General Electric: Proudly Leading The Way In Evading Corporate Taxes Since The 1970s

It's funny, the things people care about wouldn'tcha say? Like how, despite evidence, facts, and an actual live certificate of birth, a whole segment of the population (typically the toothless white trash trailer park type) still refuses to believe a one Barack Hussein Obama was born anywhere but deepest darkest Africa if he was even born on this planet at all instead of secretly sprung from the Socialist loin of Satan in his real birth place down in the seventh circle of hell, as any Teabagger worth his weight in Lipton understands.

But try telling these very same people that the path to Socialist ruin isn't paved with dead Grandmas, greedy, fair-wage demanding teachers, terrible, no-good workers unions, or even lousy job-stealing immigrants, but rather that every single aspect of the financial crisis in the United States is directly due to both huge corporations and the very richest .01% individuals not paying taxes, and it's as if you've just said all KFCs have turned into organic arugula gardens and all McDonald's will now be referred to as MosqeDonalds with Halal Meals replacing Happy Meals.

"You lie!" they shriek, doing their best inappropriate Joe Wilson outburst.

Impossible! It's simply too outrageous to be true. It couldn't possibly be! Liars!

But what if it turned out not to be just another liberal lie from the elitist Jew-run lamestream media?

What if basically everything — your bankrupt schools, crumbling highways, falling bridges, neglected state parks, vast graveyards of foreclosed homes, shuttered storefronts, abandoned construction sites, the laid-off city maintenance worker who jumped off the roof of City Hall in Cosa Mesa after half the town's workforce was fired and replaced by outsourced hourly contractors, including a new $3,000 a week PR spokesman the mayor hired — was more than coincidentally related to the the fact that General Electric, America’s largest corporation and the second-biggest company on Earth, simply does not pay any taxes at all. None, nada, nil, nothing. Zip, zero, zilch.

I mean, it's not as if they use their awesome new top-of-the-line front load Energy Star washer/dryer unit to launder their dirty sexy stacks of money or anything illegal/ ike that. No, no, don't be silly!

They just so happen to be as wonderfully skilled in mass producing state-of-the-art stainless steel kitchen appliances, incandescent/florescent/LED light bulbs, military jet engines, wind turbines, oil drilling pipes and nuclear weapons, as they are in evading U.S. taxes.

Woohoo!

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for evading damming articles by intrepid New York Times reporters that could quite possibly be the most infuriating, dull number-crunching piece you'll ever read.

General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E.

Well, I should certainly hope so!

The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.

Phew! How else would they make ends meet? Other than binding two poor people together with their industrial grade duct tape, of course!

Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore. G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm...and includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.

Which is great news for the poor, struggling billionaire General Electric executives slaving away to bring you all the innovate, prohibitively expensive products you don't need nor want, and couldn't afford anyway.

Because with its massive internal tax-evasion department headed by a former Treasury official and stuffed with former IRS agents, G.E. is simply the standard bearer of excellence when it comes to monstrous mega-corporations that control almost every aspect of policy and politics, duping the schmucky public into paying the lion's share of federal taxes.

You see, a half century ago, back in the 1950s (the good old days John Boehner's always weeping for), when women knew their place and men weren't afraid to give toots a li'l slap on the behind when she got too fresh, corporations like GE paid a whopping 30% of America’s total taxes. Today that number is down to 6.6%, and yet these same lovely corporations whine incessantly about how the crushing burden of single digit tax rates are squeezing companies to the breaking point, where they can barely afford to do business in America anymore.

Which isn't the worst that could happen, considering no one can afford to buy anything in America anymore, either.

Oh well! Thank goodness Republicans understand how to solve this glaring fiscal disparity.

By defunding NPR, removing art murals from state labor departments, and clamping down on those out-of-control, greedy, minimum-wage earning teachers, janitors, and assembly line workers bringing the whole country down.

