Hot Rod Boogie

This one's for Fixer. Heh.

Thanks to waneonnol.

California Dreamin'

Some dumbass pol suggested folks go to Nebraska for the wonderful minimum wage jobs. Screw that - we got 'em right here! Do this for half a day and you'll understand why the Meskins are here. It will come to you in a flash of heat stroke while they're haulin' yer lazy Anglo ass off on a stretcher.

Yes, I know pickin' cotton is pretty much all done with machines these days. It's an allegory and it's Saturday. Button it.

Thanks to waneonnol. He's my age and has lots of stuff like this. Old guys rule!

Vote now, pay later

Raw Story, links and video:

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told a radio show Thursday that the GOP should focus on its strategy of being against President Barack Obama's policies, but shouldn't give too many specifics on its own policies -- or those policies could be used against them.

For once, he's absolutely right. Heh.

"Deliberately hiding one's ideas for fear of examination is not only cowardice, it's indicative of a party that suspects its own beliefs would be rejected by the public," writes Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly.

Benen:

Of course, this isn't just about King. Note that would-be Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sat down with the Washington Post recently, and refused to give any details about how Republicans would govern.

It's not a mystery why -- GOP proposals would likely cost the party dearly if the public got a chance to consider them -- but that's hardly a good excuse.

The Repugs spend all their time pandering to the Dead End Quarter with platitudes and bullshit. Those morons eat it up, but there aren't enough of them to elect anybody. It's the next 26% they gotta convince and some of those people actually think before they vote. Best hope they don't actually hear that they're being asked to vote against themselves.

Hey, voters, vote for us because we're the loudest and we're not them. Just put us in power because God says we belong there and we'll spring the rest of it on ya after it's too late.

Fool me once...

Hey, Big Spender ...

You know, the Republicans never speak of anything in the long-term; never worry about what happens 5, 10, 25, or 50 years down the line as a result of their 'policy' initiatives. Except when it comes to furthering their own interests. Seems when they're in power, deficits don't matter but when they're out, you'd think it's the most critical issue facing the country.

Pic stolen from scarce. Click to embiggen.

We can bankrupt the nation on useless, criminal wars and give tax cuts to the rich, but if we have to help folks who are in a bad way, it'll ruin the nation.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Thanks to JasonKT.

A Belated Birthday Wish

Following up on yesterday's post about Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie, et al, a tip o' the Brain to reader Batocchio who sent us this. Go see, and Happy Birthday, Woody.

Shoot BP: The Amazon to Arctic Investigation

Greg Palast starts a piece with a "Quote of the Day":

At Tatitlek Village, Alaska Native Henry Makarka told me, "If I had a machine gun I'd shoot every one of them white sons of bitches."

Makarka was talking about the executives who came to him and his tribe 40 years ago to purchase their land at Valdez. They were from the companies now known as Exxon and BP.

The Tatitlek were paid the handsome price of $1 for Valdez, which the companies knew was worth billions.

We have launched the multi-national Amazon to Arctic investigation of BP and its oily sisters.

The rest of his piece is a plea for funds to continue his investigation. Please go read and donate if you're interested.

Headline of the Day

E-mail from Gulf Coast hiring agency: “BP is evil.”

Duhhhhh?

Headline of the Day & a Poem

Sen. Vitter Denies He’s A Birther, Blames Rumor On “Liberal Thought Police”

Tony Peyser

I’m not a member of the “Liberal Thought Police.”

I do want to make that clear.

(However, I am in one of their training programs &

Am currently a volunteer.)

Heh. "Thought police" of any stripe are bad of course, and the Repugs totally outshine everybody else in that effort, but it sure would be a lot quieter around here if we had a Librul one.

Dems: Not Dead Yet

It has come to my attention that there are those among you who could use a modicum of cheering up. I hope this helps.

On The Hill

Democrats worried they face certain wipeout in the November elections take heart: campaign donations keep pouring in. In fact, Democrats have seen the percentage of overall contributions coming through online increase by 62 percent, comparing the second quarter of 2008 with the second quarter of 2010, according to a company that provides fundraising and compliance software for Democratic campaigns.

Internet-based political giving continues to democratize political engagement, giving greater voice to a larger number of small-dollar contributors, NGP says in a statement. While overall online contributions soared, the average online contribution amount decreased from $258.72 in the second quarter of 2008, to $211.34 in the second quarter this year. The online channel also continues to drive down the average donation across both online/offline, which fell from $471.92 in the second quarter of 2008, to $357.81 in the same period this year, the company added.

I get to see 'our' online donations once a month when I see the credit card statement. Not very big, but fairly steady.

The thing that drives down hopes that Repugs will not get back in power despite their lockstep dick-steppin' is the nagging little voice in our heads that knows beyond all doubt there is one thing the Dems excel at above all others: snatchung defeat from the jaws of victory.

