Have you seen them? They are kinda repulsive and weird. And her whole “I forgot I wasn’t wearing pants” excuse falls on very, very deaf ears.

Bottom line: I admit they creep me out, but it is Meghan McCain who’s calling her out…..

The Meghan McCain who posted this picture on her twitter page in October.

The Meghan McCain who titled her upcoming book “Dirty, Sexy, Politics: A True Story“.

Good thing Meghan only said it was “possibly the most tasteless thing” she’d ever seen. Absolute statements are soooo damning.

Sorry Andy Warhol for bringing you into this–backwards. And oh yeah, sorry to Rielle’s daughter Quinn who is in for a lifetime of hurt.

Noted off screen tough guy (who’s still two full inches shorter than my ex-girlfriend… just sayin’) and frequent beneficiary of the First Amendment, not only wants you to die of rectal cancer when you’re mean to him, but now he wants critics of his buddy Hugo Chavez imprisoned if they step out of line.

Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.

I think I should be allowed to punch aging, big mouthed midgets in the face when they annoy me (which is often), but I’m not so sure Sean would agree with that.

Maybe Mr. Penn should by himself a dictionary and look up just two words.

First word? Irony. He lives in a country that has a First Amendment that allows fellow diminutive “comedian” Bill Maher his own talk show (where this bout of verbal diarrhea made it’s appearance), so he can speak freely and say anything he wants without fear of being imprisoned, or shot.

And B, hypocrite.  I don’t know where I was going with this. I lost my place, and I figured I’d make people happy by throwing that word in there.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be on set with this guy when he’s starring in a Clint Eastwood movie. It has to be awesome though. It must be like the time my grandfather was getting annoyed with the raccoons tearing up his garbage. After a few weeks the raccoon ends up in a little cage — my grandfather standing over it with a ludicrously over sized pistol in his hand, while a good looking guy with tears in his eyes tries to convince my grandfather to let him turn him loose in the woods…

What? I get hay fever.

But of course since he’s such a kind person,  and really, really cares about others, he takes it all in stride, and brushes off such comments like the adult that he is because he’s above all that.

Oh wait. No he doesn’t.

“Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah,” he says.  “But I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it.”

Yikes.  I’ve been known to be unkind to my fellow man once in a while, (no really!) But I wonder how Farrah Fawcett’s family reacted to that little crack. (No, that wasn’t a pun.) And would it then be hypocritical of me to wish a massive earthquake on Southern California that would destroy whatever area he lives in?

If it is, just send a tip into to Deceiver. I’ll write about it! And I’m just waiting to rip me a new one.

In 2006, when D.C. banned smoking in bars and restaurants, Evans lent his voice and his vote in support of the measure. “D.C. is one step closer to becoming smoke free,” he published in his weekly newsletter at the time.

Yet on St. Patrick’s Day 2010, he’s trying to give his buddies a chance to smoke cigars at two charity events near and dear to Evans’s wallet heart:

Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) has asked his council colleagues to keep tradition alive for the all-male Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and another organization, Fight for Children, which hosts an annual smoke-filled professional boxing fundraiser.

Evans, who is a member of the Irish organization, said the measure was narrowly crafted, making an exception for only two nights a year and protecting workers by allowing venue employees to opt out of working the events.

But the rules are the rules, entirely because people like Evans voted to make them law. How do you like them apples?

H/T: Jacob Grier

I guess I can’t really blame you for signing on for the new season of Celebrity Apprentice. I mean, even corrupt and disgraced ex-governors have bills to pay.

But bringing home the bacon by booking speaking engagements on the subject of Ethics in Politics?

Even presuming that big-hair Blago is innocent of all 24 counts of corruption for which he’ll face trial this summer — a list that includes (but is not limited to) racketeering, wire fraud, extortion, and making false statements to federal agents — he’s still a far cry from George Washington.

So you have to wonder what possessed Northwestern University to invite Blagojevich to participate in a panel discussion on morals and ethics last Tuesday. Perhaps the college comedy troupe was out of town and the students just needed a good laugh?

I’d say that you also have to wonder why Blago even agreed to the gig — I mean, he has to know how ridiculous it looks — but that one’s pretty easy to figure. After all, we’re talking about the man who tried to auction off a U.S. senate seat here. Ethics and absurd irony be damned, Rod just wants to make him some money.