For the love of unchecked capitalism, how do you expect GE's golden parachutes to fly with all that dead weight?

Because at GE, We Don't Just "Bring Good Things To Life," We "Bring Good Tax Dodges To Light!"

OMG, Glenn Beck's Deteriorating Ratings (& Mind!) May Get Him Dropped From Fox In A Massive Conspiracy To Stop It From Being The Golden-Voiced Homeless Man Of News Networks

There goes the price of gold gold-plated coins!

The arugula-eating liberal elitists over at the New York Times have peered into their (Swarovski) crystal ball to see what the future holds for America's #1 favoritest golden haired weeping prophet of doom, Glenn Beck, and his one-man amateur puppet show/truth crusade at Fox News.

And much like the fate of humanity, it doesn't look good.

His audience has dropped by a third since his glorious "I Have A Dream" MLK Teabagger rally for white people this summer, most advertisers (not in the faux gold collectible business) won't touch Glenn's increasingly insane George Soros/Planned Parenthood's/Islamic Jihad global conspiracy chalkboard drawing presentations with a ten foot pole, and his ratings among younger viewers are falling precipitously because apparently, only those who drink Ensure and wear Depends are comforted by a raging paranoid schizophrenic madman with delusions of grandeur shrieking at them about the impending death and destruction, thanks to Muslims, abortionists, Socialist presidents from Kenya, and of course, the Jews.

Could this really be the end of the blessed Jesus-approved union between one manic depressive madman and one womanizing faux news network of washed up former Hooters waitresses and shameless rightwing propaganda?

New York Times reporter David Carr explains:

Mr. Beck, a conservative Jeremiah and talk-radio phenomenon, burst into television prominence in 2009 by taking the forsaken 5 p.m. slot on Fox News and turning it into a juggernaut...He achieved unheard-of ratings, swamped the competition and at times seemed to threaten the dominion of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity at Fox.
But a funny thing happened on the way from the revolution. Since last August, when he summoned more than 100,000 followers to the Washington mall for the “Restoring Honor” rally, Mr. Beck has lost over a third of his audience on Fox — a greater percentage drop than other hosts at Fox. True, he fell from the great heights of the health care debate in January 2010, but there has been worrisome erosion — more than one million viewers — especially in the younger demographic.
He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait just a second! His audience has fallen by a third since his magical Teabagger rally this summer??

So I guess a miracle really did occur that day! A large percentage of Glenny's audience has fallen and can't get up!

But the big question remains, why was no one wearing their life alerts why force this blue-eyed, baby-faced, intellectual savior and messenger of truth off television, now?

The problem with “Glenn Beck” is that it has turned into a serial doomsday machine that’s a bummer to watch. 
What had been a fast and loose assault on all things liberal has grown darker and less entertaining, especially with the growing revolution in the Middle East, a phenomenon Mr. Beck sees as something of a beginning to some kind of end. He’s often alone in the studio with his chalkboards and obscure factoids, a setting that reminds me of an undergrad seminar on macroeconomics with an around-the-bend professor I didn’t particularly enjoy. 

Or a 2001 Academy Award winner starring Russell Crowe?

As he grabbed all the disparate strands from around the globe and tied them into a great, grand bow of doom, he ambled alone between various blackboards, each jammed with portentous bullet points. He often looked away from the camera into a middle distance as he spoke of a calamity that only he can see.
“He used to be a lot funnier,” said David Von Drehle, who wrote the article in Time magazine. “He was the befuddled everyman and something entirely new, but the longer people have listened to his ranting and raving, the wearier they become. Now you are just getting down to diehards. I mean, how many people were in the Waco compound at the end? A couple of hundred?” 

Oh what, you think every mentally ill schmuck with basic cable gets to join the Rapture??

