Health Care, Female Veterans, and the Rights of Us All

I owe ten years of sobriety to the VA. Go read El Rude-o's guest poster. It might be the longest post there yet.

Today, the Rude Pundit is giving over the joint to Navy veteran and health and disability activist Karen Vasquez, who also happens to be a longtime reader of this here blog. You can read her stuff all the time at The Mighty Turtle. Check this out. It's compelling, funny, and infuriating stuff:

Perspective is a funny thing. It’s shaped by our experience in the present, and those who came long before us in the past.

A woman not being considered a veteran in need of healthcare is in no way shocking, of course. Since the founding of this country, women have had trouble being considered anything other than property until recently. And more recent than you think. In the 1970’s, a woman could not purchase a car without showing she had permission from her husband. Pre-Roe v. Wade: A trip to the doctor for her lady parts required her to be accompanied by her mother or husband. Girls were told in one way or another that they were not in charge of their own bodies. If you find yourself thinking how this is relevant to veteran’s healthcare in the 1990’s, please slap yourself. Thank you.

I’m not going to bore you with my stories of public humiliation and degradation on active duty because I had a vagina. There are enough of those and many grislier than mine. I will dish a little: A certain Secretary of Defense who later went on to be Vice President once told me at a Submariner’s ball, “If they had girls like you in the Navy when I was your age, I would’ve joined.” Oh yeah, I’m sure all he needed was a pretty girl for him decline five deferments. Have another Coors light, Asshat.

Heh.

These are the same types of assholes that called me a "sick bay commando" and other assorted colorful names. They think they are being cute and funny. But they are only exposing themselves for as the ignorant fucks they are. Now, I call them ignorant fucks and not products of their environment because there comes a time in everyone’s life when we get to choose how to travel down life’s path. We can choose to travel with an open mind to nurture a life of change and growth though new information, or we can choose to travel with our heads up our ass in fear. Sometimes, an enlightened path is chosen after people spend years inside their own anuses. Something happens, they emerge, and they choose to be decent human beings. And some learn nothing from life experience and maintain an existence of ignorant fuckery that would insult a caveman.

There's a sentence in there that bears repeating: We can choose to travel with an open mind to nurture a life of change and growth though new information, or we can choose to travel with our heads up our ass in fear.

The crux of the stale biscuit we call "life in America" or "politics".

The short version: if we teach our sons and daughters we are all equal it will be so. Someday.

Word. Please go read the rest.

Headlines of the Day

Powell: Republican leaders should stop ‘idiot presentations’ from Palin and birthers

Good on ya, General. You'll mend your reputation yet.

Harvard scientist seeks ‘adventurous female’ to give birth to cloned Neanderthal

Have Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann been through the change yet? They'd be perfect!

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

OBAMA SWORN IN FOR SECOND TERM
Cites booming gun sales as sign of improving economy.

Poll: 64% of Republicans Think Obama Hiding Something About His Early Life
Like a decade of heavy drinking, or skipping his National Guard duties, or bankrupting a company, or DUIs that dad's friends were able to make disappear, or...

Wow, deja vu all over again...

Boehner's Office Vandalized by House Members of Tea Party, But Boehner Won't File Charges for Party Unity
Also because they're armed and dangerous.

Utah Smoothie Shop Charges Liberals More Than Conservatives
Tell them you're a nativist with an anti-semitic bent and your smoothie's free.

The guy actually said that all 3 liberals in his congressional district pay the extra buck without complaint.

Monopoly to Replace One Of Its Game Pieces
Will replace thimble with bong.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Jan 17, 2013
Another night of wonderful music at the Bluebird Cafe,Nashville, Tennessee
with Emmylou Harris, Ashley Cleveland, Pam Rose and Mary Ann Kennedy.

Thanks to nashvillehigh.

The Right’s Dangerously Bad History

Here's your history lesson for today. There will not be a quiz, only knowledge.

Robert Parry

More significantly, however, the American Right has inculcated in its followers a bogus idea of what the U.S. Constitution did. Typically, the Right’s founding narrative jumps from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the Constitution, which was written in 1787 and ratified in 1788. What is usually left out is the nation’s experience with the Articles of Confederation, which governed the new nation from 1777 to 1787.

By ignoring the Articles, the Right can pretend that the Constitution was written with the goal of establishing a system dominated by the states with the central government kept small and weak. That version of history then is cited to support right-wing claims that federal officials, such as Roosevelt and Obama, violate the Constitution when they seek national solutions to the country’s economic and social problems.

However, in the real history, the Framers of the Constitution, particularly George Washington and James Madison, were rejecting the structure of “independent” and “sovereign” states (with a weak central government or “league of friendship”) as established by the Articles of Confederation. The Framers had witnessed how that system had failed and how it was threatening the future of the newly independent nation.

Thus, Washington and Madison led what amounted to a coup d’etat at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Though their instructions were simply to propose amendments to the Articles and refer those suggestions back to the state legislatures, Washington and Madison instead threw out the Articles entirely and produced a dramatically different structure.

Gone was the language in the Articles about “sovereign” and “independent” states. Instead, national sovereignty was shifted to “We the People of the United States.” The new Constitution made federal law supreme and granted the central government sweeping new powers over currency and commerce as well as broad authority to act on behalf of the “general Welfare.”

Much more.

"Let's deal with this on a rational, intellectual level"

Yeah, like that'll happen. Heh.

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

Funny Gun Fails

In honor of "Gun Appreciation Day". It's all fun and games until somebody blows their foot off. Then it's really funny as long as it's not yours. Heh. Be sure to see the tuff guy at the end. Snort...

Via HuffPo.

The Unholy Trinity

Drugs, alcohol, and guns are not a good mix in the hands of dumbass bozos. Probably good "law abiding" NRA members too. Go read this. Video too. RIP, microwave oven...

Recreational assault weapons fire riddles Ohio home, narrowly misses officer

Update:

Mrs. G brought up the excellent point that drugs, alcohol, and firearms should only be trusted in the hands of professionals with all three like me'n Fixer. Heh.

Dysfunction Junction

Paul Begala on "Why the GOP resembles a failed state".

The textbook (OK, Wikipedia) definition of a failed state contains several elements, not all of which apply to a political party—such as maintaining a monopoly on violence, which, thank God, is not part of the job description for House Republicans. But other tests in the Fund for Peace’s Failed State Index sound as if they were written with Boehner’s bunch in mind:

“Mounting demographic pressures.” Republicans have lost ground among Latinos, Asian-Americans, single women, and younger voters. At this rate, in another quarter century they’ll be left with no one but Clint Eastwood and his chair.

“Delegitimization of the state.” That’s kind of the entire point of modern Republicanism, isn’t it?
...

“Rise of factionalized elites.” Are you kidding me? The country clubbers hate the Tea Partiers, the neocons hate the traditionalists, the libertarians distrust the religious right; this isn’t a political party, it’s Yugoslavia circa 1991.

Heh. The Repugs haven't done anything good for the country as a whole since Eisenhower built the Interstate system. The internal turkey-slap that's going on in the GOP isn't very good for the nation in the short term, although I think it will be in the long term, but the Bush Years showed we can survive anything, even if only barely, and it's sure as hell fun to watch! And, brother, we have it coming to watch these assholes tear each other to shreds!

