On ABC’s This Week, Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer goes one-on-one with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the “scandals” surrounding the White House. (And yes, I put quotation marks around the word “scandals” because there is mostly no there there, unless you want to look at the Republicans . . . → Read More: Sunday Talks, 5/19/13]]> It’s Scandal-palooza Sunday, y’all!!!

On ABC’s This Week, Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer goes one-on-one with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the “scandals” surrounding the White House. (And yes, I put quotation marks around the word “scandals” because there is mostly no there there, unless you want to look at the Republicans behind all the hoopla. I’m betting there IS a lot of there THERE!) Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), and Rep. Charles Rangel, (D-NY) will also be talking “scandal.” The roundtable, with ABC News’ George Will, National Journal editorial director Ron Fournier, American Urban Radio Networks White House correspondent April Ryan, editor and publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel, and ABC News senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny will discuss the week in politics.

NBC’s Meet the Press has Yertle McTurtle – oops! – I mean the Republican Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, salivating over the “scandals.” Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will be on to talk about his new book, Rumsfeld’s Rules and about how the Obama Administration is handling foreign policy (groan). President Obama’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer will be on to talk about the “scandals.” Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, will discuss the IRS “scandal.” Rep. Camp joins the discussion of how the “scandals” will affect the President’s second-term agenda, along with the chairman of the Democratic Caucus, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, and the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward (double groan).

CBS’s Face the Nation also has White House Senior Advisor Dan Pfeiffer. Then, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) will be on to WARGLE BLARGLE, I mean, discuss the “scandals.” The president and CEO of the Associated Press Gary Pruitt will also be on to discuss the Justice Department’s investigation into possible leaks involving a foiled terror plot in Yemen last year, and to discuss how much access to reporter’s records the government should have. The roundtable, with New York Times‘ David Sanger, POLITICO’s Lois Romano, the Washington Post‘s Dan Balz and CBS News political director John Dickerson, will discuss the week in politics.

On CNN’s State of the Union, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer makes it four for four in his Scandal-palooza tour. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) will discuss the IRS’s targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) groups. (I feel a face palm coming on.) The roundtable will discuss the impact of the “scandals” on the President’s legacy (groan and face-palm). Participants will include USA Today’s Susan Page, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, Republican strategist Ana Navarro, and CNN chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin.

There you have it, folks! Four hours of SCANDAL-PALOOZA!!! Happy Sunday.

…WE INTERRUPT THIS COLUMN FOR BREAKING NEWS — We here at . . . → Read More: Friday Talking Points [258] — Scandalpalooza!]]> Things have gotten so bad in Washington that both pundits and Republicans are beginning to use the “N-word” to describe the president. No, no… not that N-word! Instead, Obama is now actively being compared to Nixon. This comparison is patently…

…WE INTERRUPT THIS COLUMN FOR BREAKING NEWS — We here at FTP News Network have obtained exclusive before-and-after photos of Angelina Jolie’s breasts! In these side-by-side shots, the viewer can easily see the transformation of two of the most famous breasts on the planet. As the camera zooms in and pans around our 3-D representation, we will utter pious thoughts on cancer screening which you won’t pay the slightest attention to. Later, we’ll have our resident nipple expert in to discuss what you’re seeing now…

Sheesh. Now, before anyone gets too irate, allow me to state that the preceding paragraph is (1) entirely fictional — we have no exclusive shots of anyone’s breasts, sorry; and (2) intended to satirize the media’s take on any news item with the word “breast” in it — and not Angelina Jolie, Angelina Jolie’s breasts, breast cancer, any cancer, cancer screening, or medical decisions by anyone.

Seriously, consider that there is one medical procedure which gets shown on television in pretty much any breast story: mammogram images. Are pale silhouettes of any other body part ever routinely shown on television news, for any reason? I don’t recall any testicular cancer or prostate cancer stories with such graphics, personally. Nor X-rays displayed after a story about someone getting injured. Not only are the mammogram images seemingly mandatory, but television news will also gratuitously throw in an image of a woman undergoing the procedure, just for kicks. What woman really wants a video of her boobs getting squashed by a machine to be on the news, after all? This was all on full display this week with the Angelina Jolie story, complete with CGI shots of (you just can’t make this stuff up) how “the nipples were saved.”