Joel Cheatwood, a senior vice president of development for Fox News and the executive in charge of the show, thinks it’s silly to suggest that the American viewing public’s romance with Mr. Beck is on the wane — he’s trouncing his competition — but says that keeping the show upbeat is something he discusses with Mr. Beck.
“We have talked about that, at his instigation,” Mr. Cheatwood said. “It is really important that no matter how dire he thinks things are or what horrible direction things may be going from his perspective that the show maintains a sense of hope.”
“What you see on television with Glenn is the real guy,” he added, “and that is a double-edged sword. If he is upset about something, you see it.”

With all that Vick's VapoRub he poured into his peepers, you God damn better!

Poor Beckerheads. Where will they get their daily dose of the absurd, incoherent ramblings of a syphilitic mind now?

Sarah Palin's Twitter? Charlie Sheen's Tiger Korner?

But still, Beck remained thankful.

“Two years ago, I was on a cable channel that no one was watching at the time, doing a show that no one was watching, and I was about to leave television. And then I had the opportunity to come and work here,” he said. “If you’re going to do news or commentary, the only place, I think in the world, the only place that really makes an impact is Fox.”

In the same way that a massive asteroid slamming into Planet Earth made "an impact" on the dinosaurs.

What America Needs Now Is A Smug Quitter Like Evan Bayh Who Doesn't Know How To Say Bye-Bye Lecturing Democrats How To Become Rightwing Republicans

What America needs now, more than anything (jobs even!) is a smug, smarmy, sleazeball sellout like former Sen. Evan Bayh writing a guest op-ed in the elitist liberal rag, The New York Times to lecture his fellow Democrats about why they too must become a conservative party of far right wingnuts if they ever hope to be awesome winners, like him, ever again.

Hooray!

Because it is always delightful to be patronized and condescended by someone who, after collecting $10 million in campaign cash for an election in which he would likely cruise to victory, decided eh, on second thought, Congress has gotten a little too meany for my tastes, so I think I'll just retire instead. And while I'm at it, of course, keep the 10 mil in cold hard campaign cash 'cause why would I want some dumb fellow Democrat to win my seat when I could leave it to former lobbyist Republican Dan Coats instead?

You see, Evan Bayh is from the old school, a kinder, gentler time when things weren't so bitterly partisan and fat, anonymous slobs in robes and slippers didn't rudely criticize the dignity of United States Senators on their weblogs.

And, as you can imagine, Gentleman Bayh doesn't much care for this new breed of congressional rancor. So instead of say, maybe staying in the Senate to actually try to change things from the inside — oh I don't know by tweaking archaic filibuster rules, reforming campaign finance, enacting laws prohibiting no-good bloggers from saying terrible meany things about elected officials — Bayh decided he could be waaaaay more effective quitting and complaining all the time.

So please, Evan, enlighten the rest of us brainless dolts about what went wrong for Democrats in the elections.

Many of our problems were foreseeable. A public unhappy about the economy will take it out on the party in power, even if the problems began under previous management. What’s more, when one party controls everything — the House, the Senate, the White House — disgruntled voters have only one target for their ire. And the president’s party almost always loses seats in midterm elections.

Ok, good to know at least one part can be blamed on history instead of the no-good yellow belly Democrats for once.

And we were too deferential to our most zealous supporters. During election season, Congress sought to placate those on the extreme left and motivate the base - but that meant that our final efforts before the election focused on trying to allow gays in the military, change our immigration system and repeal the George W. Bush-era tax cuts. These are legitimate issues but unlikely to resonate with moderate swing voters in a season of economic discontent.

OMG totes! Except for that one, not-at-all significant, tiny little detail that the Dems didn't work that hard on any of those (hence why none actually passed), despite all three being broadly supported by independent voters.

I mean, why should Democrats care about silly, unimportant things like equality, justice, sensible economic policies, or pushing through widely popular initiatives broad majorities of Americans support, such as repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell (75 percent), passing the Immigration/DREAM Act (70 percent), and letting the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans expire (59 percent) when they could just spend all their time focusing solely on business and Wall Street?

