Southern Grace and Charm Be Damned . . . .

Oh dear!  What will we tell the children??:

Last month, Food Network chef Paula Deen gave a videotaped deposition as part of a discrimination suit she’s facing in which she discussed her desire to have a “very southern style wedding” for her brother modeled after a restaurant where the “whole entire wait staff was middle-aged black men” clad in white jackets and black bow ties, according to a transcript of the deposition filed in federal court in Georgia. Deen also admitted to having used the N word and discussed the ways the word could be “not said in a mean way.”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/06/paula-deen-racial.php


Yikes!

But wait dear reader!  It gets much, much better:

As evidence that Deen “holds such racist views herself,” the complaint details an incident that occurred when Jackson was in charge of “food and serving arrangements” at Hier’s wedding in 2007. The complaint includes a comment Deen allegedly made when asked by Jackson what type of uniforms the servers should wear at the wedding.

“Well what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around,” the lawsuit claims Deen said. “Now that would be a true southern wedding, wouldn’t it? But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”

Billips also asked Deen whether she thought “jokes” containing the N word would be hurtful. Deen said she was unsure.

“That’s kind of hard. Most — most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks. Most jokes target — I don’t know. I didn’t make up the jokes, I don’t know,” said Deen. “They usually target, though, a group. Gays or straights, black, redneck, you know, I just don’t know — I just don’t know what to say. I can’t, myself, determine what offends another person.”

The Gadfly was not familiar with this Paula Deen "celebrity" person until a year or so ago when a "news" story came out recounting how this, apparently very popular television "chef," who's high calorie, southern recipes are renowned for containing heart-attack inducing amounts of fat, salt and sugar, had been, astonishingly, diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.

Setting that inanity aside though, and back to the story at hand, what kind of person is incapable of determining, of their own cognitive thinking abilities, whether or not certain words might "offend another person" - particularly words that exist exclusively to commit such offense?

So basically Queen ButterDeen, being of sound mind and sound manner presumably, cannot fathom in the most elementary form, the prospect that words like "nigger," "spic," "jew boy," "fag," "wetback," "zipperhead," etc. -- might offend the people whom those words were unmistakably meant to demean and insult?  If that truly is her argument, it makes The Gadfly wonder then whether or not Ms. ButterDeen would be much too bewildered and unenlightened to take offense should The Gadfly find cause to call her an ignorant, "redneck" "cracker" "cunt?"

Just asking a simple question folks.


----TFG

"The wrong person finds out about this and I get a steel-jacketed anti-depressant right in the back of the head!" . . . [~~Tony Soprano]

Well -- this day officially sucks hairy meatballs:

James Gandolfini has reportedly died while in Italy, according to Deadline.com.

According to the website, the "Sopranos" star was in the country for a film festival. Variety also initially reported that he suffered a fatal stroke, but both the trade site and Deadline.com updated the cause of death to a heart attack.

Gandolfini was 51 years old and is survived by a wife and two children. He became a household star for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on "The Sopranos," a role which earned him three Emmys on six total nominations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/james-gandolfini-dead_n_3468861.html


Cable TV, in The Gadfly's humble view, has been, is now, and always will be a vast wasteland of socially irredeemable sewage that in and of itself is arguably responsible for the severely stunted growth in maturity of American culture.  But every now and then a show with a great story line and a superb cast of characters comes along that pretty much rescues television programming from the malodorous dung heap, where in the best of all possible worlds, it duly belongs.

One of those shows was "The Sopranos."  James Gandolfini's portrayal of the psychopathic mob boss Tony Soprano, who's constant battle between his gleefully violent inner demons, and his regretful conscience, made for some of the best television ever made - which explains why the show earned 21 Emmy awards in six too short seasons, with Gandolfini nabbing three of them for best actor.

RIP James/Tony.  He will be missed - but thankfully we have DVD/BluRay.  Here's one, out of countless many, of The Gadfly's favorite Tony Soprano scenes:





----TFG

Everything is Bigger in Texas -- Including Egregious Imbecility . . .

The Gadfly, until today, had been fairly certain that he had pretty much heard the gamut of asinine stupidity which incessantly emanates from the mouths of right wing conservatives.  But even The Gadfly had to do a Scooby Doo double-take at this one:

As the House of Representatives prepares on Tuesday to consider huge legislative restrictions on a woman’s right to choose, one GOP congressman is using the idea that fetuses can masturbate to argue for more abortion restrictions.

On Monday evening, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), an Ob/Gyn by trade, told his colleagues to, “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” as RH Reality Check reports:

"They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?"

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/06/18/2171931/fetus-masturbate-burgess/


Oh yeah . . . . because if there is any one good reason to drastically restrict a woman's access to abortion services, it's because we would be disturbing little junior Zygote, who is in full embryonic bliss mode in mommy's womb, frenziedly spanking away on his wee little blastocyst monkey -- or as known by it's latin origin embryonus spankus simianus interruptus.