And exactly how much money did the Northwestern College Democrats pay Blago for his expert address?

Sadly, we may never know. But it sure would make for one hell of a good Master Card commercial:

Booking the corrupt politician poster-boy to speak at your university’s panel discussion on ethics? An undisclosed sum.

Blago’s reported opening remarks? Priceless.

Many of you must think it’s kind of ironic that I would agree and accept an opportunity to come here and talk to you about ethics in government. [Ed. Nawwww.] For all the courage and testicular virility [Ed. WTF?] you think you have, if I did the things they said I did, and I did wrong things like they want you to believe I did, I would be nowhere near this event.

Unless, of course, you can throw in a extra couple thousand…

Uh-huh.

According to CNN:

Rep. Charlie Rangel temporarily stepped down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, a decision forced by a growing storm of ethics controversies threatening the veteran congressman. [...]

The night before Rangel said he had no plans to step aside from his powerful post. The Ways and Means Committee is responsible for drafting the nation’s tax policies.

Rangel is being investigated for, among other things, failing to pay taxes on a home in the Dominican Republic. The congressman also has admitted failing to report several hundred thousand dollars in assets on federal disclosure forms. In addition, he is under scrutiny for the purported misuse of a rent-controlled apartment for political purposes, as well as for allegedly preserving tax benefits for an oil-drilling company in exchange for donations to a project he supported at the City College of New York.

The list goes on and on.

The venerable source of all that is true (Wikipedia) has 2,400 words on Rangel’s “ethics investigations and tax controversies.” After the first 10 suspicious  incidents, maybe someone should have said, “Y’know, we should take him off the Ways and Means committee, since it sets the nation’s tax policies — and Rangel clearly has a problem paying his taxes.”

The investigation has been going on for 18 months, but Rangel didn’t just wake up today with a clean conscious and decide to step down. According to CNN:

House Republicans plan to introduce a resolution Wednesday calling on Rangel to permanently step down and again force House Democrats to go on record defending him.

If the Dems did that, they’d be on the hook in this fall. Vulnerable Democrats defending a guy who proposes tax policy but can’t seem to pay his own bills? It doesn’t fly well with the salt-of-the-earth and the good ol’ boys and… American voters.

Irony? When Rangel campaigned for office in 1970, he beat Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who misappropriated funds from a committee he was serving on, and took trips at the taxpayer’s expense. Powell was stripped of his committee membership, and Rangel seized on all the scandals (and more) in order to win the election.

Forty years later, the man in the same seat keeps four rent-controlled apartments in New York City, kept his old vintage (unregistered) Mercedes-Benz in the Congressional parking facility for storage, doesn’t pay all his taxes, and forgets to report things ….like assets.

PS. Capitol police towed the car. [See image HERE]

In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama supported changes to the PATRIOT Act that would have put telecommunications companies in the line of fire. Mainly, he railed against the whole wiretapping thing. In a speech before the The Woodrow Wilson Center On Terrorism in August 2007, Obama said:

That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens … no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are, and it’s not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists.

Anyway, wiretapping tapped a nerve in the American people. Some loved Obama’s guts and panache. The anthrax-killer loved it too.  Remember the white-powder-will-never-mean-the-same-thing-again guy?

According to The Smoking Gun:

After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI released the first batch of documents detailing the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims.[...]In a July 2008 e-mail, Ivins wrote that “Dick Cheney scares me. The Patriot Act is so unconstitutional it’s not even funny.” He added, “I’m voting for Obama!”

And yet Obama signed a one-year extension of the PATRIOT Act last week, leaving in key provisions he had earlier opposed. Guess which ones?If you said “wiretapping,” give yourself a big wet, sloppy kiss. So the PATRIOT Act still empowers our dear leaders to:

–Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones [and]

–Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Lone Wolves.  I guess the message is  that if you need your white powder, don’t talk about it on the phone ‘cuz you-know-who will be listening in. And the takeaway from Obama’s newfound affection for the grand art of espionage? It’s mighty convenient that the Republicans did all the heavy lifting and Dick Cheney took all that flack. All Barry had to do was “extend” it.

Image courtesy of millions of people who find those who wear the shirt irresistible. And The Mountain Corporation.

President Obama (of today) is considering some drastic measures to pass health care reform. The New York Times reports:

“Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.”