Quote of the Day

From Obama to the NRA: Suck on This Executive Power by guess whom:

For those of us who think few things are more fun than watching conservatives lose their shit over something, yesterday was like Christmas, New Year's, and St. Blowjob's Day all rolled into one.

Yes, it IS great fun to watch the wingtards come unglued! Please enjoy the rest of his post.

You tell 'em, Barry!

Gleefully gleeped from I'm 2 seconds from slapping the SHIT out of a bitch ass Republican.

A few solutions to the "gun problem"

While I was looking for a 2nd Amendment to c&p so I wouldn't have to type it out, I ran across this:

On May 8, 1792, Congress passed "[a]n act more effectually to provide for the National Defence, by establishing an Uniform Militia throughout the United States" requiring:

[E]ach and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia...[and] every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.[99]

Heh. Lemme see ... white males. Check. Under 45 years of age. Exempts me and most of the guntard loudmouths. Check. Musket or firelock. What, no Bushmasters?! Well, OK, check. Twenty rounds? Hardly enough to go downtown. Harrumph. No knapsack is good. So's the bayonet.

I well understand the "white male" part, since the purpose of the militia was ostensibly to defend the government from outside invasion in the absence of a standing army which the Founders abhorred, but also for the more immediate danger from Indians who might resist white males bent on killing them and dispossessing them from their ancestral lands, and against slave revolts which might distress the white male economy of the time.

Remember, this country was built on genocide and slavery, so I guess this 'militia' approach worked quite well.

But I digress. Back to my original intent, no Founding Fathers/Constitution pun intended.

I think a large part of the 'gun control' problem could be solved with duct tape like every other problem. Strategically placed in mass quantities over the mouths of Whine LaPee-air of the NRA and others of his whinyass gun nut ilk. I don't know how much it would help the actual problem, but it'd be a lot more blessedly quiet. Those whiny loudmouth sonsabitches aren't the real problem with gun violence anyway. I won't go into the 'defending the country from the government' non-argument because it's just plain silly. Bushmaster, meet M-1 Abrams, A-10 Warthog, pissed-off Marine Private who would rather be in bed with his girlfriend (wouldn't we all? Heh.) instead of in East Dump Truck, Idaho, dealing with a bunch of fat old wannabes who just shit their pants when a real rifle was pointed at them, etc. etc.

I like guns, own several, and enjoy shooting them in a responsible manner. I think there are an awful lot of us who would just plain like to see the gun nuts STFU and quit making hollow threats which serve no useful purpose except theirs, which is fearmongering of the "The Sky Is Falling!" variety. Hey, we've got a government that can kick your ass without raising a sweat. Man up and deal with it. Yeesh.

The real problem is the deranged shooters who don't say a damn thing until they start working their trigger fingers in a school or mall or other public place.

In other words, you won't know I am going to shoot you until you are shot. That is the only heads up I am ever going to give on that subject.

Here's an idea I and others have had which might actually help.

A majority of the mass shooters appear to be young men, boys really, who are loners and estranged from society at least in their own heads which is where it counts. What's bothering them? What do they want?

They want to get laid like every other young man and can't, because they're shy or peer group outcasts or whatever. They're suffering from DSB (Dreaded Semen Backup) and find unacceptable outlets for their frustration. I'm not joking about this.

A good partial answer is safe, affordable, legal prostitution so they can let a few toads outta the bag and relax a little. I'm not joking about that either. I know our puritanical system full of anti-fun people would never permit that so I'm pissing into the wind but it's something to think about.

Why won’t you ever change?

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on fear of change and how it fucks everything up. Also, since it's Wednesday, I think I'll change my socks...

It all comes to mind as I’m reading about how the NRA is right now sneering like furious, changeless trolls at the Obama administration, given how the latter is daring to propose stricter background checks on gun sales and a complete ban on all assault weapons.

Is it not amazing? Gun fanatics are furious that gun fanatics are being blamed for America’s gun fanatics problem. So cute.

The NRA, like any conservative group, reviles change. The NRA exists solely to enflame fear of the unknown, fear of Other, championing only ignorance and childish anxiety about the world. Their membership depends entirely on a lousy educational system and a visceral hatred of nuance. After all, the less intelligent and informed you are, the more dangerous the world appears, and the more you will desire a deadly weapon to compensate for what you lack in compassion and perspective. What, you calling me stupid? You calling me ignorant and racist and violent? Say it to my Glock.

The NRA, sadly, is far from alone. Did you notice the unmitigated shock and disgust the entire Republican party faced – and is still facing, every day – when it realized the American electorate had finally tipped away from its once-stable, white-male base? The timbre of the nation has permanently shifted, and the GOP is gnawing off its own fingers in panic.

Hmmmmm...that might actually create jobs, like when they need to take a leak or try to jack off with no fingers...

Most people, tragically, have no conception of the radical new, of true spiritual transformation, of seeing through our endless social constructs to the other side. Change as wild possibility has been drilled out of us by capitalism, gun lobbies, reality TV, Wal-Mart, politicians who have a vested interest in promoting stasis and preventing evolution, even going so far as to deny the latter exists at all.

If focus groups led the world, we’d have no iPhone. When you let numb groupthink rule technology, you get Microsoft. If you let conservativism rule, you get Mitt Romney, the Catholic Church, abstinence education, homophobia, sexism, monster trucks, the Iraq war, corporate groupthink, a sad, low-level hatred of anything that is not exactly like you. It’s not that stability or consistency are wrong. They can be quite wonderful. It’s that they’re just as much an illusion as anything else.

“Don’t ever change,” we write, naively, in our friends’ high school yearbooks. Oh my God. Are you insane? I can think of nothing I’d rather do.

I can think of nothing more futile to rail at or be afraid of. Change happens.

Although I DO think everything started downhill when they put the cams on top and did away with pushrods...

It's Time To Right The Colossal Blunder That Is The Iraq War

Charles P. Pierce. In your dreams, Chuck.

One of the more subtle benefits of the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary Of Defense is that it has required in our political discourse that we re-litigate — or, arguably, litigate honestly for the first time — the sweeping criminal fraud that was the selling of the war in Iraq by the administration of George W. Bush. Remarkably, at least in the prominent arenas of public discussion, the "left" side of this debate is primarily represented by people who supported the criminal fraud at first — like Peter Beinart and, admittedly, Hagel himself — and who then soured on the whole business either because they saw what a massive blunder it was, or because they needed to obfuscate their own hysterical support of it in order to maintain their public credibility in a country that was realizing that they'd helped play it for a sucker. And hello to you, too, Andrew Sullivan.

Let us be clear. The Avignon Presidency's excellent adventure in Iraq was a fake from start to finish, planned long in advance of the 9/11 attacks and sold to the country on the basis of "evidence" that bordered on the risible. (Remember the Iraqi drones spraying anthrax up the Hudson?) More to the point, there were people who knew it at the time, who talked about it at the time, who yelled about it at the time, and who, at best, were ignored and, at worst, slandered and marginalized. Those voices are still on the outskirts of the conversation, as though the more right you were, the less credibility you had.

More.

Short of locking up everybody who perpetrated that clusterfuck, I would be happy with the symbolic gesture of locking up Dick Cheney and deny him the luxury of avoiding accountability for his war crimes by being allowed to die a free man.