Am I the only one who has noticed this? Seems like there’d be a cries of “blatant sexism!” but if there have been, I guess I haven’t noticed.

But back to the political news. Scandal! Scandal! Scandal! That’s the type of week it’s been, and the only way to see a silver lining is to point out that if you’re going to have several scandals erupt, you might as well schedule them all for the same week — because Washington reporters are infamous for not being able to follow more than one story at a time. When the reporters hit “scandal overload,” then just imagine how the rest of the country feels.

For instance, while there really have been at least four scandals this week, the media have mostly focused on only three. None of these (Republican bloviating aside) have risen to the Nixonian level, but all have certainly been grist for the mill this week. Here are my snap judgments as to how all three scandals will play out (the fourth one I’ll deal with in a minute…).

First, Benghazi. The “scandal” this week was based on some emails Republicans leaked to the media. The White House countered by releasing the actual text of the emails, which showed that the Republicans had lied to the press by significantly editing the text. This continues their long tradition of hyping the “scandal,” and it truly seems like nobody outside the Fox News universe is even paying attention anymore. This “scandal” isn’t going to impact Obama much (if it were going to, it already would have — and it has not), but the target has now shifted to tarnishing Hillary Clinton in pre-emptive fashion. So expect to hear a lot more about Benghazi, with little in the way of actual news contained within. Benghazi will remain the Republican “go-to” scandal for years, when they can’t dig up anything else.

Second, the IRS. Obama moved pretty quickly on this one, and his damage control may indeed work. This scandal was the easiest one to fix, when it gets right down to it. Two IRS leaders have already been cashiered, and they likely won’t be the last ones to get their walking papers. Fire those responsible in any way (all the way up and down the chain of command), institute strict rules so it cannot happen again, and the scandal goes away. That’s assuming there isn’t some sort of “other shoe to drop” in terms of the known facts, of course, but so far this scandal looks like the one which won’t go much further after the initial outrage.

Third, the AP phone records to identify leaks. This scandal may generate more outrage than the other ones, because the press was the target. Whenever the press is the target of governmental overreach, they tend to close ranks and defend their own. So this scandal will be the only one without the taint of partisanship, really. The Republicans’ hands are somewhat tied on this one, because they themselves demanded aggressive investigation over the leaks when they happened. So it’ll be hard for them to say they’re shocked that the Justice Department did exactly what they demanded, in the end. The White House damage control on this one is just getting going, after a rather pathetic appearance by Attorney General Eric Holder before a congressional committee (which, bizarrely, involved asparagus… more on this at the end). Now the White House seems to have pivoted to arguing the case on its merits — making the case of how dire this leak was to national security, and how irresponsible it was for the media to have reported on it. This isn’t going to make them friends in the media, but it may convince the public. Of all the scandals, this is the toughest to predict the outcome — again, because the outrage is mostly going to come from the media itself.

Whew! If all this is just too much scandal for you to contemplate (and if you thought my anti-mammogram rant was too prudish), well, there was always the video of Barbara Walters donning a Playboy bunny costume for distraction (it’s a very, very old clip, we should mention, when Walters was first starting out in the business). Bunny dip, anyone?

Alas, we’re not done yet with Scandalpalooza Week. Because the story that kind of got ignored this week was a second military man getting charged with sexual impropriety when his job was supposed to be policing sexual propriety in the ranks.

The magnitude of this brings to mind two acronyms from the military world: SNAFU and FUBAR. Think about it: not only is the military incapable of preventing or policing sexual assaults, they are incapable of doing so within the units responsible for doing so. That’s beyond incompetent, really.

President Obama had all the military big brass over for a chat about the situation, and by his report, they’re all feeling pretty bad about the state of things. But you know what? That’s really not good enough. Imagine if Obama had taken the same route with the military as he just took with the IRS. Start firing people from the top down. Or, if they cannot be fired for some reason, then (at the very least) assign some generals the important duty of moving to Antarctica to protect penguins from Russian ICBMs. For the rest of their military careers.

Think a few actions of this type would change things in a hurry over at the Pentagon? I do. If it doesn’t, then start working your way down the chain of command. That penguin defense base can grow to be as big as necessary, really.

