FEMA Inc.

Update:

Paul Krugman: Mitt Romney's Proposal To Privatize FEMA Is 'Pathological'

Word.

“Yeah, I guess he found that fucking light switch, huh?”

In case you missed it. The young lady doing the signing for Bloomberg is fabulous and the breakout star of Sandy IMNSHO. Notice she remains 'silent' while Bloomy butchers the Español. Heh.

Via TPM.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

DON'T EAT THE CANDY!

L.A. Times

That would be the lesser of the ill effects of a Romney win, though. Much worse is that the right wing’s broader onslaught of derision and lies against the president that began even before he took office would have achieved its goal. Barack Obama may, or may not, deserve reelection. But no man with as much decency as Obama exhibits in both his private and public life deserves the contempt that has been dumped on him by arch-conservative ideologues, talk show ranters and Internet goons.

From Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Donald Trump to all the anonymous creators of the wild fabrications that churn out of websites and go viral in emails, the relentless vilification of Obama has been unprecedented. Sure, every president suffers unfair criticism. Many of our most effective presidents, from Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, have been slandered and hounded by critics. But Obama’s detractors have plumbed new and revolting depths of mendacity.

The right wing’s eagerness to engage in deceit has distorted credible conservatism and corrupted political discourse. It has turned the Grand Old Party into a rigid and narrow ideological club that tries to purge any Republican who displays even a hint of moderation or willingness to compromise.

The ever-waffling Romney is not their perfect candidate, but, for now, that does not matter. He offers their one and only chance to drive the usurper, Obama, from the White House. That has been the right wing’s objective every minute of every day for four years, and vindication of their dishonest, un-American crusade would be the worst result of Mitt Romney’s election.

Maybe.

A Filthy End to the Filthy Campaign of a Filthy Liar

Rude, you should try to come outta yer shell and say what you really mean.

This election has lasted roughly four years, from the moment it became clear that Barack Obama was going to use John McCain as a dildo to roughly fuck Sarah Palin and take the presidency for the briefly empowered forces of sanity.

That deserves repeating: the briefly empowered forces of sanity.

The Rude Pundit winces, in a Pavlovian way, whenever he sees news about Mitt Romney's fake concern for storm sufferers. He twitches at the commentators wondering when Obama will head back onto the trail. We have no time for it anymore. We have no time to entertain whether or not the Republican charlatan's long con will work. We have no patience for a press that's unwilling to call a lie a "lie" unless it's done in quotation marks or with fact-checkers' long-nosed Pinocchios with their pants on fire.

On some level, it seems as if the campaign of Mitt Romney is a mad sociologist's experiment in seeing how many lies people are willing to either believe or let pass and still vote for a candidate.

Way too many. It sickens me.

The Rude Pundit had intended to write this on Monday. He had intended to make this a series of questions posed to some mythical rational Romney voter, as in, "How would you feel about a Democrat who ran an ad saying something was factually wrong after being told it was factually wrong?" But if that kind of logic was going to work, it would have by this point. So fuck 'em. Write those assholes off. Their faith in lies is what wrecked us in the first eight years of this terrible century. And this storm is the final nail in Romney's coffin, the sealing of which was a long time coming. President Obama didn't fuck up the response to Sandy, as Romney might have hoped. He made Romney seem like the tiny, insignificant rich dick he is. And even New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has decided he's sick of the effete poseur and tossed Romney under the number 2016 bus.

Right now, the Rude Pundit's power might not be back until the end of the day, Monday, November 5. If that happens, that means that he'll be spending Election Day cleaning out the refrigerator. Oh, he'll vote, even if he has to scrawl an X on a ballot, even if he's in a state that is deep in Obama's tank. Because liars shouldn't be rewarded.

Romney has spent his whole life being rewarded for his lies. It's his way of life. The bigger the reward, and being POTUS is the biggest reward there is in his world, the bigger the lies. The people who will vote for him don't give a shit if it puts a white man - any white man, it seems - back in the White House.

If Willard gets elected, the morons who elected him will get exactly what they deserve from him.

Trouble is, so will the rest of us.

Update:

Romney Camp: Pay No Attention To The Auto Companies Calling Us Liars

I rest my case. Like there was ever any fucking doubt.

All our splendid monuments

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on weather and humanity.

Let’s just say it outright – there is no better reminder – not death, not illness, not orgasm, not birth or marriage or divorce, not surgery or getting fired or going slightly mad on a cocktail of laudanum and cocaine and savage karmic dread – there is no better reminder that we know nothing, own nothing, and are powerless to do anything about it anyway, than the weather.
...

Behold, the charming folly of men. All our dazzling metropolises, gleaming inventions, churning power grids, information superhighways and devious plans to thwart the gods, all flattened in an hour by nothing more than some fantastically livid wind and rain....

We know, but we don’t want to know. There is no way we can sustain our gluttonous empires at current rates, no way to fully protect from our (at least partially self-wrought) destruction – not to mention how many enduring, unsinkable empires just like ours have been annihilated time and again throughout the ages, every time God and the Devil meet for a poker game.

What a gift! What a joke! We are wired to forget. We shall, very shortly, in a manner of days, go about our lives not in constant, trembling fear of the next hurricane, the imminent big quake here in SF, the next lightning bolt that could at any conceivable moment launch from the hand of Zeus and reduce your bones to smoldering ash. And thank goodness for that.
...

Look over there! Sunshine! Whew.

Romney collects supplies in Ohio for storm victims

NBC News

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney collected relief supplies in Ohio on Tuesday in an attempt to strike the right tone after superstorm Sandy.
...

He spoke while standing in front of a bank of tables where campaign volunteers had neatly lined up toothpaste, diapers, canned food and fleece blankets, among other goods. A spokesman later confirmed that Romney's campaign had purchased some of the supplies. Though it was billed as a "storm relief event," the candidate's trademark campaign video was broadcast on large screens set up for the supporters who gathered inside the arena before Romney arrived.

"I will devote every waking hour of my energy to getting America strong again. That's what an American president has to do," Romney says in the video.