Shorter: We're Screwed

Obama’s debt ceiling strategy hinges on GOP sanity

Liquid Alert Headline of the Day

Democrats Troll Republicans With Snarky List Of Retreat “Agenda Items”

Also on the suggested topics to be discussed: "How to increase our approval ratings: What root canals, traffic jams, cockroaches and head lice are doing right."

Well, for starters, three out of the four of them aren't standing in the way of progress...

Flu Vaccine Shortage Solved!

In case you're wondering why I hate right-wingers...

...here's the perfect example. Salon.

Gene Rosen sheltered six kids during the Sandy Hook massacre. Now he's become a target of conspiracy theorists
...

“I don’t know what to do,” sighed Gene Rosen. “I’m getting hang up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone posted a photo of his house online. There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the “emotional Jewish guy,” and dozens of blog posts and videos “exposing” him as a fraud. One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: “How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting’. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?”
...

What did Rosen do to deserve this? One month ago, he found six little children and a bus driver at the end of the driveway of his home in Newtown, Connecticut. “We can’t go back to school,” one little boy told Rosen. “Our teacher is dead.” He brought them inside and gave them food and juice and toys. He called their parents. He sat with them and listened to their shocked accounts of what had happened just down the street inside Sandy Hook Elementary, close enough that Rosen heard the gunshots.

In the hours and days that followed, Rosen did a lot of media interviews. “I wanted to speak about the bravery of the children, and it kind of helped me work through this,” he told Salon in an interview. “I guess I kind of opened myself up to this.”

The “this” in question is becoming a prime target of the burgeoning Sandy Hook Truther movement, which — like its precursor that denied the veracity of the 9/11 terror attacks — alleges that the entire shooting was a hoax of some kind. There were conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting from day one, but the movement has exploded into public view the past two weeks, and a Google Trends search suggests it’s just now picking up steam. It’s also beginning to earn the backing of presumably credible sources like a professor and a reporter.

Take your blood pressure meds or a stiff drink and go read the link in that paragraph. Grrrrrr....

The gist of it is that Obama staged the murders of 20 kids and six adults so he could go after the guntards' firearms.

I'm not going to "start shooting people" like that asshole in Tennessee said but if I change my mind I know where I'm going to start.

And when I'm done there won't be a right-wing problem.

Headline of the Day

Coulter: ‘Not a gun problem,’ U.S. has ‘demographic problem’ with non-whites

I think our demographic problem is too many loudmouth right-wing racist bitches, male and female.

Rude Live-blogs Prez's Presser

El Rude-o live-blogged the President's press conference this morning. My main take-away is that it was a good excuse to put whiskey in your morning coffee. Heh.

11:39: And we're off to the races. Obama says that we've got shit to do and we can do it if Republicans stop being such mind-boggling cocks about it.
...

11:44: "The debt ceiling is not a question of authorizing more spending;" it's about paying bills already racked up, he explains. Right-wing bloggers immediately tweet that it's about authorizing more spending. Right-wing blog readers immediately believe the lie rather than the truth.

It is written...

11:46: Says that Republicans in Congress have two choice: act responsibly or act irresponsibly. Does Obama remember the legion of dolts, crazies, and charlatans who make up the Republicans in Congress?

Do you mean the scaredy-cat weaklings who are afraid of being voted off the gravy train if they get primaried by the whackjob base? Yes, yes you do.

11:55: Does Obama understand that he needs to do something that's out there in order to catalyze a real debate on the debt ceiling? The right response on the debt ceiling is to say that the assholes in the GOP are hurting the country and he won't let that happen, so fuck them, let's go 14th Amendment or coin or something. Let 'em take him to court. Let 'em try to impeach. It's bullshit to say that it's up to Congress and believe that Republicans will do "the right thing" when they think the right thing is to fuck up the economy.
...

12:05: Irish coffee number two is even tastier than Irish coffee number one. The touch of Bailey's helps. Hello, afternoon.

12:07: Another gun question, this related to assholes buying more guns because they think Obama will send cut black men to take away the assholes' guns.

It's kinda ironic that the NRA was all FOR gun control when it was the Black Panthers who had guns. Heh.

12:32: Aaaand we're done. What did we learn? That Vice President Biden will make some recommendations on guns and that Obama won't negotiate on the debt ceiling.

In other words, that was more useless than this empty mug on the coffee table.

At least the empty mug made you feel better on its way to getting empty. Or it was a waste of good whiskey.

Everybody's crazy except me...

Do you think "they" are watching you? This guy has raised paranoia to an art form.

A letter I received from Jeff Boss:

“As I write this, I am in a tent on my bed to avoid the cameras that are all over my apartment. I have been chased around the world. I have survived over 1,000 attempts on my life.”

“It is Saturday morning, April 19, 2012. I currently have an NSA husband and wife crew living above me. All of the apartments on my floor have been filled with NSA agents. Mel in 24-C and his friend in 24-D have been recruited by the NSA. Also, Elaina the real estate broker, who owned the pug type dog, is NSA. All employees of the Galaxy Apartment building and its management team have been recruited by the NSA.”

“My microwave cannot be used because it is giving off microwaves outside of the oven. My cell phone is also giving off microwaves same as the oven. My computer and TV are also giving off these waves, along with my electric shaver. This frequency was used in the 1991 Gulf War to put so much fear in the Iraqi troop’s minds that over 100,000 surrendered.”

“I have a GPS chip in my tooth, credit card, and driver’s license. Whenever I go out I am tracked and followed by the NSA. I know you are thinking, why have I survived? Why haven’t they killed me yet? The reason is, I discovered the secret identity codes and use them nonstop to avoid being killed. The NSA has a secret identity sign to alert other agents that you are one of them. This is how I survive…”
...

Jeff was wallpapering Times Square with big photocopied broadsides when I first met him. He was clutching one that read: “JEFF BOSS WITNESSED THE NSA ARRANGE 911.”

Much more. Did I mention he's running for POTUS and Mayor of New York City?

Crazy as a loon and still saner than a Teatard.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

White House May Come Down Hard on Guns
A ban on sales of shoulder-mounted missiles to teenagers contemplated.

Artist Creates Clothes That Hide Wearer From Drones
They're flying off the shelves at Waziristan's Walmart.

Make up your own "fatass fatwa" jokes.

Ohio Family Complains of Flammable Tap Water
But pay their gas and water bills with one check.

Nobody Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
“I didn't expect it,” says Jerry Nobody, who never batted above .243, but tested negative for steroids.

No Death Star

TPM

The White House has officially responded to the ‘We the People’ petition to commit the US to building a Death Star. Best line: “Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” Next best: “The Administration does not support blowing up planets,” which may represent a slight shift from the position of the previous administration.

Slight. Heh.

Full response after the jump …

If you are a Star Wars fan (1st 3 of course, the 2nd 3 suck wet monkey ass) DO NOT MISS the White House response. Especially if you have made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs...

Headline of the Day

Undercover 'supply sergeant' helped bring down Alaska militia

This militia will now be "well regulated" as per the 2d Amendment - in the Big House. Good.

Headline of the Day

Satanists organize rally in support of Florida governor Rick Scott

My sides, they hurt...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Check out the stage set!

Published on Jan 7, 2013
Artist: Emmylou Harris
Title: Together Again
Broadcast date: 13-3-1976
TV program: TopPop
Video rights: AVRO

Thanks to webportalavro, Netherlands.

Yawn...

Not much going on today. Same old, same old.

