Wonkette

So, this is my last post at Wonkette. I could go all Emily about it, but I’m not that introspective a person and it just happened today so I haven’t thought it through that much. I’ll be contributing over at Jezebel in the coming weeks, so I hope to see some of you in the comment threads over there. I would like to say, though, that I appreciate those of you who have been reading, who have challenged my assumptions and my assertions and made me think harder and write better. I hope to continue those conversations in the future over there and/or at my public personal blog. In any case, I’m about to pull a Hillary, so I’m going to stop now. It’s been great working for you guys.

Wonkette video artist Eric Brewer interviewed Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings after their stellar performance at the Black Cat last night. Sharon, no stranger to hard work, dishes on politics and D.C. and why she appreciates the value of experience in the candidate for whom she plans to vote. Plus, you know, she sings which is totally worth watching just on its own.

Dean Hrbacek is from Sugar Land, Texas, the home of former Congressman Tom “Corrupt Asshole” DeLay and he’s one of 10 Republicans vying for the right to challenge Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson for his seat in the fall. He’s also, apparently, a bit pudgy. So pudgy, in fact, that his own staff Photoshopped his head onto the body of a slimmer man, ostensibly because he didn’t have the time to sit for a portrait for his campaign literature. His chief of staff, Scott Broschart said, “He may appreciate that we took a few pounds off him,” so we thought we’d earn some of his appreciation by helping out just a little bit more. [Houston Chronicle]

While Congress and the President keep talking about rebate checks, the real question on everyone’s lips is: When? The answer is that the IRS would probably start mailing out checks at the end of June, assuming Congress and the President did this thing quickly. The real question, though, is whether you’d get a check even if you didn’t owe any income taxes. If you had to pay $800 (or $1,600 for marrieds) in income taxes to earn the full rebate, fully 40 percent of the country wouldn’t qualify. But, if our illustrious leaders make it “fully refundable,” meaning that you’d get a “rebate” even if you didn’t pay that much in taxes, it would basically be a rebate on your Social Security payments. But Jason Furman of the Brookings Institute swears that it wouldn’t affect the so-called Social Security Trust Fund in the least, so I guess that’s ok then. [CNN]

There is a long-standing and completely pointless Naval tradition called the Herndon Climb, in which somebody greases up a 21 foot granite pole, tops it with a hat and makes 1,000 young men and women try to scale it while dousing them with water and nobody says anything about gays in the military. It might, however, be on its way out because the Naval Academy is afraid someone might get hurt. Apparently, they don’t teach or allow any irony whatsoever, as a school that is ostensibly training only straight men and women to go to war is afraid that having them engage in climbing a greased-up stone shaft because someone might get hurt. After the jump, some pictures of this proud, but potentially dying tradition.

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Elaine Donnelly is the crazy right-wing lady who keeps calling Fort Hood to get Hot Gay Army Medic Darren Manzella fired for his audacious crime of not staying in the closet or out of the military as the Jeebus intended. Doesn’t she look like fun? Well, since calling his bosses all the time to demand that he be drummed out of the Army wasn’t good enough, she’s now used her illustrious position as a blogger for the National Review Online to demand that he be gotten rid of for the sake of the morale of the soldiers, some of whose lives he saved during his two tours as an Army Medic in Iraq. Oh, and she’s got her granny panties in a wad over the following photo of soldiers behaving badly.

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As far as Tom “Riding the Botox Needle” DeLay is concerned, John McCain is a betraying, soulless, amoral and unprincipled piece of shit, and DeLay is really intimately familiar with betraying, soulless amoral and unprincipled pieces of shit because he owns 3 dozen mirrors and masturbates daily in front of every one of them. He’s also not a fan of Rudy Giuliani because Rudy looks better in a dress and gets more ass then he does. If either of them wins the primaries, he’s staying home. Unsurprisingly, he’s a big fan of the Huckles. [The Hill, via Schecter]

P.S. Santorum hates McCain too. Damn, Walnuts is starting to look kind of hot.

Ok, see, Barry, this is how this thing is supposed to work. You’ve very craftily built your political appeal by not appearing to be a politician despite being a politician, and that’s not an easy thing. You talk about Hope(TM) and Change(TM) and you play the nice guy, the argument-soothing middle child, and then you win stuff and, you know, good for you for playing the game well. Your staff, though, as I’ve mentioned before, needs to get on board your “nice” train or stop talking to the press. A case in point is your spokesman Bill Burton.

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In June 2006, Steven Howard — an environmental consultant with high morals but little sense — decided it would be a great idea to sort of maybe kinda shove Darth Cheney to get his attention so that he could tell him what a shit he is about Iraq. To Darth’s credit, he didn’t immediately disembowel Steve because of the children present, but Steve did get picked up by the Secret Service and had to sit in a county jail cell for three hours.

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Former South Dakota legislator Ted Klaudt was convicted in Blowvember for sexually abusing his foster daughters while telling them his was examining them for their suitability as egg donors. Ted, by the way, isn’t a doctor. He was sentenced yesterday to 44 years in prison and won’t be eligible to apply for parole for until 2030. Ted’s lawyer had argued for a lesser sentence because a 50 year-old, 600 pound man is likely to die in prison, but, really, that’s a fate that Ted could’ve prevented by NOT RAPING HIS FOSTER DAUGHTERS so the judge and I and probably most of the rest of the world don’t really give a shit. Enjoy prison, short eyes. [Fox News]

You know why John Edwards is lagging behind in the polls? It’s not because he hasn’t held political office in several years, or that he’s running on a pseudo-populist and somewhat depressing message as an incredibly rich man when all anyone wants to hear these days is about Change(TM), or that he was never running particularly high in the national polls as soon as it was clear that Hillary and Obama were gonna run. Nope! John Edwards is doing poorly because the press doesn’t pay him enough attention. If he could just get his picture taken more and if they would just stop harping already on the fact that he’s polling behind Obama and Clinton, he would obviously be doing better. Aww, honey, we’ll pay you some attention! Does this feel better? [CNN]

Campaigning in South Carolina today, Mittens made an effort to distinguish his obviously beyond-reproach campaign by trying to point out to reporters that McCain’s got lobbyists, those bloodsuckers of the American political establishment, on the payroll. His little presser got sidetracked, though, when a reporter pointed out that one of his prominent (unpaid) advisers, Ron Kaufman, works for the prominent lobbying firm Dutko Worldwide. They then fuss and fight and, at the end, some batty old lady tells Mittens that he’s ugly. I just think someone probably needs a nap. [CBS, Politico]

Vietnam Veterans Against McCain is this group distributing fliers in South Carolina about how John McCain is a traitor and screwed over other soldiers in Vietnam while being held and tortured by the North Vietnamese. It’s run by Gerard W. Kiley who also hated John Kerry in 2004 because, apparently, Mr. Kiley is the only heroic Vietnam veteran ever. It’s members include… Gerard W. Kiley of Garnerville, New York. So, it’s really more like A Vietnam Veteran Against McCain, backed by a bunch of money from other people who really don’t like McCain but didn’t realize that one pissed off old guy in Rockland County, New York does not a good movement make and that occasionally reporters fact-check. [NY Times]