Don't worry about what a President has to do, Willard. It's never going to be a problem for you. Let Obama worry about that. Secaucus Fats says he's doing fine. (And so begins the '16 presidential campaign. But I digress...heh.)

After he spoke, he stood behind a table full of relief supplies and shook hands with attendees one at a time, taking bags full of relief supplies from many of them. Romney later loaded more relief supplies into a waiting truck as a handful of reporters watched. He loaded bottled water, boxes of diapers and pallets of canned food into the truck, and was joined by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman.

Jesus fucking Christ, Willard. Relief supplies? What, you think New Jersey, Delaware, etc. are fucking Ethiopia?! They've got everything they need right there just like anywhere in the United States. They've got bottled water, plenty of food and things to cook it on, blankets, shelters, etc. They've got WalMarts with the doors blown off that will be empty by nightfall. Americans are resourceful people.

They've also got downed trees and power poles, litter and wreckage all over the place, first, second, and third responders trying to get to places to help folks, all kinds of repair trucks, fire trucks, po-leece cars, National Guard and FEMA vehicles etc. 'til hell won't have 'em, and you're gonna further clog the roads with trucks and your goddam campaign bus to deliver unnecessary cans of pork and beans to make a show of compassion?

Willard, just send money. It transfers easily via modern devices (No pallets of cash needed. This isn't Iraq.) and the Red Cross and other outfits can make better use of it via local sources than you can, and they're not even running for office.

Perhaps you should send a big flock of Mormon missionaries to these devastated areas. The storm-affected folks need shoes and will have their sturdy Mormon missionary shoes off them in a New Jersey minute and wave a thankful good-bye to the barefoot young Mormons. Heh.

No problems voting here

We voted yesterday. My county has two early voting places, one 50 miles away in the county seat and one a mile away at our Town Hall which is in the same building Mrs. G retired from. These goons were not evident at our Town Clerk's office. Mighta been a coupla dead ones in the parking lot. Or maybe they were run-over skunks. Hard to tell.

Thanks to YubaNet.

There's no way to get away from Godwin's Law when Repugs and Teatards are involved in the voting process. Sigh.

Canada Speaks

This is such a good comment on yesterday's post about idiot teatards fleeing northward that I just had to make sure you saw it:

Brian said...

Actually, during the Bush II years a few Democrats did move up here, at least in my area (I'm posting from the Left Coast of Canada). They brought a lot of money with them, contributing to the continuing gentrification of the area.

You can keep your Tea Party toads; along with everything else they aren't particularly wealthy themselves and, given their average age and chronic health problems, will end up as value-minus economic immigrants.

The article is right though, in pointing out that our current Prime Minister is our version of Dubya. We may have no army to speak of, but his government is doing its best to cleave even closer to Israel than yours. It's a curious time, indeed.

Curiouser and curiouser. Thank you, Brian. Personally, I think they should go somewhere where their fever dreams of ineffectual government and lotsa guns can be fulfilled.

Somalia would work.

In the meantime, Canada, keep the goodies flowing southward - BC Bud and "Corner Gas". Heh.

Mysterious Docs Found in Meth House Reveal Inner Workings of Dark Money Group

Probably one more reason the Repugs want to defund PBS. Very interesting.

Frontline

The boxes landed in the office of Montana investigators in March 2011.

Found in a meth house in Colorado, they were somewhat of a mystery, holding files on 23 conservative candidates in state races in Montana. They were filled with candidate surveys and mailers that said they were paid for by campaigns, and fliers and bank records from outside spending groups. One folder was labeled “Montana $ Bomb.”

The documents pointed to one outside group pulling the candidates’ strings: a social welfare nonprofit called Western Tradition Partnership, or WTP.

Trevor Potter, a former federal election commissioner who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group that advocates for more restrictions on money in politics, reviewed the documents found in the boxes.

“This is the sort of information that is, in fact, campaign strategy, campaign plans that candidates cannot share with an outside group without making it coordinated,” Potter said.

“You need to know more, but certainly if I were back in my FEC days as a commissioner, I would say we had grounds to proceed with an investigation and put people under oath and show them these documents, and ask where they came from and where they were.”

I would say any podunk District Attorney worth his salt would do the same, but alas, many of them are Repugs.

Go read this. The crux of the biscuit is one of the "comments":

Even with all that money they still have to resort to cheating the process.

That's because they want to rule with ideas that stink like the inside of a meth house and are many times as dangerous.

Right will rage if Obama wins

Gee, ya think? A 'recommended read' by Daddy Frank in Salon.

If Obama wins, Frank Rich says the GOP's fury will intensify, and the party will only get more extreme

So what happens if Obama beats Mitt Romney and the Republicans again, this time after the likes of McConnell made denying him a second term their main legislative mission over the last four years? The earnest-minded might hope that Republicans view Obama’s re-election as a message to cooperate and a sign that their obstruction failed. The sober-minded might look at the number of ridiculous white men determined to make rape victims carry their attacker’s baby and a primary campaign filled with evolution opponents and assume common sense and basic decency, or at least post-Renaissance thinking, might return on social and cultural issues.

But Frank Rich says none of that will happen. The only lesson that will be learned, the New York magazine columnist says, is to head further right. And Rich argues that’s because there simply aren’t any other voices left. The moderate Northeast wing of the party was purged long ago. The primary defeats of conservatives like Bob Bennett in Utah and Richard Lugar in Indiana taught establishment figures that any compromise has its costs. Even a moderate-conservative wing, Rich suggests, would have no leaders, let alone followers, in the national party.

They could have won with Jon Huntsman, but he wasn't batcrap crazy enough the way the Repugs are going. Secaucus Fats could have won, but he and the other relatively sane possible Repug candidates saw which way the wind was blowing early on and wisely sat this one out.

Willard is simply the Wall St. candidate. The Repugs knew - and I mean knew - he was going to be their nominee from the gate and also that he was going to lose. At least he'll be out of politics after this.

