Just guess ...

Who's advising Secaucus Fats?

Great scoop from Gawker, who confirms that Roger Ailes, the alleged news executive, is one of NJ Gov. Chris Christie's confidential advisers:

...

Figures. Two scumbags in a pod.

Update

To this post.

I was going on yesterday about the actor playing Evel Knievel* Jon Huntsman not looking like he actually knew how to ride a motorcycle and this came to mind this morning and I thought I'd share.

Many years ago I worked for stuntman Bud Ekins**. He told me about stuntmen and I think it applies here as well. He said no stuntman ever turned down a job just because he didn't know how to do the stunt the script called for. If they couldn't learn how to fly while they were in the air, they'd worry about the landing when they got to it. He put it this way:

"If the director asks if he knows how to ride a dinosaur, he'll give a little snort and ask 'how d'ya think I got ta work this morning?'"

Bud rented bikes to the studios as well and he said to always re-negotiate upwards if they were going to let the actors touch the bikes and upward again if they were going to let the dumb sonsabitches actually ride the damn things because it was a given that there was going to be extra expense for parts and labor when they got done with 'em.

Movies are phony and so is politics. Doesn't mean there isn't a lot of work to make 'em look good from a distance.

*Pat Buchanan made a joke today on The McLaughlin Group that Huntsman was gonna end up in the Snake River Canyon of Repug presidential politics. Heh. He ain't been right about anything in the last two or three centuries.

**Fuckin' Wikipedia had his name spelled 'Elkins' more often than not. I went in and changed it wherever I found it. I think I got 'em all. Bud gave me my first job as a motorcycle mechanic and I have too much respect for his memory to have let that slide.

They had a buncha shit wrong. I corrected those too as best as I could.

Earworm ...

I was moving the cars around the other day and I hopped in the Mrs.' car, started it up, and her Broadway station was on the Sirius. This tune was playing:

From the musical Hairspray - Good Morning Baltimore

Aren't you glad I shared? Heh ... It's still stuck in my head.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou vids don't go back much farther than this!

Song: "Big Mouth Blues"
Album: Gram Parsons/GP (1973)
Show: Liberty Hall, TX (1973)

Thanks to GramParsonsDotCom.

Huntsman's Ride

The Atlantic Wire, links at site.

And here's Jon Huntsman's next bemusingly surreal campaign video. Two days ago, the cool-guy Republican debuted a cryptic, speechless clip of a man riding a dirt bike across a desert in an effort to differentiate himself from the usual earnest, saccharine competition. It worked. Just like the last one (which worked in a reference to his high school band "wizard"), today's offering involved a Huntsman tidbit. "Has seven children. One from India, One from China," reads the succinct sentence in the ad.

Now, however, we've learned who's the mastermind behind these clips. It's is none other than Fred "Demon Sheep" Davis. He was previously responsible for notable ads last election cycle including Carly Fiorina's ad and the memorable "I'm You" ad for the now very unmemorable candidate Christine O'Donnell. Still, we could get used to political ads with beautiful scenery and no political bromides (or even any words at all):

4 Days from Jon Huntsman Jr. on Vimeo.

It's a nice video, pretty scenery, an activity I dearly love, but...

It's not Jon Huntsman. It's just an actor riding the motorcycle. In the previous "6 days" ad the guy was riding along a straight flat road like he didn't know what he was doing. He didn't need to stand up and at least he does that a little in the above video. He's also going a little faster like he's learning to ride a little. Basically he rides about like Obama bowls. Heh. Either stretch of road in either video, I'da been haulin' the mail!

Mrs. G says she could ride those roads faster on our Sportster XLX61! I said she could ride them faster on our little Tiger Cub.

Yo, Huntsman, if ya wanta show people pokin' along like the economy and enjoying beautiful scenery, get some with knee shorts, walking sticks and binoculars. That'd be bullshit too because even the granola bars and tree huggers who closed our desert down as 'wilderness' have never done very much of that. Don't wanta get too far from the Bimmer, ya know. Motorcycles and desert roads were made for haulin' ass!

