DennyBlog Fever: Catch It!

The latest installment to the Official Blog of the Worst House Speaker in U.S. History.

"It's Just a God-Damned Piece of Paper..."

More evidence that President George W. Bush is drinking again.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

Shocking.

Monkeys May Fly Out Butt, Rumsfeld Says.

Give me a fucking break. OK?

Do you need a fucking chronological list of the times this asshole has made this statement to see that it's all bullshit?

I actually prefer Midway Airport...

I like Midway better than O'Hare. Always have.

They have a better on-time percentage there, and basically, SWA is the best airline in the industry, as far as I'm concerned.

Who needs First Class? Just get me there. Alive. On time.

Southwest Airlines has a great record for doing that thousands of times each week with its customers.

One can only imagine what the people in the car at Central Avenue were thinking when the plane went through the fence.

I've driven there hundreds of times, I'm sure.

Oh. My. God.

I passed up this very flight to get home earlier today.

Sweet Jesus.

I (heart) Nancy Pelosi.

For using the privilege of her position to craft the "Hi-Ho, FUCK YOU, Denny Resolution."

Righteous, babe.

Josh Marshall says it looks like another raucous night in the House. I say watch for J. Dennis Hastert and his goons to write up a statement in which he shakes his fat little finger at Pelosi and cries foul again.

Nice coaching job, Denny.

Officials Say Air Marshals Did Right Thing

MIAMI (AP) - The White House said Thursday that two federal air marshals appeared to have acted properly when they shot and killed an agitated passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack.

Well, no shit?

This is another diversionary tactic from the White House. It's like a Senate testimony by Rice, Rumsfeld, Tommy Thompson, or any of the other misanthropes who have learned to answer the question, "How long have you been taking bribes, M. Secretary?" with "Well, let me first say thank you to the Senator from Glibdom, who so graciously, yet arrogantly and forthrightly and heroically... blah, blah, blah..."

Enough. And enough with the stupid fucking questions from the press on the White House beat.

Let's get a couple of things straight, right now. First of all, Scott McClellan was the picture of so-called "PC" in making this incredible understatement. He chose his words very carefully, which considering how much he normally distorts reality in his "gaggles," isn't really saying too much. And if this isn't like running out the clock at a basketball game where your opponent is kicking your ever-loving ass in the 4th period, I don't know what it. Enough.

Second, I'm a bit concerned with the press referring to this poor, lost soul as "Roberto Baltazar" for some time before the correct name was used. That really says a lot about our media when they fuck up foreign names.

Finally, I travel quite a lot, and if what I heard today is true (and I flew on a day trip, btw, in and out of O'Hare today) I'm very happy to know the Air Marshalls were on the job and did what they did.

HRC's world:
Plane is full of people (could be in the air, could be on the ground).
Person runs up and down the aisle with hand in bag, claiming to have bomb.
Person is shot to death when refusing to take hand out of bag and lie down, as demanded repeatedly by Air Marshalls.
Person (insane, or not, medicated or not) is shot (to death or not) in an attempt to avert disaster.

Thank you, Air Marshalls.

Now, let's get back to the real news, like the story about Denny Hastert's Congress fucking the middle class a little bit closer into oblivion today.

Hosea 8:7

"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up."

Don't mean to get all Bibled up on you all. Just the same, these God-damned liars will pay for this tax cut.

Denny Hastert's America

Cunningham's booty takes the perp walk.

Nice video. Via Talking Points Memo.

What a Difference a Day Makes.

Or the hair dye. Or something.

Is anyone deluded enought to think this woman is really going to be our next governor?

Before... After.

Or somesuch. Spooky.

Chicago Life.

If you don't get the Sunday NYT, there is a very nice piece on Bobby Kennedy, Jr. -- the cover story -- in the accompanying Chicago Life magazine.

The Sunday NYT package, btw, with the addition of Chicago Life, the bimonthly mag, has such depth, such great photography, is so packed full of Chicago advertising, it's no wonder the Chicago Tribune is laying people off again.

The loss of the storied City News is just a damned shame, especially since it's another example of a company that can't seem to manage well, then expects the employees to pay the price.

Denny's Long Christmas Vacation.

Wouldn't be great if you had a job where you only had to go to the office eight or so months out of the year?

Now, don't start a bitch about teachers. I'm talking about J. Dennis Hastert's latest under-handed move to bail out his mentor, Tom DeLay.

ThinkProgress reports today that Hastert and his goons have decided to open the first session of 2006 on January 31 to give DeLay a chance to move his case through the courts and possibly still be re-elected Majority Leader.

As we used to say when the opposing team ran out the clock in the last five minutes, that's a hell of a way to win a ballgame, coach.

Tell Hastert's lackeys that you won't allow him to shut down the nation's business for a month while there's work to be done. Unless Fristy follows Hastert, the Senate will be in session for two weeks before the House is back to work.

Give them a call right now.

I Have Made The Grade.