It's amusing to watch the guntards make the best case against themselves that crazy people shouldn't be allowed to own firearms. Heh. Keep digging, boys. Sharpen that shovel for ya?

The batcrap crazy wing of the Repugs continues to appear as if the real world around them really truly does NOT exist.

Things are going along OK. There's still the Friday document dump to look forward to!

Later. Wake me if anything interesting happens. Nah, don't.

They do?!

Nothing much going on today, but it is kinda fun to watch all the wingnut guntards go, er, ballistic. Heh.

Of much greater import is the revelation that women actually shit. Via Raw Story. Cut to the chase:

"When they pry my gun from my..."

The gent in the video diplomatically fails to mention that two of the biggest perceived "threats" to the nation in those days were Indians and slave revolts.

I think President Obama needs to offer Alex Jones the privilege of being first in taking up arms against the government just to show the rest of the wannabe Rambos how it's going to go for them. They can pry his gun from his still-smoldering hand. My money's on that he'd drop it and run as fast as could with a nice warm pantload. Heh.

Here's how it would really go when the government comes for your guns and don't worry, it's not going to happen except in paranoid fantasies: when the government knocks gently on their door with a tank cannon, 99% of people will see the handwriting on the wall and cough up the heaters. The morons who do not will simply die on the spot. Ask David Koresh.

Whether the Waco deal was right or wrong or an FBI overstep or whatever is not the issue here. What is pertinent here is that the outcome was certain and final.

A Message To The Tea Party From A Guy Who Urinated On A Power Line

Heh. At Goblinbooks.

Believe me, I know what is about to happen to you. You're going to wake up in an ambulance, and they're going to be wrapping your junk in enough gauze to outfit a museum wing of mummies. And why? Because you pushed things too far. Because you thought it would be fun to take a risk. To look tough and fearless. Maybe you had some friends egg you on, you know? Those people at the rallies look like they want you to put on a good show. I get that. Trev wanted me to do eight Jager-stands and climb onto that pole. Trev was nowhere around when the ambulance came and the EMTs couldn't stop laughing.
...

Because after you become the guy who burned his genitals peeing on a high-voltage wire... you spend a life widely known as the guy who burned his genitals peeing on a high-voltage wire. And believe me, they'll know. If you force the country into some kind of economic death spin, the president will try to put all the blame on you people. Is that completely fair? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, he'll be out there making speeches and looking serious, and you'll be out there with 80 year-old freaks dressed like Paul Revere, waving automatic rifles and yammering about the gold standard. Folks will figure out who was the grownup and who was the crazy son of a bitch who needs to lose the next three election cycles.

That's all well and good and let's hope they flash-fry their junk pretty soon. People who will acknowledge they are or support the Teatards is down to about 8%, but the Dead End Quarter is still running at about 30%. The title may be diminishing but the medieval ignorance is not.

Headline of the Day

America’s White Male Republican Evangelical Magical “Thinking” Racist Problem Is ALL of Our Problem

And your point is...?

Moderation is for hippies

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on how wretched excess has become barely enough.

Where do you want to look? Popular culture? ‘Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo’ just earned record ratings by going to new extremes of trashiness, mental incompetence and borderline child abuse. Sports? Extremes of machismo, scandal and homophobia abound. Violence? Please. A teenager massacres 22 elementary school children with a rifle he swiped from him mom, and what’s the response? Let’s arm up even more! Meanwhile, the top-selling video games are screamingly juvenile, ultra-violent first-person shooters for 10-year-old males who never go outside and twitch themselves to sleep.

Extreme postures, extreme politics, dogmas, piercings, sex, degradations, styles, sounds, wealth, resource annihilation, antagonism – for millions, the message is clear: radical positions and hardcore reactions are the only thing that “work” anymore, that shock or inspire feeling or action, that get you noticed, make you money or get you your own embarrassingly awful TV show.

But of course, that all pales in comparison to the grand champion of extreme, hostile posturing, the GOP, who shamelessly take untenable positions on everything from the economy to God, rape to calling the president a Nazi. Science is a hoax! Gays are repulsive in the eyes of God! Rich people should never be taxed! You win, GOP. No one is better at taking the messy, wondrous tapestry of the human experiment and stabbing it with the ice pick of monochromatic fear. Well done. You’ve changed the conversation. For the worse.

It begets the ancient equation: Extremism implies disconnection. And more extreme = more disconnection. But the good news is, it also begets the opposite: more compassion, education, distinction, discretion, patience, quiet, inner focus also equal calm, stability, peace. Does it make sense? The old gurus only smile at your panicked expression: Why are you so freaked out by stillness?

This old guru laughs out loud at the funny parts and rages out loud at the bad parts. As far as the GOP goes, the funny is starting to outnumber the bad, and that's good. Actually, they're pathetic but that's funny to me.

Paul Krugman for Treasury Secretary

A no-brainer, but it'll never happen because Wall St. wants no-brainers...

Truthout

Some might raise issues about his personality or temperament. While it’s probably true that he can be abrasive, if personality was a critical issue then Larry Summers would be handing out fish parts to penguins in Antarctica rather than a leading contender to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve Board.

The major reason that Krugman is not on anyone’s short list is that he has been right about most of the important issues in economic policy over the last decade. The list where Krugman has been right and the Washington insiders have been wrong is a long one....

It is precisely this track record of being right on most of the key policy calls of the last decade that makes Krugman unacceptable as a candidate for Treasury Secretary. To be a serious candidate for this position it is necessary to have been wrong on most or all of these issues.

This should make the public very angry. Apart from what this says about the state of meritocracy in the United States -- we like to think that people advance for being right and get demoted or fired for being wrong -- there is the more important issue of what it says about the course of our economic policy.

If Krugman were Treasury Secretary we could envision a policy that was focused on creating jobs rather than reducing a deficit that exists almost entirely because of the downturn in the economy.We could also envision a policy that sought to tame the bloated financial sector with a speculation tax that would make much of the creative finance on Wall Street unprofitable. And, we would not have to worry that cutting Social Security and Medicare is the top priority for the Obama administration.

But, Krugman is not on the short list for Treasury Secretary. This list has the names of people who are much more acceptable to Wall Street who, by the way, have been wrong on almost everything important about the economy in the last decade. As a result, we should be very very afraid.

No worries. The government will continue to do all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. Follow the money.

Hagel And The Neo-McCarthyites

The Daily Beast has an Open Zion blog. Who knew? An actual Israeli sounds off on Hagel as SecDef! Pretty good commentary on our right-leaning "special relationship" with "Israel" which is code for Bibi and Likud and warmongers and the "red heifer" crowd.

Which brings me to Sen. Hagel. I think it is time to acknowledge, bluntly, that certain major Jewish organizations, indeed, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations—also, the ADL, AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, political groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition, along with their various columnists, pundits, and list-serves—are among the most consistent purveyors of McCarthyite-style outrages in America today. Are there greater serial defamers of public officials in fake campaigns against defamation? Starting with Andrew Young and the late Charles Percy, and on to Chas Freeman and (now) Chuck Hagel, the game has been to keep Congresspeople and civil servants who might be skeptical of Israel's occupation and apologetics in a posture that can only be called exaggerated tact.