Hmmph.

One Democrat is really getting out in front of this issue, and for doing so Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Gillibrand, along with a few other senators (such as Barbara Boxer), introduced a bill to remove any decisions regarding punishment for sexual assaults from the military chain of command. No longer would a Colonel or a Major be able to wave a magic wand and erase a conviction for rape from a soldier’s record. This is such a basic reform it is stunning that it hasn’t already happened. The Pentagon doesn’t like it, because it reduces the power commanding officers have, but you know what? Tough. Tough biscuits. This power is so obviously being misused that it is time to remove it altogether.

For taking a giant step in the direction of fixing the Pentagon’s lackadaisical attitude towards rape and other sexual crimes, and for such a commonsense solution, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand more than deserves the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award this week. More power to you, Senator Gillibrand.

[Congratulate Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on her Senate contact page, to let her know you appreciate her efforts.]

While it might seem that there would be a lot of disappointment to choose from in such a scandal-plagued week, it’s actually hard to identify anyone bearing responsibility for the “big three” scandals.

The IRS scandal involved non-partisan employees, for the most part. The presidentially-appointed head of the IRS has already been fired, and he wasn’t exactly “a Democrat” to begin with, from all reports. Eric Holder would seem to be a logical choice over at the Justice Department, but he recused himself from the decision to grab the AP phone records, and we’ve already suggested once this week that it might be time for him to go, just on general principles. Benghazi has always been a “scandal” and not a real scandal, if you know what I mean.

I could give Obama the award for his rather timid “let’s give the Joint Chiefs more time to solve the problem” attitude on rape in the military, but we’ll see whether he gets behind Gillibrand’s bill first.

There’s always Harry Reid, of course, who just announced that he (yet again) made another “mistake” by not changing filibuster rules when he had the chance earlier this year — even though he had made the same “mistake” two years ago. Now, apparently, he’s talking tough about maybe using the “nuclear option” in a month or two. Yawn. Wake me when he caves (yet again), someone.

Instead, we’re going to fall back on a story with no national importance, but which is about as disappointing as you can get. South Carolina state lawmaker Ted Vick has been charged with drunk driving, on the grounds of the statehouse, no less. Normally, a drunk driving arrest wouldn’t rise to the level of a MDDOTW, but almost exactly a year ago we let Ted off the hook with only a (Dis-)Honorable Mention, because (as we wrote back in FTP [212]):

Vick was arrested for suspected drunken driving and speeding. Oh, and he had a handgun in his pocket. And by the way, a 21-year-old college student was reportedly in the car with him, because he had “offered the student a ride home” — after he met her at a local bar.

Second time’s the charm, Ted. You have more than earned this week’s Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week, in fact. You quite obviously need some sort of help, and we hope that you get it soon.

[Contact South Carolina state Representative Ted Vick via his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

Volume 258 (5/17/13)

In such a scandaliferous week, our talking points are mostly going to be playing defense this time around. Although there are a few at the end which I threw in just to lighten things up. But before we get there, we’ve got to slog through the scandals, so let’s just get on with it, shall we?

   Rolling, rolling, rolling…

We’ll start with the best damage control from the White House all week.

“In the case of the IRS, the scandal was exposed by the Treasury Department’s internal investigation, and President Obama has taken immediate action in firing people from the top down at the agency. Two heads have already rolled as a result of Obama’s quick action. And it’s entirely likely that a few more people at the IRS will soon be ‘spending time with their families,’ as they say in Washington. The IRS situation was indeed a scandal, but so far it looks like it is already well on its way to being fixed, and I have to credit the president for doing so. There was no coverup, there was no sweeping it under a rug, the report was publicly released and punitive action swiftly followed.”

   Nixon reforms worked (backwards)

Again, with the “N-word.”