Fuck 'em all. I'm going to enjoy watching their heads explode. And if it means the end of an electable Repug party for a few years, I'm down wid dat too.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Arizonans to Vote on Taking Grand Canyon From Federal Government
State needs a cost-effective landfill.

GOP Senate Candidate: Pregnancy from Rape “Gift from God”
Pregnancy from gang rape “gift from a whole bunch of Gods.”

Harley-Davidson Profit Falls
As aging Hells Angels trade in their Harleys for golf carts.

No more cash out refis, less new Hawgs. Actually, they go through a "trike" stage first, or as us guys still up on two wheels refer to them, "motorized walkers".

Nielsen: 88% of People Watch TV While Using Smartphone
Other 12% trying to keep their eyes on the road.

REMINDER
Ask not what your country can do for you, especially if Romney wins.

Will that mean no more cat food stamps for us seniors?

Sunday Funnies

10 Big Surprises in Store For Tea Partiers Fleeing to Canada if Obama Wins

At least their Prime Minister will be white.

If there's one thing that screams 'patriotism' and love of country, it's fleeing the United States when a Democrat wins an election.

Here are but a few examples of the hundreds, if not thousands of Tea Party types who totally swear they're moving to Canada if the Kenyan usurper and his Zombie ACORN thugs win this thing.

A lot of lefties threatened to leave the U.S. if Dim Son got a second term but I don't think many did. At least lefties are a good fit up there in The Great White Socialist North. Musta been the "White" part that got the Teatards thinking about it. Heh.

I have no trouble at all believing that the Teatards are ignorant enough about Canuckistan to actually consider moving there.

As well, I have no trouble thinking they'll enjoy the civilized advantages of Canadian socialism without ever realizing what's going on.

Note: Beware the poutine!

"My party is full of racists"

Nice of ya to say it out loud, Colonel, but we already knew it.

MSNBC

“My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people, not all of them, but most of them, who are still basing their decision on race,” Wilkerson said. “Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. And that’s despicable.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Magnolia Fest, Live Oak FL 10/19/2012

Thanks to chucklabelle.

It's Official

I have declared today "Fuck-It-Friday".

Electoral Map

Thanks to the L.A.Times

How the right wing lost in 2012

From E.J. Dionne's lips to God's ears. Today's 'must read'. It'll make you feel better! Also, we knew the Dead End Quarter couldn't win anything all by itself, certainly not on ideas.

The right wing has lost the election of 2012.

The evidence for this is overwhelming, yet it is the year’s best-kept secret. Mitt Romney would not be throwing virtually all of his past positions overboard if he thought the nation were ready to endorse the full-throated conservatism he embraced to win the Republican nomination.
...

The right is going along because its partisans know Romney has no other option. This, too, is an acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition that the grand ideological experiment heralded by the rise of the tea party has gained no traction. It also means that conservatives don’t believe that Romney really believes the moderate mush he’s putting forward now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the conservatives are forgiving Romney because they think he is lying, what should the rest of us think?

That he's lying. We've known that all along too, but what's amazing is that no matter which position comes out of his pie-hole ... he's lying. That's hard to pull off so people don't catch on, and they are.

The biggest sign that tea party thinking is dead is Romney’s straight-out deception about his past position on the rescue of the auto industry.
...

“Ideas have consequences” is one of the conservative movement’s most honored slogans. That the conservatives’ standard-bearer is now trying to escape the consequences of their ideas tells us all we need to know about who is winning the philosophical battle — and, because ideas do matter, who will win the election.

That's what counts.

Battle of the Ski Hills

This is good clean local fun - which ski hill will open first. Some years, they vie to see who gets open by Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. This year ... not so much. It went from autumn to winter all in a coupla days this week.

Boreal Opening Day Announced - First Resort to "Officially" Open in California
...

Boreal will operate the Castle Peak Quad chairlift offering access to one run featuring multiple terrain park features. Boreal plans to operate thru the weekend and will assess conditions on Sunday to determine a mid-week operating schedule.

One lift, one run, but it's a point of pride to get open first. Even with barely enough employees to do it.

Celebrate 3 Feet of New Snow with California's First Ski Resort Opening
...

With snow still expected to fall through Wednesday, the first snow storm of the 2012-13 winter season has already delivered 28 inches to Squaw Valley and 36 inches to Alpine Meadows. Another 6-9 inches are expected by Thursday, which would bring snow totals to more than 3 feet.

None of these joints received enough snow or have enough employees yet to sustain their symbolic "openings", but it'll draw the die-hard skiers and riders and whet their appetites.

As for me, I live in the banana belt so I only got a foot of snow. My snowblower fired up on the second pull after a seven-month hiatus and tradition was served in that the first-time-out shear pin breakage occurred right on schedule after I cleared one pickup a path. Also, The Berm Fairy came and saved me a little work. Thanks, Dave.

Just another day in paradise...

Up The Donald

Neocon Trojan Horse

Right near the top of my extensive laundry list of things I don't like about Willard is his former Bush neocon foreign policy advisers like Senor and Walrus Man. 17 out of his 24 foreign policy advisers are Bush neocon warmongers. That's 17 cells at Gitmo if it was up to me.

Robert Parry at Consortiumnews:

Exclusive: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did all he could in Monday’s debate to calm voters’ fears that he would revert to George W. Bush’s neocon foreign policy. But there was one telling slip-up when Romney signaled that his heart remains with the neocon plan to remake the Middle East, reports Robert Parry.
...

Though Romney’s goal in Monday’s foreign policy debate was to downplay his warlike neoconservative stands, his reference to the Syrian chaos as “an opportunity” suggests that his more moderate rhetoric is just another ploy to deceive voters and win the election, not a real abandonment of neocon strategies.

In that sense, the new “moderate Mitt” is less a sign of a neocon retreat from his earlier bellicosity than a Trojan Horse to be wheeled onto the White House grounds on Jan. 20, 2013, so the neocons can pour forth from its hollowed-out belly and regain full control of U.S. foreign policy.

