On Press the Meat today, Gilligan Gregory hosts Lizard Queen Condi Rice, plus a roundtable of CNBC’s Erin Burnett, Andrea Mitchell, NPR’s Michele Norris & the Chicago Sun-Times’ Carol Marin.

Fux News Sunday and Weaselface Wallace have the suddenly chatty Darth Cheney in addition to the usual fuxheads.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has VP-elect Joe Biden, and then the Axis of Drivel is reunited as George :jerk: Will, Cokie “the hag” Roberts, and Sam :omg: Donaldson join political mastermind Donna Brazile at the roundtable.

Wolf Blitzer’s Late Emission includes the always entertaining Barney Frank, Virginia thug Eric Cantor, shamed former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, former Clinton Economic Adviser Laura Tyson, Republican schmuck (is that redundant?) Ed Rollins, the most handsome man in politics, James Carville, David Gergen, and Wahington Times propagandist Tara Wall.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley reports on the Governator and his $40 billion budget deficit, Lesley Stahl reports on how the bullshit the TSA puts you through at the airport is basically all for show, and Bob Simon reports on baby elephants orphaned by the ivory trade.

Happy Solstice everybody. It’ll be nice to see the days start getting longer again (unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case, happy Summer Solstice to you).

Slept in late today. Must have been all that shoveling yesterday. It wasn’t bad until the snowplow finally made it through. Looks like I didn’t miss much though. The economy remains in the crapper, Ahnuld is telling CA State workers to take unpaid leave, and the more people hear about Caroline Kennedy, the less impressed they are with her.

Well, time to go see how much more snow we got overnight.

You know, sometimes I wonder if Obama gets a kick outta tweaking “the left,” just to watch us get all pissed off (kind of like Sam baiting Marc, in hopes of getting him going). The latest example, of course, is picking the homophobic, anti-choice, pro-Capitalist (he calls people who espouse true Christian values like feeding the poor “Marxist”), mega-Church pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the Presidential inauguration in January.

Not that I really buy into that whole invocation thing. You might as well have Linus there to offer up a prayer to the Great Pumpkin for all I care. But we all know Obama is a smart dude, and we all know he knew exactly what he was doing when he made this decision. And it was totally unnecessary. He didn’t need to choose Bishop V. Gene Robinson to give the invocation, but he certainly could have picked somebody who didn’t actively campaign for Prop 8. Better yet, why not choose somebody like Rev. Barry Lynn?

I personally don’t think it matters in the least in terms of what this means for Obama’s political agenda. I don’t think he’ll suddenly move to throw gay people into reeducation camps (though he opposes gay marriage, which I suspect is on political grounds rather than moral, legal, or Constitutional ones) or outlaw abortion (or appoint anti-choice judges to the courts). But Obama knows this is a slap in the faces of an awful lot of people out there – especially gay people, and especially in light of Prop 8 – and he should know that nothing he does will make the Kristian Kracker Koalition love him, so you really gotta wonder why he does shit like this.

Before you feel compelled to make excuses for Obama, just imagine the shit we’d all – rightfully – have given a President-elect McCain for doing this. Except we should expect – make that demand – more out of Obama.

I caught the last third of an episode of an ‘NPR’ show that I do not remember hearing before called Hearing Voices.

Christmas Mashup (with various links and description) 52:00 (((Hearing Voices))), Jay Allison, Barrett Golding, Todd Melby & StoryCorps

An HV Hour: Holy Days & Silent Nights

A mix of lotsa holiday stories, found-sound, and sprinkling of sampled song (

Broadcast: Dec 10 2008 on NPR Hearing VoicesSeries: Hearing Voices from NPR

It seemed like a good kick-off to the final week countdown.

Great hearing that Kristapea nails that job, a merry Kristmas gift. Of course she benefited from some of the greatest job counselors/cheerleaders going.