“I see that some are comparing President Obama with Richard Nixon in the IRS scandal, which is laughably wrong — at least from the information that has so far surfaced. Yes, Nixon did use the IRS for revenge on his perceived political enemies. When it came to light, reforms were put in place. One of those reforms is that if the White House has anything to say to anyone at the IRS, they have to direct their communications through the Treasury Secretary’s office — they are not allowed to contact the IRS in any other way. This wall of separation was installed to prevent political misuse of the agency. It was put in place to make the IRS almost completely independent of the White House, to protect the IRS from political interference. This reform actually worked, although it worked in the other direction than intended. Instead of protecting the IRS from political interference from the White House, it instead isolated the White House from the political shenanigans which took place within the IRS. It’s ironic, when you think about it. But that’s the only connection to how Nixon abused the agency, sorry.”

   Investigate Benghazi lies!

Here’s another one to turn around.

“The Republican Party has adamantly decried all the lying about Benghazi for over half a year now. So I find it mysterious that they’re not outraged over what happened last week. Emails were leaked to reporters which were false — they were, in fact, lies — about Benghazi and the talking points. I find it rather telling that no Republicans have called for investigating these lies, and no Republicans are denouncing this misinformation from government sources to the media. Perhaps this is because those doing the lying were in Republican congressional offices? The more we hear from Republicans on Benghazi, the more the naked partisanship shows. Can anyone now doubt that this is only about scoring partisan points?”

   Tie it to promotion

Gillibrand’s bill doesn’t really go far enough, the more I think about all those poor, vulnerable penguins….

“I appreciate the fact that President Obama is taking the problem of rape and sexual assault in the military seriously, but I have my doubts about how seriously the Pentagon is taking the situation. So why not hit them where it hurts? For any officer up for any type of promotion, create an explicit review of how many sexual assaults and other problems occurred under that officer’s command. Too high a rate? No promotion. Those with the highest rates in their military branch should be transferred to the most remote dead-end postings available, or demoted, or even discharged. The head of the IRS was just fired because he was ultimately responsible for what happened on his watch. Any private corporation would fire the boss of any department with an obvious sexual assault problem. The military is supposed to set the gold standard for accountability and taking responsibility for those under any officer’s command. So why not hold these officers responsible? You want to change the culture in the military overnight? Send some officers to Antarctica to count penguins. I bet that would do it.”

   National Privacy Association?

This one is just wishful thinking, unfortunately.

“In seeing how much time and energy the Justice Department puts into wiretapping and searching reporters’ phone data — to say nothing of such efforts against those who aren’t journalists — I find myself wishing that there were an organization devoted to the Fourth Amendment in the same way the National Rifle Association was dedicated to protecting the Second Amendment. Maybe America needs a National Privacy Association, what do you think?”

   Why voting matters

The ultimate argument for the importance of voting, really.

“Christina Mercado just won an election to a school board in Texas by a margin of one vote this week. What is truly astounding, though, is that the vote that put Mercado over the top was, in fact, the only vote cast in the race for any candidate. Her opponent didn’t even bother to vote, apparently. Kids, there’s a lesson here: your vote is important! Don’t forget to vote — especially when you are a candidate yourself — because your vote may well be the one that makes all the difference!”

   Questioning my quiche! Denigrating my dumplings!

Amazingly enough, that wasn’t the most bizarre story of the week.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to ask what in the heck Republican Representative Louie Gohmert was alluding to during the appearance of Eric Holder in front of his committee. Gohmert was upset that Holder was, and I quote, casting aspersions on my asparagus. Unquote. Um, aspersions? On his asparagus? Now, I can usually decode what Republicans are saying or at least trying to say, but I have to admit I’ve watched the video a number of times, and I am still completely stumped on this one. Maybe Holder said something nasty about Britney Spears, and Gohmert just misinterpreted it? OK, I apologize, that was a pretty bad pun, but still — can anyone tell me what Gohmert was thinking? Anyone?”

Chris Weigant blogs at:

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© 2013 Chris Weigant. This article is reproduced by permission of the author. All rights reserved.

The Internet has really revolutionized insomnia. By 5:00 this morning I had already finished watching a Julian Lennon interview from 1999 and several videos of cats riding Roombas, before rashly moving on to footage of speeches from the NRA’s recent annual meeting in Houston.

The only thing rivaling . . . → Read More: Take Five (Talking Second Amendment Blues edition)]]> ONE: Apocalypse Whenever

The Internet has really revolutionized insomnia. By 5:00 this morning I had already finished watching a Julian Lennon interview from 1999 and several videos of cats riding Roombas, before rashly moving on to footage of speeches from the NRA’s recent annual meeting in Houston.