All that said, worry about Huntsman a little. He's got more going for him as a Repug candidate than any of the other morons. The long-hair teenage rockers and brown kids in the ads might hurt him with some of the Repug base, but who knows?

Addendum:

Not all motorcyclists are good guys like me. Some are 1%er outlaws who terrorize towns, deal drugs, and smell bad. Some are much worse - they're Republicans.

They stopped caring ...

After they got to the greed part:

Some say that maybe it is a bad idea to base a political party's ideology on a belief that altruism, democracy and Christianity are "evil." Others say that maybe it is a bad idea to base a country's policies on fictional novels rather than science and history. Still others say is it a bad idea for national leaders to think of most of the public as "parasites" while saying people with tons of cash are "producers" who should govern. I am talking about the Republican Party's embrace of Ayn Rand and her cruel philosophy.

...

Thing is, I'll bet most of the powerful Rethugs are as atheist as I am (their god is money and power) and Rand was. It's the idiots who vote for them who actually believe their cracked ideology of Bizarro Jesus and Greed is Good. If those people actually understood that the Party of Fiscal Responsibility looked at them as the "parasites", they'd be a buncha people swinging at the end of a rope*. Unfortunately, it's very hard for the average Republican voter to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

*At least the Dems are still making a show of standing for the public good. The Republicans have abandoned any pretense of it. (h/t)

Who?

It's amazing how recorded history started on 20 Jan 2009:

...

But, having read and seen as much as you could expect someone to tolerate without projectile hurling, I keep wondering why one simple question isn't being asked...ok, I'm not wondering, I'm just wondering how anyone can with a straight face call it the librul media when they won't ask each Rethug candidate how their policies differ from those of George W. Bush. Of course, the answer is they don't (and part of me hopes there's maybe, hopefully, just enough common sense out there to recognize this). [my em]

...

They should ask Obama the same question.

...

And I'm still amazed at how quickly Shrub's been erased. Stalin almost couldn't have done any better.

Is in "collective housing" in very cold place ... [/cheesy Russian accent]

(Don't I wish)

Republican-lite ...

An excellent post up by Tom Rinaldo at DU:

...

I fear that right wing agenda today as much now as I ever have, and I see that it is advancing. When todays Democratic Party manages to defeat the Republicans, the rate of the right wing advance is often slowed. In some instances the rate of the right wing advance is even slowed significantly by Democratic victories, and on some rare occasions the Right is even pushed back a little. Overall though is seems clear to me now that the big picture is slipping steadily Right and the national Democratic Party as I know it is not capable of changing that drift, only of slowing it. It is little solace to me that we sometimes manage to slow down the rate at which our nation as we have known it is being driven over the cliff.

...

The Democratic Party has become a group of corporate-owned, weak-kneed, soft-spined whiners.

...

I know there are many Democrats today who I still have much political common ground with. I also know that in most places most of the time there is now no remotely viable alternative to supporting Democratic Party candidates if the immediate goal is to defeat Republican candidates. Important as that still may be, that is no longer enough to me. It is not enough because the fundamental unacceptable status quo is not altered when todays Democratic Party co-governs with todays Republican Party. The difference between the Democrats having 57 seats in the Senate or Republicans having 57 seats in the Senate is a different speed by which the right wing agenda moves forward in America. Same thing about control of the House and even it now seems, the Presidency. [my em]

...

One of the great things about changing your political affiliation to Socialist is you don't get as much political fundraising junk mail either.

What was left of the real Democratic Party died with Ted Kennedy. I'm sick of the lot of them.

Update:

And a little more about co-opting from Hugh:

Netroots Nation is on in Minneapolis. This is the big convention where Democrats go and talk about how progressive they are. It only lasts a few days, I suppose, because that is how long participants can keep the irony at bay.

...

How it works ...

Digby nails it:

...

The ACORN and Weiner scandals, different as they are (although the common thread is the sexy, obviously) have a similar lesson in them for all Democrats inside and outside the beltway: it doesn't matter if you committed a crime or broke any rules or even were the victim of a hoax --- once you've embarrassed the Democratic political class, you will be cut loose.

Like I said the other day, the Republicans have no shame and the Dems have too much.

