The concept of “humanitarian parole” strikes me as emblematically American, albeit excessively witty.   Does it mean that a person is emancipated and discharged of being Human or Haitian?  Parole certainly suggests, if not exactly prior guilt, e.g., Original sin, at least some form of previous incarceration or imprisonment.  Most likely, it means that Haitians are provisionally granted the status of humans on the grounds that their captors have humanitarian sentiments towards the beasts.  Who knows.  Like I said, excessively witty.

In any case, it seems few Haitians are granted this esteemed status.

MIAMI – The United States has suspended its medical evacuations of critically injured Haitian earthquake victims until a dispute over who will pay for their care is settled, military officials said Friday…

Only 34 people have been given humanitarian parole for medical reasons, said Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. The National Disaster Medical System, if activated, would cover the costs of caring for patients regardless of their legal status.

I hope they at least have ankle bracelets.

Seventy-seven members of the U.S. Senate broke into the neighbor’s house while the neighbors were on vacation in Disneyland.  They didn’t intend to thrash the place.  They just wanted a warm, comfortable place to party on.

According to Orrin Hatch, “We were just looking for a place to get baked.”  

Said John Kerry, “We didn’t mean to drink all the booze, but I’ve never been so trashed in my life.  We were drinking triples ’til we were seeing double and feeling single.”  

Seeking to moderate the tone of his colleagues, Chris Dodd added that, “Greenspan turned us on to some righteous Tokyo Bokyo and started giving rising supers in the kitchen after everyone hyperventilated.  Then Bernanke would come up behind us when our lungs were still full of smoke and squeeze us real tight until we passed out on the floor.  What a fucking rush.  I woke up doing the Australian crawl on the linoleum.  Totally.  Spaced.  Out!”

The extent of the damages has yet to be determined, as fires continue to spread, engulfing the entire subdivision.  The Justice Department has not indicated what, if any charges will be pursued.  

In related news, President Barack Obama spent the entire previous evening huffing glue made from unicorn hooves.

Tom Friedman’s latest op-ed, entitled “Adults Only, Please,” surprisingly featured Tom Friedman.  Wandering from room to empty room of political discourse on the economic meltdown, Tom pauses:

Sometimes you wonder: Are we home alone?

Now I get it: Tommy finds it unnerving to be left home alone in his 11,400-foot mansion while the bad guys from Wall Street are trying to break in.  I actually sympathize with his sentiments, and suggest he begins booby-trapping the place.  

But no, Tom: Do not invite Bernanke in, no matter what he promises to do for General Growth Properties.  Hoping Bernanke will re-inflate your bubble is what you call “situational” ethics, as opposed to “sustainable” ethics, the latter of which suggests we’re all better off if you ice the steps and clock Bernanke with a can of paint.  Have fun with the bad guys!

Not really, but in another cheap political stunt, he is freezing white house salaries.  Way to pay attention to the big picture, clown shoes.

Federal Poverty Guidelines as defined by total annual income across different family sizes.

The blue symbols show the federal poverty guidelines as defined in 2008.  The red symbols show twice the poverty levels, poverty guidelines X 2.

With each additional person in the household, the poverty level is adjusted upward just $3600.00 per person at the federally defined guideline, and by $7200.00 per person at twice the federally define guideline.

Seriously, dude.  Go out and buy that pack of cigarettes already.

via The Agonist:

President Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending in the lead-up to Wednesday’s State of the Union address, Hill Democratic sources familiar with President Obama plans to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary, “non-security” spending in the lead-up to Wednesday’s State of the Union address, Hill Democratic sources familiar with the plan tell POLITICO.

Mr. President, wouldn’t it be kinder to ritually disembowel yourself with a sword?  To honorably throw yourself upon the country’s funeral pyre?  Perhaps an over-dose of sodium pentobarbital would provide a gentler exit?

And get the reasoning behind this:

The move, intended to blunt the populist backlash against Obama’s $787 billion stimulus and an era of trillion-dollar deficits – and to quell Democratic anxiety over last Tuesday’s Massachusetts Senate election …

Obama’s latest political stunts aimed at “quelling the populist backlash” are not only the ridiculous make-up and clown shoes of political burlesque, but sheer insanity.  The blow out in 2010 will be spectacular.   Bush and the Republicans were a hard act to follow, but Democrats and especially Mr. President, you’ve outdone yourselves.  Chases, collisions, pratfalls, and boisterous comedy.  Bring out the slapsticks.

Now, watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat!

Brilliant.  Booman cites this reprehensible call to victim-hood, with apparent approval.  The diary, entitled “We’re too busy criticizing ourselves to counter our critics,” is essentially a call to improve Democratic propaganda by accepting your proper role as the sap who will take the syrup on shit and call it pancakes, a disgusting exercise in reflexive blame.  The call to lackey-dom reverberates of prior admissions of internalized guilt by the voting stooges: Isn’t it really our own fault that Barack Obama is a total sell-out?   Sadly, well, it sort of is!

  Thus spake Booman:

It seems to me that the progressive blogosphere is useful to the Democratic Party and liberal interest groups because it is a free source of media counterinformation to the crap the corporate media spews out on a 24-hour basis. But, the progressive blogosphere is actually more concerned with amplifying critiques of the Democrats because the Democrats are unwilling and unable to feed and tend to their base. So, we’re now more a part of the problem than we are part of the solution. Some people have a degree of self-awareness about this situation, but the majority do not. Yeah, it would be great if the Democrats were more willing and able to do the types of things we advocate, since most (but by no means all) of the advice we provide is solid. But since [Democrats are] not doing it, we’re just piling on and helping to demoralize the troops.

It’s not something I’m eager to associate myself with.

Because the Democrats suck shit out of an elephant’s ass, the resulting bad narrative surrounding them is our own damn fault!

Suckers: There’s one born every minute.

Or perhaps these aren’t your average flunkies: maybe they’re cognitive infiltrators.  Fhtagn!

teacherken, Ogre Battle lives forever more!

Heather Gerken:

The truth is that the most important line in the decision was not the one overruling Austin. It was this one: “ingratiation and access . . . are not corruption.” For many years, the Court had gradually expanded the corruption rationale to extend beyond quid pro quo corruption (donor dollars for legislative votes). It had licensed Congress to regulate even when the threat was simply that large donors had better access to politicians or that politicians had become “too compliant with the[ir] wishes.” Indeed, at times the Court went so far as to say that even the mere appearance of “undue influence” or the public’s “cynical assumption that large donors call the tune” was enough to justify regulation. “Ingratiation and access,” in other words, were corruption as far as the Court was concerned. Justice Kennedy didn’t say that the Court was overruling these cases. But that’s just what it did.

Taxpayer $  –> TBTF $ –> campaign finance…

Where does this end?  They will own every milliliter of your blood, every angstrom of DNA.

They own the law.

Welcome to reality, Democrats.