The only thing rivaling the brimstone stink of the rhetoric at this year’s conclave was a Zombie Industries product being hawked there, a female target mannequin – christened “The Ex” – capable of bleeding when shot. Another one of the company’s range of charming models – “Bleeding Rocky Zombie” – had been removed from the company’s kiosk at the NRA’s request due to its resemblance to President Obama. “The Ex” was hastily renamed “Alexa” after the marketing geniuses at Zombie Industries finally decided there is such a thing as bad press after all.

The NRA’s rare circumspection over “Bleeding Rocky Zombie” was deeply overshadowed by the vicious, imbecilic sentiments of many of the convention’s speakers, starting with those of the organization’s executive vice president and perennial poster boy for vicious imbecility, irascible pipsqueak Wayne LaPierre.

After a warm introduction from everyone’s favorite America-hating felon, Oliver North, LaPierre manned the podium to talk about gun control pretty much the way people in the 1940s talked about the Axis powers:

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation fight for everything we care about. We have a chance to secure our freedom for a generation, or to lose it forever

… we will never surrender our guns, never!

… they’re coming after us with a vengeance, to destroy us, to destroy us and every ounce of our freedom.

LaPierre’s apocalyptic spew was echoed by speaker after speaker after speaker, with frenetic attempts to link any and all gun regulation measures to an undefined but existential threat to The Republic itself. Maybe the NRA was offering a free howitzer to the speaker who could ratchet up the nativist paranoia the highest. Chris Cox, executive director of the Institute for Legislative action, the NRA’s lobbying operation, certainly gave it his all, deftly sounding multiple dog whistles while the crowd bayed for more:

Make no mistake. We are in a culture war. Where we once faced hundreds of voices against us, there are now thousands attacking us every day, from Organizing for America to Code Pink to Occupy the NRA, Wall Street, and for that matter, Occupy Anything-but-a-Job.

Outgoing NRA president David Keene warned of the regulatory Ragnarok to come:

We all know that, as we meet here, our opponents are regrouping, and we know that they’ll be back. They’re as dedicated today as they have ever been to consigning you and me and all those who believe in the freedoms guaranteed us by this nation’s Founders to the outer darkness.

Keene’s successor, Jim Porter, kept it old school, treating his audience to the sort of seditious innuendo he knew they craved:

You know, last fall just before the elections, as community organizer-in-chief, President Obama demanded that his followers extract “revenge”. I can’t remember a president ever publicly using that word against fellow Americans.

Porter probably meant to say “exact” but it hardly matters since everything else out of his mouth was incorrect, much of it deliberately so:

[Obama]‘s now threatening Democratic senators who are friends of NRA. He will destroy them if he can… you know, Obama is meeting and plotting with the “who’s who” of the gun ban movement, scheming to create a gun control by bureaucracy.

Threatening, scheming, plotting… yes, that sure sounds like Barack Obama. And Porter brought some dog whistles of his own:

President Barack Obama is AWOL on virtually every critical threat facing this nation… but there’s one issue where Obama is not AWOL: gun control. But there’s something Obama will never, never understand: you, me, our friends, neighbors, coworkers, colleagues and family, and the larger family of patriots who know that the Second Amendment, the freedom of our Republic, trumps the Chicago political machine and its gun ban agenda every time.

Now, as basic frothing at the mouth goes, that’s not bad, but the NRA’s in-house cranks all lack a certain vim, a certain telegenic je ne sais quoi. For that, they turned to the inimitable Glenn Beck, who obliged in spades, oozing fake sincerity all over the floorboards of the stage for 100 white-knuckled minutes. Beck’s was a soliloquy equal parts hair-on-fire millenarian sermon and triumphalist Thousand-Year Reich chest-thumping. He seemed to draw inspiration from a smorgasbord of conflicting sources: the Bible, the Constitution, the Letter from Birmingham Jail, Atlas Shrugged, the Port Huron Statement, and perhaps even the cover of Sgt. Pepper:

