Randi Rhodes: No Adventures for Old Christine!

Yesterday was the first full day of Christine O’Donnell’s life as the Republican nominee for Senate in Delaware. It’s the closest thing she’s had to a real job in her life. O’Donnell has reported earnings of only $5,800 for most of the past two years. Not that Christine hasn’t found ways around her lack of income. She admitted that her prior campaign had paid half the rent on her townhouse because it doubled as her headquarters. At least she seems to have a plan to solve the housing crisis—her housing crisis. Nonetheless, yesterday the National Republican Senatorial Committee committed $42,000 to her campaign. That should come in handy when her next rent is due.

Responding to Karl Rove’s criticism of Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin said that Karl should “buck up.” Did anyone else notice that Palin mocked Karl Rove for being a “politico”… in her capacity as a political pundit for Fox News? Karl Rove and you have the exact same job description, Sarah. It’s just that his resume doesn’t have as many misspellings. Then last night on O’Reilly, Sarah Palin advised Christine O’Donnell to “speak through Fox News.” It makes it sound like Fox News is some sort of fake psychic who channels voices from the great beyond—in other words, exactly what it is.

Also last night, in a rant bizarre for even him, Glenn Beck attacked Michelle Obama’s program to combat obesity. Don’t worry, Glenn. She’s just going after body fat. You’ll be free to keep your fat head. Beck joked that morbidly obese people should be left to die. Of course, that’s conservatives’ approach to pretty much all healthcare situations if you’re not rich. Beck doesn’t want the government trying to influence what you eat. He wants corporations to be able to trick you into eating things like high fructose corn syrup by labeling it as “corn sugar.” Finally, Christine O’Donnell’s former gay aide is speaking out. The aide, Wade Richards, fell for one of those “curing homosexuality” scams and joined up with Christine O’Donnell in her SALT organization. After Richards finally came out as gay, he says he never heard from Christine O’Donnell ever again. We should all be so lucky.

Today’s Homework Discuss

Thom's blog
North to Alaska?
Scientists fear declining Arctic sea ice is causing a rare mass migration of thousands of walrus from ice floes to dry land along Alaska's coast. Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) who track walrus movements say 10,000 to 20,000 of the animals, mainly mothers and calves, are now congregating in tightly packed herds on the Alaskan side of the Chukchi Sea, in the first such exodus of its kind. Welcome to the new world of global warming. Human migrations caused by climate change now involve more than 200 million people, most in the regions surrounding Pakistan and Bangladesh. A massive fish kill was reported late Friday at Bayou Chaland. Photos the parish distributed of the area shows an enormous number of dead fish floating atop the water. The fish were found in an area that has been impacted by the oil from the BP oil spill, the parish said. A recent fish kill in nearby St. Bernard Parish was attributed to low oxygen levels in the water, presumably also from the BP oil spill.

http://thomhartmann.com/

Thom's blog
The Tea Party Win - The Leading Cry of the Rich?
Continuing the "GOP nightmare," Tea Partier Christine O'Donnell (DE), who doesn't believe in evolution and says masturbation is the same as adultery, beat longtime Republican congressman Mike Castle in Delaware's Republican Senate primary. In response to his unexpected loss, Castle chose to call the Democratic candidate Chris Coons over O'Donnell last night, and confirmed that he "will not be endorsing" O'Donnell in the general election. In New York, Buffalo multimillionaire and Tea Party candidate Carl Paladino won the Republican gubernatorial nomination over former congressman Rick Lazio. Paladino had forwarded racist and pornographic e-mails to friends, and Democrats generally are regarding both of these wins as good news. Given that the Tea Party was started and funded by a small group of oil billionaires and lobbyists, they shouldn't be taken for granted - and may even be the leading edge of the final total corporatist takeover of America, much as populist uprisings in Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 1930s all turned into regimes run for the very rich - the dictionary definition of fascism. The leading cry of the rich? "No taxes on rich people to pay to help working people, no rights for workers, and no regulation of corporate activity." Ironically, these are also the main messages of the Tea Party. Even some mainstream Republicans are starting to get worried...