Fault Israel and you are accused of faulting Jews in our collective state, or, the same thing, overlooking the venality of our enemies—things only an anti-Semite would do and, of all times, in the wake of the Holocaust. This is not a charge anyone in public life wants to suffer or try to deny. My Israeli friends love that old Borsch-belt joke, that anti-Semitism means disliking Jews more than necessary. For American Jewish organizations, the very idea that dislike is ever warranted is proof of bigotry, like Philip Roth's early novels were proof of "self-hatred."

AIPAC et al know that if American politicians—and especially those fighting routinely for Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio—are not cowed by the fear of being branded as anti-Semitic they may not be embarrassed into backing Israeli actions ritualistically. Where is the shame and who is our Murrow?
...

Suffice it to say that Hagel is a man of independent judgment whose views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict track pretty much exactly with those of Haaretz. He was distinguished guest at J Street's first national conference. Nothing he's said has not been said by leaders like Ehud Olmert and intelligence chief Ephraim Halevy. Hagel is also a man, like George McGovern, who having served with distinction in the military knows the unknown dangers of resorting to military force without a clear diplomatic strategy and except as a last resort. So he refuses to speak glibly about using force against Iran the same way he refused to endorse war with Iraq. A Vietnam purple heart, he would in retrospect have engaged with the Viet Cong. Should he not now endorse engagement with the Taliban or Hamas, for that matter?

Why should this stance be thought anathema to Jewish organizations? Let's get real. The latter throw their weight around, presumably on behalf of us Israelis, but really on behalf of the Israeli right, whose orthodoxy and pathos they relate to more readily than to Israeli peace advocates (my em). The weight they have derives from their being able to hold American politicians to endorsing a "special relationship" with Israel, where special means unconditional, so that (as James Baker and Howard Dean discovered) even the desire for "even-handedness" is treachery.

Hagel had the brass to call this grass green: Congresspeople will tell you openly that AIPAC has become one of the most feared, and secretly loathed, presences on Capitol Hill. Hagel spoke with thinly veiled contempt—which he came by honestly—of efforts by the Israeli lobby to intimidate dissenting diplomats and legislators. Ah, but he spoke of the power of the "Jewish Lobby"—not the Israeli lobby—which was the opening the lobby's hallelujah chorus needed to brand him a bigot.

More. You'll read, you'll enjoy...

In fairness, even though I hate to because I hate the right-wing bastards, AIPAC is sitting this one out. They know it's futile and don't want to piss him off because they need a good relationship with the Pentagon.

Why Hagel Matters

President Obama nominated Chuck Hagel for SecDef today. I'm down wid it. So is Andy Sullivan:

According to various reports, Obama will nominate Chuck Hagel for defense secretary. Beinart puts the nomination in context:

What makes Hagel so important, and so threatening to the Republican foreign-policy elite, is that he is one of the few prominent Republican-aligned politicians and commentators (George Will and Francis Fukuyama are others, but such voices are rare) who was intellectually changed by Iraq. And Hagel was changed, in large measure, because he bore within him intellectual (and physical) scar tissue from Vietnam. As my former colleague John Judis captured brilliantly in a 2007 New Republic profile, the Iraq War sparked something visceral in Hagel, as the former Vietnam rifleman realized that, once again, detached and self-interested elites were sending working-class kids like himself to die in a war they couldn’t honestly defend.

To my mind, this is his core qualification. Unlike so many of the lemmings and partisans of Washington DC, Hagel actually called out the catastrophe of the Iraq War as it happened. The neocons cannot forgive him for exposing what they wrought on the nation and the world. For good measure, he has a Purple Heart and has served in combat. Not easy to say about most of the Iraq War armchair warriors and war criminals.

Which is to say, as Chuck Todd said this morning, this nomination is about accountability for the Iraq War. All those ducking responsibility for the calamity - Abrams, Kristol, Stephens - are determined that those of us honest enough to resist, having supported in the first place, be erased from history. Or smeared as anti-Semites. Or given that epithet which impresses them but baffles me: "outside the mainstream". Rephrase that as - after initial support - being "outside the Iraq War mainstream" in DC - and you have a major reason to back him. [...]

Greenwald's view:

All of the Democratic alternatives to Hagel who have been seriously mentioned are nothing more than standard foreign policy technocrats, fully on-board with the DC consensus regarding war, militarism, Israel, Iran, and the Middle East. That's why Kristol, the Washington Post and other neocons were urging Obama to select them rather than Hagel: because those neocons know that, unlike Hagel, these Democratic technocrats pose no challenge whatsoever to their agenda of sustaining destructive US policy in the Middle East and commitment to endless war.

Kristol fumes:

You can go read what that pansy-ass non-serving neocon warmonger has to say if you want to.

The language! We're not talking about dislike of people. We're talking about dislike of the mindset that got us into the Iaq War. We're talking about dislike of those who refuse to take moral responsibility for anything and actually believe, with the blood of tens of thousands on their hands, they have some right to question a veteran with two Purple Hearts. They need a reality check: Obama won the election, not Romney. It says a huge amount about the Greater Israel lobby that they assume that national elections in no way should impede their usual control of Middle East policy in Washington. Just showing them that the battle to retrieve our democracy from lobby groups is worth something.

And Hagel is not anti-Israel. Kristol is anti-Israel, having fanatically supported this Israeli government's suicidal behavior, and the toxic, illegal social engineering on the West Bank that will render Israel either a non-democracy or a non-Jewish state. [...]

And that is the real opportunity of this nomination. At the hearings, we can see McCain's vision versus Hagel's, and see the difference between a man who refuses to adjust his global mindset after Iraq and a man who has had the strength and character to do so. So many Americans are likely to agree with Hagel over military restraint, diplomatic patience, and cutting defense bloat. The reason the Greater Israel lobby is in such a froth is that the weakness of their arguments could be publicly exposed - by a Republican. And there isn't enough AIPAC money and intimidation to stop that happening.

Please read the rest.

I like Hagel because he may be the man who can tell Israel to cool its jets or go down the memory hole.

Did I mention Hagel was an enlisted man? Enlisted men can tell the fucking Generals shit that someone who never served wouldn't have the balls to. And they fucking need it.

The word I am getting is that Hagel will be confirmed as SecDef pretty easily despite all the moaning and kvetching from the warmongers. Good.

Headline of the Day

The Guardian Wants Paul Krugman To Be The Next Treasury Secretary Of The United States

I'm down wid it!

Oh, the irony

Ironic Times

Conservative Mormon Senator Mike Crapo Arrested for Drunk Driving Makes Never Being Arrested Again for Drunk Driving His New Year’s Resolution
Gambling, whoring must wait until 2014.

Heh. Good resolution for a politician - do it, just don't get caught at it.

Confirmed: Asteroid Won't Hit Earth in 2040
Thirty-year mortgages once again available.

3D Printers Will Soon Be Capable of Printing Human Organs
Promising immortality, assuming you have the right ink cartridge.

Pot Vending Machines Coming Soon to Washington, Colorado
Look for them as soon as you've settled at your new address in either state.

From "New Laws For 2013":

Fast Food Order Time Limit Statute (Spokane): Stoned patrons of fast food restaurants must place their order in “a timely fashion” or relinquish their place in line.

Autonomous Vehicle Restrictions (San Jose): Driverless vehicles barred from drive-in movie theaters, outdoor churches, drag races.

Hmmmmm. There are implications for NASCAR there. Think of the money the France family and all the teams could save...then again, driverless cars might mean spectatorless grandstands. They'd still be OK on TV.