Karie over at K3 made a note of my modesty when I boasted of being listed as an "Essential Blog" (now a "Blog you should know") at The Inside Dope.

Just tonight I see that I've finally made it.

I am now listed in the blog roll of Rich Miller's CapitolFax blog.

Wow. I can die in my sleep. Happy.

Wow.

Hastert's Political Tree.

J. Dennis Hastert can even politicize a God-damned tree, it seems.

I missed this TOTN piece last week while on the road, but it explains that it was, in fact, the Architect of the Capitol who changed the name of the Capitol Christmas Tree to a "Holiday Tree." Because he's Jewish.

By leaving it open to conjecture, you see, Hastert and his press aides at the Washington Times made readers struggle to make the connection between, oh, let's see... the 1990s and the party in power at the time, and... oh... CLINTON DID IT!

They're so crafty! Crafty, but dirty. And just in time for the Holiday season.

But wait just a minute, there. You could make a lot of this. Is Hastert thumbing his nose at Jews? They killed Jesus, didn't they? Ouch!

One could righteously demand that the number of pillars supporting the face of the Capitol be changed to five, to represent the Five Pillars of Islam. Perhaps we should light a National Menorah in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool.

Diwali is already past, but its celebration, along with its symbolism, may cause quite a stir in D.C., Heavy D. Not among Hindus, however.

What about an annual National Memorial to the Native Americans? Oh, please! Who am I kidding?!

Not that we would all appreciate a Christmas tree that's planted on the Capitol grounds and living and growing. Oh, no. We wouldn't want to be tree huggers, now would we?

No, sir. J. Dennis Hastert can make even a Christmas tree into an ugly political symbol for the party he represents.

Like I Said This Morning...

Apple, NBC make iPod deal.

Just a few years ago, Apple's market capital was only about $6 billion, the laughingstock of the technology sector.

Michael Dell said they should give the stockholders their money back and call it a day.

Steve Jobs has ripened Apple into a $62.4 billion company, as of close of the market today.

Dell, on the other hand, innovates nothing and is worth $74.5 billion.

Hark! The Speaker Mumbles!

Hastert releases a statement on the resignation of Duke Cunningham, who tearfully resigned in disgrace more than a week ago, after pleading guilty to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes from Defense contractors, charges which are part of an ongoing investigation.

“Congressman Duke Cunningham’s letter of resignation will be formally submitted to the House of Representatives when it convenes today. Congressman Cunningham is a war hero whose service to defending America had built a deep respect for him on Capitol Hill. However, the public trust he has built through his military and congressional career has been violated. The behavior by Congressman Cunningham is unacceptable. No one is above the law. He will find that his actions will have serious consequences.”

Of course, when you're the Master of the Obvious, as J. Dennis is, you can get away with something like this. It just gets lost in the blur of excrement that is released in fits and starts from your multi-million-dollar "press operation."
That's all there is, by the way, if you're too sick of Heavy D's prosaic words to follow the link. That's really it! And it's amazingly a lot like the talking points the president carefully repeated last Wednesday in his only public remarks about Cunningham:

"The idea of a congressman taking money is outrageous," the president said. "And Congressman Cunningham is going to realize that he has broken the law and is going to pay a serious price, which he should."

A couple things sort of jump out of the screen at you.

First, it's another monolithic blunder, courtesy of Hilary Swank, er Ken Mehlman, who proves again that the only thing he's really good at (I hear, anyway) is faxing shit out to people in massive doses. The fact that Cunningham was not counseled by Republican leaders to resign his seat before entering his guilty plea and breaking down on-camera is a mark that will be on J. Dennis Hastert and his cronies forever. And they have no way to come out a week later and claim they were involved in his plea. None at all.

Second thing is Hastert found it more compelling to have the "press operation" paint a bull's eye on Howard Dean today before releasing the Cunningham statement.

Once again, if you didn't think that J. Dennis Hastert was the ugly political animal he has revealed in all of these shenannigans, you simply were not paying attention. With J. Dennis, it's all about politics all the time. And time is just about up. Voters in IL CD-14 will not let down the 20-year veteran of phoney, ugly political gaming (a longtime advocate of term limits prior to 1998), but voters across the country have his number.

The Next Big Media Failure.

Last night, as blogspot was in its final throes, I was polishing off a masterpiece on what I see as the dawning of the next great misstep by the media/technology synthesis project. When blogspot finally died, so did my piece.

Yesterday, as CNN announced its newest pay-per-view service, CNN(Pipeline), it occurred to me this was simply brilliant. More, faster, better! Content! Timeliness!

As a heavy media user on my mobile phone during travel, I am sick and tired of the lag time in the media in getting the feeds to these services. I pay a hefty fee for that every month, after all.

I was right! It's brilliant! Except for one thing: It's none of that.

Which makes Pipeline the next media failure in progress. Hints to CNN: I'm not going to pay your corporate parent, Time-Warner, another nickel for content that I already pay for on my TV. Not for something like news. Another thing you guys don't get is that just as the meaty content must transform, so must the sweets that fatten your middles. More on that in the jump.