So, the neocons don’t really mind that Romney has suddenly abandoned many of their cherished positions, such as extending the Afghan War beyond 2014 and returning U.S. troops to Iraq. The neocons understand the political need for Romney to calm independent voters who fear that he may be another George W. Bush.

Just more Romney lies.

The first key political obstacle was removed when the neocons helped engineer George W. Bush’s ascension to the presidency in Election 2000. However, the path was not fully cleared until al-Qaeda terrorists attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind a political climate across America for war and revenge.
...

But the dream hasn’t died. It just had to wait out four years of Barack Obama. In Campaign 2012, the neocons have returned to surround Mitt Romney, who like George W. Bush a decade ago has only a vague understanding of the world and is more than happy to cede the direction of U.S. foreign policy to the smart, confident and well-connected neocons.

The neocons also understand the need to manipulate the American people. In the 1980s, when I was covering Ronald Reagan’s Central American policies, I dealt with the neocons often and came to view them as expert manipulators whose view of democracy was that it was okay to trick the common folk into doing what was deemed necessary.
...

But the real opportunity for the neocons would come if the American voters, satisfied that Romney no longer appears to be the crazy war hawk of the Republican primaries, elect him on Nov. 6 and then celebrate his arrival next Jan. 20 by pushing a crude wooden horse through the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The neocons just about shot their wad with Bush and it was (and is) a disaster. They have one more chance with the skinwalker Romney. They better not get it or we're in even worse trouble.

Armed forces overwhelmingly support Obama in donations

Kos

Ahead of the foreign policy debate, Open Secrets shows that those with real skin in the game, members of the military and civilian employees of the military, are overwhelmingly supporting President Obama.
...

Military personnel overwhelmingly support Obama over Romney despite the pending cuts to defense. That could be because Obama has kept his promise to bring the wars to an end and because to Mitt Romney, the troops aren't anything more than an item on a laundry list.

When Romney talks about the military, he talks about how much money he wants the government to spend to line the pockets of defense contractors. When Obama talks about the military, he talks about the men and women who have sacrificed so much in the last decade. That's what makes a commander in chief.

That's "Semper Fidelis", folks.

Frightened men love Mitt Romney

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on frightened old white men.

Not even close. Here is your brutal nutshell takeaway: If only women voted, Obama wins in a landslide. If only men voted, Romney wins in a landslide. (Taken further: if only Latinos, blacks, celebrities, college grads, professors, scientists, poets, Burning Man attendees, book readers, trees, oceans, major cities or college towns of America voted, Obama nails it wholly and true. If only rich CEOs, gun owners, upper managers, oil companies, rednecks, shut-ins and guys who think Muslims are terrorists, Mexicans are lazy house painters and feminazis are ruining porn voted, Romney is a mutant and faraway god).

All of which leads to the most depressing conclusion of all: older white males remain the most terrified, lopsided, confused demographic in all of America, perhaps even more acutely – and more embarrassingly – in this election than any other in modern history.

Well, Marko me boy, not all of us older white men are terrified or confused. I'll cop to being lopsided once in a while...

Upshot: confused middle-aged white guys of every height and state are looking around in increasing terror/desperation for some hint of stability, someone to validate – however wrongly, however dishonestly – their waning powers, and finding only charlatan mushball Mitt Romney and the sneering misogyny of the GOP. Hey, better than nothing, right? Here you go, bro, have a beer and a layoff and some Glenn Beck jeans to go with your sexist binder full of women, courtesy the Bush worldview and Romney’s promise of more of same. Hey, at least he hates the gays!
...

Nevertheless, the gap is as wide as ever, and the weird knot remains, as petrified and impossible to untie as ever. The good news is, the roles are changing rapidly, the next generation is coming fast, terrified old white guys are a dying breed. The bad news is, with so much at stake this time out (Supreme Court nominees, gay marriage, energy, health care, et al) the evolution of the species can’t come fast enough.

Evolution proceeds at its own pace, young man. Right now in the demographic you mention, it's stuck on stupid.

Horses and Bayonets

Obama's "horses and bayonets" comment made me feel old. Was he sayin' there's no more "Giddyap, Fleabiscuit!" with yer pigsticker attached to yer shootin' arn like when I was in the service? Sigh...

This is an oil painting of The Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918 depicting the use of the bayonet. The Jarheads had already eaten the horses. In this 3-week battle, the Marines took 10,000 casualties but they stopped the German advance on Paris. Nothing could stop Romney's advance on Paris however, as opposed to, say, Khe Sanh or Hue.

Wars aren't fought this way any more, and more's the pity. Marines loves us some bayonets and K-Bars. Up close and personal! In your face and in your belly.

Quote of the Day

From a piece at Kos:

I have 52 employees in my company. Thanks to Obamacare, I'll have to pay $100,000 extra for health insurance if I have over 45 employees. So what am I going to do? I have to fire 7 people. All of my employees are great and I can't decide who to get rid of so I'm going to fire all of the employees who have Obama stickers on their car.

Yeah, that hundred grand'll keep his yacht running for a month. Typical rich Repug asshole.

Debate Ends Abruptly as Obama Punches Romney in Face

Borowitz

Minutes after Mr. Romney was carried out on a stretcher, the debate was declared a victory for Mr. Obama by all the major networks except Fox News, who called it a draw.

Heh.

Random Observations on Last Night's "Foreign Policy" Debate

The Rude One

It made no sense. Why bother saying these things in the letter if the main point was that people shouldn't park their cars even a couple of inches across the line that was painted near his driveway? Is that not wrong enough? Why did he have to create some fiction in order for the situation to seem worse and for him to seem tougher?

Then the Rude Pundit glanced at the house and noticed the sign in the window: "Romney/Ryan." Ah, of course. If one has very little to say, then all one can do is make up things that, whether they make sense or not, sound like things that make you a badass.

That's pretty much all one needs to say about Mitt Romney in last night's debate with Barack Obama.