Flight NAACP 105

This was just posted on YouTube a few days ago. I remember it from my days at Camp Lejeune in '65-'66. It was on the jukebox in a saloon in Swansboro NC. The bars in Onslow County were closed on Sunday so we went up there to drink beer. Your basic asshole racist white Marines would play this if a splib* Marine came in. Maybe they thought it was a good joke. It wasn't. I have told people about this record and they didn't believe me. I think it is of some historical interest. Times have changed, thank God.

Rebel Records is still going as a Bluegrass and Americana label but I don't think this is in their catalog any more. I sure hope not.

Thanks, I guess, to TheErrol1975, Sweden.

*From the Urban Dictionary:

In the mid 60's, while in the Marine Corps, the term splib was used commonly among black and white marines. It was not used in a pejorative way by either blacks or whites but as a "hip", descriptive way of identifying a person, usually a male, of the negro race, such as in the phrase "splib dude". Likewise the descriptive and non-pejorative term "chuck" was used to describe a white person, however it was also used to describe the Viet Cong (VC), such as in "Victor Charlie", "Charlie" or just "Chuck" In fact, one might get vanilla or chocolate creme filled cookies that were included in the field "C" rations. These were commonly referred to as "chuck" or "splib" cookies.

The important thing about the word "splib" was that no offense was intended and none was taken. It was a good word. "Negro" was too formal, "nigger" was out of the question in mixed company, and "black" and "African-American" were not in use yet. I have no idea what the origin of "splib" is, but I've heard that it's an acronym. If you know, please tell me.

"Chuck" bothered no one either.

Maybe I can find the other Rebel record I remember from that jukjebox - "Cajun Ku Klux Klan". In the rest of the United States, folks have a hard time believing such shit actually existed. Trust me, it did. Still does too, if you know where to look for it. There are still a lot of racist assholes.

None Will Dare Call It What It Is

Paul Krugman

For the reality is that our two major political parties are engaged in a fierce struggle over the future shape of American society. Democrats want to preserve the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — and add to them what every other advanced country has: a more or less universal guarantee of essential health care. Republicans want to roll all of that back, making room for drastically lower taxes on the wealthy. Yes, it’s essentially a class war.

Started by the Repugs at the behest of their 1% Masters about thirty years ago and which they have been winning up 'til now until Dim Son gave the game away and nearly wrecked the joint. It is only called "class war" when WE fight back.

But the G.O.P. retains the power to destroy, in particular by refusing to raise the debt limit — which could cause a financial crisis. And Republicans have made it clear that they plan to use their destructive power to extract major policy concessions.

Now, the president has said that he won’t negotiate on that basis, and rightly so. Threatening to hurt tens of millions of innocent victims unless you get your way — which is what the G.O.P. strategy boils down to — shouldn’t be treated as a legitimate political tactic.

It should be treated - and called - as what it is - Repug Terrorism, a criminal act by the criminal class. This, of course, will make them whine "the liberals are victimizing us!" like when you deck a bully. They can say what they want as long as they bleed and hurt and quit doing it.

Yeah, like that'll happen.

Democrats Send ‘Tea Party Membership Cards’ To GOP Freshmen

TPM

Democrats aren't the only ones sarcastically rolling out the red carpet for the other side's incoming class. The NRCC sent out "offical lap dog kits" for freshman Democrats emblazoned with corgis on Thursday, claiming they would teach them how to graduate from "Nancy Pelosi's obedience school."

All right you people. You've had your little digs at each other. Knock off the cheap shit and get to work.

Yeah, like that'll happen. Yeesh.

The New Year is starting well

The Brain has been following this for a long time and I am pleased to report:

Tom DeLay Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison

The piece was misdated so I had to corroborate it elsewhere or I'd have posted it prior to now. Go read about how Hot Tub Tommy thinks he's being penalized for his "politics".

No, jackoff, you're being penalized for committing crimes. Oh yeah, your politics suck too.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

The spectacular finale to the 2012 Americana Music Association awards ceremony, held in the historic Ryman Auditorium in September. Such a privilege to be there to witness so much incredible talent in this all-star finale tribute to Levon Helm.

Led by Levon's daughter Amy Helm and his former Levon Helm Band-mates Teresa Williams and Larry Campbell, the trio are joined on the Ryman stage by guest vocalists Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Alabama Shakes front-woman Brittany Howard and Bonnie Raitt, with stunning support from Richard Thompson, Jim Lauderdale, Darrell Scott, Buddy Miller, and more.

Worth a watch!

Thanks to MissOhio1000, UK.

Shopping Day

Over the mountains and through the woods to Costco we will go! Spa day for the pup and breakfast for us. Big day out! See yas!

Slow day...

Not much going on today. Although we bid a "don't hitcherself in the ass with the door on the way out" farewell to the worse-than-worthless 112th Congress, the nearly-as-worthless 113th is being sworn in (or "at". Nothing much changes in that joint.).

The highlight of that clusterfuck was when, and I have no cite for this as yet, some fucking moron nominated cashiered colonel and Teatard spewsman former rep Allen West for Speaker. That fuckin' idiot from Texas, Gohmert, and one other actually voted for him. You think coffee coming out your nose is irritating? I was eating breakfast and I'm still picking sausage outta my nose hairs!

Update:

The other vote for West was the fuckin' idiot from Georgia, Broun. Figures.

I think we need a song of faith and inspiration. Right now.

Thanks to kendeb52 and a tip o' the Brain to Jersey Guy.

Even Better Headline of the Day

Rachel Maddow's Surge Is Fox News' Worst Ratings Nightmare

Ahhhhhhh....

Every day, I thank God for making her gay. If she was straight I'd run away from home for her. That would not only ruin my home life but I'd be in the hoosegow for expressing my true love, known to the squares who run the system as "stalking".

Headline of the Day

Peter King near tears, threatens to quit Republican Party for blocking Sandy relief

Yeah, that was pretty shitty, but what did you expect? There's no profit in helping people.

Note to Petey: You're one of the assholes di tutti assholes, but I don't blame you for threatening to quit over this. You're pretty much famous for spewing shit so I don't think you will, but please, please, please don't become a Democrat.

The good, hard spanking of 2012

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about things we learned in 2012. Or not.

What a year it was. Did we learn anything? How about…

Bet on the Nazi socialist Kenyan
Is it not refreshing? Is it not all kinds of wonderful to be reminded that all the spittle-flecked hate and hissing resentment in the world still can’t defeat intelligence, wisdom, flawed but honest integrity?

Behold: The GOP’s relentless, shameless four-year onslaught of racism, birtherism, isolationism and gross antipathy, during which they called the president everything from a communist to a Nazi to a fundamentalist Muslim, failed to rally sufficient numbers of the undereducated and the paranoid to nosedive the nation back into a sinkhole of conservative bile. It was easily the most methodical, coldblooded personal attack in modern political history, and it failed ugly. Hugs all around.

Much more. Last ¶:

We know everything and nothing. Our deepest space probes have travelled the equivalent of a single millimeter in a room five trillion miles wide. We still don’t know why whales sing. We have no idea what the dolphins know, how the brain functions, what love actually is, or why anyone likes Adam Sandler movies. Every mystery solved launches five intriguing new questions. Every wonderful leap in technology invites more serious inquiries about our lost humanity. We are either on the cusp of total madness or total illumination. The Great Ascension and the Great Collapse are one and the same, depending on what you’re wearing. Please dress accordingly.

