Spring, Proclaimed

The lake in the backyard seems to be down a few inches, therefore we have proclaimed it to be Spring, officially, at the Rush compound. There is no rush, however, to break out the rotor tiller like our over-the-top-organic-hippy neighbor who has already planted a large portion of seeds into an expanse of mud flats he calls a garden. A sign posted in his front yard states "Grow food, not lawns," and the rest of us neighbors suspect he hasn't the brains nor the guts to struggle with growing a lush, green, moss-free lawn true Americans envy and long for. This is, after all, Suburbia, not Mayberry, RFD. Mine needs mowing at this very minute, but alas it's once again raining. Therefore I am here, with you, enjoying a cold lager. And I digress ...

• With great joy we learned recently that Donald "The Donald" Trump is considering running for President in 2012. The Donald joins with other wonderful candidates from the dark side of reality such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachman, and Charlie Sheen. No wait, Charlie's not running. Yet. And what's more, The Donald has been hired by everyone's favorite "news" organization, Fox. Yep, every Monday morning viewers of Fox "News" can hear just what it is that's on The Donald's mind. "Bold, brash and never bashful, the Donald now makes his voice loud and clear every Monday on Fox," an announcer says in the promo. The promo then cuts to a clip of Trump saying, "my message is a better message than anybody else's." Neener neener neener. Oh, and it should be mentioned that The Donald has become a "birther." I personally think Barak Obama would be just fine if he didn't campaign at all.


• Extremely radioactive water is leaking directly into the sea after the horrifying earthquake in Japan. Every news release from that region is worse and more frightening than the one before. If you're not depressed enough today, read about it by clicking here.


• Remember that moment last year when Vice Prez Joe Biden blurted out, right on the TV, that the passage of Obama's health care plan was a "big f**king deal?" Oh boy, all the conservative ladies in their silly hats went crazy. 'Course they don't remember or don't want to remember their own Vice Prez's remark to a Senator on the floor of the Senate several years ago. I believe it was something like "go f**k yourself." Yes, it's the so called "F-Bomb," and it gets some people all sweaty and breathing hard. On Wednesday, Penny Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women for America, blasted the Obama administration for not doing more to protect America's children from dirty words. Oh yes, it's all Obama's fault. Check out this delightful article from Mother Jones that actually includes a link to George Carlin's rant on "Dirty Words." Definitely worth a rainy afternoon's reading.


• Mike Huckabee: "All Americans Should Be Forced at Gunpoint to Listen to David Barton." Interesting statement from several angles. And Mike did actually say it. David Barton is that odd religious conservative "historian" who is rewriting history as he goes. If you're not familiar with him, try this: Click Here. Scary dude, this one. He, as well as many Conservative politicians, think the United States should be governed by Christian law. And he's not above re-writing history to prove his point. Force me to listen to David Barton at gunpoint? Just shoot me.

Dear Uncle Bob

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Weekend Update - Radioactive Rabbit Edition

(I know, the election has come and gone and Bad Hat made nary a peep about the whole affair. Well dammit Dorothy, there's more important things in this world than those wimpy Democrats losing to wily tea drinking bible-thumpers! We here at headquarters have been out in the field chasing down radioactive rabbits! Remember when you use to think of Oregon and you'd instantly think of the world's largest orgasm? Well you were wrong then, and you're wrong now. Oregon is home to what is considered the largest single organism in the world, an Armillaria ostoyae fungus beneath the Malheur National Forest of eastern Oregon. And now we have radioactive rabbits. Lots and lots of little glowing fuzzy bunnies. If that doesn't call for a drink, I don't know what does. But I digress . . .)

• We don't have much to say about the mid-terms, except to say they went about how we thought they would. Remember, these are people who for some strange reason continue to vote against their own self-interests. So don't worry, it will be interesting as usual to watch the Righties weird everything up. For example here's a short list of a few who won: Allen West in Florida with his ties to violent criminal sorts; Austin Scott in Georgia, who thinks people who receive unemployment benefits should undergo random drug testing; Tennessee's Scott DesJarlais who, after being accused of spousal abuse, held a gun in his mouth for three hours. His election was termed a landslide. Then we've got Dan Quayle's son, little Ben Quayle of Arizona, who after apparently contributing to a raunchy (sex) website, and then straight out lying about it - which we have no real problem with, except for the straight out lying part - won his congressional seat by double digits. Which begs the question: Who are these people running against? Radioactive rabbits?


