Wonkette

If Americans know one thing about the Foreigns (and sometimes that’s a near thing), it’s that they live in Foreign countries, which, obviously, are hellholes of awfulness and despair. Guess if they didn’t want to be crapped on day and night by a malevolent universe, they should have lived in America! This week, the Foreigns introduces you to some happenings overseas that we can safely laugh at only because they only happen to Foreign types, but otherwise they’d be pretty depressing. MORE »

What have they done to Dennis now? The happy little candidate was kicked out of tonight’s debate for no good reason, and then he went to court to get back in, and then MSNBC went to the state supreme court and just got him re-kicked out. Jesus, what did Kucinich to do anybody? We will seek him out, by looking for his very tall, hot wife. And then we’ll ask him how he feels or whatever.

Kucinich Will Sit It Out [Las Vegas Sun]

If you laughed at Taser Boy saying “Don’t taze me bro,” then you are a fascist and this is now fascism so maybe next time you will give Taser Boy some respect or something. Also, stop laughing, it’s not funny! [CBC]

As proven by this photograph from Rudy Giuliani’s Wednesday campaign appearance in Sioux City, there is actually a political demographic for the opera-loving cross-dressing Manhattan fascist. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for the rest of us, they are adult Star Wars fanatics, and there are only about a dozen of them in each state.

Giuliani fits River-Cade parade in at last minute [Sioux City Journal]

While we had to say good-bye to Tom Vilsack’s beloved totalitarian police-state campaign, this video reminds us that Hillary Clinton is a much better police-state totalitarian war monster than old Winnie the Pooh-head. MORE »

Vladimir Putin’s bloody war against his critics finally made it to Washington last week, when KGB expert Paul Joyal was shot outside his Prince George’s County house — four days after NBC Dateline broadcast Joyal’s accusation that Putin ordered the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

Joyal had just returned home from a meeting with an ex-KGB general “at a restaurant next to the International Spy Museum in downtown Washington,” the International Herald Tribune helpfully notes, when he was shot in the groin.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the rest is after the jump.

MORE »

* The childlike designs of Betsey Johnson are so relevant to Washington, she’s putting on a fashion show at Avenue tonight. Part of DC Fashion Week. [DC Fashion Week]
* Joe Conason talks about It Can Happen Here at Politics & Prose. The “it” is fascism, because “when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” Free at 7PM. [P&P]
* German Riesling class at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, $45 at 7PM. [Smithsonian]

Let’s hope all 2008 campaign advertising is as creepy as this unofficial Obama For President poster. MORE »

Cyber-libertarian hero R.U. Sirius asked some Great Minds if America has already become a fascist state, but he also asked Wonkette’s West Coast Bureau Chief (who used to write for R.U.’s Getting It) to answer the question. The somber yet comical results can be found at 10 Zen Monkeys, Mr. Sirius’ delightful new webzine. MORE »

The New York Observer today features a lengthy and hilarious investigation into the public, online meltdown of New Republic culture critic Lee Siegel, who, after penning a blog for TNR in which he attacked all other bloggers and those associated with them (in the process coining the term “blogofascism”), later dove into the comment threads of his own posts to defend himself. Using a goofy alias, of course, and lots of blogofascistic language. Naturally, at some point in his storied career of pissing people off, he pissed off Christopher Hitchens — so they took it to the streets! Or, uh, to their respective inboxes. MORE »

• Laura Bush, proud owner of a 73% approval rating, just called herself a feminist. [HuffPo]

• When you realize you can’t please everyone, call in the soldiers. [Talking Points Memo]
• Al Gore made some jokes about his would-be presidency. Al Gore. Jokes. Presidency. Convulse with fear accordingly. [Wizbang]
• We’ve been pretending Avril Lavigne doesn’t exist for entirely too long. [Booman Tribune]
• Fascist Chic: Because being cloaked in anything other than the comforting musings of George ‘n Jesus is so last-season Republican. [unbossed]

Last night on “The O’Reilly Factor,” in a debate about the teaching of intelligent design, Bill O’Reilly dropped his own personal F-bomb:

O’REILLY: But what the argument is is that nothing about intelligent design should be introduced. And I think that’s fascism.

Kind of a low bar, really. We wondered what else O’Reilly might think is fascism.

Via Nexis, a partial list:

• The tactics of the ACLU
• Not letting city halls have a nativity display
• Prohibiting schools from calling winter break “Christmas holidays”
• Laws that ban discrimination against people with piercings
• The Virginia Military Institute not allowing time for voluntary prayer
• A flat tax on the wealthy
• Really, the tactics of the ACLU
• The Justice Department not answering his questions
• Crowds who shout down Arnold Schwarznegger
• Seriously, the ACLU is bad
• Liberal 527 groups
• Exposing kids to racy images is “libertine fascism,” and we’re just going to let that lie.

But, just so you know, a lot of things aren’t fascist. As he told Charlton Heston, you have to watch out when the other side makes that claim, like, say, when you withdraw funding from controversial art:

I mean, they say — take a big, full-page ad out in “The New York Times” — it cost a lot of money — and say, “Hey…this is fascism”… You know, the — the typical overblown statements. (October 12, 1999)

More typical overblown statements after the jump.

MORE »