Hmmm, in retrospect, I suppose it would have been prudent to address the economic discontent during the campaign season in a way that appeals to moderate swing voters and gets lots of attention, perhaps by introducing the "Best Bill In The World To Instantly Fix The Economy & Make Everything All Better." Then, surely the "extreme left" and magnificent moderates Bayh's always orgasming about would fully support its signing.

First, we have more than a communications problem — the public heard us but disagreed with our approach. Democrats need not reassess our goals for America, but we need to seriously rethink how to reach them.

Give em the ol' Eric Massa reach around?

Second, don’t blame the voters. They aren’t stupid or addled by fear. They are skeptical about government efficacy, worried about the deficit and angry that Democrats placed other priorities above their main concern: economic growth.

Oh so that's what all those semi-literate, misspelled "NObamar is Hitler" signs are all about! Silly me, why didn't I realize that? Makes such perfect sense!

So, in the near term, every policy must be viewed through a single prism: does it help the economy grow?

Followed immediately by the second most important question, does this help the rich get richer??

A good place to start would be tax reform. Get rates down to make American businesses globally competitive. Reward savings and investment. Simplify the code to reduce compliance costs and broaden the base. In 1986, this approach attracted bipartisan support and fostered growth.

Hear that Democrats? You wanna be winners? Then start acting a little less like liberal losers and a little more like strapping Grand Old Patriots who are always right, pure, and good, and can do no wrong.

The stereotype of Democrats as wild-eyed spenders and taxers has been resurrected. To regain our political footing, we must prove to moderates that Democrats can make tough choices. Democrats should ban earmarks until the budget is balanced. The amount saved would be modest - but with ordinary Americans sacrificing so much, the symbolic power of politicians cutting their own perks is huge.
Democrats should support a freeze on federal hiring and pay increases. Government isn't a privileged class and cannot be immune to the times.

Aww, hell yeah! The only privileged class that should be immune to the times are the few, the proud, the millionaires like Evan Bayh and the rest of his Grand Old Profiteers in the highest income bracket.

Because everyone ('cept the dumb, easily duped public?) knows the vast majority of Americans and swing voters in general will never hear about, much less feel, either of these things. Nor will symbolic tactical moves like "cutting the deficit" save the Democrats, put food on the table, or help Junior get a job.

But, umm, nice try??

Then again, they don't call 'em the Grand Old Pretenders for nothing.

So thank you Evan Bayh for sharing your sage wisdom on how to advance legislative solutions by cowardly quitting your actual position of power when things got tough, and also teaching Democrats all sorts of delightful tricks like how to become the strong, successful party everyone respects by championing policies that benefit the rich and appease conservatives while moving the country towards some sort of mythical magical happy land "center."

In other words, how to become the new, old Republican Party!

Dick Cheney Doesn't Need Some Stupid Pulse To Continue Living, You Mortal Fools!

Two-time vice-presidential dark lord of the underworld Dick Cheney may have finally used up his five death deferments. Tragic, but true!

Sadly, the beloved 69-year-old white-haired hero of Iraq/Waterboarding/Enron/Katrina, five-time heart attack survivor, and grandfather to all, Dick Cheney now has a "ventricular assist device" — or a dual-battery heart pump —implanted in his chest with motors and assorted parts churning the blood through his otherwise cold dead heart.

So now instead of just riding around on one, Dick's got a freakin' robot where an actual flesh & blood, pumping, bivalve chamber known as a heart is supposed to be.

Thing is, this one comes without a pulse. That's right, you're not hearing things. I said, Dick Cheney's heart DOES NOT HAVE A PULSE, and yet the man(?) is stubbornly still alive.

It just doesn't seem fair! Steve Irwin gets one stingray to the heart and instantaneously dies, while Cheney is on his fifth complete HEART FAILURE, gets some size D Energizers and a pump, and is on his merry way. Eh, sort of.