• Remember George Bush? "Dubya" I mean, the Worst President Ever Imaginable, The Idiot They Gave the Keys To, The Man Who Put "Food On Your Family," THAT guy? The man who was President of the United States when terrorists flew airplanes into buildings and killed thousands of innocent people, and who went to war with two countries and became responsible for the death hundreds of thousands of Innocent people, and who's administration was responsible for the world's worse f**kup when hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands more lives, etc., etc., that guy? Last week George "Dubya" Bush said the worst moment of his presidency was when Kanya West called him a racist. Holy Crap. I prayed for something humorous to say to that. However, just as I suspected, there was no answer.


• Remember that Hope™ and Change™ thing you young Democrats were so excited about a couple years ago? Sounded great, didn't it? We were all fired up with you, and your bright shiny Chicago-style candidate, and we all got on that bandwagon with you. We thought maybe you young people could change the world. Well, Mark Morford has a feeling you haven't been hanging in there like you should. See what happens when you wallow in hollow disappointment, trudging all over your liberal arts campus and refusing to vote in a rather important mid-term election, all because your pet issues and nubile ego weren't immediately serviced by a mesmerizing guy named Barack Obama just after he sucked you into his web of fuzzyhappy promises a mere two years ago, back when you were knee-high to a shiny liberal ideology? Get ready to be yelled at, and you deserve it.


• Albert Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Grab a beer and read this: The Definition of Insanity.


• Our conservative friend(s) who read this column occasionally would, without this notice, mockingly accuse us of trying to skirt this issue, so here we go: Keith Olbermann was suspended by MSNBC indefinitely for contributing to three liberal campaigns. There, we await the details from our man Olbermann. We're still wondering how all those good ol' boys at Fox News get away with their thousands of dollars in contributions, not to even mention the owners the Fox News Corporation. Remember, as Bill Mahar said the other night, "Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts, the other one is very close to playing with his poop." There's more to this whole story, just wait and see.


• If you haven't already had more than enough about this recent election, here's the wrap up from Mother Jones: DEM-olition!


• And finally, a short note to sum it all up from Arthur, who is in London on business: "A debacle of an election, but a bruising midterm can have a good outcome often. Obama has been cruising, something one does not get to do while President. One needs to keep campaigning constantly, not stay in the bubble. He's smart, he's gotten the message. A number of the new Senators and Congressmen are batshit crazy and should give light and voice to their bullshit, so we all can see what crawled out from under the rock. Keith Olbermann? A great pr stunt. A nice vacation and a huge out-welling of support. He is probably a pain in the ass to work with, so this is no shock on many levels. Probably do him some good." Thanks, and jolly good, Arthur. Have a great week everyone!

Weekend Update - Falling Edition

• (Fall has definitely descended upon the Willamette Valley, chilly nights, gray foggy mornings, and the occasional light rain shower. But the majority of the flowers are stoically hanging on, pretending to enjoy it all, and bracing themselves for the inevitable. I love Autumn in Oregon. It makes you melancholy and slightly stupid. You find yourself leafing longingly through L.L. Bean catalogs and saying idiotic things like "I swear if you stare at a tree long enough you can see the leaves change color," while exhaling heavy sighs of bourbon tinted breath, and writing sentences that should have ended 30 words ago. The huge veil of morning glories covering up the old ugly heating oil tank in the back is still alive with happy little flowers of purple, red, and white, and I'm compelled to stand out in the rain and take them all in, to take them into my very soul to be remembered in the harsh realities of dark winter months. Someone please get me another drink and lead me back inside. But I digress ... )
  The date was May 4, 1970. I was 25 years old and it was my first day of work at the bus company, driving little green converted school buses through the neighborhoods of Eugene, Oregon. I was probably slightly stoned, having just recently been introduced to marijuana that year by a sweet little waitress named Susie. It was also the day of a horrific shooting at Kent State University, in Ohio. And now Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has opened a probe into those events, requesting key documents from the FBI in a letter delivered Saturday morning, following the revelation that an FBI informant may have opened fire just before the 1970 massacre of four anti-war students by members of the US National Guard.



• Mr. Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, apparently favors dressing up in his nazi SS uniform and parading around with other like-minded individuals. Okay, first, I'm not making this up, and it's people like Mr. Rich Iott who makes writing this blog fun. Read all about it here.

