All Posts Tagged With: "disgusting"

Two years ago, the Democrats took control over both houses of Congress after one of the worst corruption scandals in Washington in recent memory. However, I didn’t have any illusion that things on Capitol Hill were going to change much, even after Congress passed legislation in 2007 to limit the influence of lobbyists. And things really haven’t changed much. The Democrats didn’t learn much from the Republicans’ corruption, quite simply because power corrupts.

Yesterday, as Think Progress reports, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “invited top lobbyists to join him for an inaugural brunch Monday where he pledged that he will still do plenty of business with them.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Reid. “And Obama will be meeting with them too.” When asked to clarify his remarks, given Obama’s promises to change that part of Capitol culture, Reid responded that lobbyists are part and parcel of the job.

“People should understand that lobbyists, per se, are someone’s father, mother, son, daughter,” said Reid. “They work for a living.” The Democratic leader’s sons and a son-in-law have worked as lobbyists.

According to Sen. Reid, there’s “nothing wrong” with being engaged in a dirty, corruptive business if we all would just understand that these people are “someone’s father, mother, son, daughter.” Using Sen. Reid’s logic then, people should understand that mobsters, per se, “are someone’s father, mother, son, daughter” and “they work for a living,” so there’s nothing really wrong with what they do, right?

The analogy is absurd, but so is Washington leadership’s dancing around the dirty little game that they all continue to play even while publicly lamenting “special interests” and “corruption” in government. It’s a lot like Sen. David Vitter criticizing the morality of former President Bill Clinton’s indiscretions with the White House intern while himself engaging the services of prostitutes.

The hypocrisy is infuriating.

The culture of corruption is nauseating.

The business-as-usual is disheartening.

Mr. President, you have declared that change has come to America. When will long overdue and desperately needed change come to Congress?

The right end of the dial is all atwitter — borderline messing themselves — with this Blagojevich scandal. Nothing like a good scandal to get everyone all hot-and-bothered.

“Americans voted for change. Barack Obama promised that he would have the most open and honest administration and transition in history,” said RNC chairman Mike Duncan, on a conference call with reporters. “But that’s not what we’re getting. What we’re getting is the same old politics out of Chicago.”

Why all the sudden interest in an “open and honest administration” by the party whose leader for the last eight years was anything but “open and honest”? What short memories the clamorers must have. Wasn’t this the same party who just a couple of years ago faced significant losses in Congress following one of the worst corruption scandals in Congressional history? Does Abramoff ring any bells?

I’m as disgusted as anyone with the Illinois governor’s outrageous behavior. But, as Mike McCarville said, “guilt by association without facts is irresponsible.” Those so quick to pass arbitrary and capricious judgment on Obama were strangely silent — or worse, complicit with their unashamed defense of the indefensible — when their own president and administration, Congressional leaders and party powerbrokers were whole hog in the filth of corruption.

It seems to me that all the hand-wringing about this scandal would be better done with clean hands — something the GOP and its faithful following in the blogosphere cannot rightfully claim.

When you’re ordering your food up front, what is going on in the back? Here’s what was going on at one Burger King…

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Hungry now? Here’s the news story.

Fox News has been on a roll lately in its blatant contempt for Barack Obama. Their anchors have worked extra hard through this campaign to try to tie Obama to the Muslim faith and, by extrapolation, “Islamo-fascist terrorists.” This past week, though, has been a “stellar” week for Fox News smears.

First, there was E.D. Hill’s overtly suggestive question about the fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama (during last Tuesday night’s nomination victory speech): “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently. We’ll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says.” The outcry was great enough to force the network to cancel her show.

Smarting from the rebuke over the terrorist implication, the network reverted back to a golden oldie smear tactic — racial slurs. Yesterday afternoon, during a segment with right-wing hate-monger Michelle Malkin and anchor Megyn Kelly discussing Michelle Obama, the network’s producers displayed the following graphic:

(Salon.com has a video clip of the entire segment.)

“Obama’s baby mama“? Seriously? Is the network so desperate to smear Obama that they aren’t even trying to hide their bigotry anymore?

It’s clearly a racial slur and disparaging description. They have co-opted a stereotype tied to African-American unwed mothers and fathers of illegitimate children to describe Michelle Obama. It’s insulting to Michelle and Barack Obama both and utterly mischaracterizes their relationship and the legitimacy of their children. It’s beneath contempt. And it’s a new low in smear politics — even for Fox News who generally sets the (very low) standard for partisan and smear “journalism.”

Fox News, have you no shame? Obviously not.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting ready to leave the office for the day to go meet with a vendor, I went into the kitchen to wash out my mug and found this in the kitchen sink…

Someone left their dirty plate with half-eaten food in the middle of the sink for someone else to take care of. Granted, in our office, we have Kitchen Services staff who collect dishes that need to be washed, load the dishwashers and re-shelve the clean dishes. It’s nice to have people that make sure we have clean glasses, plates and silverware for our use. But I think there are limits as to what should be expected of them and also reasonable standards for the rest of us on how we should take care of dishes we are finished with.

It seems a little much to leave a plate with food still on it in the middle of the sink — in a kitchen that our whole floor shares and uses. I don’t enjoy seeing others’ leftovers sitting in a sink that I want to use. Is it really so hard to quickly scrape the leftover food into the trash can? Is someone SO important that they can’t take the 10-15 seconds to do that after they’ve gone to the trouble of bringing it to the kitchen? Is it laziness or is it elitism (i.e. “that task is beneath me”)?

I’ll say this. It is rude. It is disgusting (especially when it becomes waterlogged and soggy from others using water at the sink). And it is completely unnecessary. Your momma doesn’t work here to clean up after you, so do it yourself!

Given all the rhetoric of fear we’ve heard from the Hillary Clinton camp lately, including the now infamous “3 a.m.” campaign ad (see the second video below), it was interesting to hear Bill Clinton say these words…

Now, one of Clinton’s laws of politics is this. If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is try get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.

Continued