Courtesy of Glenn Beck TV, the comedy napalm of Brian Sack. If Lenny Bruce were still alive, he’d be cutting Sesame Street a new asshole.

The suit means he’s smart.

Trying to find Herman Cain? No problem. Every morning, he holds forth in the Madison booth at Sandy’s Documents And Waffles:

Can presidents sign constitutional amendments? No. Can they demand a 2/3 vote to upend tax legislation? No. Can they overturn Supreme Court decisions? No. Why? Because these things are unconstitutional.

You can go on and on and lecture us, Herman. You can tell us how appalling it is we haven’t bothered to read the Constitution. You can point right at us and tell all your friends we’re the least patriotic dunderheads you’ve seen in your life.

But when you mock us with “Life, Liberty and Happiness,” or its foundational kin, this:

“. . whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it . . “

. . you’re not just talking traditional American ideals. You’re quoting the Declaration of Independence.

It’s getting harder and harder to comment on this stuff. The editorial board at Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel asks Herman Cain if he agrees with Obama on Libya. Cain has no clue. Can’t figure up from down, isn’t really sure which country that is.

How can any candidate remain unaware of the revolution in Libya? How can he not know that his own armed forces (the United States, Herman) played a crucial role in it? (We won.) And, no, Herman, Libya isn’t Egypt, much as your brain argues with you.

And, no, it’s not the Journal Sentinel’s job to remind you.

No, I didn’t say it. Conservatives said it after Wednesday’s insta-historic debate collapse:

International Business Times:

Business Insider:

National Review:

Hot Air:

Politico:

Gee, Rick. Don’t go.

CONFIRMATION: A Gawker witness:

Watch Rick Perry’s Campaign Explode in an Excruciating Brain Fart
Max Read | Nov 9, 2011 | 9:45 p.m.

Here’s Texas Governor Rick Perry, distinguishing himself once again at Wednesday night’s CNBC debate . . [snip] . . Oh, Rick! I almost would vote for you now, just because I feel so bad for you. But I don’t think I’ll get the chance, since I assume after this debate you will quit the campaign and go live in the woods forever and never talk to a human soul again.

Let’s take an Arizona politician seriously, for a second. Let’s listen to the duly elected leader of a great vacuous, deserted state.

Rep. Trent Franks (R — Stupefy) worries about trouble. Global warming, unemployment, mortgage fraud, fracturing of the middle class, I’m kidding. He’s obsessed with wingnut fairy tales. For instance, the Black American holocaust:

“Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.”

Just look around you. Politics, business, the arts, education, Black people are being devastated. Michael Jackson, for instance, he’s dead. George Washington Carver, look what they did to him. They aborted parts of Mr. T’s hair. You think they’ll stop there? They’re just warming up.

Who are these people? Gila Monster Americans. They’ve been shivering for a while, but it’s now Satan’s morning in America. There they are, sunning themselves all over Arizona’s rocks. And now that the blood’s finally running to their brains, it occurs to them: Lesbians should honeymoon. They should do it in Phoenix, maybe in Trent Franks’ bed. Trent, buddy, where’s your dildo?

“. . it not only is a complete undermining of the principles of family and marriage and the hope of future generations but it completely begins to see our society break down to the extent that that foundational unit of the family that is the hope of survival of this country is diminished to the extent that it literally is a threat to the nation’s survival in the long run.”

See? Fairy tales. The foundational unit will die.

Where are ‘foundational units’ assembled? Chinese prisons, I assume. Trent answers ‘Marriage!’ (*cough*). How many of these units are gay? Used to be zero, now there are a few. So, now that there are extra units, they’re going to die. Marriages are like lemmings, apparently, you get too many of them and “together with voles and muskrats, they make up the subfamily Arvicolinae, which forms part of the largest mammal radiation by far, the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils.”

I thought about Franks’ warning. It’s impossible to believe, but this post took longer than the obvious seconds of punishing work. Gay people are, what, 2% of the population? I looked up the 1860 census, and it says there were 31,443,321 Americans. The Civil War killed around 625,000 of us. That was 2% of the population, and America barely blinked. But if 2% of our marriages are evil, we die? No, Franks seems to be warning us of something more troublesome: the 2%, once married, will kill the other 98%. The homo brain is a mysterious, violent wonder.

So that’s the real story behind gay marriage. You know how I know? Because when the queers are about to kill you, they won’t tell you. They’re not going to say a word. Would they? Would you? No. Have your gay pals mentioned it? No.

Got any questions? Go find Rep. Allen West, he’s an expert on all sorts of stuff. Fallacies, fantasies, fairy dust . . my goodness, what a Maestro Buffoon.