2. Oh, fuck Israel. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck Israel. [...]
...

(Note: This part could have also started with "Oh, fuck al-Qaeda.")
...

4. On substance, then, it was a fairly useless debate, as have all the debates. On style, though? If Obama had been as clueless, pandering, and flop-sweaty as Romney, pundits around the country would have said that they're getting ready to cover a Mitt administration. However, since it was the Democrat who won, most will say that Romney didn't do too badly. That's bullshit. Romney lost big time. [...]
...

[...] As for any alternative to anything Obama was doing, Romney's sole plan seems to be that he'll be there and not Obama, and somehow, through Mormon magic involving the castrated balls of the eunuchs in the Tabernacle Choir, no doubt, America will seem stronger with a man named Willard in charge.

Call the Rude Pundit wrong, but this seems less like a plan and more like an insane ego trip.

1a. Oh, as for the note? Like the way we should react to Mitt Romney after this final meeting with Obama, the Rude Pundit crumpled it up and tossed it on the guy's lawn, like throwing a fish back into the lake.

I cannot add to that very much except that the lake Willard came out of needs to be rotenoned.

What Obama Should Say 2012, Part 3 (Rude Version)

Perhaps uberRude...just go.

Weed beat the recession in Denver

In case you missed it on 60 Minutes last night.

Via Raw Story.

Colorado is one of three states voting this November on full legalization of marijuana for recreational use, and polls show it could be a close vote. A recent poll by The Denver Post found that 48 percent of likely voters support Amendment 64, which would regulate marijuana like alcohol, while just 43 percent oppose the measure.

Remember: Cheeb ain't just for breakfast any more!

Headline of the Day

GOP controlled Virginia Board Of Elections refuses to prosecute GOP voter fraud

Whatever it takes to win IOKIYAR.

Oh, the irony

Ironic Times

Newly Declassified Docs Reveal CIA Never Had Any Reason to Believe Iraq Had WMDs
Just the vice president's good word.

We knew that. Why isn't he in prison?

Astronomers Believe Habitable Planet Could Orbit Closest Star
But it would still take nearly 4.4 years, traveling at the speed of light, before we could conquer it, steal its valuable assets and enslave its inhabitants.

NFL: League Mulls Narrowing Goal Posts as Field Goal Success Rate Nearly 88%
Other remedies: blindfolding kickers; using lead ball; English-only requirement.

Romney Pays Surprise Visit to Chipotle
Scares the dickens out of employees.

Note to Willard: Hollering "Migra!" is not a traditional greeting when entering a restaurant kitchen.

Bumpersticker of the Day

A tip o' the Brain to Bulldog, whose blog appears to have been taken over by the Japanese and is therefore not linked to, and deuddersun's brudder.

Major Endorsements

The Salt Lake Tribune

Tribune Endorsement: Too Many Mitts

Obama has earned another term
...

Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"

The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.

Denver Post

Endorsement: Barack Obama for president
...

And though there is much in Mitt Romney's résumé to suggest he is a capable problem-solver, the Republican nominee has not presented himself as a leader who will bring his party closer to the center at a time when that is what this country needs.
His comments on the 47 percent of Americans who refuse to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives" were a telling insight into his views and a low point of the campaign.
Obama, on the other hand, has shown throughout his term that he is a steady leader who keeps the interests of a broad array of Americans in mind.
We urge Coloradans to re-elect him to a second term.


Read more: Endorsement: Barack Obama for president - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21804862/editorial-barack-obama-president#ixzz29rAlE3AF
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Tampa Bay Times

Times recommends

Obama for president
...

Although he came to the job with limited foreign policy experience, Obama has been reasonably sure-footed. His appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state reflected the Democrat's self-confidence to invite a former rival and wife of a former president to join his administration. Obama followed through on his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq, which Romney called a mistake. The president's temporary troop surge in Afghanistan stabilized the country and checked the Taliban's momentum. Yet the president recognizes Americans have no appetite for a never-ending war for diminishing returns. He pledges to pull combat forces out of Afghanistan in 2014, while Romney remains fuzzy about his intentions.

Romney suggests Obama has been too timid on foreign policy, but it took courage to order the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The Republican's saber-rattling about the violence in Syria and Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon is particularly concerning. This nation has neither the resources nor the appetite for another discretionary military adventure. Obama's mix of diplomacy, coalition-building and tough economic sanctions remains the smarter approach.

I suspect the Tampa endorsement comes because the Repugs were lousy tippers at the strip clubs during their convention, cheap bastids that they are. Heh.

Much more at all of these thoughtful op-eds.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Hardly strictly bluegrass 2012

Emmylou Harris ~ Talk To Me Of Mendocino

Thanks to lisap2468.

When Giants Meet...

...the world trembles. In joy and mirth, as it turned out. Alternate Brain meets deuddersun.

The backstory is d gave me his room number over the phone. We went to the motel and I asked how to get to his room and I got the room number wrong. The desk clerk, a very nice young lady, knew instantly that I must be up to some scam and she needed to protect her guests so she called him and he and his lovely daughter came down to meet us and this is the hysteric historic meetup, like the U.S. and U.S.S.R. at the Rhine.

Update:

Oh crap, it's HUGE! Ran off the screen onto the file cabinet! I tried to reduce the size but failed so far.

Update II:

Got it!

Headline of the Day

Liquid alert!

Gary Johnson adviser: RNC chair ‘Reince Penis’ belongs in a police lineup

Bwafuckin'hahahaha!

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, might be Romney's spoiler in this election like Nader was to Gore. Talk him up with your conservative friends.

Old Southie Chooses Tagg Off

This was so good! Via Raw Story.

Lawrence O’Donnell to ‘Taggart’ Romney: Your dad is a liar so ‘take a swing at me’

“The flawlessly consistent, intergenerational combat cowardice of Romney men makes today’s threat of physical violence from a Romney man all the more surprising,” the MSNBC host added, referring to Tagg Romney’s desire to deck the president.

O’Donnell then looked into the camera and spoke directly to “Taggart”:

O'Donnell lapsed back into a little of his Southie accent for this. Fabulous! Here's the transcript. Go see the video.