Jeans and a flannel shirt have served me well and will see me nicely through the Enlightenment or the Collapse, thank you.

Heh...

A tip o' the Brain to New Breed M.C.

Oh, the irony...

The guys at Ironic Times finally showed up for work...

Housing Sector Improves
As visiting relatives finally leave.

Study: Indoor Marijuana Production Responsible for 9% of California's Household Energy Use
And 90% of Sara Lee sales.

World's Longest High-Speed Rail Line Opens in China
Trip that normally takes a year and a half by ox cart now just two hours by train.

Predictions for 2013
...

Madame Blavinsky, psychic (Switzerland): “A Republican lawmaker will be caught committing the very thing he built a political career opposing, then apologize to his family and take full responsibility for his actions.”

Jeez, that's goin' out on a limb... Heh.

Rude Readers' Haiku Review of 2012

You know whom. Here's just a couple:

Texas: "Let's secede."
The rest of the nation says,
"Good idea. When?"

Rush called Fluke a slut.
No birth control needed with
Dominican boys.

Heh.

Dave Barry’s Year in Review 2012

If you've ever watched Gold Rush, you know that you need to move an awful lot of dirt to find a nugget. There are a lot of them in this piece and they're closer to the surface.

t was a cruel, cruel year — a year that kept raising our hopes, only to squash them flatter than a dead possum on the interstate.

Example: This year the “reality” show “Jersey Shore,” which for six hideous seasons has been a compelling argument in favor of a major Earth-asteroid collision, finally got canceled, and we dared to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we, as a society, were becoming slightly less stupid.

But then, WHAP, we were slapped in our national face by the cold hard frozen mackerel of reality in the form of the hugely popular new “reality” show “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” which, in terms of intellectual content, makes “Jersey Shore” look like “Hamlet.”
...

February

Tensions between the United States and Pakistan mount after eyewitnesses in Waziristan claim that an unmanned U.S. Predator drone robbed a convenience store.
...

March

In the Middle East, tensions rise between the United States and Pakistan after an unmanned Predator drone destroys the only working toilet in Waziristan.
...

May

... Newt Gingrich finally suspends his presidential campaign, despite an emotional plea to keep fighting from his base of supporters, namely Mrs. and Mrs. Elrod Pomfurter of Oklahoma City, who, after months of deliberation, had just invested in a bumper sticker.
...

In sports, Usain Bolt, running in his final tuneup race before the Olympics, wins the Kentucky Derby.
...

August

Closer to home, suspicions that the Mexican military may be involved with drug trafficking are heightened when a U.S. surveillance satellite photographs a Mexican army convoy transporting what appears to be a 200-foot doobie.
...

October

With polls showing a very tight race, the final weeks of the campaign are a textbook example of what this great experiment called “American democracy” is all about: two opposing political parties, each with valid positions, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on comically simplistic radio and TV ads designed by consultants to terrify ill-informed half-wits.

The good news there is the half-wits sorta lost.

Many more, and since I may not be the best judge of nuggets, go look for some yourself. Use of the pan and sluice box is free!

Happy New Year!

Headline of the Day

Al Qaeda Disbands; Says Job of Destroying U.S. Economy Now in Congress’s Hands

We're screwed. Congress is so incompetent it could fuck up a junkyard with a rubber hammer.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Us godless commie liberals know all about Satan's Jewel Crown. I'm wearing mine now.

Thanks to hussarII.

Light Blogging Today

This is Lexie. She's 5 years old and needs a home. She is currently being fostered by a nice lady at Golden Gate Springer Rescue, which is the same outfit we got our Maggie from 5 years ago.

We're going out to Oakland today to be interviewed by her to see if ours will do. There is competition. Several other people are being interviewed as well but I have a secret weapon - I will slather myself with bear poop to entice her and show her the fabulous life she will have in the mountains!

Oakland is a Dreaded Big City. Heady stuff for us simple hill folk!

Update:

We met Lexie at her foster home in East Oakland. The photo doesn't do her justice. She is drop dead gorgeous, very friendly, and a bubbly personality. We fell in love with her instantly and really hope we get her.

She licked ALL the bear poop off me!

Getting into the Bayarrhea over a high bridge across the ass end of Frisco Bay is free. Getting back out costs 5 bucks. Too cheap. I'da paid anything to get outta that traffic.


Update II:

Lexie went to her new home in Sausalito. I'm happy for her but waaaaaaah...

There'll be another come along soon. There are far too many dogs always needing a home and family.

Shrinkage

TRMS

Former Bush aide Mark McKinnon on the incredible shrinking Republican Party: "Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the party is against everything and for nothing.

"Nothing on taxes. Nothing on gun control. Nothing on climate change. Nothing on gay marriage. Nothing on immigration reform (or an incremental, piece-by-piece approach, which will result in nothing). It's a very odd situation when the losing party is the party refusing to negotiate. It may be how you disrupt, but it is not how you govern, or how you ever hope to regain a majority.

"And so, we have a Republican Party today willing to eliminate any prospect for a decent future for anyone, including itself, if it cannot be a future that is 100 percent in accordance with its core beliefs and principles. That's not governing. That's just lobbing hand grenades. If you're only standing on principle to appear taller, then you appear smaller. And the GOP is shrinking daily before our eyes."

Perhaps it will drown in the bathtub. Then we can add a little quicklime and pull the plug...

Illustrated Headline of the Day

2012: The year we all got high

Ahhhhhh...

6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying

You'll like this. From Cracked.

You're only being asked to pitch in because you have the resources. You're not a tall person who us dwarfs are jealously trying to cut down to size. You're a tall person being asked to get something down from a very tall shelf because nobody else can fucking reach it.
...

[...] Without society, all of your brave, individual talents and efforts won't buy you a bucket of farts.

So when somebody else asks for your help, in the form of charity or taxes, or because they need you to help them move a refrigerator, you can cite all sorts of reasons for not helping ("I think you're lying about needing help" or "I don't care" or "I'm too tied up with my own problems"), but the one thing you can't say is, "Why should you need help? I've never gotten help!" Not unless you're either shamefully oblivious, or a lying asshole.

Hell, if anybody could play the "I did this myself!" card, it's me. I mentioned earlier that I've made an unfair amount of money due to writing a novel about a zombie detective who only solves crimes of paranormal romance and then selling the film rights to said novel. If anything is a one-man show, it's writing a book. Nobody helped me with that. Well, I mean other than the friend who created the title character. And the publisher who spent the money to print up the copies and publicize it. And all of the previous novelists who established the medium and genre. And the public school system that taught me how to read and write, and that taught all of my readers how to read. And the people who built and maintain the Internet so that I would have a place to promote it, and the people who maintain the roads so that the books could be shipped from Amazon ...

You get the idea.

Yeah, I do, but a lot of people don't.

Chuck E. Jeez

A rare appearance on this page by Tom Friedman about Chuck Hagel's detractors. If you are concerned about Israel's rapid right-wing drift this is a 'must read'.