A California student got a visit from the FBI this week after he found a secret GPS tracking device on his car, and a friend posted photos of it online. The post prompted wide speculation about whether the device was real, whether the young Arab-American was being targeted in a terrorism investigation and what the authorities would do. It took just 48 hours to find out: The device was real, the student was being secretly tracked and the FBI wanted its expensive device back. This whole thing reminds me of a Marx movie I saw once. Groucho played a FBI detective.

• Imagine being a typical New Yorker hurrying home during the busy evening rush hour last Friday when suddenly right in the middle of Grand Central Terminal hundreds of gay people suddenly fell down and played dead on the platform. The nerve of those gays! Always wanting equal rights. The nerve.
• And finally this God-fearin', I-Know-My-Rights item: Bob R. of Eaton Township, Ohio was filling a birdfeeder near the pond on his 12-acre property when he was shot in the leg. The bullet was fired by his neighbors who were shooting at logs on their property. Now ain't THAT America?

Weekend Update - Paranoia Edition

(How 'bout them Ducks, eh? Beat Stanford yesterday and they're undefeated for the season. Who woulda thought? It's already smelling like Roses, and this year we're not even afraid to say it. Are you ready? All together now, GO DUCKS!)

• Continuing with our blatant admiration for Christine O'Donnell, we give you this delightful Frank Rich column. "... those laughing now may not have the last laugh in November. O’Donnell’s timely ascent in the election season’s final lap may well prove a godsend for the G.O.P."


• When the subject turns, as it usually does, to President Obama, Glenn Beck sees lessons from history. In particular, he has seized upon two individuals who he believes provide excellent historical parallels to the 44th commander in chief: Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler. And one day, he rhetorically asked his Fox News viewers: "Why did we buy Alaska in the 1950s?" A good question -- because "we" purchased Alaska in 1867. Dana Milbank explores the idiocy of Glenn Beck.


• "Dead or alive" Osama bin Laden issued yet another in a series of press releases recently, indicating, at the very least, he's not dead yet, contrary to what you might have heard. Anyone know what Dubya's been up to lately? Anyone?


• Haven't had anything new to worry about this last week? Well here's something for you: News that the US is buying custom-made vans packed with something called backscatter X-ray capacity has riled privacy advocates and sparked internet worries about "feds radiating Americans." Click here and get paranoid.


• From Michael Moore: "The election is one month from tomorrow and, yes, it looks hopeless. November 2nd -- the day the Dems are expected to crash and burn. Sadly, it's a situation the Democrats have brought upon themselves -- even though the majority of them didn't create the mess we're in. But they've had over a year and a half to start getting the job done to fix it. Instead, they've run scared ever since they took power. To many, the shellacking they're about to receive is one they deserve." And then he offers us Five Ways the Democrats Can Avoid a Catastrophe and Pull Off the Mother of All Upsets.


• We love Pete. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) is turning the tables on a political group launching attack ads against him in an attempt to bring its shadowy practices to light. On Friday, he went to the Capitol Hill headquarters of the Concerned Taxpayers of America to deliver a letter and speak with members of the organization about making its donors public. But the person who answered the door misrepresented himself and lied, saying he had never heard of Concerned Taxpayers, even though subsequent information shows that he is affiliated with the group. Watch the video here.

Weekend Update - Light of Day Edition

(The tunnel was terribly dark, and incredibly long, but that light we saw several weeks ago has indeed turned out to be the light of day. We have emerged stronger than ever, literally, and have renewed this marriage thing. There are many interesting and scary details about this ordeal that I will wisely spare you, as most of it sounds like something out of a Dean Kootz novel. However, here's one interesting observation of my own. I've always considered myself a bit of an expert on marriage, what with being married four times. I could dispense advice with the best of counselors. But during our own counseling sessions something occurred to me that changed me. I actually was an expert at failed marriages. I had very little knowledge how to make a marriage actually work. So now we're both working hard on it. And I think I like this marriage thing. Thank you all for your kind concerns in the past several weeks, without friends we are no more than burnt toast. And thank you for your patience here at Bad Hat. Hopefully we can now get back to normal. But I digress ...)