When I hear you talking about taking a swing and taking punches, why do I get the feeling that you’ve never actually taken a punch? Or thrown a punch? I didn’t have that luxury in the part of Boston that I grew up in. But in your rich, suburban Boston life, with your father filling a $100 million trust fund for you, I don’t know, I just get the feeling that things were kind of different for you.

Now, I know you’ve got a lot — a lot to be pissed off at these days, starting with the name Taggart, which you got every right to be wicked pissed off at for every day for the 42 years of your life. So, let me try to help you deal with all this aggression you’re feeling right now.

You’re mad at President Obama for calling your father a liar? Well, let’s get something straight, he didn’t call your father a liar, I did. The president just said that what your father said isn’t true. I’ve been saying all year that your father is a liar, I’ve repeatedly said that your father lies and is trying to lie his way into the White House.

You want to take a swing at someone for calling your old man a liar? Take a swing at me. Come on, come on. And don’t worry, there won’t be any Secret Service involved. Just us. And I’ll make it easy for you, I’ll come to you. Anytime, anywhere.”

“Go ahead, Taggart, take your best shot,” O’Donnell concluded.

Lawrence knows damn well he won't ever have to make good on it because the Romney boys are fuckin' privileged punks and won't take him up on it. They have people to do that. Even if Tagg summoned up the sack, or lost his fuckin' mind, and actually tried it, O'Donnell could probably kick his ass anyway.

I should say by way of disclosure that I was a privileged punk too. A hitch in the Marine Corps got me over that. For all their money, the Romneys never had that advantage and are still and will remain punks.

Here's my take on Tagg's "liar" comment - he wasn't pissed off at Obama for calling his dad a liar so much as he was pissed off that the help had the audacity to talk back to him. The "little people" (anybody but them) just don't do that in their elitist world, and they can't fire Obama for insubordination. It must hurt them to the quick to find out dissent against their views is allowed outside their bubble.

Welcome to our world, sonny. I hope you choke on it.

Snow Job on Jobs

Paul Krugman on Rmoney's "jobs" plan.

So when the campaign says that these three studies support its claims about jobs, it is, to use the technical term, lying — just as it is when it says that six independent studies support its claims about taxes (they don’t).

What do Mr. Romney’s economic advisers actually believe? As best as I can tell, they’re placing their faith in the confidence fairy, in the belief that their candidate’s victory would inspire an employment boom without the need for any real change in policy. In fact, in his infamous Boca Raton “47 percent” remarks, Mr. Romney himself asserted that he would give a big boost to the economy simply by being elected, “without actually doing anything.” And what about the overwhelming evidence that our weak economy isn’t about confidence, it’s about the hangover from a terrible financial crisis? Never mind.

To summarize, then, the true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn’t dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we’re getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There’s no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people.

"Hose Job" is more like it.

Some mistakes hurt worse than others

Tagg Romney Wanted To ‘Take A Swing’ At Obama

Scenario: Tagg takes a swing at Obama. Obama wipes blood off his lip, grins, says "That the best ya got, white boy?" and proceeds to swab the deck with him. Heh.

OMG Update!

Tagg Romney's Gay Lover Speaks Out: The Inevitable Interview

...

"I know why he's so tense. Yes, it's because his dad is running for president. But it's because he hasn't been able to sneak away for a weekend together. He's being watched too much. His brothers have been telling him to stay away. By the way, two more of them are gay. And one of them is way into S&M, can't even get hard without having his nuts stomped by a stiletto heel. I'm pretty sure that one has had sex with the horse, too. Anyways, Taggart's texted me a few times. He talks about how much he misses me in his ass and how often he's masturbated thinking about it. He's a nice guy, way nicer than his brothers or his dad. Or his mom. This Obama punching stuff just isn't like him.

"To everyone else, Tagg Romney will be Mitt Romney's son, maybe the son of a president. But to me? He'll always be my favorite cocksucker."

Light Blogging Today

Things to do. See yas later.

When the President Comes to Town

From William Rivers Pitt in a good post on Tuesday night's debate.

The political "news" media needs a simple, direct story line to survive, so here it is: the bully got punched in the mouth on Tuesday night, and did not like the taste of his own blood. Mr. Romney's advisors clearly told him to double-down on the blustery, brazen tactics of the first debate, but that advice withered within the first ten minutes before a presidential adversary who was too smart, too tough, and too good to let stupidity win the day a second time.

Mitt Romney found himself in a room with the Commander in Chief, and came off by comparison looking like a guy who had lost a contact lens while trying to navigate an alligator pit in the midst of a negotiation over the exact value of his own testicles.

I'm sure the alligators enjoyed them. Heh.

On the failed War On Drugs and the Prison-Industrial Complex

Must see TV. The hell of this is that we have to get it from a basic cable comedy show.

In this exclusive, unedited interview, Eugene Jarecki investigates the financial, social and moral failure of America's war on drugs. (06:35)

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Eugene Jarecki Extended Interview Pt. 2
In this exclusive, unedited interview, "The House I Live In" director Eugene Jarecki suggests policy alternatives to throwing drug offenders into prison. (07:03)

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Big Trouble in Limbaugh Land

Good. Kos, many links.

In 2006, Mitt Romney officially announced his run for president of the United States.

Also in 2006, Clear Channel, the largest radio network in the world, announced that it was being purchased and taken private by Bain Capital, the one time (and perhaps still?) Mitt Romney-controlled private equity fund.
...

Early this year, largely as a result of the Bain takeover, Clear Channel was in debt more than 19 billion dollars. Last March, Bain Capital took an additional 2.2 billion dollars out of Clear Channel, so the debt is now greater than 21 billion.

Big debt comes with harsh deadlines. Clear Channel has to come up with $500 million in debt payments by the end of 2013, a payment of $1.1 billion due in 2014, and then a much larger payment of $12 billion due in 2016.
...