Our right to keep and bear arms will not be infringed. We will follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ. We will follow the footsteps of Frederick Douglass, Winston Churchill, Thomas Paine, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ben-Gurion, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King. Hear me now. Hear me now. We shall overcome. Let us not talk any more about our cold, dead hands, but rather act, rather be the people who have a cause to use our hands…

Yes, because people who don’t have a cause to use their hands might as well not even have hands. Like, why are the most self-evident truths the ones most in need of repeating by visionaries like Glenn Beck? But what the hell are they all going to do with their hands? Beck had it covered:

… we will work together as Americans, not only to preserve our rights, but the rights of our children to be safe, our wives and our daughters to not be held at gunpoint, not be raped…

Possibly sensing that he was stepping on his own message with the “held at gunpoint” bit, he tacked vigorously toward the sublime:

We will not be the generation that loses mankind’s freedom. Instead, let us declare to one another that we, instead, will be the generation that historians look back to with awe and wonder, and say: How did they do it? They’ll look back for inspiration, that even in our darkest times, with the greatest reason for doubt and fear, we rose above it. We pushed the darkness back. We held the torch of liberty. We held it high for all men to see and aspire to…

And – bonus! – made damned sure that universal background checks would never spoil anybody’s Constitutionally enshrined firearm fun. Win-win! Keenly aware of the zealotry hanging moistly over the room, Beck shrewdly pitched his closing comments like unto a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal for his audience:

Jesus was a man of love. He was a man of peace. He was a man of forgiveness. But make no mistake; Jesus Christ was also immovable. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and we will win by strapping on the full armor of God. We shall stand firm with the belt of truth, with the breastplate of righteousness, with the shield of faith, with the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit. We will fight their tactics of fear, we will fight their tactics of darkness, we will fight their lies, and we will counter them with love, peace and equal justice for all mankind.

And as much ammo as they can hoard, I expect.

TWO: Nonsense and Sensibility

Beck’s unusual wardrobe tips weren’t the only practical advice on offer in Houston. There was also this, from the “Home Defense Concepts” seminar by Rob Pincus:

How about putting a quick-access [gun] safe in your kids’ room?

Uh, well, how about it, Rob?

In the middle of the night… if that alarm goes off and the glass breaks and the dog starts barking, what’s the instinct that most people are going to have, in regards to, “am I going to run across the house to get the gun, or am I going to run over here to help the screaming kid?” And if I’m going to go to the kid anyway, and I have an extra gun and an extra safe, why not put it in their closet?

Uh-huh. What on earth could go wrong with that idea? Personally, I think it would be easier to put the kid in the safe and avoid the cost and hassle of buying the extra gun, but I guess I just don’t appreciate gun culture. Happily, a lot of other Americans don’t either; a recent TPM article looked at dramatically diminished approval ratings for Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Begich and other senators who voted to kill the Manchin-Toomey gun bill. Ironically, since some of these senators voted as they did simply to pander to their constituents, you might say they shot themselves in the foot.

A recent movie tie-in “character promotion” in Jefferson City received similarly bad ratings, especially from the local PD:

During the opening weekend of the latest ‘Iron Man’ movie, a man walked into the theater in full tactical gear and carrying a fake gun…

“We received a series of 911 calls stating that a man dressed in all black and body armor and a rifle was walking into Capital 8 Theaters,” said Capt. Doug Shoemaker…

Capital 8 Theaters manager Bob Wilkins told ABC 17 News this was planned months in advance and only a few people were upset, but hundreds were entertained.

When asked if management took into consideration what happened in the mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater, Wilkins responded, “Absolutely. That’s my number-one priority every day. It’s the safety and security of our guests.”

That and shooting his mouth off, apparently.

THREE: Time Tunnel Vision

Back in 1991, amazingly, on-line videos of spluttering gun nuts or feline robot vacuum cleaner jockeys would not have been available options for a sleepless night. Assuming I’d been able to connect at all, for a very short while I’d have had only one option, a simple little site about something very optimistically described as the World Wide Web. Twenty-two years later, the world’s first website, created by Tim Berners-Lee and his team at CERN, is live again at its original URL. What you’ll find there is a 1992 version of the site, but CERN is still combing its archives for the original version from the year before.