Like NBC and CBS, which are tip-toeing around iTunes by wrapping themselves up in some different, higher priced scheme with the satellite and cable providers ($2.99 a download?) It's not too late for these guys to cover their recent misstep, so you see, hope springs eternal, even in the technology age.

The first thing the greedy media doesn't get is price point. Just as Steve Jobs told recording industry execs recently when they announced they were nearing the time for a price increase for downloads: 99 cents is where it's at.

The flip-side of that, of course, is wondering what Edgar Bronfman is going to look like with 100 million iPods shoved up his loathsome, spotty behind.

The iPod Family is a complete commentary on where media and technology need to come together. Small, medium, large. All sexy. All with a specific purpose.

News: We hunger for more, not less. Stop shortening the stories, and maybe we'll tune back in to the network. Really. Give us the meat. Give us an hour network news broadcast. Give us the little shorty clips for the iPod. Where Pipeline fails is in its belief that these things can be "rented" for $3 a month or at the great price of $25 a year.

Fuck you, CNN. And while we're at it, here's a big old Fuck You for MSNBC for being awful at what you do, too. And for never living up to the promise of transforming the mediascape. A bit.

We already pay our service providers big money to bring you into our homes. Don't even think about charging us again. You're not that good.

And stop running stories that ask what's wrong with our kids these days. You know what the problem is. Your corporate parents should be ashamed.

Entertainment: Give us something good. Something that's occasionally good will suffice at this point. How I long for black and white re-runs on cable of some of the filmed soundstage productions that trumpeted television's beginnings.

Here's the short and sweet on television entertainment.

One: There's only so many shows that can make us laugh hard enough to keep tuning in for the 10 years you want to run these shows and wring the life out of the stars in exchange for the bazillions you'll pay them to keep the warm gravy flowing. Enough! Jim Belushi is pretty funny. Not every week.

Two: Stop hiring cute little vixens who make men pant and masturbate in the car on the way to work. As a woman, I would want to see Britney Spears's little boobies bounce or Janet Jackson's nipple ring about as much as I would want to see a lion eating Brian Williams. Well, bad analogy, maybe. That could actually be pretty good.

And I don't want kids to see any of that. Tell me to change the channel or turn it off? Oh, how original. The age of increasing shocking and sexier television has got to plateau at some point. After all, I love sex. But how many fucking orgasms does it take in one night before I just drop dead? And who's happy then?

Stop creating a problem, then wringing your hands over it, or saying that that's what we want. Collectively, we're sick of it.

Advertising: This is the biggie. Millions are reaped by leasing channels overnight to infomercial peddlers. And that's OK. Want to fund some of this stuff we want for free? Make the ads shorter. Nano, baby.

The future of broadcast advertising will herald an age where the 30-second spot seems like an infomercial. Yes, sometimes I skip the beginning of the radio show because the news plays for five minutes, but stop with the 3-6 minute commercial breaks. We want to love sponsors again. The way we'll do that is when we hear that they're paying good money to have a couple or no commercial breaks during the airing of a great story. Think "Saving Private Ryan."

Five-second sponsor ads can be very creative, and could start a revolution in broadcast advertising everyone would welcome.

The Hastert Link to Cunningham Bribes

Here's the first solid link that's likely to suck The Speaker closer to the Cunningham case's "Co-Conspirator No.1."

Showing His Colors Again.

Why is Denny Hastert saying nothing in response to the 9/11 Commission's Report Card? Hit a nerve, Heavy D?

I love this part:

"This week, Congress will vote to extend tax relief that creates jobs. If tax relief is allowed to expire, a family of four making $60,000 today will see its Federal income taxes eventually go up by more than 50 percent. Hiking taxes on America's families and small businesses would destroy jobs. The worst thing that we can do at this time of the year is play Scrooge and hike taxes on American families like some Democrats are suggesting."

The first statement is an outright lie.

The second sentence is a mischaracterization (typical Hastert-speak, when he's not saying a lot without saying anything at all).

The last sentence would be true if it were, well, reality.

No Democrat is suggesting increasing taxes on "American families."

No Democrat is suggesting that taxes should increase on any family of four earning $60,000.

What Denny "J. Dennis" Hastert says elsewhere in the prepared statement is that Congress is prepared to make permanent the tax cuts for the rich that justify the means for an ugly Fristy-Hastert pact to slash meaningful social programs.

And all before Christmas.

Scrooge.

Hastert Silent.

In the wake of a polite, but overdue, ass-whipping by the 9/11 Commission Chairmen, Denny "J. Dennis" Hastert is silent.

As usual.

The silence is quite telling. This is no leader, a man who (either) ignores (or is left speechless by) such criticism over our national security.

The Way Out of Iraq.

Joe Conason on what seems to be the only reasonable way out of the disaster Congress and George W. Bush have given us.