According to the New York Times: 

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is recuperating from surgery to implant the kind of mechanical pump now being given to a small but growing number of people with heart failure so severe that they would most likely die within a few months without it.

The pumps are partial artificial hearts known as ventricular assist devices, and they come in various models. Mr. Cheney’s kind is about the size of a D battery and leaves most recipients without a pulse because it pushes blood continuously instead of mimicking the heart’s own pulsatile beat. Most such pulse-less patients feel nothing unusual. But they are urged to wear bracelets or other identifications to alert emergency room doctors as to why they have no pulse.

Since in Dick's case, that probably wouldn't be the first reason that comes to mind.

The limited success has proved wrong the many experts who said people could not live without a pulse. The thought was that since the heart had a beat, that beat was needed for blood pressure and circulation. But now doctors believe that continuous-flow devices, which can be smaller and last longer, may function well.

Oh, hahahahaha! Puhleeease! As if Dick Cheney needs silly "human" things like a pulse to continue "living."

No, no, Dick Cheney's blood just flows continually, like the River Styx. He doesn't need your lowly "pumping" like some pathetic carbon-based pussy.

By supplementing the amount of blood pumped through the body, the devices allow many recipients to lead active lives from home. They can bicycle, golf, play tennis, drive cars, shop and generally do what they could before they developed severe heart failure.

Oh, goody! That means, (heart or no heart) Dick will still be able to do all his favoritest activities like torture Muslims (and small animals?), shoot his best friends in the face, and pretty much leave a trail of death of destruction wherever he and his non-beating heart venture.

The latest model devices, “though imperfect, are a stupendous advance compared to 36 years ago,” said Dr. O.H. Frazier of the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. “Still, it is a big operation with risks because we are operating on mortally ill patients.”

But then again, as Dick is not your typical mortal, this should not be the slightest bit problematic. Thank heavens, right?

The implants could be as arduous for a surgeon as risky for a patient, particularly one like Mr. Cheney, 69, who has suffered five heart attacks since the age of 37, has had angioplasty to unblock coronary arteries and stents to keep them open; an implanted pacemaker and defibrillator; surgery to repair aneurysms, or ballooning of arteries, behind both knees; and a number of visits to George Washington University Hospital for monitoring and observation, the last in June.

Who? This picture of health?? Don't you worry about him! I think we all know by now congestive heart failure ain't got nothin' on Dick!

But here is the really good news:

Dr. Frazier said he had implanted a total of 170 such pumps as of June 1, more than any other surgeon. Of those, 24 were in patients 65 and older and 11 of the 24 were in patients older than 70. The oldest was 76. Nine of the 24 have died, and seven of the nine did not leave the hospital. Six of the 15 survivors received heart transplants. The remaining nine are living with the pump. The longest survivor at his hospital had an implant in his 30s and has lived five and a half years.

Looks like the odds are still in our favor.

I mean how long could it really take for a heartless Dick with no pulse to possibly die? Unless, of course, in addition to functioning human organs, mere mortal concepts of time do not apply to his "kind" either.

Mr. Roboto's evil hell twin, that is.

Just Because His Name's Lindsey, He Talks With A Lisp, & Is A Life-Long Bachelor Doesn't Make Him A Gay...Or A Moderate Either!

Oooh, Senator Do Tell!

Justin Bieber look-alike Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) may be a mysterious cross between a middle aged lesbian and a tweenage heartthrob, but that doesn't mean this baby-faced, sexually ambiguous good ol' boy from South Carolina's gonna start donning breeches and waistcoat and throwing back cups of freshly brewed English Breakfast, like the rest of the intellectually hijacked Glowing Orange Puppets in Congress.

This makes the human bags o' brew very angry...like black man in White House angry!

"The problem with the Tea Party, I think it's just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country, said Sen. Graham, who has become persona non grata on the right for refusing to trade in his crisp Brooks Brothers suit for a white robe and matching KKK emblazoned hood.

