21SEP08 at AMSDconcerts, A San Diego CA concert series, with video by Steve Laub
Robert Plant & The Band Of Joy (July 30, 2010) at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, FL
In New York, home of what has been called America's "most dysfunctional legislature," Democrat Andrew Cuomo has been showered with praise this week as he prepares to sign a budget deal that cuts billions of dollars from schools and health care without imposing new taxes.
In California, where the "most dysfunctional" legislative title may also apply, Democrat Jerry Brown is being hammered: His budget proposals look shattered, his calls for a June special election dead, his Plan B uncertain and the two major parties in Sacramento no longer speaking, at least publicly.
Cuomo, the son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, and Brown, whose late father was California Gov. Edmund "Pat" Brown, are three months into their terms and leading solidly blue states that are deep in the red.
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Jones originally gave up the idea of a Koran burning, but I guess life got boring without some media attention following Rep. Peter King's fearmongering hearings. Jones's ignorant book burning took place a little over a week ago, though it was largely ignored in the American media.
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Emmylou Harris performs "Darlin' Kate" live at the Driskill Hotel, Austin, Texas on March 18, 2011.
For more videos, visit npr.org/tinydeskconcerts
For more SXSW coverage visit npr.org/sxsw
Tami chases her ball. Taken on my deck. And off it. Boy, did I get The Look from the Mrs. for conning Tami into doing that, but Tami didn't seem to mind.
Let's add one more piece to this puzzle. Expressing what must be the angst felt by a great many people who once proudly called themselves "conservative," if not "Republican," once-proud conservative Andrew Sullivan wrote this week, "Conservatism cannot be defined as whatever is the most extreme right-wing narrative of the moment. Time matters. Conservatism needs to be flexible enough a governing philosophy to be able to correct for conservative ideology itself. When such an ideology threatens fiscal balance, a prudent foreign policy, and a thriving middle class, it has become the enemy of real conservatism, not its friend."
He's right. However, the exigencies of time and the actions of fools change things. 19th-century liberalism is nearly the mirror opposite of today's liberalism. Eisenhower Republicans would think that today's GOP is filled with barking mad idiots and then wonder why in the fuck would leaders pay attention in any way, shape, or form to the maddest of them all. Sorry, dear, once-loyal opposition, but "conservative" has been co-opted and remade in the image of the extremists, much in the way that "Christian" now generally means "fundamentalist" in the United States. Whatever Buckley-esque resonances of decades past you may want it to have, "conservative" now means a devotion to untenable financial policies, obeisance to the needs of corporations and the very wealthy, regressive social policies, and, indeed, belief in things that are demonstrably false. The word belongs to the nuts and to the imbeciles and to those who profit off their devolved sense of the nation and the world.
What do you do, in such a relationship, where you have been abandoned by the progress of the world beyond your reach? If you have any sense, you break up. It's that simple. And you try to figure out how to make your life have meaning again.
(Note: unless it becomes absolutely necessary because of some event or other, this is the last time the Rude Pundit will talk about the godforsaken fucktardery of birtherism.)
Weiner: ‘Who is Boehner fooling? What am I, like, Anthony Waynor?’
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) brought the house down last night at the Congression Correspondents’ Dinner, touching on the proper pronunciation of his name, his “seventies Jew-fro” that adorns with Twitter page and the proper method for engaging with journalists in live videos to show the proper amount of respect.
Arianna: The Huffington Post is not a ‘lefty’ publication anymore
For billionaires to see themselves as the True Victims, to complain that the President and the Government are waging some sort of war against them in the name of radical egalitarianism, is so removed from reality -- universes away -- that's it's hard to put into words. And the fiscal recklessness that the Kochs and their comrades tirelessly point to was a direct by-product of the last decade's rule by the Republican Party which they fund: from unfunded, endless wars to a never-ending expansion of the privatized National Security and Surveillance States to the financial crisis that exploded during the Bush presidency. But whatever else is true, there are many victims of fiscal policy in America: the wealthiest business interests and billionaires like the Koch Brothers are the few who are not among them.
[...] They single-handedly fund advocacy groups and covert campaigns on a wide variety of highly controversial issues that adversely impact huge numbers of people. That they expect to be able to do that without any vigorous response or opposition or anger is just reflective of their oozing sense of entitlement: the same syndrome that leads them to perversely believe that the True Victims in America's political culture are its wealthiest and most powerful.
This strain of delusional self-victimization is not uncommon. One commonly finds those who are the strongest and most powerful convincing themselves that they are the oppressed and the marginalized. Many Americans believe that -- as they invade, bomb and occupy countless Muslim countries -- that they are the ones being victimized by the Muslim world, while many Israelis and their loyalists believe that the nuclear-armed, constantly invading, occupying and bombing nation is the real victim of aggression and militarism in the Middle East. [...]
This is exactly the psychological affliction that leads Wall Street plunderers and tycoons and billionaires to see themselves as the victims of the resentful lower-classes and the "radical egalitarians" who run the U.S. Government. Even as they get richer and everyone else gets poorer, even as the very few remaining restraints on their political power are abolished, even as the disparities in wealth and power grow ever-larger, they become increasingly convinced that everything is stacked against them, that there is a grand conspiracy to deprive them of what is rightfully theirs. All of this could be confined to a fascinating, abstract psychological study if not for the fact that the people who think this way exercise the most political power and continue to exercise more and more.
While most eyes were on the Conservative Principles Political Action Committee conference in Iowa on Saturday, many of us who follow the religious right were more interested in another conference, also held in Iowa, on Thursday and Friday. This other conference was the Rediscover God in America conference, where all the same potential 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls that appeared at the Saturday's Conservative Principles PAC conference told us what they really think -- that America should be governed by biblical law.
Sure, there was a lot of talk about important issues like the economy at the Conservative Principles PAC conference, but it was at the Rediscover God in America conference that we learned that all of our economic policies should be based on the Bible. And who did we learn this from? None other than Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, who kicked off the conference with a lengthy presentation of his usual historical hogwash. Then, one by one, as the potential Republican presidential candidates took the podium to let the audience full of pastors know just how Christian they are, each began by gushing about what a great historian and good friend David Barton is.
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But unlike the attack aircraft used in the war’s first days, these planes fly low to the ground and fire cannons instead of dropping bombs. Experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan, the A-10’s 30 millimeter “Avenger” guns to shoot holes at ground targets; the A-130 loiters over its targets at 15,000 feet before firing its 25 mm, 40mm and 105 mm guns. If you want to take out enemy tanks, trucks and artillery pieces from the sky — with friendly dudes on the ground nearby — these are the planes you fly.
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The old joke goes that most people can't find whatever country the United States is at war with on a map.
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Something's seriously fucked beyond fucked when, in order to be considered at having a real shot at winning Republican primaries, you gotta not just go nutzoid anti-choice and anti-gay (which is stupid enough), but you gotta at least leave the door open for genuine madness in order to appease the inmates at the asylum.
... I'm not sure that this kind of gimmickry doesn't diminish the seriousness of PETA's cause ...
... I think it important that someone keep pressure on the food industry to better its practices, make them as humane as possible, etc. But is complaining about the Tenderloin district really worthy of PETA? ...