Quote of the Day

The Daily Banter: The Benghazi “Eyewitness” Is the Victim of a Liberal Witch Hunt (or Something)/11.4.13

Quote of the Day

The Daily Banter: The CEO of AIG Is, In Fact, an A**hole/9.24.13

Quote of the Day

"First of all, the kid's going to grow up in Gracie Mansion. So I'm going to say, 'Kid, don't complain.'"

-- Anthony Weiner on what he's going to tell his young son about the sexting scandals that have made his father into a national laughingstock and embarrassed his entire family

And there you have it.

If the all-consuming narcissism and mind-boggling lack of any sense of shame weren't enough to make you not only refuse to ever vote for Anthony Weiner but to openly, hostilely detest him as a human being, this should seal the deal. Nothing Weiner has ever done has been about anyone but him, about his naked ambition and his invariably self-serving goals.

I'll give Weiner this: He's one of the most transparent politicians America has ever seen. He's made it perfectly clear that the end will always justify the means -- or excuse the mistakes -- and that as long as he gets what he wants, who cares how he did it or what needed to be overlooked to make it happen? What's worse, for those wondering about Huma Abedin and the ways she seems to be enabling this asshole, now you know exactly how he's pitching the whole thing to her: It doesn't matter how many dumb little fangirls I send pictures of my dong to because unlike them and everyone openly mocking you right now, you're going to be the first lady of New York City, living in Gracie Mansion, when all of this is over. So what if I had to break a bunch of eggs to make you a gilded omelet?

Except that she's not going to end up living in Gracie. None of them are. If he continues his delusional campaign, come election day Weiner's going to be exactly what he is right now. He's going to be a national punchline, only with the added humiliation of watching himself and the family he's shamed go down in flames.

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"The main event of course is the money shot that all these cameras around me are waiting for, when William, Kate and the baby make that appearance."

-- NBC's Jim Maceda reporting live outside the hospital where the royal baby was born

Money shot, eh? You know, it's never a good idea to say out loud on the air what the media people are calling something behind the scenes. If you were to take that to its logical conclusion, you'd eventually be saying something like, "Let's roll the package with the money shot in it on those people none of us could give less of a shit about."

Quote of the Day

"By this point the baby wasn’t breathing and the queen’s royal physician didn’t know what to do without their socialist government telling him how to do his job. His tears became heavier as he looked out the window and regretted his country ever messing with America’s forefathers, the pain of that ass-whooping passed from generation to generation.

From a chair in the corner, George Zimmerman calmly stood up and unholstered his piece.

'Princess Kate Middleton,' he said. 'I’m going to need you to trust me. But know that it will be a cold day in hell before George Zimmerman lets a baby die on his watch.'

From there, George Zimmerman placed his gun next to the royal child’s ear as a heavenly light illuminated his every action. With an unwavering hand of justice that’s not afraid to fell those who dare prey on the innocent, George Zimmerman pulled the trigger and almost immediately the startled child woke and began breathing.

Later, George would only hold the baby for a few moments, so as not to deprive the boy the comfort of his mother. But he could be heard whispering two words and two words only into the babe’s ear: 'End apartheid. End apartheid.'"

-- The Superficial's description of the role newly minted "hero" George Zimmerman played in the birth of the royal baby

In discussing Zimmerman's rescue of a family from an overturned SUV, his lawyer, human dog turd Mark O'Mara, called the act "quintessential George."

Get ready for reality TV's newest hit, folks. That's So George -- coming soon to TLC.

Quote of the Day

Patton Oswalt: A Salon I Used To Know/7.15.13

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"You're going to have to wait along with everybody else. I will say that there are vast programs, both domestic and international spying, that the world will be shocked to learn about, that the NSA is engaged in with no democratic accountability and that's what driving our reporting."

-- Glenn Greenwald to Fox News's Eric Bolling today

A tease. A tease, you fucking hack.

I swear, I'm going to deck the next person who tells me that Glenn Greenwald is a serious journalist and not a narcissistic child who's strictly doing this for the shot of pure adrenaline into the heart of his sense of self-importance it's giving him. First of all, Greenwald talks to a racist piece of crap like Eric Bolling as if he's someone whose views are worth taking seriously -- then he drops back to coy-little-girl mode just as Bolling decides can't take it anymore and needs to show his appreciation and excitement by basically pulling his dong out and stroking it for him.

Jesus, Greenwald's a joke.

Quote of the Day

"The Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We’ve tried persuasion. We’ve tried negotiations. We’re tried elections. Nothing has worked."