Quote of the Day

Comrade Misfit on the Vancouver Hockey Riots the other night:

...

It's only a fucking game, people. If your life is affected because a sports team lost a game, you may need to get professional help. Or you need to get laid.

Indeed. Being a Mets fan for 40-odd years, if we tore NYC up after every game where the Mets snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, the place would look like Kandahar.

Bartenders can be combat veterans' first line of defense

LATimes. Read this.

When it comes to dispensing healthcare, war veterans are a hard group to reach. But bartenders at VFW canteens, who develop family-like ties with patrons, are well-positioned to identify those in crisis and steer them toward professional help.

At lunchtime on a recent warm day, the parking lot of Post 1503 is full of pickups. The air inside is cool and smoky, four flat screens flicker in the dark and the special is spaghetti with meat sauce. Keys is tending bar and every stool is taken up by creatures of habits so set, she can recite with eyes closed who is there and the order in which they are seated. ("Bob, Sam, Donnie, Mac, Benny, Dave, Jerry, Jim ...")

This flag-studded brick building in the northern Virginia suburbs is tucked between the Army's Ft. Belvoir and the Marine Corps base at Quantico. It looks more like a post office than what it is: the biggest VFW post in the country and a study in the damage of war over time. The requirement for membership is simple but steep: honorable service in a combat zone. "Not sitting in Buford, South Carolina," barks bar manager John Meehan, who was in Korea with the Army.

Veterans of every major battle since World War II are members here, separated by decades and bound by war. They lost 85-year-old Vinnie Salzillo last month; he was at Iwo Jima. About two dozen of the younger ones aren't old enough to buy a beer, but they have two tours each in Afghanistan and Iraq behind them.

You don't actually have to be a combat veteran to be in the VFW. You have to have the mimimum "I Was There" Armed Forces Expeditionary ribbon, which I have for being within twenty miles of the Dominican Republic. I could see it from my house! I'm a VFW Life Member (cheaper than annual dues if I live long enough. I have.)

I don't have a VFW Post with a saloon anywhere near me, and I'm too old to drink anyway, but I salute VFW, or any, bartenders who take care of their Vet customers this way.

Guidance system failure

I love the "flight" path! If the Repugs get their way, it'll be straight as an arrow. Straight down.

Thamks to YubaNet.

Get 'em all with one round...

ynetnews

Tens of thousands of excited Israelis and Americans, music performances, appearances by local and international celebrities, senior politicians and a live broadcast that will reach millions of viewers – this is just some of what is in store for Glenn Beck's upcoming rally "to restore courage," which is set to take place on August 24 in Jerusalem.

Beck has been leading a publicity campaign for the event over the past few weeks, urging his viewers and listeners to fly out to the Holy Land.

The staunch Christian Fox News personality aims to show support for Israel by recreating last August's rally "to restore honor," which he held in Washington, DC.

I think that rally failed miserably in the attempt to restore what was never there. Miss Becky wouldn't know 'honor' if it bit him on the ass.

The multi-million dollar production is expected to be attended by a convoy of American dignitaries, including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. US Senator Joe Lieberman, a independent, and Republicans Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Congresswoman Michelle Bachman are to join Beck at the rally as well.

They say they're not so Becky is probably lying as usual(one of his admirable qualities is consistency), but if they do show up...

Note to Hamas, al-Fatah, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, oissed-off, crazy, or drunk Palestinians, and militant Arabs and Islamists of all stripes: If yer plannin' ta blow something up this summer...

Dear Wolf Blitzer,

When you say Anthony Weiner has to "man up" and come clean in his upcoming news conference, do you mean the way you and your colleagues in the press "manned up" about cheerleading us into the Iraq War? Or for lobbing softballs at George Bush and Dick Cheney for 8 years as they ruined the nation?

Just shut up, you sanctimonious fuck.

Regards,

Fixer

Nutshells ...

Mr. Urban Hellhole (in toto) makes the underlying point that sometimes gets lost in all this:

At least in certain circles there's been a lot of focus on the corruption of banksters, which is valid enough, but there hasn't been enough focus on the basic incompetence of the banksters. Obviously they have some degree of competence, as despite destroying their own businesses and almost the world, they managed to get someone to give them a do over, but the point is that they all ran their businesses into the ground.