Like the Dinosaurs, Dixiecrats, Dodo birds and John McCain's integrity, Graham knows "it will die out."

“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said.

They much prefer shrieking incoherently about losing the country to secret Socialists in the White House and dirty Mexicans in the desert, spewing n*gger and f*ggot-laced profanities, holding up Obama equals Hitler  signs, and equating affordable health care for all with the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews. With obligatory grammatical mistakes and spelling errors like a real, 'merican patriot.

But that's not all Sen. Graham said in his traitorous interview with the arugula-eating liberal elitist rag, The New York Times: "'What do you want to do? You take back your country—and do what with it?'...Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent."

What would you like them to do, Linds?? Have actual thoughts and the ability to express these "ideas" into coherent phrases and sentences not involving the words Nazi, Hitler, Communist, Socialist, and/or White Power??

HAHAHAHAHA, good one!

Well excuuuuuuse them if not every patriot wearing decaffeinated bags o' Lipton on their forehead has the luxury to have their ghostwritten ideas scribbled into the palm of their hand like some elitist, hoity-toity, Lear jet-flying Alaskan Empress by the name of $arah Palin.

These are decent, hard-working, common folk real Americans who don't have time for fancy shmancy liberal things like using facts and reality to craft policy. The only krafting they do is of the mac 'n cheese variety and comes in a blue box.

"We don't have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats."

Well I want a money tree that rains Benjamins every day before sunrise, and a special wand that waves pixie dust and makes all the dead, oil-soaked dolphins magically come back to life but that doesn't mean it's going to happen, now does it?

"Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today," Graham added.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait just a second, sir! Not, Ronnie Reagan! THE Ronnie Reagen, the legendary Gipper and greatest American president ever to grace the face of the Earth, whose very blood, sweat and tears nourished this country back from the brink of destruction from a deadly 1980s combination of gay diseases and Soviet commies rampaging through society.

He would have trouble getting elected as a Republican today?? But he's got all the criteria! A decaying, Alzheimer's ravaged mind, a rudimentary grasp of the important issues, an uncanny George W. Bush-like ability to confuse confidence with competency, a personal, direct line to Jesus Christ, and a bizarre, vague, fact-less notion that a robust, strong economy comes by loose change from the couch cushions somehow trickling down to the gross poors and coloreds ruining America with their torn, tattered clothes, cardboard box homes, and swarthy, non-milky white skin tones.

Good thing Graham has the pasty, powdered, "indoor" look Republicans really seem to go for these days. Not to mention the scholastic chops (an impressive “800 combined score” on the SATs) to give a riveting keynote address to the next fine crop of gun-totin' graduates from some no-name college in bumblef**k South Carolina:

“This country is being challenged in a tremendous way. Broken borders, 12 million people here illegally. Everybody’s upset about that — they ought to be. But somebody’s got to fix it...America’s at her best when she’s thinking about the future and not the moment. So my advice to you graduates is when you get out of school and get a job and a family, try to be part of the solution, not the problem...And the only way we’re going to solve these problems is working together.”

BOOOOOOOO!!! 

Err, quick Lindsey better think of somethin' good 'n redneck to say, and quick!

“Good luck, and I hope all of y’all become rich!”

WOOHOOOOO!!!!

Naaaaaaailed it!

Of course, life ain't easy when you're the cherub-faced, soft-spoken go-to GOP liaison to Barry's DEMONcratic White House, who is willing to maybe, just maybe, work with gross, terrible Democrats to oh, I don't know, actually help the country.

“He’s willing to work on more things than the others," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said. "Lindsey, to his credit, has a small-government vision that’s out of fashion with his party, which stands for no government...He’s one of the last big voices to give that vision intellectual energy.”

Or at least more than hot air or orange radioactive fallout like some other boneheaded GOP leaders fond of comparing big banks to poor worker ants crushed by nuked up, trigger happy Kenyan Presidents hellbent on restoring stability and integrity to the financial industry.