West counters Obama: MLK would not have backed Wall Street protests
By Alicia M. Cohn | The Hill

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) rejected President Obama’s comparison between Martin Luther King Jr. and what he called the “Occupy Wall Street gangs.”

“Martin Luther King Jr. would not have backed these types of protesters,” West said, noting that he was born and raised in King’s neighborhood. “First of all, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a focus, a message. He was divinely inspired. I don’t know what the inspiration is for these individuals.”

Allen sees no connection between the struggles for civil rights and social justice. He should.

“I think the hypocrisy of this movement is somewhat laughable,” he said. “[Unemployment] has nothing to do with Wall Street. It has everything to do with the failed policies coming out of the Obama administration.”

Heavens, the nerve of these Obamabots. First, they slash jobs by the millions. Next, they protest their own unemployment.

West does not understand, uhh, many things. But what of his MLK assessment? Let’s see if Allen’s right. King talked plenty about social justice, but what specifically did he say?

1.) “Timid supplication for justice will not solve the problem. We have got to confront the power structure massively.”

Hmm.

2.) “I’m not talking about communism. Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis.”

Communo-capitalism? West would grenade the smell of it.

3.) “The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. … In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent.”

Allen loses. He could use a decent college education. What about this?

“The young people of the Occupy movement all over this country and throughout the world are seeking justice,” Martin Luther King, III, son of Martin Luther King, Jr., said.

That was last weekend.

“We have bailed out the auto industry, and we should have. We bailed out Wall Street. Now it’s time to bail out working Americans” . .

“I believe that if my father was alive, he would be right here with all of us involved in this demonstration today.”

I defer to the speaker. West could use a newspaper subscription, too.

Another Republican debate down. Another lump of misfires, gaffes, and comic highlights to pore over. I probably should learn to like these things, they only come around every four years. They also prove that Republicans will settle for anything that looks the part.

Right now, Mitt Romney looks the part. His confidence is clearly growing as the frontrunner: witness the embrace of his own healthcare legislation. Also notice his evolving ability to counter-attack rivals. In this clip, he wounds the barely-breathing Perry after the Texan tried to brain him with “Romneycare”:

“I’ll tell you this though, we have the lowest number of kids as a percentage of any state in America. You have the highest… We have less than one percent of our kids that are uninsured. You have a million kids uninsured in Texas. A million kids.”

Pretty good. The other candidates, they did not fare so well. Michele Bachmann remains the candidate dumber than your cat:

In her response to the question of whether anyone from Wall Street should be thrown in prison for causing the collapse of the world’s largest economy, Bachmann blamed the federal government for the 2008 financial meltdown and recession of 2007-9.

“The fault goes back to the federal government, and that’s what’s wrong with Dodd- Frank,” Bachmann said, adding, “Dodd-Frank institutionalized all of these problems that were put into effect by the federal government.”

The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was written as a response to the financial collapse. It was passed in July of 2010. So Michele is confused as to how the river of time flows: into the future, maybe?

Newt Gingrich recognized the names of the Taliban, so he decided some bomb-throwing was called for:

“If you want to put people in jail, I want to second what Michele said. You ought to start with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd . .”

The Wall Street watchdogs. Democrats. Why do they belong in jail?

“The fact is in both the Bush and Obama administrations, the fix has been in. And I think it perfectly reasonable for people to be angry.”

OC-CU-PY. OC-CU-PY. That’s what protesters want: the heads of the reformers on a silver platter. And an end to the estate tax, and some caviar please — not too cold, it hurts my teeth.

Hearing those flails of genius, Rick Perry figured he could do better. It wasn’t until after the debate that he came up with something:

“Our Founding Fathers never meant for Washington, D.C. to be the fount of all wisdom. As a matter of fact they were very much afraid if that because they’d just had this experience with this far-away government that had centralized thought process and planning and what have you, and then it was actually the reason that we fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown, if you will . .”

What’s 200 years? It’s, let’s see, 200 hundred years. Wikipedia’s highlights of the 16th century include the growth of the Ottoman Empire and Akbar the Great’s extension of Mughal power across the Indian sub continent. I don’t imagine Rick Perry knows much about that, either.

Robert Bryce writes as an energy expert for a number of different outlets: National Review, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner. His general view is that alternative forms of energy production are currently too technologically weak to be taken seriously as replacements for coal burning.

