Karl Rove (Asshole Still) $$$ & SEX Always Win! (The Latest Manchurian Candidate, Buffet's Box & Ours)

(If throwing a contribution Pottersville2's way won't break your budget in these difficult financial times, I really need it, and would wholeheartedly appreciate it. Anything you can afford will make a huge difference in this blog's lifetime.)

Karl Rove is not scared of Sarah Palin or so they say. He's also not scared of being a total asshole either. If one political operative has been exposed as a corrupt "brillant" fraud any more than Rove, please somebody tell me whom? (And can you imagine the married name of his "new" girlfriend if she had married the other gay guy?)

Karl Rove is a relentless self-promoter and consummate campaign dirty trickster who's never been quite as brilliant as he wants everyone to think he is. (You don't have to be "brilliant" to win elections when you're able to raise unlimited funds and willing to just be dirty as hell.) He is the subject of a New York Magazine profile about his role in the post-Bush Republican party. He is still helping Republicans win elections, by raising a lot of money.

Fun fact: Rove, who divorced his wife of 24 years in 2009, is now openly dating lobbyist Karen Johnson. Johnson sat on Bush's Business Council when he was governor of Texas, and worked for his transition team in 2000, which helped her lobbying business immensely. Rove and Johnson have been rumored to be having an affair for years. The former incarnation of Radar Magazine reported the rumor in 2005. In 2008 Radar claimed that Johnson's family was urging her to leave Rove and settle down with a ranch foreman named (no joke) Rhett Hard. Looks like that is no longer necessary. Johnson's business partner is of course Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch where Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington in the face. (This ranch is also where Rove spends a lot of time hanging out with wealthy GOP donors.) Ok, so, what else do we learn about Rove? He still thinks he's secretly a policy wonk, he nearly went broke during his legal troubles and divorce, he got his Fox job by just calling up his good friend Roger Ailes and saying he needed cash ("a Fox spokesperson says that Ailes doesn’t recall that version of events"), and Fox pays him much less than they pay Palin. He claims there is no such thing as the "Republican establishment" that meets in backrooms to plot out the future of the party and anoint candidates, but also this happened: Last spring, Rove was ready to don the crown. He gathered the old tribes together and effectively anointed himself their leader, holding a breakfast at his house in D.C. with eighteen leaders of rival pacs, including former Nixon and Bush 41 confidant and GOP fund-raiser Fred Malek, of American Action Network, and Mary Cheney, Dick’s daughter, representing the Partnership for America’s Future. The anxious group was packed into Rove’s cramped living room, his two massive, ceiling-high shelves of history books looming over them. Rove also mocks Sarah Palin and wishes that Jeb Bush would run for president. Rove is not scared of Palin - or of Rush Limbaugh - which looks like political bravery but is really just the knowledge that the base that the rest of the GOP is in thrall to is actually a relatively small demographic segment of the electorate. And his Crossroads money-raising machine will probably have a significant role in deciding who gets the 2012 GOP nomination, even though Rove doesn't particularly like any of the candidates involved. (The profile is illustrated with a photo of Rove taken by artist Andres Serrano, known among non-art aficionados primarily for his 1987 piece "Piss Christ." I assume this is New York having a bit of fun.)

That last part was just for fun. I care a great deal about domestic policies, particularly those affecting the bottom strata of the country: the poor, homeless, jobless, children. In light of this I can no longer not say what I think of a candidate who campaigned one way and seems to be able to compromise away every value that I thought we shared during the campaign. What do you think? From my friend at Eye on Washington we get his take on the latest Manchurian Candidate (emphasis marks and some editing were inserted - Ed.):

President Obama is the Manchurian President bought and paid for by Wall Street oligarchs and robber barons. He lied to get our vote. He has abandoned the teachers, and public sector workers who walked the streets of America getting out his vote. He has turned his back on the hard working, everyday workers who have been ripped off by the people who now surround him in the White House: Geithner, Gensler, Bernanke, Immelt, Daley, Donilon, Rubin, and the list can go on and on.

It is time to run a Progressives United candidate, Mr. Russ Feingold. It is time to declare this candidate now. It is time to shake up the liars, the fakes, the hypocrites, the Regressives, and the neo-fascists wanting to take down the average American so the uber-rich can have more for themselves. All of this is now sponsored by Mr. Barack Obushama. Just Say No To President Obushama!

And why are the biggest corporations paying little to no taxes? Why (i)s GE, Mr. Jeff Immelt's former company (one of) the biggest tax cheats in the USA? Why are many hugely profitable corporations paying less than the average hard working American, Mr. Obushama?

We learn the coolest inside info from Bess Levin at DealBreaker:

Warren Buffett Claims To Only Like One Kind Of Box When Charlie and I met Todd Combs, we knew he fit our requirements. Todd, as was the case with Lou, will be paid a salary plus a contingent payment based on his performance relative to the S&P. We have arrangements in place for deferrals and carryforwards that will prevent see-saw performance being met by undeserved payments.

The hedge-fund world has witnessed some terrible behavior by general partners who have received huge payouts on the upside and who then, when bad results occurred, have walked away rich, with their limited partners losing back their earlier gains. Sometimes these same general partners thereafter quickly started another fund so that they could immediately participate in future profits without having to overcome their past losses.

Investors who put money with such managers should be labeled patsies, not partners. As long as I am CEO, I will continue to manage the great majority of Berkshire’s holdings, both bonds and equities. Todd initially will manage funds in the range of one to three billion dollars, an amount he can reset annually. His focus will be equities but he is not restricted to that form of investment. (Fund consultants like to require style boxes such as “long-short,” “macro,” “international equities.” At Berkshire our only style box is “smart.”)

Oh yes, and keep voting for those cute, upstanding Rethugs! Aren't they just darling? From Chuck for . . . : My friend over at Liberality has some words of wisdom we all need right now. Arise, sisters and brothers!

The Sex Laboring Class Saturday, February 26, 2011 This blogger is still cranky over here in the nutty state of Indiana. What is really making me cranky is the assault going on against women in our country. Losing choice means narrowing your options. The crazies don't care how you get knocked up ladies, or even if getting knocked up will kill you. These are very dangerous times to be a female in this rape culture. The crazies are so extreme that even if you are a child, too bad for you, now get busy and have that baby. Women are obviously completely disposable to these groups. Another Middle Eastern religion, Christianity, as practiced by the extremely stupid, will work to make women second class citizens once again. Freedom is taken just like that - and codified into law. The agendas that the GOP in state legislatures are enacting all over this country makes me really cranky.

My daughter, my granddaughters, my nieces, their daughters: ALL women deserve freedom and not a return to second class status.Unions are another group under attack, especially unions that women are primarily the members of, such as teacher's unions. Some of the union groups that men primarily belong to are not on the chopping block with the hope that these guys will stand with the GOP rather than their unions.

So, how many feminists are there really in this country? ______________________