But we also hear that Chrysler will shut down for a month. No Chrysmas there. Sadly another friend of mine lost his music biz job yesterday and thanks to the ‘no new taxes EVER’ repugs in the California legislature my new career in university temp work has dried up almost as soon as it began.

Happy 65th to Keith Richard(s)! :cake: :cake:

And so it’s back to the war on xmas for me.

Taking a page out of Hillary’s playbook, Caroline Kennedy is coming to town today, to meet with local Democrats. That’s encouraging, I guess. I’m still not sure what qualifies her to be our next Senator, but, then again, I’m not sure what qualifies most of these people for the positions they’re in. Mostly, I’m worried about what’s going to happen with our economy (in the country as a whole, of course, but specifically where I live, as another 200+ people are getting the axe from New Process Gear – which manufactures truck transfer cases). I’m also worried about the special election in 2010, and losing the Senate seat to a Republican. I guess whatever happens, happens.

So, it looks like Caroline Kennedy is the frontrunner to replace Hillary Clinton as our Senator here in NY. Apparently our Governor, “Blinky” Paterson, has become quite enamored with her. I’m not sure how to feel about that. I’d been hoping it would go to Louise Slaughter, who is both a woman (which is apparently a deal-breaker, to appease the angry PUMAs), and from Upstate NY (Rochester). But she’s apparently thrown her support behind Kennedy. Well, I guess Caroline is at least a better alternative to Andrew Cuomo. There’s at least a possibility that she’s aware that NY State extends north of New York City. One can hope, anyway.

The weather roller coaster continues here. I woke up Saturday, and it was 4 degrees. Right now, it’s almost 50. Of course, over in the Midwest, it’s colder than hell (and that should make it’s way over here in a couple of days). It’s no wonder everybody’s sick.

The Gilligan Gregory era of Press the Meat begins today with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, plus Chicago Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell and Chuck Todd. and a discussion on the Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, undewear model Mitt Romney, disgraced former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, Lee Scott, CEO of that wonderful corporate citizen, Wal-Mart, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Faze the Nation has Carl Levin, Tennessee cracker Bob Corker, Sherod Brown, another appearance by Lisa Madigan, and Michael Eric Dyson.

Fux News and Weaselface Wallace have Cracker Corker, Illinois House Republican dickhead Tom Cross, and Micigan’s Debbie Stabenow. And the usual fuxheads, of course.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has a big exclusive with, um, John “loser” McCain, plus a round table with PBS’ Gwen Ifill, Paul Krugman, WSJ hack Gerald Seib, and (of course) George :jerk: Will.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl talks to the always entertaining Barney Frank, Scott Pelley tries to find the bottom of the mortgage meltdown barrel, and Byron Pitts foolishly profiles USC football coach Pete Carroll, when he really ought to be doing a story on Syracuse’s new head coach, Doug Marrone.

Have a good one.

Take Action: Ask President-elect Obama to Ban Torture and Close the School of the Americas
Yesterday the US Senate released a report confirming that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior US officials are responsible for authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the torture manuals used at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC – made public in 1996 – were also authorized by the highest levels of the Pentagon in the early 1980s. Read the Reuters article here: www.soaw.org/rumsfeld

TAKE ACTION: Please Call the Obama transition team and share the below message at 202-540-3000 – after instructions, press “2” to speak with the transition team.

“President- elect Obama, as a member of the School of the Americas Watch – I ask that after you are inaugurated President that you issue executive orders to ban torture – no exceptions, close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC and close Guantanamo Bay.”

Please also take a moment to Contact President-elect Obama via his website to paste in the above message at: http://change.gov/page/content/contact

I think Bush himself authorized this too. Didn’t he torture frogs as a young lad?

So, banks get bailed out, but autoworkers are too evil, so screw them. The worst part is that this will probably kill the GM-Volt electric car – if not all of GM (and Chrysler, too). I’m sure the CEOs, board members, and other executives will walk away with millions, though, so that’s OK.