• It's a fine American tradition, hating. Communists. Arabs. The Japanese. Blacks. Native Americans. Hippies. Gays. "Gooks." Immigrants. Chinamen. The poor. Women. Teenagers. Vegans. Science. What's the problem with this nation? What's really eating at our soul and threatening our honest love of an angry God, apple pie and giant homoerotic firearms? It ain't us. It's them. They're trying to mess with our heads, steal our freedom, impregnate our virgins, poison the water supply. Damn them to hell, and where's my shotgun? Mark Morford rants on.


• Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week is Sarah Palin look-alike Christine O'Donnell, winner of the Republican Senate primary in Delaware, who claims lust is adultery, and you can't masturbate without lust, therefore ... oh, you know. Also, check out this wonderful piece written by Alexander Cockburn, "Masturbating on the Edge of the Apocalypse." Gawdhelpus.


• You gotta love Stephen Colbert. This guy's got more chutzpah than anyone in the world. He even testified to congress the other day about migrant workers. Amongst other things he told the assembled lawmakers was that his gastroenterologist had explained to him that fruits and vegetables are an important source of “roughage” and said that he “would like to submit a video of my colonoscopy into The Congressional Record.”


• The Republicans unveiled their "Pledge To America" last Thursday, and it's a doozy. Gene Robinson writes, amongst other things, "The Republicans were doing pretty well for themselves as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?"


• And if you're having a bad day, think of this: 2,300 ft. (700 m) below Chile's Atacama Desert, 33 miners have been trapped since Aug. 5 and face up to four more months of confinement before they're freed. That's underground. In the dark. With no link to a cold Corona with a slice of lime. Now, don't you feel better?

Weekend Update - Disgruntled Edition

(Well, you have problems. We all have have them from time to time. Your house can burn down. Your car can explode. A chunk of frozen excrement from a passing airliner can strike your house. Hey, you've seen the bumper sticker, shit happens. The older you get, the more you expect it. When things are going smoothly, it's like the old line from a Gothic novel: "It was quiet. It was too quiet." With me this time it was the wife moving out. Just got up out of bed in the middle of the night and announced she was leaving me. And then did. Well hell, I'm a pretty astute person, I think, and I sensed something was wrong right away. I'll spare you the intimate details of the rest of the story, but after about 3 weeks she's moved back in and we're attending weekly counseling sessions with a very sincere family counseling specialist in a very sincere family counseling office. At this point, I think we'll be okay - if we can get all of her (the wife's) emotional problems out in the open where they can be dealt with in a professional manner, and I can suppress my disgruntledness about the entire episode. And so how have all of you been? But I digress ... )

• The Idiot Glenn Beck shouted down at the multitudes gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear him and Sister Sarah pontificate on the evils of black people leading the country and allowing godallmighty Himself speak through them, and using Fox News math announced that attendance was 300,000 to 5000,000 people! Actual count, 87,000.


• Did you hear? Did you see the blazing headlines, the parades, the TV crews lining up in a rabid media frenzy on the White House lawn? Did you attend a rally, a march, a flag-wavin' gun-tootin' victory party, or perhaps gather around the TV at the local saloon, waving a tiny American flag and cheering wildly? Finally after thousand of young soldiers lay dead, and billions of dollars wasted, the War in Iraq is finally over! Why don't we feel like celebrating? Mark Morford reports.


• Gotta love Ellen Goodman. Did someone slip Mel Gibson an overdose of testosterone? He's the unanimous winner of our Raging Hormonal Imbalance Award after starring in an eight-minute audiotaped rant telling his ex-girlfriend that she needs a "bat to the side of the head" and threatening to put her in a "f---ing rose garden." We send him a curtain. Coming down. The "Equal Rites Awards."


• Vive la révolution! This Tea Party movement is interesting in many ways. But one of the most interesting is just who in hell is bankrolling it? Is it Fox News itself? Not really, although they're a part of it. The big money is coming from a very select group of billionaires who have an interesting stake in all of it. Like we've always said "follow the money." Follow it with Frank Rich, and it'll all make sense.


• Remember back a thousand years ago when George W. Bush was president? Remember how whenever he had a public speaking engagement people were hand-cuffed and taken away for having anti-Bush bumper stickers on their cars, or for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts? In West Virginia, Jeff and Nicole Rank were handcuffed and taken away from a July 4, 2004, rally on the state Capitol grounds shortly before the president arrived. They had tickets to the event, but wore homemade T-shirts with a line crossing out the word "Bush." The government later paid $80,000 to settle their lawsuit. But those who have taken their cases before judges have not fared as well. Read more.