-- Mitch McConnell this morning, talking about a draconian balanced-budget, anti-tax amendment to the Constitution

And there it is: modern conservatism summed up in one perfect little quote. It's got the hypocrisy we've come to expect (the Constitution is a flawless document except when we say that it isn't and we hate government except when we can use it to our benefit) and a flat-out public admission that if the American people disagree with the Republican view of the world they should simply be bypassed (screw those elections, our way is the only way and we'll use governmental authority to force it on everyone).

It's basically an attempt to hijack democracy. Of course coming from McConnell and the conservatives these days, that's not at all surprising.

Quote of the Day

"I did hear another story, not from Greenwald himself, about the Guardian writer's life in Brazil. The Out profile of him mentioned the pack of stray dogs that Greenwald had adopted. But it skipped over the boys — mainly friends of his partner David Michael Miranda — who sleep over and play videogames at the house. That would have given too much ammunition to Greenwald's conservative critics."

-- Gawker Publisher Nick Denton on Glenn Greenwald

I'm really not sure what the hell to make of this. There's a story in today's New York Daily News that digs pretty deeply into Greenwald's life and finds that he used to be involved in the business side of a gay porn company and that he continues to have all kinds of problems with the IRS, including tens of thousands of dollars in outstanding debt, but I honestly don't care about that. As Greenwald essentially says, everybody's got their trouble. It is entertaining to get further confirmation that he's a pissy, demanding little pain-in-the-ass who lives for unnecessary melodrama and who thinks his shit doesn't stink -- also that he considers ancient history to be about ten years ago -- but for the most part the Daily News revelations are meaningless.

Now Denton's insinuation, on the other hand, seems pretty nasty. But the above quote is really all he says about it aside from saying that he met Greenwald in Rio 18 months ago, which means, I assume, that he's claiming to know about Greenwald and videogame-paying boys from some kind of personal experience, either with Greenwald himself or someone close to him. Denton threw the link to Gawker's story on the Greenwald report up on Twitter just a little while ago with this headline: "Finally, an excuse to share my Glenn Greenwald gossip."

It's a pretty damning charge to make, even as subtle innuendo. I hope Denton's got something to back this kind of thing up seeing as how vindictively sue-happy Greenwald has proven himself to be over the years.

This is one of those cases, though, where whoever loses, we win.

Quote of the Day

"Greenwald has not yet made a public evaluation of whether or not he agrees that he made that mistake. He owes it to us to do so, with as much speed as practicably possible. It’s not too much to say that the fate of his broader NSA project might hinge on doing so effectively—because the powers that be will find it very easy to seize on this one error to discredit his every NSA revelation, even the ones he nailed dead to rights... Such distraction campaigns are how power does its dirtiest work. Think of the way the questions about the authenticity of the 'Killian documents' were able to obscure the fact that George W. Bush actually did go AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard or how the unrelated or how the unrelated killing of a CIA station chief in Greece was used to discredit the congressional investigations of CIA wrongdoing in 1975—cases with which Greenwald should be well-familiar. So, Glenn Greenwald, what’s the word? The fate of our civil liberties may depend on it."

-- The Nation's Rick Perlstein on questions being raised about Glenn Greenwald's dubious reporting on the PRISM program and the NSA's data-mining in general, including an apparent mistake that Perlstein is calling Greenwald's "epic botch"

Meanwhile, over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum has some questions of his own about Edward Snowden. What's interesting is that Drum links back to Andrew Sullivan, who links to the guy who's turning out to be Patient Zero in the push-back against Greenwald and Snowden's claims, the guy who first started asking very serious questions and demanding that Greenwald clarify his claims: Bob Cesca. These people are basically quoting Cesca and the stuff he's been writing for the Daily Banter all week, word-for-word.

A big standing-O for Bob today, my friends. He's doing a yeoman's job.

Quote of the Day

"I get so tired of having to cry out 'misogyny,' but that’s what’s going on in this situation. People questioning the idea that a woman could sleep with a man who defied her lot in the looks bracket hews so closely to these really outdated ideas about what makes a woman worth spending time with. Really? Can you not imagine a world in which a girl who’s sexually down for anything and oddly gregarious pulls a guy out of his shell for two days?"

-- Lena Dunham on those who say that a man who looks like Patrick Wilson would never stoop to having sex with a woman who looks like Lena Dunham's Hannah Horvath character on Girls, as he does for an entire episode last season

Trust me, Lena, there are plenty of us who are just as tired of hearing you cry out "misogyny" over every little goddamned thing, too.