The revived site probably won’t turn any heads at next week’s 2013 Webby Awards, but I suspect it will still be sticky when Gangnam Style and Grumpy Cat are long forgotten. And it still looks a damn sight better than, say, infamous self-described “premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web,” Free Republic.

History of the non-virtual sort was rediscovered on April 22 at Oklahoma City’s First Lutheran Church when a time capsule was dug out and opened 100 years to the day after it had been buried beneath the church basement:

Some of the more notable contents included:
• an antique telephone patented in 1891,
• a pair of shiny leather shoes retailing in 1913 for $5,
• a map of Oklahoma City
• several documents detailing city plans
• and sealed letters addressed to the current generation

Its cool contents notwithstanding, First Lutheran’s “Century Chest” has nothing on Pearl Cantrell, a Texas woman who was five years old when the time capsule was buried. Ms. Cantrell’s recent 105th birthday attracted a lot of media attention, and of course a raft of questions about her anti-aging secret. It turns out that she attributes her longevity to cured pig meat:

“I love bacon, I could eat it for every meal–and I do!”

And she’s not ashamed to proselytize about it:

“I want other people to eat bacon, I tell them too. My kids all eat it.”

The Oscar Mayer Company honored Ms. Cantrell’s 105th with a gift of bacon, and even dispatched a Wienermobile to chauffeur her around her hometown, Richland Springs.

FOUR: Take Me Out to the Trough

I don’t know if Pearl Cantrell is a baseball fan, but if she is, I hope she votes in MiLB’s exciting #Foodfight contest. Take Five looked at the wondrous Boomstick and other colossal MLB eats back in April, but it’s obvious that the minor leagues aren’t about to forfeit snacking supremacy to the big clubs.

Round 1 of the contest began yesterday and continues through the 29th, followed by a playoff round featuring the winners out of the 16 competing items in each of four different categories: Gut Busters, Hogs’n'Dogs, Local Legends, and Scrumptious Sandwiches.

The first category, of course, is where it all gets real. The Akron Aeros’ entry, the Three Dog Night, consists of “a hot dog, stuffed inside a bratwurst, stuffed inside a kielbasa, served on a hoagie roll and topped with sauerkraut and ballpark mustard,” while the Lake County Captains counter with the Moby Dick, which “includes five quarter-pound fish filets, eight slices of cheese, 6 oz. of clam strips, one-third pound of French fries and a cup of coleslaw, all topped with gobs of lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and tartar sauce and packed in a 15-inch hoagie roll.”

Unless I miss my guess, though, I think Ms. Cantrell’s favorite category will be Hogs’n'Dogs, where she can vote for the Omaha Storm Chasers’ OmaHog Dog, “with BBQ pulled pork, applewood smoked bacon and nacho cheese atop a grilled Hebrew National hot dog,” or perhaps the VooDoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Brat, courtesy of the Eugene Emeralds, an imposing bratwurst wrapped in a Bacon Maple Bar doughnut.

FIVE: Simbalicious?

Outrageous food items like those noted above tend to draw, naturally enough, occasional outrage, but so far nothing on the order of the ire provoked recently by Tampa’s Taco Fusion. The restaurant is noted for unique fillings – alligator, bison, elk, kangaroo, bear, shark. zebra – but restaurateur Ryan Gougeon may have gone a taco too far with his lion taco, a $35 creation filled with the meat of farmed lions.

“My general manager was just attacked. A guy came in, took a swing at him and missed,” he said. “They had a brief wrestling match, but the guy ran for it. That was two hours ago. Some other guy just called saying he’s on the way in now to fight us.”

Tampa police are now investigating a number of death threats the managers said they received, according to a police spokeswoman.

The groundswell of fury soon led to Taco Fusion removing it from its menu, but after further consideration, it was reintroduced, and so was the outrage, according to restaurant manager Brad Barnett:

“They say they are going to bomb us, burn us down, blow us up.”

Gougeon and Barnett might want to reach out to Pearl Cantrell for an endorsement. Who would try to bomb, burn or blow up a 105-year-old lady?

You recently made the following statement on the Sean Hannity Show:

“I watched Benghazi with great interest, Sean, and I think it is one of worst incidents, frankly, that I can recall in my career.”