That’s not a trivial opinion. It’s true in the short term: we’re not likely to replace burning fossil fuels as a robust solution to our energy needs in the next quarter century. Anyone who believes that somehow, before 2030, some technological tour de force will save us from firing fossil fuels and releasing jillions of tons of carbon dioxide is naive.

But that’s not any reason to trivialize the new energy effort. Climate change is an historically serious challenge to human adaptability and survival. Previous crises, like the Bubonic Plague, killed as many as 100 million people. The European Continent remains inhabited, but half of it may have died before the threat abated.

Global warming will not be as intense as an epidemic, but it could be far longer-lasting: a century? Two centuries? And the solution to it won’t just pop up in our brilliant immune systems. Our savvy and innovation are all that can beat it. We should get serious about the work, right?

But back to Robert Bryce — Al Gore tanked, coal is cheap, Science is a bumbling thing. What can he tell you? Some problems have no solutions worth the bother:

Five Truths About Climate Change

1) The carbon taxers/limiters have lost. [blah blah blah]

Here’s a reality check: During the same decade that Mr. Gore and the IPCC dominated the environmental debate, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 28.5%.

I first thought Bryce was alerting us to the exploding threat even in the face of Al Gore’s media campaign. No: Bryce wants you to realize how Al Gore “dominated the environmental debate” yet didn’t dispatch the crisis. For 10 years, we patiently listened to his bitching and crying, but global warming is still around. Obviously, Al didn’t know what he was talking about.

2) Regardless of whether it’s getting hotter or colder—or both—we are going to need to produce a lot more energy in order to remain productive and comfortable.

Thank god someone pointed that out.

3) The carbon-dioxide issue is not about the United States anymore. [...] . . over the past decade, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions—about 6.1 billion tons per year—could have gone to zero and yet global emissions still would have gone up.

Whew, another great argument. I’ve been looking at an Escalade.

4) We have to get better—and we are—at turning energy into useful power. In 1882, Thomas Edison’s first central power station on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan converted less than 3% of the heat energy of the coal being burned into electricity. Today’s best natural-gas-fired turbines have thermal efficiencies of 60%. Nearly all of the things we use on a daily basis—light bulbs, computers, automobiles—are vastly more efficient than they were just a few years ago. And over the coming years those devices will get even better at turning energy into useful lighting, computing and motive power.

Point number 4: save energy? Suck whale cock, Bob. Idiot.

5) The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein’s theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth’s atmosphere.

HA HA. Argumenta ad ignorantium, logicam, absurdum, chortlensis, flimflammae, palmjobbum. One part of a single field of science broke new ground with heretofore impossible observations. As a result, for the first time in history, I think it’s safe to say: something’s gone wrong with science. Hate to break it to you, but the past couple comfortable centuries have all been for nothing, sadly. Science is no way to elect reality, vote for Robert Bryce.

Wall Street Journal op/eds have become hard news. Gay soldiers weaken our defenses — ad fay mortis — ICBMs inbound over the poles, off the equator.

Wingnut Joe Scarborough, handsome golden retriever granted the full run of MSNBC’s kennel, isn’t exactly the warmonger you figured (chickenmutt? poodlehawk?). Really. Turns out he has the soul to write country style-ish protest songs against the war. Against the war. Really!

Wow. That’s some . . singing? Anyway, while it’s not exactly clear what war he’s against or how he isn’t pandering . . now . . as we’re leaving . . ehh. Hmm. I did see RawStory point out a previously angry Joe Scarborough:

“I’m waiting to hear the words ‘I was wrong’ from some of the world’s most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types,” the MSNBC host said in April 2003. “I just wonder, who’s going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: ‘Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong’? Maybe the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war…”

“Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes.”

The peaceable disgraces and mistakes are ours. Right. Now meet sobbin’ Geetar Slim:

I sit listening alone
To that message on the phone
He said a prayer then he whispered ‘goodbye’

Now our boy is a man
And I call him when I can
How I hope that he don’t hear me cry . .

Now still I cry
Underneath September skies
Ten years on but my nightmare goes on

In an endless war
Tell me please how many more
Have to die before my sweet boy comes home . .

Aw you got me all choked up. Bawling like Lonesome Joe.

The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength . .

Joe’s ear may be bad, but his timing’s pretty good.

Okay, now I’m beginning to wonder. These abominable stories (here, here) piling up, one after another: is there something going on in the cosmos? Are we floating through a black-hearted nebula? Or are these the glorious consequences of living in a center-right country?

The latest brain-bruiser: a Springfield, Missouri special education middle school teen was raped by a fellow student. The lawsuit filed by her parents details how school officials ended up blaming her:

The suit also alleges that, without seeking her mother’s permission, school officials forced the girl to write a letter of apology to the boy and personally deliver it to him. She was then expelled for the rest of the 2008-2009 school year and referred to juvenile authorities for filing a false report.

