Friday Fish Wrap: February 25. 2010

BREAKING: Last night at 1am, Wisconsin Assembly Republicans held a vote for literally a few seconds in which they rammed through Gov. Walker’s radical bill to cut worker benefits and rights. It was a stunning abuse of power.

Now, the only thing keeping this horrible bill from becoming law are state Senate Democrats — who boldly left the state and are blocking the Senate from voting.

On Wednesday, Senate Democratic Leader Mark Miller joined thousands of PCCC members on a call and vowed that he and other Democratic senators will “never stop fighting.”



If you want to help Wisconsin working families and Democrats fight this battle and win, then contribute to ActBlue today. Click on the image below:

Well, with that out of the way  ….

IT’S SNOWING!!!!!!

We awoke to about eight inches of new powder in the driveway, and it’s been coming down at about two inches an hour since. I’m taking a break from the shovel and the snow plow right now. I think I can skip the treadmill and such today.

Normally, I don’t wade into the boring little world of show biz - filled with inflated egos, the delusional and addicted, but today, I’ll make an exception to illustrate a point. The following is a quote from Charlie Sheen of ‘Two and A Half Men”:

“I’m tired of being told ‘You can’t talk about that, you can’t talk about that.’ Bull S-H-I-T. There’s something this side of deplorable that a certain Chaim Levine — yeah, that’s Chuck’s real name — mistook this rock star for his own selfish exit strategy, bro. Check it, Alex: I embarrassed him in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that his unevolved mind cannot process. Last I checked, Chaim, I spent close to the last decade effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold. And the gratitude I get is this charlatan chose not to do his job, which is to write. Clearly someone who believes he’s above the law.”

Talking to TMZ, Sheen said, “I violently hate Chaim Levine (Chuck Lorre). He’s a stupid, stupid little man and a p**sy punk that I’d never want to be like.”

Charlie should be the next head of the GOP. He delusional enough, arrogant enough, bigoted enough, detached from reality enough. He’s perfect for the job.

Can you say “Too crazy for prime time”? This congenital idiot just threw away a $2 million per episode job for booze and a hooker. Such can be the power of “stupid, stupid little (men) and … p**sy punk(s)”

Yesterday was productive. I got some wonderful Minneola Tangelos at Costco in order to make some marmalade and candied orange peel. I had wanted the candied orange peel for a cookie recipe but when I checked it out online (none to be had here in Reno, Nevada ) I about had a stroke when I saw the price. Needless to say, I’d just make my own.

Yummm.

Now, if we can just not keep picking at the orange peel for handy candy … I think a ziplok and way up in the baking cabinet might be the answer. Don’t despair, Natacha. I’m going to send a jar and a baggie to you, laboring away at school down in Louisiana.

If you’ve never tried the candied orange peel, do. It’s really quite easy. I’ll probably post a bit about it on the Food page.

Do you really think I’m joking when I suggest that Crazy Charlie oughta join the crazy ranks of the GOP? Not really, when Georgia Representative, Paul Broun, chose to become another EPIC FAIL for the country - he decided not to ‘dignify’ a question at a recent Town Hall meeting when a constituent asked “Who is going to shoot Obama”. Broun “moved on” according to his press secretary.

Hmmmm. And this is the same guy who, during the State of the Union speech, was tweeting that - who he had referred to as a Nazi-like Marxist dictator:

“Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.”

This is not to say that Dems don’t occasionally shoot themselves in the foot rhetorically. I’m from Nevada. We have Sen. Harry “Don’t Shoot Self in Foot” Reid, who this week make the bonehead remark during his speech to the Nevada Legislature that the state’s famous legalized ‘Oldest Profession’ ought to be made illegal again. Sheesh.

But that can’t even come close to the mean-spirited, even treasonous, bile that spills out of GOP mouths.

I really do believe we’re in for the political ride of our lives.

Ooooh, the wind is really picking up outside my window.

Providence Road Island teachers have something to worry about. The school board voted to send out termination notices to 2,000 teachers. It’s bad here in Nevada, but not yet that bad. Newly minted Governor, Brian Sandoval, has been engaging in fiscal sleight of hand, trying to grab $425 million from the school districts debt service reserve funds to try and balance the unbalanceable state budget.

That this money is bespoke, as in tied to bond obligations approved by Nevada voters, seems to be irrelevant to the Guv. This is a fine example of what Republicans really mean when they say they want to balance budgets and lower deficits. It’s called “stealing from Peter to pay Paul”. Rather like a Ponzi scheme, ala Bernie Madoff. On a federal level, they steal from Mandatory Spending (entitlements like Social Security) to payoff the military-industrial-corporate complex where they got their campaign funding from.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Campaign finance reform, in the sense of publicly funded political campaigns, would put a stop these charades - and go a long way toward cleaning up government and making it far more responsive to the voters rather than special interests.

Meanwhile, silly, silly man, Sen. John Ensign, R-NV, says he’ll work hard for Nevada. Nobody who has been paying attention to John’s less than stellar career can figure out just what he’s going to work hard at … other than posing for photo ops, and repeating the mea culpa for his tawdry extra-marital escapades.

That the state GOP would substitute Dean Heller for Ensign is typical. One intellectually lazy, kiss-ass ideologue operative for another. Come campaign time, they could just Photoshop Heller’s face into all the Ensign stuff and call it a day.

I’ve said “YES” to this, and will try hard to make it, despite the snow, which is supposed to end tonight some time. I hope you will, too. Lunch at Adele’s could sweeten the experience. Click on the image above, to redirect.

Oh, and I got this from the folks in Wisconsin:

Dear Cynthia,
Thank you for your support. We really appreciate it.
In solidarity,
Martina Kunovic

Have a good weekend, and take care shoveling the snow. Slow and easy. Take breaks. Stay warm and cozy, and get out the hot cocoa. It should be an awesome ski season ahead - she said, adjusting the brace on her right knee. It’s doing better, but I know what the limitations are.

-maven