Really, dick? Apparently your memory of the events . . . → Read More: A WORD, If I May?]]> A word with Richard “The Dick” Cheney:

You recently made the following statement on the Sean Hannity Show:

“I watched Benghazi with great interest, Sean, and I think it is one of worst incidents, frankly, that I can recall in my career.”

Really, dick? Apparently your memory of the events you’ve seen over the span of your career is faulty at best, or you are yet again engaging in a deliberate, self-serving attempt to catapult the propaganda your administration was famous for.

I would think (as would most people, I’m sure) that lying a nation into war might stand out in one’s memory as one of the “worst incidents” to be recalled in one’s career – especially when one was actually the author of those lies.

Let me refresh your memory as to what YOU are responsible for – and maybe you can explain your faulty memory to the following:

Every soldier who lost his or her life fighting a war based on your lies.

Every child growing up without a mom or a dad, because a parent never made it home from their tour.

Every mother and father who grieves the loss of a son or daughter who died on a battlefield created for your political goals.

Every widow and widower who will never hold a beloved spouse again due to your malicious dishonesty.

Every man or woman who had to bury a cherished brother or sister, niece or nephew, cousin or friend, as a result of your blatant untruths.

Every community that lost a neighbor, a local merchant, a selfless firefighter, a dedicated teacher, a devoted healthcare practitioner, a skilled craftsman, an auto mechanic, a plumber, an electrician – and all of those who contributed to their community in ways great and small.

Every soldier who will spend his/her life in a wheelchair, or a hospital bed – every soldier who will never experience another peaceful night’s sleep due to the nightmares they came to know in the furtherance of your contrived “war.”

Add to the above every Iraqi mother who watched her child killed or maimed due to your lies, or cradles a baby born with horrific birth defects thanks to your endless pursuit of carnage at any cost.

Every Iraqi father who was made to stand helplessly as he saw his son dragged off to Abu Ghraib, or cried hopelessly as his traumatized daughter described the violence she witnessed and endured.

Every Iraqi citizen who saw their beautiful country systematically destroyed, their culture spat upon, their priceless art stolen, their invaluable archaeological treasures pillaged, their revered ancient sites reduced to rubble.

Every Iraqi child who was orphaned, every school that was leveled, every hospital that was blown out of existence, every business that was shuttered, every citizen who had his religious beliefs disgraced, every man, woman and child who watched their homeland decimated while you masturbated to the sounds of “shock and awe.”

Every man or woman who was imprisoned, every man or woman who was tortured; every potential ally who was turned into a potential terrorist, bent on revenge against all Americans for what was done to their people, under your direction, in America’s name.

Every world citizen who once revered the American way of life, and now despises it. Every global neighbor who once respected our nation, and now abhors it.

Every American who once took pride in their country, and now knows the shame of having been misled by murdering thieves like yourself.  Every citizen who now knows the humiliation of being unworthy of anyone’s trust, who now knows the disrespect that continues to be our nation’s due as a result of your actions.

In view of the aforesaid, the very notion that you would categorize anything said or done by the current administration as one of the “worst incidents” you’ve ever witnessed is insulting enough. The fact that you made that statement in regards to an alleged Benghazi cover-up, something based on the same types of lies you relied on to lead a nation into an unnecessary and devastating war, is beyond despicable.

I would remind you, dick, that the President your party is so desperate to besmirch is the man whose most pressing responsibility is to attempt to undo the damage you, your little puppet prez, and your war criminal colleagues did to our credibility as a people and our well-being as a citizenry.

I would also remind you, dick, that President Barack Hussein Obama has gained the trust of world leaders, has forged friendships with our global neighbors, and has earned the respect of people the world over – things that your Clown-in-Chief couldn’t accomplish during his eight years in office, most of which he spent soused in Crawford, partying while a US city drowned, or making a goddamned fool of himself on the international stage.

You may try to convince the world, and yourself, that lying a nation into war isn’t the worst thing someone entrusted with the responsibilities of the highest office in the land can do – but I have a feeling history will see things differently, and will ultimately tell a far different tale.

But fear not – your name will be remembered long after you’re gone. And I’ve no doubt that, as the song goes, people will “look down and spit on the ground every time the name gets mentioned.”