Like say "the small people" not getting billions in government bailouts as a reward for running their billion dollar corporations into the ground while trying to make a quick buck betting that the securities they sold were actually more bogus than the Republicans' attempt to solve anything, ever.

“I’m a little worried. This is not healthy for the country. It’s really not.” But at least his party’s unwillingness to work with the Obama administration amounted to an “opportunity” for him to be the Hill’s deal-maker in chief, “I mean, I’m not having to push through people to get to the front of the line.”

That's because every other Republican seems to have gotten the memo that Barry's got cooties!

Of course, for his cardinal sins of cooperation, conservatives, wingnuts, and Grand Old Pricks like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have been all over "Miss Lindsey" like marshmallows and chocolate on graham crackers, insinuating that his fleet-footed tendencies to seek common ground with Democrats, really comes from fear of being outed as a repulsive, limp-wristed homosexual, the single most God-awful, dreadful fate a strapping, testosterone-filled South Carolinian could ever be cursed with.

“Like maybe I’m having a clandestine affair with Ricky Martin,” he said. “I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men — I’m sure hundreds of ’em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge — but I ain’t available. I ain’t gay. Sorry.”

He's just gay for government!

Unless you happen to know an attractive Oval Office that's vacant? Cause then he might be interested. He has a long history of going both ways. Only problem being those darn cold feet he gets every time it comes to actually walking down the aisle!

“Reason always prevails,” he said, “if you can market it right.”

Cowboy hat, spurs, a loaded .57 magnum, the perfect amount of manly queer bashing, and a King James Bible in the back pocket oughta do the trick.

“I fully understand 70 to 80 percent of my [Republican] conference is going to reject any idea of putting a price on carbon anywhere,” he told me. For that matter, he said, “the environmental groups are great to deal with — but they think the planet’s gonna melt in five years. I don’t. I think carbon pollution, all things considered, is bad for human beings. But it’s not what I think of when I wake up in the morning...I offer myself as a bridge, and I take a beating for that, and I get rewarded for that. It’s a business. Politically, it is who I am now. There’s no use for me to try to play another game.”

Especially the get-a-life or at least get-a-wife game!

He'll stick with his sad, boring, homo no life, instead of risking deportation living la vida loca with Señor Martin.

Even if his seven years as a senator and frequent White House visitor have failed to produce a single legislative victory, gay ol' hopey-changey Lindsey is optimistic that things will improve with the upcoming elections.

“If you look at the Republicans who are likely to come into the Senate in 2010,” he told The Times. “They’re gonna be more like me, not less like me.”

Sexually confused, androgynous, closeted Obama-admiring moderates whose timid, disingenuous bipartisan attempts to (twinkle?) toe the Grand Old Party line come with little style, less substance, and absolutely zero results?

Guess that's just the way the cookie, err Graham cracker crumbles.

Or in Lindsey's case, flakes!

RIP: U.S.Newspapers Doomed To Museum's Ancient Relics Collection

In what was surely a surprise to nobody, the long-declining newspaper industry has finally gone the way of the dinosaurs.

The once-mighty Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday, effectively pulling the plug on two of its publications, the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, which have been hovering on life support for years.

The (for now) Tribune-owned Cubs and Wrigley Field, however will not be affected by the move, because everyone knows sports are hell of a lot more popular than cumbersome stacks of the dull printed word. Boooring!

Even the old standby, the New York Times appears likely to follow its print brethren to the poorhouse, with the company forced to mortgage or sell the new, fancy-pants HQ it bought for hundreds of millions of dollars it never had.

So, the newspaper biz has now joined the esteemed automakers and banks atop the ever growing list of major U.S. industries to crumble from a combination of stubbornness, greed, and ineptitude at every level.

Give you one guess who gets to bail them out.

The Taxpayer Shakedown