The Gadfly is wholly convinced that the Texas delegation of politicos has got to be the one single clown show that would give Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus a serious run for their clown money.

Jeebus kripes almighty.



----TFG

Just One More Trip to the Well of Intolerance - Yup - That Ought to do the Trick . . .

Hmmmmm, The Gadfly ponders, . . . what's wrong with this picture? . . .

WASHINGTON -- Facing lingering tensions in his party, the chairman of the Republican National Committee urged religious conservatives Saturday to support the GOP's plans to expand.

"I would just ask you that we come together and that we pray for the future of this country," Reince Priebus said on the final day of the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference that brought several Republicans leaders together with evangelical activists.

"I'm a Christian. I'm a believer. God lives in my heart. And I'm for changing minds, not changing values," Priebus said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/faith-and-freedom-coalition-conference_n_3447378.html?utm_hp_ref=politics


Yes -- because reaching out to the intolerant, bigoted, reactionary, and hateful wing of the Republican party worked out so well in the last election huh Mr. Priebus?

Jeebus.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

~~Albert Einstein

----TFG

War Mongers Have a Bad Hair Day . . . .

Whew!  Good thing President Obama followed the sage advice of the incessantly squawking war hawks on Fox News and Dick Cheney and friends and bombed Iran back in to the stone age.  God knows what could have happened to America if we hadn't slaughtered a few million Iranian civilians and incinerated a people and it's culture in order to exact the regime change we wanted:

TEHRAN, Iran — Wild celebrations broke out on Tehran streets that were battlefields four years ago as reformist-backed Hasan Rowhani capped a stunning surge to claim Iran's presidency on Saturday, throwing open the political order after relentless crackdowns by hard-liners to consolidate and safeguard their grip on power.

"Long live Rowhani," tens of thousands of jubilant supporters chanted as security officials made no attempt to rein in crowds – joyous and even a bit bewildered by the scope of his victory with more than three times the votes of his nearest rival.

In his first statement after the results were announced, Rowhani said that "a new opportunity has been created ... for those who truly respect democracy, interaction and free dialogue."

But in Iran, even landslides at the ballot box do not equate to policymaking influence.

All key decisions – including nuclear efforts, defense and foreign affairs – remain solidly in the hands of the ruling clerics and their powerful protectors, the Revolutionary Guard. What Rowhani's victory does is reopen space for moderate and liberal voices that have been largely muzzled in reprisal for massive protests and clashes in 2009 over claims the vote was rigged to deny reformists the presidency.

Rowhani's supporters also viewed the election as a rebuke of uncompromising policies that have left the Islamic Republic increasingly isolated and under biting sanctions from the West over Tehran's nuclear program. The 64-year-old Rowhani is hardly a radical – having served in governments and in the highly sensitive role of nuclear negotiator – but he has taken a strong stance against the combative international policies of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others.

"I've never been an extremist," Rowhani said on state TV shortly after the official results were announced. "I support moderation."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/hassan-rouhani-wins-election-iran-president_n_3446945.html


. . . . wha?  what's that?  Obama didn't unleash America's mighty shock and awe on the Iranians? We didn't burn their country to the ground?  And the Iranian people, of their own volition, threw out the hardliners in their election and elected a moderate, more conciliatory government??

Well The Gadfly will be a suck-egg mule!!!

Imagine that! --- an American President opting for a policy of other than outright lying to your own citizenry about the necessity for war actually works!  Will wonders never cease?


----TFG


**NOTE:  The Gadfly fully acknowledges that the ruling clerics in Iran still wield significant power in the country's political infrastructure - which is why The Gadfly included the paragraph in the article copy which states such.  However, if one knows the history of Iran, this is a big fucking deal --- this is basically a clear, convincing majority of the Iranian people sending an unambiguous message to those ruling clerics that those clerics are a dwindling minority - and that dear readers - speaks volumes in that part of the world.  Bombs and missiles and death and destruction aren't always the solution to every problem, and The Gadfly does not give a flying fuckstick what Dick Cheney thinks.


----TFG

If a Shrew Shrieked in the Forest and Nobody Was Around to Hear it -- Did the Shrew Really Make a Sound? . . .

Sigh . . . . . . shrew alert . . . .sigh . . . .

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) criticized President Barack Obama while speaking at the annual meeting of the Faith and Freedom Coalition Saturday, saying the United States should not intervene in Syria while he's in office.