I did actually see the episode she's talking about, the one in which her character comes on to a doctor played by Patrick Wilson -- an intelligent, established, seemingly normal guy, as opposed to the insufferable shitheads who populate the Dunham-centric view of Brooklyn where most of Girls takes place -- and the two wind up screwing and basically playing house for a couple of days. I didn't find the premise at all hard to believe because, what the hell, she made it clear she was completely willing and he obviously didn't have anything important to do that weekend.

Notice, though, that the two of them never left the house. In other words, he didn't go anywhere he could be seen with her -- certainly not someplace he might run into friends who'd ask, "Who's the dumpy little hipster troll and can you get her to stop talking?"

I think I hear Lena Dunham crying out again.

Adding: I got an e-mail response to this post that I just have to share. It's pretty much spot-on:

"What a baby Lena Dunham is. A big, whiny, stupid, baby. She wants all of the plaudits and credit for being 'daring' but she wants ZERO criticism. For her to cravenly cry 'misogyny' -- just because the idea of her obnoxious doughball character hooking up with a hot doctor is considered laughable to all sensible humans -- shows just how much of a coward she truly is.

I laugh at the idea that she's any kind of a hero. She's not brave in any way. Yeah, she takes her clothes off on film, but we're not allowed to have an honest reaction to her body. And I think we both know that she couldn't handle 1/100th of the criticism an actual non-famous ugly girl has to deal with on a daily basis. Normal ugly girls are just stuck being ugly and having to deal with it. They don't get to have makeout sessions with handsome actors.

I also don't think she's unfairly maligned due to her gender. If anything I think she gets a substantial amount of kid-glove treatment because she's a woman. Imagine if a male writer/actor did what she was doing. Imagine if, say, Jonah Hill wrote a series about himself as 'the voice of his generation' and had scenes of him banging Jessica Alba. He'd be laughed out of Hollywood. Jezebel would devote a week's worth of articles to him, roundly mocking him for the adolescent jerkoff fantasies he'd written.

But Lena Dunham is a visionary.

Here's the most revealing quote: 'Can you not imagine a world in which a girl who’s sexually down for anything and oddly gregarious pulls a guy out of his shell for two days?'

But see, a guy like that wouldn't be in his shell. He's a handsome doctor in New York, you really think Hannah Horvath is the best he can do on a random weekend? See that's the kind of shit that reveals how delusional Lena really is. She sees nothing fraudulent or self-indulgent in this little fantasy she's concocted. 'What man wouldn't want to spend an uninhibited weekend (probably with anal) with little old me? I'm so witty and free. Down for anything!'

I just don't think she gets that she's writing a character who's NOT on TV. She's not writing about her ideal self. She's writing about a normal, dumpy schlub of a girl who lives in a city where dumpy girls don't talk hunky doctors into bed for two days. That ain't how it works.

Here's the sobering truth that Dunham doesn't understand, the truth that none of her friends or handlers will tell her, the truth I'd like to tell her personally: this is life in the big city. You don't have the options you think you do. Maybe in Mobile, Alabama you're an 8 1/2, but here in NYC you're a 3-4 at best. I don't care what you're 'down' for. Because here in the big city a guy can find smart, funny, sexy, ballsy, hard-drinking, down-for-anything girls who are also drop-dead gorgeous or at least not trollish and irritating. Because it's the fucking city. Sorry to blow your mind, honey.

Lena Dunham the famous actor/writer probably can land a hot guy. Hannah Horvath the obnoxious shitty writer who lives in a crappy NYC apartment and ISN'T FAMOUS, cannot.

-- Julia"

That's actually a terrific point: While I actually do think there are guys in New York City -- and everywhere else -- who'll sleep with just about anybody who offers, the arrogance in creating a character played by yourself whom a gorgeous guy way above the character's station falls for completely is just breathtaking. And I've heard the theory that the entire episode is a fantasy in Hannah's head, but Dunham's snotty defense would seem to cast doubt on that possibility. Also, yes, remove the sexual component from the mix -- in other words, make Hannah a schlubby, talkative, badly dressed doof who isn't immediately making it clear that she's willing to put out -- and watch how quickly that scenario would go from laughable to impossible. M. Night Shyamalan was pilloried for being so egomaniacal as to cast himself as a writer whose work was going to change the world in Lady in the Water, but Lena Dunham casts herself as a chubby manic hipster dreamgirl who beds a really hot doctor -- helping him learn to live again in the process -- and she's a genius.

Quote of the Day

"The headline-grabbing outburst is a common ploy, one that, it depresses me to say, is far too often used by those of us here on the crunchy left. We can say that dire circumstances call for extreme reactions, but really, all that heckling does is broadcast to the world, 'What I feel right this moment is more important what everybody else in the room paid money to experience.' We see it again and again, and never satisfyingly. Last summer, a comedy club patron enticed Daniel Tosh to make some very unfortunate remarks about rape – an event that was set in motion the woman decided, 'I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman.' In other words, much like Sturtz, she decided that her values should be made known to everyone in the audience, because they were more important than anything anybody else was saying or doing. Certainly more important than what the person the rest of the assembly had paid their money to see was saying and doing.