So Clear Channel has since decided to restructure $2 billion of its debt. This has been described as "kicking some debt down the road", meaning that all of the 2014 payments, and a small part of the 2016 payments, will now be due in 2019. The significant drawback to rescheduling this debt is higher interest payments, which have been estimated at an additional $100 million per year. And Moodys says that more of the 2016 debt will need to be rescheduled.

Now think about this circumstance. Mitt Romney's Bain Capital bought Clear Channel and financed their purchase with deep debt. Their corporate austerity requirements have forced layoffs, the most recent of which occurred on March 30 of 2012. That was just two weeks after Bain Capital raided Clear Channel's assets by forcing a two billion dollar dividend payment, paid for with a loan arrangement which prompted lawsuits. Just six months later, Clear Channel (as one of Bain Capital's piggy banks) finds it necessary to seek two billion dollars in debt relief (imagine that!) by "kicking the [debt] can down the road".

I hope they sink without a trace and take Romney and all the wingnut gasbags down with them.

Swing voters for fun and terror

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on undecided voters like there really are some.

But still, it must be said: How sweet it mostly is to live here in California right about now. Not merely for the weather, or the insane food, or the coast, or the culture, the variety, the nature, the beaches or the sushi or the music or the trees or any of the other usual suspects of wonky and dead-broke fabulousness the West side is so rightly praised/bejealoused over.

No, the source of our delight at this moment is our utter and glorious lack of soul-mauling political ads, the deeply gratifying non-existence of Romney and Obama pummeling all common senses into submission via billboards, TV, radio, skywriting and knocking on the goddamn front door every five minutes as they try with all their millions to sway that most bizarre of American creature, that most disturbing cultural substrata, that ideological cartoon character known as the “swing voter.”

Ah, the mysterious swing voter. Who are these bizarre beasts of the American political underbelly? Who dares, at this point in his/her wobbly existence, to have no concrete clue as to what’s going on, whom to vote for, or why they should bother to learn to understand how to care about any of it in the first place?
...

Swing voter! You are like that mysterious giant eyeball washing ashore in Florida. You are like the toxic Flamin’ Hot Cheetos of the obese American schoolyard. You are like Sarah Palin in the bleary apocalypse morning: A weird, enthralling and slightly disturbing part of the news cycle for a short burst of time, before you fall back into the category of “just not very bright.”
...

Perhaps, then, we should clarify further. Because if it’s sort of glorious to be in California where the electoral college is so devoutly blue, it’s perhaps even better to be in a city like San Francisco (or Chicago, Or LA, or New York, et al, or just about any decent college town in America), where there is never a doubt which way the electorate will go, and there is a sort of calm reassurance that there are enough smart people around to keep the joint in check.

Say what you like, but the truism is the same planet wide: the closer you get to educational and cultural hubs, the more liberal and progressive you become, and the less likely the notorious, undecided “swing voter” will have any meaning to you whatsoever.

Conversely, the less education and fewer worldly smarts, travels, you have, the more likely you are prone to fear, night terrors, a scowling and judgmental God, ever paranoid that foreigners will steal your popsicles, sex will make you blind and the gays will eat your soul. Romney 2012!

Please read the rest and don't miss the comments!

Rude Observations on Last Night's Presidential Debate

You know who likens the debate to a cockfight.

2. So last night, Cock 1, President Obama, decided that sleepy time was over and came out of the gate ready to destroy the myth of Mitt. In the first ten minutes, he said that Romney wasn't telling the truth multiple times. And, for the first time in any presidential debate the Rude Pundit's witnessed, it really looked like one of them was going to punch the other. That moment over whether or not oil production was cut was genuinely tense. For most of the 100 minutes or so, Obama was not the usual punk-ass Democrat, trying to find places to agree with the Republican. Instead, he was the asskicker-in-chief, taking Romney and the audience to school again and again. If this had been the first debate, we'd be talking about how big a landslide the president would win by. But it wasn't. And while Obama will still eke out a victory, it would have been nice to have put it away.
...

8. One bit of advice for debate the third: the President has yet to talk about how Republican obstructionism has prevented many of his promises from being passed or implemented. That's why Romney kept saying that Obama didn't "file a bill" on things like immigration. Because if Romney had said that something didn't pass, then that opens the door to saying that the Republican senators are a bunch of assholes who care more about preventing an Obama victory on anything than on helping the nation.

9. At the end of the debate, the Rude Pundit didn't see the candidates shake hands. By concluding with an attack on Romney's 47% remarks, Obama pretty much went over to Cock 2 and shit on him while he was dying. The living cock doesn't need to shake hands with the dead one.

Word.

The Other Sept. 11

No shit. I've called it the "RS3M" for years. That's "Republican Spin, Slime, and Smear Machine". Folks with a more general gentler and more sensitive audience call it the "Mighty Wurlitzer".

Slate

Blame Obama for four deaths in Libya. But don’t blame Bush for nearly 3,000 deaths in New York.

The president was warned of an impending threat of terrorism. He failed to act. The attack came, Americans died, and now the administration is covering up the truth.

That’s what Republicans are arguing in 2012. Which is pretty funny, if you don’t count the dead Americans, because it’s the opposite of what the GOP said 10 years ago. Back then, the conspiracy theories and the 20/20 hindsight were about the original 9/11 attacks. And the Republican Party line was that anyone who accused the president of neglect or deceit was unpatriotic.

Please read the rest. Always remember and never forget, IOKIYAR. Buncha whiny bastards, every last fuckin' one of 'em. My dream is to live long enough to see the last fuckin' one of 'em.

Headline of the Day

Anderson Cooper calls out Romney for claiming ‘blog posts’ are tax plan studies

Get 'em, Andy!

If "blog posts" are "tax plan studies", Alternate Brain is the "Master Plan For Good Governance". Heh.

Jon Stewart Mocks Fox News’ Post-VP Debate Spin

TPM

When “the ghost of Barack Obama” debated Mitt Romney earlier this month, MSNBC appropriately freaked out and deemed Romney the winner, Jon Stewart said on Monday. That wasn’t the case with Fox News after last week’s vice presidential debate.