Afterthought:

Could the "Lockstep Dickstep" be the new Repug dance craze? Do Repugs dance?

Update:

Marc Perkel

People are talking about how the Republicans might do in the elections this November. I say they can't win because the Republican party no longer exists. Those who claim to be the Republicans aren't. The party is dead. Only the name survives.

This is not the party of Abraham Lincoln. Ronald Reagan was far to liberal for today's Republicans. What is left of what the Republicans is the Ku Klux Klan wing, neocons like Dick Cheney, and those who are against the kind of people who think. The party is owned by corporate puppets that apologize to British petroleum. The party is led by Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. Republicans are only concerned about the deficit when they are out of power and spend like mad when they are in power.

Republicans need to take responsibility. They need to stand for something more than empty slogans. There are no ideas there anymore. It's all about their own self interest. So Republicans cannot possibly win because Republicans no longer exist.

Will someone please tell all the morons who will vote for these dead men? Hmmmm. Dead Repugs could probably govern better than live ones, but let's not take the chance.

The great Dick Cheney empathy test

Friday Morford on the start of Dick Cheney's final slide to hell. A 'must read'.

So it begins.

The first knee-jerk response to the Great Dick Cheney Empathy Test (GDCET) is, of course, the easiest, and the most obvious, the most available to your giddy puppydog consciousness, and my guess is it shot through you like a fast and wonderful lightning bolt of OH MY SWEET JESUS YES the instant you read the story above.

That response was, shall we say, not very subtle. It was, I'm guessing, a not-so-secret howl to the universe that the sooner Dick exits this earthly plane, the healthier, lighter and happier we will all be, planetwide. Dark shadows will lift, flowers will bloom more brightly, 10 million female uteri can finally unclench, and so on.

This one is so good I put it in toto Below The Fold.

I must not be a very good Liberal or Christian. I wish for Cheney to die a slow lingering wasting death in pain and suffering. I want him to see the light in his final moment and realize how badly he fucked up. I want him to burn (in oil, heh) for eternity amidst the never-ending screams of the innocents he murdered.

We have no chance of him answering for his crimes on this earth. Any vengeance, payback, karma, justice will have to come in the hereafter, so for Cheney's sake, I hope there is one.

He's dying and there's no hurry. I have no empathy for Cheney whatsoever. I save my empathy for human beings.

His 'final slide to hell'? I hope it's covered in ground glass and rusty nails and he arrives at his reward in shreds.

Oh, and I hope he lives until at least one minute after midnight next January 1st so his family will have to pay inheritance tax on his ill-gotten millions. It's all we're going to get out of him. I'm sure his 'family', good Repugs all, hope he does the right thing and croaks sooner than that.

I think I failed Morford's test. How'd you do?

You wanna win?

I don't give the Dems much of a chance in the midterms this November and I haven't heard about anything they can do to change that. They talk about messaging and all the propaganda bullshit when an old adage still rings true; "actions speak louder than words". If you have to take the time to explain nuance to people, you've already lost.

...

"How do you make rank and file Dems care about the midterms? It's unclear that yelling about how mean and nasty Republicans are is going to cut it."

No, it's not unclear. Fear of the Republicans just won't cut it, because the Democrats have been doing the very same things the Republicans used to do, or close enough that what they're doing will make little difference in improving lives any time soon. Yes, the only way the Democrats in Government can get the Democrats out of Government fired up is for the Democrats in Government to do some important things for their base that it recognizes is for them. Some things whose value is obvious, and doesn't need to be explained to them. Some things that would make the base care before the election whether or not the Democrats lost, and very, very sorry after it if they did. Some things that would make the base proud to be Democrats again. Some things that would make the base not wish that enough Democrats lost in the 2010 election that the whole Party ceased to exist, and opened up the way for a new party that would really represent working people again for the first time since the 1970s. What could those things be? Well, here are four things that could be done. But the last three things can't be done unless the very first thing is done, because there just isn't enough "Congress time" in an election year to do them the normal way. [my em]

...

Americans, as a whole, are too ignorant to appreciate nuance and the Dems, as a whole, are too ignorant, willfully or not, of what the base really wants. Here's a hint: It ain't Republican-lite.

Hopefully I'm wrong ...

But I'm willing to bet that if they prove this "cap" holds on the Deepwater Horizon well, they're gonna suggest that they not permanently seal it because they would want to reopen it "when the technology improves". It's all about the Benjamins.

Thank god it's Friday. The Mrs. will be home tomorrow from her twice-yearly business trip to schmooze their clients on the West Coast. Yay!

One day ...