This is called the “nuclear option” or “budget reconciliation” — pick your poison. He only needs 51 senators to “Yay.” And certain senators and representatives are calling for it now too.

But let’s take a ride on the magic school bus back in time. Say, five years, when then-president Bush had expressed interest in the nuclear option in 2005. (Watch the video above, or read the transcript below.)

When asked about the nuclear option in March of 2005, President Obama said that it was “not what the founders intended.” It would “change the character of the Senate forever” and create “simply majoritarian power on either side.”

Obama wasn’t wasn’t the only one railing against it. Senator Hillary Clinton echoed that “previous generations” were being ignored. Senator Schumer foretold a constitutional crisis. Harry Reid said something too…it was just so boring I lost interest and didn’t transcribe it for you. Senator Feinstein said that the “nuclear option” would turn the Senate into a “body that could have its rules broken at anytime.”

And for my favorite: Senator Biden-my-time-’til-I-get-on-the-Amtrak said that it was “ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab.[...] I pray to God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”

So as the dog-and-pony show rages on at the White House today, just remember when people leave the summit unhappy (which they will) that many Dems intend to do something they spent the year 2005 condemning as the end of the Republic.

Alec Baldwin’s poor anger management has landed him in his fair share of public gaffes — like calling his teenage daughter horrible names in a leaked voicemail and attacking a photographer last week — but never quite to the extent that his career ever required a comeback tour. And now, with multiple 30 Rock Emmys in hand and coming off the unlikely success of baby-boomer bonkfest It’s Complicated, he’s co-hosting the Oscars with Steve Martin next month.

So why is he so forgivable when someone like the similarly tempered Mel Gibson is not?

I almost feel bad for excerpting extensively but Brian Moylan puts it so eloquently I might as well:

Baldwin isn’t nearly as bad as Gibson, but it seems like his personal life can’t affect his professional life. Why? Because everyone fawns over his work and he is such a supporter of liberal causes that the conservative Page Six has forever labeled him the “bloviator.” Welcome to the party, darling, treat your children however you want! The success of million-dollar enterprises such as movies and television programs are based on something as intangible as whether or not the audience likes the star. And the power firmament’s decision whether or not personal behavior will affect career performance is just as fickle—it comes down to the fact of whether or not you’re in favor. But if a star is in favor, his personal failings will fall by the wayside in the hope that his professional successes (which stand to make a lot of people a lot of money) won’t be affected.

Granted, there are no sacred cows on Deceiver.com. (See also: the Alec Baldwin archives, which is about the same length as the Mel Gibson archives.) But Moylan has a point: Are politics why this double standard is so ingrained?

In what amounts to one of Norman Lear’s wet dreams, Rachel Maddow and Howard Dean go on for ten minutes chastising Senate Republicans for stonewalling the Democrats’ socialist agenda much needed reforms, like Card Check, Cap and Trade, and ObamaCare.

But they never once mention that until Republican Scott Brown won the Senate seat previously occupied by the late Captain Oldsmobile Ted Kennedy, the Republicans were entirely powerless with their measly 40 votes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If Maddow were to use, I don’t know, facts to construct her argument, it would have been a very short segment. Instead, she uses statistics from the 110th Congress, which was seated from 2007 to 2009, back when Dubya still occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So even in Maddow and Dean’s parliamentary utopia — in which Republicans are barred from using that inconvenient little filibuster rule that’s been around for more than 200 years — any legislation passed out of the Democrat-controlled Congress that didn’t jive with Bush’s agenda would have been vetoed and sent back to the Senate. And in order to override that veto, the Senate would need 66 votes (which they didn’t have), with or without the filibuster.

We’re now one year into the 111th Congress. With a Democrat president and (until recently) a Democrat super-duper-ooper-schmooper filibuster-squashing Senate majority. And it’s still the Republican’s fault? Those pesky Republicans.

Until last week the Democrats had 60 Senate votes. They call that a “filibuster-proof majority” for a reason, folks. So sure, Rachel, those “obstructionist” Republicans have magically been able to use the filibuster more than ever before. Except that they didn’t have enough seats in the Senate to filibuster a change on the cafeteria menu, let alone a major piece of earth-shattering legislation.

Maybe Maddow and Dean (wasn’t that a figure-skating couple?) should go back to blaming Dick Cheney. That seemed to work.