“To sum up Fox’s post-debate coverage: Joe Biden was an angry, demented, abusive, drunk, old, crazy person who mopped the floor with our guy,” Stewart said.

Yeah, us angry, demented, abusive, drunk, old, crazy persons'll do that...

Watch the video:

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Obama’s New Debate Strategy

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—With his polite and well-mannered performance widely panned in the first Presidential debate, President Barack Obama is under mounting pressure to prove that he can act like an asshole in the second debate tomorrow night, a campaign aide confirmed.

“In America, we demand that our President remain cool and calm in a crisis but go batshit in a debate,” the aide said. “Tuesday night is all about that second piece.”
...

But even as Mr. Obama worked around the clock to practice being a douche, Mitt Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, doubted his efforts would succeed.

“Being an asshole isn’t a skill that you can just pick up overnight,” Mr. Rhoades said. “Mitt Romney’s been working on it all his life.”

Yo Barry, whatever it takes...

Quotes of the Day

Kos

Los Angeles erases its budget deficit in an instant after issuing its first-ever ticket to the Space Shuttle Endeavour for violating every motor vehicle law ever written.

Wishful thinking dept.:

Tuesday: President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for debate #2 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. Moments later, Republicans switch places with Democrats on window ledges.

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner and his parachute are finally freed from Gladys Higginbotham's Albuquerque chimney after she reports to police that all that Austrian swearing wasn't in her head after all.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Employment Improves in September, Says Bureau of Labor Statistics
Romney adds Bureau of Labor Statistics to list of government agencies he'll get rid of.

Last Week: Republicans Don't Believe Polls, Jobless Numbers
This week: Republicans don't believe jobless numbers.

Taliban in Pakistan Surprised By Poor Reception of Near-Fatal Attack on 14-Year-Old Girl Who Asserted Her Right to Go to School
If armed men on motorcycles can't stand up to 14-year-old girls, how can they be expected to stone their mothers?

Poll Reveals 1 in 5 Americans Have No Religious Affiliation
But still believe in God, Satan, heaven, hell, miracles, ghosts, Santa Claus.

Also the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and the chance that there's an honest Republican pol.

Goin' Ridin'

Off to ride the Granite Trial today, put on by SactoPITS. Last trial of my season. See yas.

Update:

Had a great day. Friends and fun. 1st (and only) in class.

Click to embiggen

The award was made by some PITS members who make stuff for bicycles. It's machined out of aluminum and is 4 inches across, 5/8" thick, and quite heavy (can't find my postage scale). A very nice addition for my "me wall".

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Buddy Miller & Emmylou Harris cover Porter Wagoner "Burning The Midnight Oil" @ Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival San Francisco CA 10-6-12

Thanks to steve holmes.

That's a wrap...

A tip o' the Brain to our brudder deuddersun.

Joe Biden Throws Paul Ryan Off His Lawn

El Rude One

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.

It is probably Biden's last time on the big stage. Give the bright-toothed guy his victory lap.

Fuckin' A, and let him spin big greasy-ass toluene-filled smoke-billowing donuts until he runs outta gas!

On The Veep Debate

I want a Joe Biden bobblehead. He cleaned Eddie Munster's clock. Conservatives and assorted wingnuts will say Ryan won. He didn't.

Martha Raddatz, whom I have adored for years and who has nearly as much combat experience as the Presidential debate's moderator and Marine Jim Lehrer, did far, far better as moderator.

Ryan's still a punk.

Update:

Borowitz

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.

What Biden Should Say Tonight 2012 (Rude Version)

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.

"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.

Probably be fun to watch anyway. I hope Joe tears him a few new ones.

Dumber Than Teabaggers...

...as hard as that is to believe. This was in front of my post office today, although not on P.O. property. I checked.

At first I thought they were 'baggers and pretty stupid ones at that, somehow conflating Glass-Steagall with Obama. When I got closer I saw that it was even worse than that. These morons are part of the LaRouche cult. Picture the worst attributes of the teatards, the neocons, and a nominal Democrat to boot even though the Democrats wisely want nothing to do with the sonofabitch. LaRouche ran for President a few times but I think he's mainly a California aberration. How they came to Truckee I don't wanta know. Here's what wiki says about this buncha idiots:

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.

I asked the woman (her boyfriend stayed away from me. He might be crazy but he's not stupid. Heh.) just what the hell Obama has to do with Glass-Steagall. Her answer: "he hates it". Yeesh.

I was just pissed off when I saw these morons in MY town. I thought at first, and maybe naturally, that they were just run-of-the-mill wingnuts. Turns out they're much worse and luckily have no political power.

I hadn't heard of LaRouche or his cultists for years and thought they'd disappeared. Wrongamundo.

I've gotta admit I wasn't very polite to these drones. I told the woman as I left that Obama was gonna be re-elected in three weeks and maybe they could try and impeach him next year.

The Black Mormon Vote

The Daily Show

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.

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The Book On Mitt Romney

Here Is John McCain's Entire Opposition Research File

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.

Nice-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.

If you're having trouble sleeping, however...

How the Hype Became Bigger Than the Presidential Election

Excellent article by Matt Taibbi.

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.

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.

There ya go. The "horse race" sells 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.

Why won’t Obama step up?

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on President Obama's poor debate performance and why he's going to win anyway. Best line:

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.

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.

No shit.

Romney Proudly Explains How He's Turned Campaign Around

America's Finest News Source has apparently realized satire is dead and has switched to reporting straight news.

'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.”

“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.

So ... what's new?

Update and Quote of the Day:

From a great post you should read at Crooks and Liars about Willard's vapid and ignorant foreign policy speech to mandatory attendance cadets at VMI. He likes it when bosses make people attend his events under threats of penalty:

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.

Hardly Strictly

EssEffChron, many links and a HUGE photo gallery.

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.
...

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.

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.

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.
...

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.

Lots better to read about than crazy fucking Repugs and the fucking election campaign.