The pope is not a liberal, Sarah Palin

He is a full-blown socialist.  Maybe even an anti-capitalist.

Pope Francis has taken aim at capitalism as "a new tyranny" and is urging world leaders to step up their efforts against poverty and inequality, saying "thou shall not kill" the economy. Francis calls on rich people to share their wealth.

The existing financial system that fuels the unequal distribution of wealth and violence must be changed, the Pope warned.

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?" Pope Francis asked an audience at the Vatican.

The global economic crisis, which has gripped much of Europe and America, has the Pope asking how countries can function, or realize their full economic potential, if they are weighed down by the debts of capitalism.

“A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules,” the 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, said. 

I love this guy!

Now if you really want to have some fun with it, tell your Drudge-reading, O'Reilly-watching, Limbaugh-listening relative what John Fugelsang said to Ed Schultz last night...

“I think you might just want to blow their minds, Ed, and say that back at the first Thanksgiving, when the Wampanoag fed the Pilgrims, they didn’t know it, but they had just invented socialism for undocumented immigrants,” Fugelsang said. “Then they’ll spend the rest of the night trying to process that.”

[...]

“You can also point out that under Obamacare, we are now making people buy a corporation’s private product — it’s pretty much the opposite of socialism,” Fugelsang argued. “What we have now is socialism; when uninsured people go to an emergency room, and the local taxpayer has to pick up the tab. ‘Hey, right-wing Uncle Larry, why are you defending the socialist status quo?’ That’ll freak them out.”

Happy Turkey Day!

Update: Crooks and Liars assembles some of the right-wing outrage.

Tryin' to get in the spirit of the season ovah heah

First: thanks to Juanita Jean for ruining my appetite for Big Bird tomorrow.

 Guess I'll have to stick to the ham.  Then again...

Here's some things on my wish list.

-- To drive my conservative family members crazy during Thanksgiving dinner, I'm going to pour all of the gravy onto my plate first, and then tell them it will eventually trickle down onto theirs.

-- To piss off the Fox News junkie across the street, the twinkly lights in our living room window are going to spell out SURRENDER, CHRISTMAS.

(Yes, these first two were plagiarized.)

-- I'm going to tip my servers double-time and a half tomorrow just to one-up Neil, and I will not go anywhere near a mall, a big box store, or an airport.  I will probably go to the last days of the Texas Renaissance Festival this weekend, and Dickens on the Strand next weekend.  And I heartily recommend that you do the same.  No amount of shopping, Christmas television specials, or Yuletide radio channels -- nothing -- is better for putting a person in the holiday spirit.

And there'll be more toons tomorrow.

Cornyn won't be fooled

That Iran nuke deal is just a ruse. Fool us once...

Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care
— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) November 24, 2013

Fool us twice....

No, a real distraction would be war. Like Iraq. RT@JohnCornyn: Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care”
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) November 24, 2013

We won't get fooled again, John, unlike those TeaBaggers who are still calling you RINO this week.

Congratulations! You are the biggest fool in Texas, outfooling the likes of Steve Stockman, Louie Gohmert, and yes, even Rick Perry. A "Mission Accomplished" banner for you!

Oops, one more.

John Cornyn: "Obama is working to prevent global nuclear annihilation merely to distract us from a website with an error rate below 1%"
— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) November 24, 2013

Update: And still more, as only Twitterers can snark it, from BOR.

Beating Abbott now, and beating him in November

Winning lawsuits isn't really his strong suit, but Greg Abbott knows he cannot afford to lose this one to Wendy Davis.  And that has nothing to do with the taxpayer's money he's already spent fighting a losing battle.

"Loser pays" is what the law says.  The law Texas Republicans passed.  And Abbott, as we all know, is the state's biggest loser.

Lawyers who helped Sen. Wendy Davis beat back Republican-led efforts to retool her Tarrant County district urged a federal court Monday to award them hundreds of thousands of dollars spent fighting Attorney General Greg Abbott in the case. ...

In September, a federal court in San Antonio declared Davis a "prevailing" party and instructed her lawyers to file to recoup legal costs. Since then, the redistricting court fight over a state Senate map has centered on a request from Davis' lawyers and the League of United Latin American Citizens for more than $700,000 in total reimbursement.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last week rejected Abbott's initial request to block Davis' legal team from being awarded attorney fees. The case now gets bounced back to the court in San Antonio to decide how much, if anything, the state should pay back the Davis legal team.

Abbott lost at the Fifth Circuit.  Let that soak in for a minute.  The $700 large is really just pocket change in the grand scheme; the bragging rights are much more valuable.

Important note: The 5th Circuit did not rule on the merits, i.e. the substantive claims made for or against the fees, in the case. It basically told the state that its appeal is untimely and should come later — after the San Antonio court rules on the requested attorney fees (read the state’s brief here and Davis’ brief here).

A majority of the three-judge panel told the Texas attorney general that he was jumping the gun on his appeal.  "Go back home and wait for decision from the lower court, Skippy".  That is priceless.

Abbott’s legal team can file another appeal with the 5th Circuit if the San Antonio court awards fees to Davis’ lawyers. And Abbott’s office on Monday made clear that it plans to do just that if necessary.

“The 5th Circuit expressed no view on the merits of Davis’ request for attorneys’ fees or the district court’s designation of her as a prevailing party,” Abbott spokeswoman Lauren Bean said in a statement. “Those issues will be back in front of the 5th Circuit at a later date.”

In other words, 'we'll keep fighting and we'll keep losing'.  For some reason I am reminded here of the 43 votes taken in the US House of Representatives to repeal Obamacare, and since those were all failures, Plan B is to complain loudly about a glitchy website. 

All this conservative losing bodes well for 2014, don't you think?