Wow. Negligence, punishing incompetence and indifference. And it only gets worse.

She was allowed to come back to school the next year and her mother urged school officials to protect her from the male student. School officials denied the request, the suit alleges . .

In February 2010, the same boy grabbed her, dragged her to the back of the school library and raped her again, the suit alleges.

Raped a second time. How did the school react?

School officials were notified of the incident and allegedly doubted the girl’s claim, saying they’d “already been through this,” according to the lawsuit… she was suspended from school for “disrespectful conduct” and “public display of affection,” her lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.

Disrespectful conduct? My irony meter towers above me in the form of a mushroom cloud. The mother took her daughter to a child advocacy center, and they confirmed the rape. With the recovered DNA evidence entered against him, the boy pleaded guilty to the crime in juvenile court. Rightfully, the school has been served with a monster lawsuit. So district directors took a different tack:

The girl failed and neglected to use reasonable means to protect her self, the response says. Any damages the girl may have sustained, “were as a result of the negligence, carelessness, or conduct of third parties over whom the District Defendants had neither control nor the right to control . . ”

It’s only a shame school officials can’t be charged with crimes. Or we can’t just bury the district in a pit.

Rupert Murdoch’s enormous, paranoid, right-wing media conglomeration trembles before us. Aw, poor asshole jillionaire. After Rupert’s crown jewel British tabloid, News of the World, got exposed for hacking into thousands of people’s phone messages, folks throughout the Empire — throughout the world — got pissed. Furious. News Corp. doesn’t look so harmless any more.

It never was so. And it won’t be, in whatever future it retains, because Rupert is a lying, partisan shit. And here’s the latest proof.

The clip isn’t remarkable for its attempt at deception, which is S.O.P. for Fox News. It’s notable for its pitiable incompetence. They trotted out a codgerly public relations expert (Bob Dilenschneider) to push back against reality. No, not a journalist, not a former employee, not a member of Scotland Yard, not a gossip columnist — an American p.r. hack.

Gee, can you imagine what his take will be on the mess? Something honest and forthright. Maybe he’ll say it rates a trifle? Everything’s okay, nothing to see here? Blimey, you’re right.

The best part: the old turd doesn’t even understand ‘hacking,’ the cause of the scandal. Has no clue about the differences between anonymous cyberassholes breaking into corporations’ files so they can steal credit cards and yellow journalists snatching citizens’ cell phone messages so they can ignite a scandal. One of those crimes is your ‘strong preying upon the weak’ outrage. Rupert’s massive News of the World hacked and deleted the voicemails of a 13 year-old murder victim. Big, big difference.

Shouldn’t we get beyond it and really deal with the issue of hacking? Citicorp’s been hacked into, Bank of America’s been hacked into, American Express has been hacked into, insurance companies been hacked into. We’ve got a serious hacking problem in this country. And this morning, the government’s obviously been hacked into for 24,000 files. So we’ve got to figure out a way to deal with this hacking problem. That’s what we’ve got to do.

Thank you, Bob Liveinpreviouscentury. Perhaps you’d also address ‘Identity Theft’, Bob?

“A person’s identity is who he is. It can never be taken away. On rare occasions, a person could get hit on the head with a rock, or a witch might cast a spell, making him believe he was somebody else. In these cases, I seem to recall (I was a consultant for ‘Bewitched’) that a second hit on the head, or a potion supplemented to one’s morning coffee, puts things right.”

You can contact Bob at wherever Bob can be contacted.

This is a good Friday clip, it’s funny. Right Wing Watch flagged this clip pushing Michael Brown’s homophobia.

There are probably plenty of ways to try to discredit gay marriage: say it’s not traditional, say it embarrasses kids, say it only provides a single role model, whatever. This video is remarkable for a radically different, and surprising, tack. Michael’s argument: Moms and Dads are gender freaks. Without an opposite, children get a double dose of the monster, ewwww.

Women are mincing, effeminate mutants who rush to stick their fingers in your boo-boo. With TWO of them, you’ll be mummied with band-aids before you say “I’m okay!” They’ll stick you in an iron lung.

Men: what do they know about cooking? Nothing! Neither! Zero for two. And when one tries to read you a story, the other will rip it out of his hands and . . aww. Too mas macho. Pretty soon they’ll be rutting on the carpet. How to untangle all those antlers?

I don’t know, you figure it out:

Moms. Dads. Idiots.