Bill Maher is only good at one thing - being really condescending.  Luckily there’s one subject that deserves every bit of his condescension, and he really gives it the beans here.  I admit I hadn’t known that Mitt Romney had his outspoken-atheist father-in-law posthumously baptized, but it certainly doesn’t shock me.  Good on Maher for setting things right.

Thanks to drug war incentives, both statistics and anecdotes show US police agencies spend most of their time going after (harmless) drug users and ignore violent crime.  Only massive law enforcement reform will fix this clusterfuck.

I know I haven’t been posting much lately, and what I do post is overwhelmingly political.  It’s just that there is some seriously important political stuff going on right now.  Chances are that anybody reading this is already well aware of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and realizes that the crooked righties who denounce it are doing so because they don’t want to give up their free ride at our expense.  This Krugman piece from the Times really boils down exactly why they’re so vehement about it.  I suppose I’d be mad too if I had a good scam going and a bunch of kids tried to shut it down.

I couldn’t understand how 4800 Iowans could have possibly voted for Michele Bachmann in the recent straw poll.  How could someone so patently insane convince so many people to vote for her?

Then I saw this .  Compelling, isn’t it?

Dylan Ratigan is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more.  In a Network-style on-air tirade, the MSNBC commentator let fly with the honest truth about why our political system is so thoroughly fucked.  He is furious - and rightfully so - that both congress and the president refuse to make necessary and meaningful changes to the tax and regulatory systems that have allowed banks and big businesses to ruin our economy.  He rails about how congressmen on both sides of the isle are bought and paid for and will never turn on the abusive corporate interests that pay them so well, as well as a weak president who is more concerned with compromise than with doing the right thing.

And you know what?  Everything he says is absolutely true.

ISPs would be crippled by the requirement to store every click you make for up to 18 months. Your activities can be examined by any branch of government for any reason - no warrant required. The claimed intent is to stop child pornography, which it won’t.  Spying on 700 million Americans to ineffectively combat a couple hundred pervs is a disgusting abuse of power and horrendous waste of resources. Be sure to contact your representatives and tell them to kill this bill.

Why do republicans have such a hard-on for women who are clearly insane?  The Palin trainwreck three years ago apparently wasn’t enough, so now Michele Bachmann is running for president in 2012.  It’d be hilarious if it weren’t so terrifying.

Just in case you’re not aware of how dangerously unhinged this dingbat is, check out this top ten list of ignorant bullshit that she’s said.  Wow.

Forty fabulous years of wasting billions of dollars, filling the jails with non-violent non-criminals, and getting innocent people killed.  Of all our pointless and expensive wars, you’re the most pointless.  Congratulations, War on Drugs!

Civil rights protestors in the 50s?  Pussies.

Tibetan monks who set themselves on fire?  Not thinking things through.

That dude in Tienanmen Square?  No sense of style.

This guy protests like a boss.

FYI, this is from an ongoing protest in Mexico over the unnecessary and ineffective drug war that has killed over 35,000 Mexicans but hasn’t even slowed the drug trade.