recording this scene, not one video has yet been produced proving this despite the fact that Andrew Breitbart has now offered a $10,000  cash incentive to do so:

It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up. Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N- word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once. Surely one of those two cameras wielded by members of his entourage will prove his point.

It looks like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is running for the office of chief censor. He absolutely hates the free flow of ideas and makes it plain in this Digital Journal article about his appearance on the same London, Ontario stage where ironically two days earlier Canadian university officials attempted to censor Ann Coulter.  Kennedy, upholding that same spirit of censorship, blames the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine for the rise of political views that don't fit into his liberal world vision:

Hero of the right, President Ronald Reagan, is no hero to Kennedy. "He had the gift of making people feel comfortable with their own prejudices."

Many of the problems of today, Kennedy traced back to actions taken by Reagan. Kennedy believes the American people are fed a media diet of right-wing propaganda, and it "all started in 1988 when Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine said that the airwaves belong to the public. They were public-trust assets, like air and water, and broadcasters could be licensed to use them" but they must use them in the public interest and to advance democracy.

If the Fairness Doctrine was still in place, "You could not have a Fox News," he said, nor a Rush Limbaugh, for that matter. But the doctrine is gone and Fox and Limbaugh are here. Quoting Pew Research, Kennedy said, 30 percent of Americans now get their news from talk radio, which is 90 percent dominated by the right. Another large number of Americans say their primary news source is Fox News, which Kennedy clearly believed would be better named Faux News. 

It seems that, in the wake of the liberal celebrations over the passage of the Senate ObamaCare bill, their former vociferous, opposition to it has been tossed down the memory hole. And woe betide anyone who points out how much they used to hate it. Such was the case of The New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait who castigates your humble correspondent in this article for pointing out this inconvenient fact:

P.J. Gladnick at Newsbusters accuses yours truly of hypocrisy:

Remember all that hype from the liberals until last night about how horrible the Senate ObamaCare was? Yes, they admitted it was a terrible piece of legislation but it was necessary for the House of Representatives to pass it in order for the Senate to somehow improve it via reconciliation. Well, toss that all out the window. Suddenly, sans any change in that formerly detested bill, it has suddenly become a "brilliant" piece of legislation as you can see in this gushing ode to the current unchanged ObamaCare bill by Jonathan Chait of the New Republic...

A "masterfully crafted piece of legislation?" If so, why even bother to try to improve this brilliance via reconciliation in the Senate? Of course, Chait's article makes absolutely no reference to reconciliation. That pretense seems to have been dropped. It will be interesting to see how many other liberals suddenly discover the "brilliance" of what was previously considered a lousy Senate ObamaCare bill and drop their former urgency over the necessity for improvement via reconciliation. For Jonathan Chait all that matters now is that the once hated Senate ObamaCare bill has passed despite the consequences to come.

Remember all that hype from the liberals until last night about how horrible the Senate ObamaCare was? Yes, they admitted it was a terrible piece of legislation but it was necessary for the House of Representatives to pass it in order for the Senate to somehow improve it via reconciliation. Well, toss that all out the window. Suddenly, sans any change in that formerly detested bill, it has suddenly become a "brilliant" piece of legislation as you can see in this gushing ode to the current unchanged ObamaCare bill by Jonathan Chait of the New Republic:

Historians will see this health care bill as a masterfully crafted piece of legislation. Obama and the Democrats managed to bring together most of the stakeholders and every single Senator in their party. The new law law untangles the dysfunctionalities of the individual insurance market while fulfilling the political imperative of leaving the employer-provided system in place. Through determined advocacy, and against special interest opposition, they put into place numerous reforms to force efficiency into a wasteful system. They found hundreds of billions of dollars in payment offsets, a monumental task in itself. And they will bring economic and physical security to tens of millions of Americans who would otherwise risk seeing their lives torn apart. Health care experts for decades have bemoaned the impossibility of such reforms--the system is wasteful, but the very waste creates a powerful constituency for the status quo. Finally, the Democrats have begun to untangle the Gordian knot. It's a staggering political task and substantive achievement.

"Is it safe?"

That famous line from the movie "Marathon Man" comes to mind when considering the attitude of Ohio Congressman Zack Space about ObamaCare. Back in January, after Space caught heat for voting for the House version  of ObamaCare in November, he decided it was safe to "boldly" express his opposition to the Senate bill on the heels of Nancy Pelosi declaring it DOA at the time. Here is what Space had to say in January as recorded in your humble correspondent's NewsBusters blog:

U.S. Rep. Zack Space said Thursday he plans to oppose the health care bill passed by the U.S. Senate.

He made the announcement shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the national media she didn't think she had the votes to pass the bill.

It seems that Hollywood never learns its lesson. The anti-military "Green Zone" has now become but the latest of such movies to bomb bigtime at the box office. This report from a Los Angeles Times blog chronicles how "Green Zones" has joined a list of similar financial disasters such as "In the Valley of Elah," "Rendition," and "Redacted":

"Green Zone" is the last drama set to be released by a major studio related to the Iraq war, and Hollywood is undoubtedly grateful for it after the picture, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon, opened to just $14.5 million domestically and $9.7 million overseas.

It's the latest in a string of flops that include "Body of Lies," "The Kingdom" and "Stop-Loss." Even "The Hurt Locker," while not a major disappointment given its low budget, is the lowest- grossing best picture Oscar winner in recent history.

Let's see... The author of the bizarre solution to avoid a direct vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate ObamaCare bill is Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. Yet, to call it a "Slaughter Solution" is somehow an unfair Republican tactic. Such is the assertion of Brian Montopoli at the CBS Political Hotsheet:

The Republican Party already has plenty of evocative phrases with which to hammer the health care reform effort: "Government takeover," "ram down our throats," "job-killing monstrosity."

Now House Republican Leader John Boehner's office has come up with perhaps the most striking entry yet: "Slaughter Solution."

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.   ---Derek Zoolander

I don't know which is funnier; a global warming themed fashion show or the fact that the Associated Press reports on it with a completely straight face. They assume the polar ice caps are melting so what to do? Waste carbon shipping giant icebergs from Sweden just to adorn a Paris fashion show runway. Jenny Barchfield delivers the report on "Chanel does climate change, with real icebergs" which sounds like a story pitch for a Zoolander sequel:

PARIS — Models in head-to-toe yeti suits picked their way around towering but quickly melting icebergs, sloshing through a deep puddle of Arctic melt in their shaggy fake fur.

Call it climate change chic, Chanel style.

Designer Karl Lagerfeld looked Tuesday to global warming, turning the melting of the polar ice caps into fodder for Chanel's fall-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear look. Because, after all, what use is the threat of a catastrophe of global proportions if not to fuel fashion trends and inspire clever variations on Chanel's iconic styles?

During the final years of the Soviet Union many political dissidents weren't sent to slave labor camps as happened in the bad old Stalin era if they weren't outright liquidated. Instead, their divergence from the official party line was viewed as some sort of mental disorder that must be treated, usually with forced confinement in mental institutions which were little more than prisons. And now we have a Marxist blogger for Psychology Today who proposes that Tea Party participants suffer from a mental disorder. The funniest thing is that when one reads the rantings of Michael Bader, he appears like Captain Queeg on the witness stand. The more he writes, the less rational he sounds. Take a look at just the first sentence of Bader's extended rant and guess who comes off as sanity challenged. BTW, the word "f---ers" in his primal scream article is fully spelled out:

These tea-party folks seem to most liberals-well, to most of us who live in the "reality community," or, as I like to call it, "reality"-like crazy f---ers.