I believe in vigorous debate and fighting with all the passion we have for the issues that matter. And that is not possible when we are selfish, self-appointed arbiters of what the person in the front of the room with the microphone ought to be talking about. There is plenty to be pissed off about in this world. I’m in the Yes to Equal Rights, No to Rape camp too. I think that Rick Santorum actually looks better covered in a sparkly dusting of glitter. But the moment we play the 'I just couldn’t help myself' card we shut down meaningful conversation. Yelling at someone is not 'interaction.' Sure, we get noticed, but it’s easy to get noticed. A no-nonsense mom like Michelle Obama could tell you that any two year-old in a WalMart can get noticed just by throwing herself on the floor of the sporting goods aisle. That doesn’t mean anybody is going to take her seriously."

-- Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams on getEQUAL activist Ellen Sturtz's highly ill-advised attempt to shout down Michelle Obama at a fundraiser last night over the subject gay rights

Fuck. Yes.

This sums up so much of what I've said before about both the ridiculous Code Pink-style protest model of screaming, shouting, and general disruption and why heckling a comic opens you up to just about whatever abusive response consequently comes your way.

Quote of the Day

"I can’t be entirely indifferent to the shitty-ass, reach-around snark of some fellow who rushes to throw under the bus people about whom he has no knowledge whatsoever -- and does so to gain a dishonest point in a fucking tweet war."

-- David Simon on Bravo's Andy Cohen, who insinuated on Twitter that there may be something shady involved in the tax incentives Simon's show, Treme, is getting from the city of New Orleans

After awesomely proclaiming "fuck Twitter" and taking to his blog so that he could go into the necessary detail, Simon proceeded to verbally stomp Cohen for his snotty little passive-aggressive accusation. There are a lot of facts and figures and general financial wonkery to this story, but all you really need to know about the online back and forth -- which by the way also involves Anthony Bourdain, who's a regular writer for Treme -- is who the people involved are.

Andy Cohen is a sycophantic, self-aggrandizing asshole who shamefully carries himself like a gay minstrel show and whose network is responsible for more culturally toxic programming than almost any other on television. David Simon created The Wire. End of story.

Quote of the Month

"You’re an asshole. And so is Alex Jones."

-- Unidentified Boston resident who took it upon himself to verbally annihilate InfoWars pretend reporter Dan Bidondi today

You have to see this. It was only a matter of time before somebody did something like this to these fucking morons.

Sir, I have no idea who you are -- but you're a goddamn hero.

That said, if you want to continue to be depressed by how stupid some people are, click over to YouTube and read the comments for this thing.

(Mis)Quote of the Day

"It reminds me of the Shakespeare line, 'Thou protestest too much.'"

-- Michele Bachmann, idiot, on the House floor this morning

As Mediaite said, no one's saying you need to know Shakespeare by heart, but for God's sake, if you're going to bother quoting him.

Eh, it's not like anyone who voted for her will know she monumentally fucked it up anyway.

Quote(s) of the Day

"When Bush first appeared on the political scene, and especially during the apparently successful first couple of years of his presidency, his defenders swatted away questions about his mental acuity by pointing to his success. If he’s so dumb, how has he achieved so much? Well, he didn’t. He oversaw a disastrous administration for precisely the reason his critics always grasped: Bush was an intellectual simpleton, a man who made up his mind in absence of the facts, who swatted away inconvenient realities as annoyances."

"The core of (Jennifer) Rubin’s defense is that Bush was terrific if you exempt him from any blame for the disasters that occurred during his presidency, and credit him entirely for the non-disaster periods. This sentence is a particular masterpiece: 'Unlike Obama’s tenure, there was no successful attack on the homeland after 9/11.' In fact, it is not true — there were small terrorist attacks on the United States, both abroad and at home, after 9/11. But exempting the most disastrous attack on the United States from Bush’s record of avoiding terrorism is a feat of propaganda that, while common, continues to boggle the mind. Emperor Honorius Kept Rome Safe, except that one time it was sacked by the Visigoths."

"The failures of Bush’s governing method — the staffing of hacks and cronies, the disdain for evidence — was perfectly reflected in the outcomes. The Bush presidency was a full disaster at home and abroad, and whatever small accomplishments that can be salvaged barely rate any mention in comparison with the failures. The general reckoning of Bush is not too harsh. It is too kind."