“Until we have a commander in chief who knows what he is doing... let Allah sort it out!” Palin told the conservative crowd, according to The Hill.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/sarah-palin-syria_n_3447212.html


This is why she appeals so much to the wingnuts.  She throws out these batty, juvenile bumper snicker comments that appeal, on some pathetic, prepubescent level, to the most doltish of teabagger types.  And when they hear her speak, they instantly identify with her, and it makes them feel, even if fleetingly, that they are all intellectual giants - and even more chilling than that - invincible.

She really does remind The Gadfly of the infamous 1978 Saturday Night Live skit called "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave," with the late, great John Belushi playing this loathsome, obnoxious character who has long, long outlived his welcome in friend's homes and his interminable existence in their lives basically drives said friends into a maddened frenzy.

Needless to say -- The Gadfly just wishes that this awful woman would spare us all her lamentable presence and once and for all just fucking go away . . . . far, far, away . . . .

Girl, don't go away mad
Girl, just go away

Girl, don't go away mad

Girl, just go away yeah, yeah

Girl, don't go away mad

Girl, just go away, Yeah

Now I said girl, don't go away mad

Girl, just go away

Now I said girl, don't go away mad

Girl, just go away, yeah

Girl, don't go away mad

Girl, just go away...

----TFG

Shrew Alert! Shrew Alert!! . . .

Shrew Alert ! ! !





Queen Nanooky of The Great White North emerges from her IKEA bought igloo to remind us all that she is still one of the stupidest and most grating fucking people in American politics:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/sarah-palin-slams-orwellian-us-government/2013/06/15/670b59ec-d5f6-11e2-ab72-3f0d51ec1628_video.html


And one other thing -- The Gadfly is certain beyond question that Caribou Barbie has nary an iota of cognitive understanding of the messaging behind George Orwell's writings, much less ever picked up and held in her ogress hands an authentic Orwell novel.  She truly is pushing the limits of what little remains of her intellectual credibility by so cavalierly employing the word "Orwellian" in public discourse.


----TFG

When The Scales of Justice are in Dire Need of Re-calibration . . .

Maybe the solution is to give them even more taxpayer money to gamble with? . . .

Bank of America employees regularly lied to homeowners seeking loan modifications, denied their applications for made-up reasons, and were rewarded for sending homeowners to foreclosure, according to sworn statements by former bank employees.

The employee statements were filed late last week in federal court in Boston as part of a multi-state class action suit brought on behalf of homeowners who sought to avoid foreclosure through the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) but say they had their cases botched by Bank of America.

Sometimes, homeowners were simply denied en masse in a procedure called a “blitz,”said William Wilson, Jr., who worked as an underwriter and manager from 2010 until 2012. As part of the modification applications, homeowners were required to send in documents with their financial information. About twice a month, Wilson said, the bank ordered that all files with documentation 60 or more days old simply be denied. “During a blitz, a single team would decline between 600 and 1,500 modification files at a time,” he said in the sworn declaration. To justify the denials, employees produced fictitious reasons, for instance saying the homeowner had not sent in the required documents, when in actuality, they had.

Anxious homeowners calling in for an update on their application were frequently told that their applications were “under review” when, in fact, nothing had been done in months, or the application had already been denied, four former employees said.

Employees were rewarded for denying applications and referring customers to foreclosure, according to the statements. Gordon said collectors “who placed ten or more accounts into foreclosure in a given month received a $500 bonus.” Other rewards included gift cards to retail stores or restaurants, said Gordon and Theresa Terrelonge, who worked as a collector from 2009 until 2010.

http://www.propublica.org/article/bank-of-america-lied-to-homeowners-and-rewarded-foreclosures


Until this country's government and justice department (and The Gadfly does not give a rat's ass which political party is in charge) begins aggressively arresting, putting on trial, and upon conviction - imprisoning for life some of these crooked, thieving, criminal bankers and Wall Street suits for their crimes, The Gadfly does not want to hear, from anyone, a single solitary fucking word about the purported crimes of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

These white collar criminals, sitting in the boardrooms of B of A, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Citibank and others, brought the whole goddamn world economy to it's knees by their knowingly corrupt actions, and by virtue of such, weakened America's infrastructure security infinitely more than Snowden's unsurprising confirmation of government spying on it's own citizens on a grand scale, which anyone who has been paying attention since 9/11 was already wholly fucking aware of.

This story really lights a white hot flame under The Gadfly's pasty white buttocks as he and his family had their own hideous and infuriating experience with Bank of America and their extended crime family.  The Gadfly is still dealing with the fallout from that experience to this day, and quite likely will continue to be haunted by it for some years to come.

So yeah - hunt down Edward Snowden, extradite him, put him on trial for treason, then jail him for life.  And when you're all done and feeling smugly righteous about it, come ask The Gadfly his opinion about the whole feckless affair --- but exercise caution --- don't be surprised if the reply you get does not affirm your myopic view that justice was served and the nation is truly better off for it.


----TFG

Apparently Donald Trump Was Unavailable for Consultation . . .