Maybe a few centuries from now, archaeologists from another world will stumble across a planet, 3rd out from its sun, that is nothing more than a charred, lifeless piece of rock and wonder how such an advanced society could manage to incinerate itself so easily.

...

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature data also found the January-June and April-June periods were the warmest on record, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which based its findings on measurements that go back as far as 1880.

In June, the combined average for global land and ocean temperatures was 61.1 degrees Fahrenheit
(16.2 Celsius) -- 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit (0.68 Celsius) more than the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 Celsius).

Temperatures warmer than average spread throughout the globe in recent months, most prominently in Peru, in the central and eastern United States and in eastern and western Asia, according to NOAA.

...

We have to stop burning shit to produce energy, soon.

Great thanks to Ol' Fez for the link.

So ...

I'm creeping up on 50 and I'm getting a lot of reminders (mostly the Mrs. and AARP nagging at me) that I gotta go get a colonoscopy. My question is, is there any way I can request an openly gay man do do the procedure? I mean, they're the folks who know what they're doing back there, right? The Mrs. says I'm crazy* and they'll probably throw me out of the clinic, but I'm serious.

That said:

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the first treatment that uses a so-called cancer vaccine, a drug that trains the body’s own immune system to fight the disease.

The drug, Provenge, developed by the Dendreon Corporation, was approved to treat advanced prostate cancer. In clinical trials it extended the lives of patients about four months compared with a placebo.

...

There's something. You know the Mrs. will nag me to death until I get checked; this might get me a reprieve from being reamed .060 over, even with a gay man at the controls.

*She says that a lot.

NE - A Paradise To Live In Or See

[A big welcome to Crooks and Liars readers! Thanks, Mike! - F]

Fixer and Digby done set my ass off (I've got buttons. Push 'em. Stand back. Giggle.). Heh. Even though Californian (Yay!) John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors (and a Chevy man. Yay!) I've never read the novel, but Grapes Of Wrath may be my favorite ever movie. Yes, I know the endings are different, but we could use a Hollywood ending right about now. One that doesn't include the words "post-apocalyptic". Once the Great Diaspora to Nebraska for minimum wage jobs begins, Nebraskans might not see it that way. More like locusts. Trust me, us Californians know about this shit.

Heres a virtual movie of the novelist John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) discussing his reasons for writing his great novelThe Grapes of Wrath in a sound interview recorded in 1952. To my knowledge their is no surviving film recording of John Steinbeck discussing his work......

Thanks to poetryanimations, UK

Here's a Hollywood hype video of Steinbeck's novel being made into film and a description:

The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is an American drama film directed by Academy Award Winner Best Director, John Ford. It was based on the Pulitzer Prize winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939), written by John Steinbeck. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck.[1]

The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search for work and opportunities for the family members.

In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

And a timely fairly recent New York Times review that puts Grapes Of Wrath in a modern perspective:

A. O. Scott reviews John Ford's 1940 film based on John Steinbeck's novel about the Great Depression.

To all you folks heading for Nebraska, just substitute 'Nebraska' for 'California' in the following tune by another champion of the common man. That oughta work. Heh. Note: Arlo's version is 'embedding disabled', but Nancy's is great.

Thanks to chikafaz, UK.

A final note to all those leaving California for The Promised Land in the Midwest: Best of luck. Don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out.

Reform?

We will never have true reform of any kind as long as we allow shit like this to go on:

HELENA — Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law.

Fowler, chief health counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, which Baucus chairs, will become deputy director of the Office of Consumer Information and Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

...

So far, so good? Good.

...

Fowler headed up a team of 20-some Senate Finance Committee staffers who helped draft the bill in the Senate. She was Baucus’ top health care aide from 2001-2005 and left that job in 2006 to become an executive at WellPoint, the nation’s largest private insurer.

She was vice president of public policy at WellPoint, helping develop public-policy positions for the company. In 2008, she rejoined Baucus to work on health reform legislation.

...

Am I the only one who's asking what exactly is getting protected here? Somehow, I think health insurers have nothing to fear.

Great thanks to Jill for the link.

Who knew ...

The Republicans read classic literature? No, not Ayn Rand, however their unemployment strategy sounds strikingly close to Steinbeck:

...

All the spoiled unemployed layabouts have to do is snap out of it and start doing the work the free market is providing. As this fine fellow from the Heritage Foundation indicated the other day on Hardball --- unemployment insurance is keeping people from piling their family in the jalopy and heading out to Nebraska where the jobs are:

...

Bastille Day!

We need to erect a gallows on the National Mall but I digress. Nothing revolutionary, just a happy little tune ... sorta. You don't need to understand French.

Benabar - Le Diner

Quote of the Day

That rude man:

... Ya gotta admire the phrase "entitlement people." It's the newest way to say, "Niggers." ...