-- Excerpts from Jonathan Chait's essay, "Yes, George W. Bush Was a Terrible President, and No, He Wasn’t Smart," in New York Magazine online today, the day of the official dedication ceremony for the George W. Bush presidential library

George W. Bush was easily the worst president of my lifetime -- and I was born during the Nixon administration -- and may very well be the worst president this country has ever seen. The revisionists can try to spin him all they want, he was an unqualified, unmitigated disaster and that's how he'll be remembered.

Quote of the Day

"After the establishment media called me abhorrent for talking about the ‘Family Guy’ clip and Fox pulled that episode, that was all the evidence I needed that I had stumbled upon the truth. In fact, I discovered the United States government had this false flag attack planned way back in the 1940s, when the Road Runner and the Coyote were created. Let’s look at the facts: the Coyote is this loner, a pathetic loser who is always trying to kill and maim the Road Runner with dangerous explosives he got from the ACME Corporation, which sounds just like the American government. You have to be a low-grade moron to not see parallels with these two Chechen kids, these losers who supposedly carried out this bombing; and the runners -- the Road Runners -- in Boston. Only this time, after many failed attempts, the Coyote was successful."

-- Alex Jones on the Boston Marathon bombing, according to the Daily Currant

Yeah, the Daily Currant is a satire site. But be honest: Could you really tell by this quote?

Quote of the Day

"When Martin Luther King Jr. called on the nation to 'live up to the meaning of its creed,' he heard an echo from a thousand pulpits. Treating black folks decently was consistent with what Christians had been taught. Dr. King was pushing against an open door. Priests and pastors marched for civil rights. Others preached for civil rights. But if the gay rights agenda is imposed, we could have priests and pastors preaching not acceptance but principled rejection. Prelates could be declaring from pulpits everywhere that the triumph of gay rights is a defeat for God’s Country, and the new laws are immoral and need neither be respected nor obeyed."

-- Pat Buchanan, warning of possible civil disobedience by the religious and religious leaders if gay marriage becomes legal across the United States

This is exactly what I was talking about in the Daily Banter column on religion that I wrote over the weekend. A person's supposed right to adhere to the tenets of his or her faith -- which, if that person is a voter, often winds up being inflicted upon the rest of us -- is in no way equal to the right of living, breathing human beings to be treated the same. Or at least it shouldn't be equal. I don't care whether you feel discriminated against because the law is siding with what gay men and women want over what your imaginary friend wants, but reality should win in any case where it collides with faith.

Also, how much do you love Pat Buchanan pretending to give a shit about black people?

Quote of the Day

"As I periodically tune in to the games -- and alternately cheer and lament the upsets, depending on the outcomes -- I can’t shake the feeling that I’m watching not some heartwarming parable, but a Hunger Games-like tale that microcosmically embodies darker trends. That’s because when you look beyond the the dunks, blocked shots and turnovers and behold the tournament as a business, you are looking at both a reminder of our troubling history and a reflection of the present moment."

-- David Sirota on March Madness and college sports in general

In case you were wondering what you're not allowed to be able to simply enjoy this week, because in reality it's a metaphor for American class inequity and our embrace of crypto-fascism, I give you college basketball -- and of course, David Sirota.

I can't even imagine how exhausting life must be for somebody like this. Everywhere you turn, there's an injustice to be fought, a danger to protect the unwashed from, and a lecture to be given to those who just don't see what's really going on.

Serially stupid. There's no better way to put it. Serially stupid.

Quote of the Day

"In Texas, it is fairly clear about where this state stands on that issue. As recently as a constitutional amendment that passed, I believe, with 76% of the vote. The people of the state of Texas, myself included, believe marriage is between one man and one woman."

-- Rick Perry on same-sex marriage

Uh-huh. Let's see what else the intellectual titans of Texas believe.

51% believe that that evolution is a myth, with 38% saying that man was created in his present form by God 10,000 years ago.

58% of likely voters in Texas supported a bill -- now law -- that requires a woman to undergo a sonogram before being granted access to an abortion.

Republicans control every single statewide elected office in Texas, with a 19-12 majority in the state senate, 95-55 majority in the state house along with both of the U.S. Senate seats and 36 of the U.S. House seats.

With that information as a guide to give you an idea how dominant conservative politics are in Texas:

67% of Texas Republicans want to see Barack Obama impeached.

48% of Texas Republicans would like to see the state to secede from the union.

Texans own approximately 51 million guns. More than two for every man, woman and child in the state.

What's say we not defer to the people of Texas on any question more significant than, "Where's the best place to buy a set of Truck Nutz?" eh?