So we left them in charge. [my ems]

If someone came to me looking for a job (I don't care if it was picking up after my dogs) with an MBA on their resume, I'd run them out the door.

Great thanks ...

To our pal Opti, who recommended Google Chrome as a browser when I was bitching about Firefuckup 4.0 yesterday.

I installed it this morning and it's been a pleasure once I got the hang of it. Things load a lot quicker and there are no lockups. Ausgezeichnet!

I wonder how long it'll take for them to fuck it up.

Almost there ...

Seems our fucked up NY State Assembly managed to get the same sex marriage bill passed last night and now it's on to the Senate. Looks like a buncha Rethugs have turned left on this issue and the NYS Conservative Party is pissed off. Good:

ALBANY, N.Y. - (AP) -- The legalization of gay marriage in New York now falls squarely on the shoulders of Republican state senators under intense political pressure from the important Conservative Party and internal polling that shows growing, but not necessarily majority, support for same-sex marriage.

They know that not just the national gay marriage movement, but their own careers, may hinge on their vote.

But before that vote can happen on Thursday or Friday, the Republicans will return to a closed-door caucus to decide whether to send Gov. Andrew Cuomo's bill to the Senate floor. The vote on the bill appears to be a tie, with at least two Republicans saying they are undecided.

...

Let's hope Governor Cuomo II can squeeze their nuts enough to flip 'em.

Update:

After all, this ain't Kentucky.

The big guns ...

Are out! They found a porn star:

Reporting from New York - As Rep. Anthony Weiner remained in hiding and on leave from his job, a self-described dancer and former porn actress who was part of his sexting scandal emerged from seclusion Wednesday and said the congressman had pressed her to lie about his online activities.

Ginger Lee read a statement describing an electronically driven relationship that lasted from March 2011 until two weeks ago, when Weiner admitted sending sexually charged messages and graphic photographs to various women. “I did not sext Anthony Weiner,” said Lee, standing beside celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.

...

The Dems want him out as badly as the Rethugs do. You know, the thing that gets me about all this is that if Weiner were a Rethug, the only ones screaming would be the Dems and the right would be silent. It kills me that the Dems are so eager to do the Rethugs' dirty work for them. Idiots.

If the Dems were smart, they'd listen to Swopa:

...

If you can forgive me a brief flight of fancy, I’d suggest to Reid and Pelosi that there’s a way for them to play both sides of this controversy successfully. I’ve argued for years that Democrats have suffered from a poor division of labor — they don’t have designated bomb-throwers/”bad cops” to say rude (but true) things in the media, so that more moderate folks can play “good cop” and make the same points while seeming more agreeable.

...

But then reality returns:

...

Ahh, but who am I kidding? The Democratic leadership is as incapable of this sort of clever kabuki as they are of standing up publicly for progressive principles.

Indeed. The "mainstream" Dems didn't like Alan Grayson either.

Update:

No Weiner for you!

Un-Gitmo ...

The big yellow thing in the sky came out for the first time since Friday so I got some pics up of my de-Gitmoing of the dogs' kennel.

"We really love the kennel, dad, but we think you're trying to hide us. We have a union, you know."

But mom's (the shop steward) in Marysville. Gonna have me a beer. Heh ...

Congressman X is throbbing for you

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford and given that title I bet I don't even have to quote from it to get you to go read! But you know I will...

Put it this way: If you're a reasonably youthful adult and a sexual deviant in the slightest and you haven't used new media to Tweet, Histaprint, SMS, CameraBag, FaceTime, Dropbox, or otherwise Web 2.0 a live pic or pile of snapshots or (better yet) shaky handheld video of some quivering, slippery body part to someone else you deemed equally deviant and aquiver, well, you're just not doing it right.

New media, huh? Hmmmmm. Maybe I should upgrade from smoke signals...

...and really, everyone should back the hell off, and by the way Andrew Breitbart is a bottom-feeding meatbucket who only gets away with sending SMS photos of his member to horrified females because of the giant, mangy squirrel costume he's always wearing.

That he is, Mark, that he is.