Buddy Miller & Emmylou Harris cover Porter Wagoner "Burning The Midnight Oil" @ Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival San Francisco CA 10-6-12
6. Mostly, though, think of the debate this way: In 2008, Joe Biden, who smiled at Sarah Palin the way one does at a particularly precocious toddler, had to hold his fire for fear of seeming sexist or bullying to the then-governor. He got to unload on Ryan. And all those years in the Senate, all those years confronting presidents, all of it came to bear last night as he beat down Ryan viciously and mercilessly. Ryan is the perfect product of Republican America, someone who grew up in the Reagan era in a protected bubble, who learned at the knee of conservatives and worked for people like Sam Brownback, a man whose philosophy is a synthesis of cruel social conservatism and bastardized Ayn Rand. In other words, he is everything Joe Biden has fought against. Of course Biden was gonna cut off this puffed up punk at the knees. That Ryan asshole brought up a fatal car crash in front of the guy who lost his wife and daughter in one. Shit, when it was done, you half-expected the Vice President to brush his shoulder.Fuckin' A, and let him spin big greasy-ass toluene-filled smoke-billowing donuts until he runs outta gas!
It is probably Biden's last time on the big stage. Give the bright-toothed guy his victory lap.
Mr. Biden’s performance clearly wowed the Democratic voters in the post-debate poll, as ninety per cent of them “strongly agreed” with the statement, “Obama should crush a little bit of Joe Biden into a joint and smoke it.”Heh.
"So, pardon me, Martha and everyone watching and listening, if I say nice things about how he looks - hell, he's probably a good man to his family - and if I don't spend a lot of time complimenting Representative Ryan's abilities as a member of Congress. Because what you see there, behind the pretty face and the baby blues, is a man who will take everything you love and fuck it to death in front of you before burning it down. Your grandmother, your babies, your wives, your friends. Paul Ryan will line 'em up and, one by one, he'll bend 'em over and fuck them, hard, until they just give out and expire. Ryan will invite all of his Republican friends in Congress, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, that crazy cracker - Louis Gomer, Gohmert, whatever the fuck that yahoo from Texas calls himself - and he'll give 'em all shish-ka-bobs of your balls to roast on the fire he'll make out of the bodies and your house. The country's gonna burn down and Paul Ryan will simply call for more wood.Probably be fun to watch anyway. I hope Joe tears him a few new ones.
"You asked me about his budget. The one that Mitt Romney is running away from like a scared bitch from a switch? Look, you know me. I'm a good Catholic boy. I listened to my nuns all the way through school. I was told to take care of the poor. That's our responsibility. Ryan slashes everything that helps people who need help. Medicaid, food stamps, housing, it's like he's taking the bodies of those in poverty and cutting extra holes in 'em because they ones they have aren't kinky enough for him to fuck. And then he shits on their faces by cutting taxes for the rich. And then he makes them eat shit by hiking defense spending. How is that visionary? It sounds like every Republican plan ever.
"Shut the fuck up, sonny. I know everyone in your party has lined up to suck your dick like it's made of candy and shoots ice cream on their tits. But shut the fuck up and listen. You and the rest of the GOP have hurt this country by refusing to compromise on anything. That's not what makes you a statesman. It ain't your ability to slam doors. It's the ability to go down the hall and make the deal. But you're such a little pussy that even when you vote for a deal, the sequester, you deny you did it. No, Congressman. You voted to cut defense if there's no compromises on spending and taxes. Be a man. It's easy as hell to take food out of the mouths of starving children. It's really hard to tell General Dynamics that their profit margin might decline by a percent or two.
"Martha, once again I find myself on stage with someone who I wouldn't let wash my balls after I workout at the White House gym, let alone be first in line to the presidency. I've walked the walk, son. I wrote the Violence Against Women Act. I stared down Slobodan Milosevic. What the fuck have you done, junior? Come up with a new way to do the same bullshit things that Ronald Reagan and the Bushes did to fuck over the working class? Put some new makeup on the voodoo economics? Go back to school, pretty boy, and come back when you get some manners and learn your history, you child, you pathetic tool of the rich, you overhyped bullshit machine" then the debate will be useless.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, wrote that LaRouche leads "what may well be one of the strangest political groups in American history."[169] According to the Foundation, LaRouche believes that a super elite (the "oligarchy") is in control of world events, a group that includes the Rockefellers, the London financial center, the British royal family, the Anti-Defamation League, the KGB, and the Heritage Foundation itself. Others include Nazis, Jesuits, Freemasons, Communists, Trilateralists, international bankers, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Socialist International—all supposedly controlled by the British—as well as Hitler, H.G. Wells, Voltaire, and the Beatles as representatives of the 1960s counterculture. George Johnson in Architects of Fear (1983) compares the view to the Illuminati conspiracy theory; after he wrote about LaRouche in The New York Times, LaRouche's followers denounced Johnson as part of a conspiracy of elitists that began in ancient Egypt.[170]All over the map politically, these fuckers are crazier than loons. Shit-eatin' moon-barkin' batshit crazy loons. Apologies to loons.
