Category: Camera

Hanukkah is drawing to a close, so it’s time to get down to the true, emotional baggage laden, nitty-gritty, consumerist, Christian, gimme-gimme-gimme heart of the happy holidays: Xmas. Toby Keith reminded us what “Merry Christmas” is really all about recently, when he appeared with Stephen Colbert.

Sadly, this is not satire. You really can order this for Christmas, with free shipping included.

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.

You can’t make this stuff up. Mormon cult member Sen. Orrin Hatch writes a song about Hanukkah in order to get the attention of his longtime crush, Barbra Streisand. And the really trippy part is that it’s pretty good.

* Hope no one is offended, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration.

Of course Gov. Huckabee is correct that no one has a crystal ball. I don’t think anyone expected him to. What I would like to see, however, is even a modicum of genuine remorse, just a teeny weeny bit of post-traumatic stress disorder where he blames himself just the haziest bit for his decision. Instead, I only see arrogance, word games, and defiance.

Trish has a great article up about conservative hypocrisy about trips to Hawaii. They castigated candidate Obama as an “elitist” when he went there to see his dying grandmother after he’d won the nomination last year, and now the same folks who came up with the GOP purity test at the RNC are holding their next meeting there.

She also does a point by point rebuttal to the purity test, which collapses under its own weight under scrutiny — not surprising since these are the same goomers who proposed unilaterally changing the name of the Democratic Party (which was established in 1790, and is one of the oldest political parties on the planet) to the “Democrat Socialist Party.” Idiots. It should be Democratic Socialist Party.

In a similar vein, last week, Keith Olbermann dissected the new Republican purity test and found that St. Ronnie Reagan would have failed it, big time.

Transcript:

OLBERMANN: After Republican Tea Baggers undercut and sabotaged moderate Republican Congressional candidate Dede Scozzafava in New York, some members of the Republican National Committee have come up with a plan to make their party bigger, kick more people out. In our third story tonight, they’re doing it in the name of Ronald Reagan, except that the plan they have chosen would have resulted in them kicking out Ronald Reagan.

A proposed RNC resolution says President Reagan considered his friends those he agreed with 80 percent of the time. So it would deny funding to any Republican candidate who did not agree with 80 percent of ten Republican principles.

One, smaller government, reducing taxes and the deficit.

Two, oppose health care reform.

Three, oppose cap and trade.

Four, oppose card check.

Five, oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Six, support military recommendations like troop surges.

Seven, contain Iran and North Korea.

Eight, support Defense of Marriage Act.

Nine, oppose health care rationing and federal funds for abortion.

Ten, oppose gun control.

Sponsor Jim Bop (ph) told the RNC this would free the party, quote, “future party splitters,” such as former Senator Lincoln Chafee, no longer a Republican. Senator Arlen Specter, no longer a Republican. And Scozzafava herself.

Who else would fail the Reagan litmus test?

Number one, Reagan expanded the government taxes and the deficit.

Number five, he supported amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Number six, he ignored the military recommendation to pull out of Beirut.

Number seven, he sold weapons to Iran.

Number eight, he opposed California’s anti-gay Prop 6, and hosted the first openly gay sleepover at the White House.

Number ten, he signed a gun control law in California and supported the Brady Bill after he and his press secretary were shot.

President Reagan, four out of 10.

Welcome back to the Democratic Party, sir.