Jeebus . . .

Concerned that their side was "losing badly" on immigration reform, a trio of congressional hardliners appeared on Glenn Beck's Blaze TV program on Thursday to ask him to help their cause.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), appearing alongside Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), suggested that there was a visibility issue surrounding the ongoing debate over a reform package.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/bachmann-king-gohmert-glenn-beck_n_3441935.html?utm_hp_ref=politics


Now -- The Gadfly will obligingly confess that he himself is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and will further concede that he has a known penchant for dressing himself unintentionally funny and confusing his own acerbic wit for humor, however, seeing the Three Stooges of the GOP caucus running to Glenn "Still on that LSD trip from 1994" Beck begging for salvation, offers comfortable optimism to The Gadfly that his own piquant inanities pale in comparison to those of these law making (Ack!!) public "leaders."

The best analogy The Gadfly can proffer for the mirthful sight of Curly Gohmert, Larry Bachmann and Moe King asking Glenn Beck for help on a public policy issue is that of an individual who, for god knows whatever reason, finds themselves on fire and is running around madly begging for someone for assistance by asking to be doused with a barrel of kerosene.  It is unhinged insanity in all of it's exquisite and macabre glory.


----TFG

What's Left to Corrupt??

**NOTE:  The Gadfly is immersed in intensive 40+ hour training for his career schooling this week, so lighter than normal posting.

So . . . to tide you millions of dear readers over in the interim . . .

The Gadfly has asked the question an uncounted number of times previously, but will do so again as he has yet to receive a definitive answer -- "are there any honest capitalists left in this fucking world any more?"

Observe:

New York State regulators are calling for a nationwide moratorium on transactions that life insurers are using to alter their books by billions of dollars, saying that the deals put policyholders at risk and could lead to another taxpayer bailout.

Insurers’ use of the secretive transactions has become widespread, nearly doubling over the last five years. The deals now affect life insurance policies worth trillions of dollars, according to an analysis done for The New York Times by SNL Financial, a research and data firm. 

These complex private deals allow the companies to describe themselves as richer and stronger than they otherwise could in their communications with regulators, stockholders, the ratings agencies and customers, who often rely on ratings to buy insurance.

Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York’s superintendent of financial services, said that life insurers based in New York had alone burnished their books by $48 billion, using what he called “shadow insurance,” according to an investigation conducted by his department. He issued a report about the investigation late Tuesday.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/insurers-inflating-books-new-york-regulator-says/?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig


And if news that life insurance companies are playing three card monte with people's investments in life insurance policies isn't enough to raise your hackles - here's another story that complements that one quite nicely:

Traders at some of the world’s biggest banks manipulated benchmark foreign-exchange rates used to set the value of trillions of dollars of investments, according to five dealers with knowledge of the practice.

Employees have been front-running client orders and rigging WM/Reuters rates by pushing through trades before and during the 60-second windows when the benchmarks are set, said the current and former traders, who requested anonymity because the practice is controversial. Dealers colluded with counterparts to boost chances of moving the rates, said two of the people, who worked in the industry for a total of more than 20 years.

The behavior occurred daily in the spot foreign-exchange market and has been going on for at least a decade, affecting the value of funds and derivatives, the two traders said. The Financial Conduct Authority, Britain’s markets supervisor, is considering opening a probe into potential manipulation of the rates, according to a person briefed on the matter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-11/traders-said-to-rig-currency-rates-to-profit-off-clients.html


The mortgage industry turned out to be a lugubrious house of cards.

Wall Street is a den of lying thieves and slithering reptilians.

The big banks and financial services outfits are basically being run like offshore casinos.

And now news that life insurance policies and foreign exchange rates, as reported above, apparently are being used as gambling chit by the moneyed elites as well.

It appears that the once grandiose inviolability of America's economic infrastructure is all just one big, fat fucking illusion folks.

Nobody knows what the core truth of anything actually is any more.  And if by some miracle of reality-based inward reflection, the masses at long last ever come to the collective realization that the elites have come full circle from the days of the uber-ambitious, gilded-age industrialists to the long aimed-for culmination of completing their looting of the national treasury and are ready to retire to their foreign and offshore tax havens permanently, it will have been at least one generation too late.  For the final chapter of America's dying empire will already have been ghost written in advance by that point, and The Great American Experiment will simply be waiting on the final act of commissioning the historians of the future to conclude the documenting of the nation's pending transformation from world's greatest representative democracy to the world's most prolific third-world banana republic.

And yet some of The Gadfly's detractors still wonder why he has such a cynical and negative view of his country - to which The Gadfly has a stock, albeit demoralized answer --- the country and what it is supposed to stand for is fine, it's the people who are running it and the sheep who fail to see or willfully ignore what is happening around and to them who are fucked.


----TFG