Jessica Williams discovers black Mormons are just like other Americans -- argumentative and intolerant of each other's viewpoints.Whoever wins, these folks win AND lose. Heh.
Here Is John McCain's Entire Opposition Research FileNice-to-know information to be sure, but I know everything I need to know about the sonofabitch: he's an ambitious lying sack of shit who will let the Repugs and neocons and corporations roll over us even more and that must not happen.
A document found online by BuzzFeed appears to be John McCain's entire, 200-page opposition research file — or “book” — on Mitt Romney from 2008, the year they were bitter rivals. Segments of the book have been posted on RedState.com, but this the first time the document has been shared for public consumption in its entirety.
What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides. A decision that in reality takes one or two days of careful research to make is somehow stretched out into a process that involves two years of relentless, suffocating mind-warfare, an onslaught of toxic media messaging directed at liberals, conservatives and everyone in between that by Election Day makes every dinner conversation dangerous and literally divides families.There ya go. The "horse race" sells ads.
Politicians are much to blame for this, but we in the media have to take responsibility for the damage we do to the American psyche in the name of election coverage. At this very moment, there are people all over the country who are stocking up on canned goods and ammo for the apocalypse they believe will come if Obama is re-elected. For the broadcast business to be successful, viewers need to be not merely interested in our political melodramas, they have to be in an absolute state about them – emotionally invested in the outcome and frightened not to watch what happens next. And any person who's been subjected to 720 consecutive days of propaganda is not likely to take the news well if he gets the wrong result, whether it's a victory for Obama or for Romney. By that point, the networks have spent two years finding new ways each day to convince him that the world is going to disintegrate into some commie or Hitlerian version of Mad Max, to keep him coming back and watching ads.
The campaign should start and finish in six weeks, and there should be free TV access to both candidates. And it should be illegal to publish poll numbers. This isn't as crazy as it sounds – they actually had such a law in Russia while I lived there, and people were much happier. (Well, they were still miserable, because they were Russian, but at least they weren't stressing about poll numbers.) Think about it: Banning poll numbers would force the media to actually cover the issues. As it stands now, the horse race is the entire story – I can think of a couple of cable networks that would have to go completely dark tomorrow, as in Dan-Rather-Dead-Fucking-Air dark, if they had to come up with even 10 seconds of news content that wasn't centered on who was winning. That's the dirtiest secret we in the media have kept from you over the years: Most of us suck so badly at our jobs, and are so uninterested in delving into any polysyllabic subject, that we would literally have to put down our shovels and go home if we didn't have poll numbers we can use to terrify our audiences. Can you imagine if your favorite news network had to do stories like, "What is the Overseas Private Investment Corporation up to, and what do each of the candidates think about it?" That would be like asking Nineties-era baseball players to take the field without popping greenies – what, you mean play the game sober? Half the on-air talent would have to resign, or do ad work hawking reverse mortgages.Just as an aside, Pat Boone, notorious right-winger and very white singer and head of the Beverly Hills Tea Party, is hawking reverse mortgages on TV. The Teabaggers hate government, right? His big selling point is that the reverse mortgages, which are mostly a scam anyway, are government insured. Hypocrisy knows no bounds where money is involved, and money is involved in everything.
Or maybe we should simply join with little Sasha Obama in wondering why the hell her dad was acting like such a pu—y on national TV.Heh.
So we scream and throw things at the TV. We shake our heads and sigh in frustration. Knowing Obama is so much more intelligent, conscious, awake to the world than Romney makes the heart hurt, causes consternation and even mild panic. It seems so easy! It seems so obvious! Why doesn’t he nail it? Why doesn’t he jump down Mitt’s lying throat with a wink, a dazzling statistic and a 20-megavolt cattle prod?
This time, he’s going to win on sheer gut instinct. Not his – ours. He’s going to win because no matter what little bump Romney enjoys in a handful of polls, no matter the sad truism that Obama just won’t bare his intellectual fangs and go full throttle at the GOP’s homophobia, racism, misogyny and appallingly awful economic agenda, he has been able to build a beautifully wrought foundation of rock-solid energy lo these past four years.No shit.
It’s the reassuring feeling that he’s got it, that when it comes to pulling the trigger on Osama, finally supporting gay marriage, or responding appropriately to nearly any global crisis you can name, Obama’s intellectual acumen hooks right into the still-incredible sense that the man actually has a functioning soul, and you just know: the lights are on. He’s got it under control. There’s tremendous sense of competence where we need it most.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Romney radiates the exact opposite vibe, that he believes half the country is a bunch of whining losers, that he might just be a bit too creepily Mormon for the fundamentalist Christian base to stomach, that he has yet to offer up a single radical or interesting new idea anyone can identify, and that he values his stable of trophy horses more than anything you possibly care about.
Hell, at this point, we’ll take every advantage we can get.
'I'm Lying More,' He Says
“I’m lying a lot more, and my lies are far more egregious than they’ve ever been,” a smiling Romney told reporters while sitting in the back of his campaign bus, adding that when faced with a choice to either lie or tell the truth, he will more than likely lie. “It’s a strategy that works because when I lie, I’m essentially telling people what they want to hear, and people really like hearing things they want to hear. Even if they sort of know that nothing I’m saying is true.”So ... what's new?
“It’s a freeing strategy, really, because I don’t have to worry about facts or being accurate or having any concrete positions of any kind,” Romney added.
Romney said he is telling at least 80 percent more lies now than he was two months ago. Buoyed by his strong debate performance, which by his own admission included 40 or 50 instances of lying in one 90-minute period, the candidate said he will continue to “just openly lie [his] ass off” until the Nov. 6 election.
Whether it’s a senior citizen, military family, working mother, businessman, or middle-class American, Romney said, he will lie to every single one of them as often as he can if that’s what it takes to win the presidency.
What would a Romney speech be without a lie? A speech given by someone else.There hasn't been a speech by any Repug candidate this election cycle that hasn't been full of lies. Not one. It doesn't matter whom they're talking to, either. They have lies ready for any audience.
As Emmylou Harris walked out on stage Sunday to close the 12th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, as she has every year, a light ocean breeze picked up, signaling the end of a great musical weekend.Now, I ain't much interested in the comings and goings of celebrities but ROBERT PLANT AND PATTI GRIFFIN ARE MARRIED?!!! Holy shit. That's huge. Best wishes, kids.
...
Eighty-eight acts appeared on six stages over three days - from actor John C. Reilly opening the Banjo Stage at noon on Friday with "Muleskinner Blues," to Harris' benedictory performance 55 hours later.
Buddy Miller, who serves as the festival's unofficial chief musical collaborator, brought out a crowd during his Banjo Stage performance on Saturday that included Harris, Victoria Williams, Jim Lauderdale, and newlyweds Patti Griffin and Robert Plant, who blew a Led Zeppelin-style harmonica solo into the mix. Phil Alvin and his brother Dave staged a mini-reunion of their landmark '80s Los Angeles rockabilly outfit, the Blasters, on Saturday at the Star Stage.
Boz Scaggs organized a tribute to Doug Sahm, the late, great Texas troubadour and rock and roll legend, one of the highlights of three days of music, featuring fellow Texans Delbert McClinton, Jimmie Vaughan, Steve Earle and honorary Texan Dave Alvin on Sunday at the Star Stage.Lots better to read about than crazy fucking Repugs and the fucking election campaign.
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The producers of Hardly Strictly, who also operate Slim's and the Great American Music Hall nightclubs, have refined the festival to a science over the years. The weekend's major problem occurred before the crowd showed up Saturday morning when a pizza oven in the concession area caught fire. A San Francisco Fire Department hook and ladder unit was on the scene in less than three minutes. Stage manager Sheri Sternberg kept a tight schedule that forced hard choices on concert-goers at peak hours - Dwight Yoakum at the Tower Stage or Nick Lowe at the Rooster Stage? Patti Griffin at Rooster or Cowboy Junkies at Star? Producer Dawn Holiday has become expert in booking a broad range of acts that somehow manage to coalesce into a musical identity that is uniquely HSB.
This is the great gift of Warren Hellman, the one and only, to not only the City of San Francisco, but the world of music. Long after the Hardly Strictly is no more - and there are no plans for that in the foreseeable future - his deeds and the music will be remembered.
If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday’s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right — and we’re not just talking fringe figures — was to cry conspiracy.
Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the “B.L.S. truthers” was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama’s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.
It was nonsense, of course. [...]
And that’s the truth that the right can’t handle. The furor over Friday’s report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nation’s long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble, dealing with uncomfortable reality — whether that reality involves polls or economic data — not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild conspiracy theories.Finally, someone said it out loud besides Left Blogtopia.
It is, quite simply, frightening to think that a movement this deranged wields so much political power.
War in Afghanistan Proves Disastrous
SayBritsSovietsYanks.
Poll: 7 in 10 Republicans Don't Believe Pollsters
Same seven who don't believe in evolution.
Ikea Has Women Air-Brushed Out of Catalog for Saudi Arabia
And some Republican counties in Missouri.
Owner of Jets Says He'd Rather Romney Wins Than Jets
So far, Jets obliging.