I am certain that the vast majority of U.S. senators and policy makers quietly believe exactly what Hagel believes on Israel — that it is surrounded by more implacable enemies than ever and needs and deserves America’s backing. But, at the same time, this Israeli government is so spoiled and has shifted so far to the right that it makes no effort to take U.S. interests into account by slowing its self-isolating settlement adventure. And it’s going to get worse. Israel’s friends need to understand that the center-left in Israel is dying. The Israeli election in January will bring to power Israeli rightists who never spoke at your local Israel Bonds dinner. These are people who want to annex the West Bank. Bibi Netanyahu is a dove in this crowd. The only thing standing between Israel and national suicide any more is America and its willingness to tell Israel the truth. But most U.S. senators, policy makers and Jews prefer to stick their heads in the sand, because confronting Israel is so unpleasant and politically dangerous. Hagel at least cares enough about Israel to be an exception.

Supplementary article at Think Progress.

Four former national security advisers in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post published on Tuesday denounced what New York TImes columnist Tom Friedman described as “disgusting” attacks on former Republican senator Chuck Hagel and praised Hagel’s prior service to the United States.
...

The high-level support for Hagel comes after the “neocon smear machine” recently began a campaign to tar Hagel as an anti-Semite and anti-Israel and not sufficiently militaristic toward Iran after news reports that he is President Obama’s top choice to succeed Leon Panetta.

It seems to me that Israel's only chance of survival is if we get rid of the neocons, or at least get their influence out of Israel policy, and start telling the Israeli government what it really needs to hear, i.e. they're fuckin' up by the numbers.

We're taking our country back!

From the Teatards. About fuckin' time. Via Raw Story.

Illustrated Headline of the Day

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The NRA shoots its mouth off edition

Hopefully, Lalala Pee-air done shot both of the NRA's feet and its ass off too. Good wrap-up.

The War On Christmas

CounterPunch

Israel’s large Palestinian minority is often spoken of in terms of the threat it poses to the Jewish majority. Palestinian citizens’ reproductive rate constitutes a “demographic timebomb”, while their main political programme – Israel’s reform into “a state of all its citizens” – is proof for most Israeli Jews that their compatriots are really a “fifth column”.

But who would imagine that Israeli Jews could be so intimidated by the innocuous Christmas tree?

This issue first came to public attention two years ago when it was revealed that Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, had banned Christmas trees from all public buildings in his northern Israeli city.

“Upper Nazareth is a Jewish town and all its symbols are Jewish,” Gapso said. “As long as I hold office, no non-Jewish symbol will be presented in the city.”
...

But Gapso is not alone in his trenchant opposition to making even the most cursory nod towards multiculturalism. The city’s chief rabbi, Isaiah Herzl, has refused to countenance a single Christmas tree in Upper Nazareth, arguing that it would be “offensive to Jewish eyes”.
...

But the image hides a dirtier reality. A recent letter from Haifa’s rabbinate came to light in which the city’s hotels and events halls were reminded that they must not host New Year’s parties at the end of this month (the Jewish New Year happens at a different time of year). The hotels and halls were warned that they would be denied their kashrut licences if they did so.

“It is a seriously forbidden to hold any event at the end of the calendar year that is connected with or displays anything from the non-Jewish festivals,” the letter states....

But what is clear is that there is plenty of religious intolerance verging on hatred being quietly exercised against non-Jews, mostly behind the scenes so as not to disturb Israel’s “Jewish and democratic” image or outrage the millions of Christian tourists and pilgrims who visit Israel each year.

This poses a great problem for FOXNews. How do they present it as part of "The War On Christmas" when it's actually being done by far-right-wing Jews instead of not actually being done by godless commie American Liberals? Nothing outta Bill O'Rally yet as far as I know. Heh.

A Holiday Letter from John Boehner

Borowitz via Seniors for a Democratic Society

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) released the following holiday letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

It’s Speaker Boehner here, writing my first and last ever holiday letter to you. Why am I doing this after all of these years, you might ask? Well, I won’t mince words. I’ve started drinking a little early this Christmas.

Yes, I’m sitting here in my man-cave, panelled in mahogany the color of me, doing a rack of Canadian Club shooters and smoking my way through a carton of Lucky Strikes as if they were the last Twinkies in creation. If my chief of staff knew that I was writing to you while I was this polluted, he’d shit a phone book. But guess what? I don’t fucking care anymore.

You see, this will be my last Christmas as Speaker of the House, all because a cabal of Tea Party miscreants in the House of Representatives doesn’t think I’m a ginormous enough asshole for their taste. Who’s more to their liking? Virginia’s own Eric Cantor. As a waiter might say at an all-you-can-eat shit buffet, “Excellent choice.” How odious is Eric Cantor? Let me put it this way: when we have to speak to the press, I actually prefer to stand next to Mitch McConnell.

What will life be like under Speaker of the House Eric Cantor? Well, he’s the guy who recommended cuts in disaster funding just hours after tornadoes hit Joplin, Missouri. Nice. And it was his “never met a dick-measuring contest I didn’t like” pathology that helped create last year’s debt-ceiling crisis. You can’t put a price tag on a performance like that. Well, actually you can: it cost the country nineteen billion dollars. Starting to miss me already, aren’t you? Fuck you.

So have a very Eric Cantor Christmas, America, and as that smug four-eyed sociopath drives the entire nation off the cliff, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now leave me alone, God damn you. Damn you all to hell.

Happy Holidays,

Speaker Boehner

Heh.

Question of the Day

Did The NRA Faceplant After Newtown?

The answer is hopefully and we will see.

I was an NRA member since my service days, back when you needed a sponsor to join. My Company Commander signed for me. I quit when they went so godawful loony right-wing. I still have a silver bullet keychain with Charlton Heston's signature on it.

The NRA can kiss my ass. At gunpoint if need be.

Grow A Pair, Mr President

Andy Sullivan

After the neocon chorus on the Sunday talk-shows, with Butters and Lieberman doing their usual Likudnik dance, there's word that Obama might be wavering in picking the realist, candid Republican, Chuck Hagel, as defense secretary. Let's just say that if Obama allows Bill Kristol to scalp a Purple Heart veteran for defense - then he will be betraying the core base that got him the nomination and the presidency twice. People didn't vote for Obama to get a neoconservative-dictated foreign policy.

First the smearing and scalping of Rice; now the brutal AIPAC-led campaign against Hagel. I say: let the hearings begin, and let Hagel debate the wisdom of the Iraq war with those who campaigned so ferociously for it. Let a Purple Heart veteran Republican take on Bill Kristol and Dick Cheney. It would do the GOP a world of good as well.

So we'll see if, once again, Obama is rolled on the Middle East. If he is, we will know for sure he is not the change we believed in.

He could have left that last line out. Shovelling shit, and I mean that pretty literally, against the tide is a long, arduous, thankless task. Change comes over time and we're starting to see it.

He's certainly right about not letting the draft-dodging warmongers prevail over Hagel. His less-than-fawning approach to Israel is a good thing IMNSHO and would be a refreshing and necessary change.

Also, from Peter Beinart:

We’ve seen this before. From the 2009 settlement freeze fight to the 2011 call for a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines plus swaps, the Obama administration has a history of picking fights with the “pro-Israel” establishment and then backing down, which is worse than never picking the fight at all. When it comes to Israel policy, diverging from Washington orthodoxy requires genuine political conviction. In selecting Chuck Hagel, the Obama administration has found someone who has it. Whether the same can be said of the President himself remains to be seen.

Let me put it this way: if the draft-dodging, warmongering, right-wing, Israel-sucking, Likudnik, neocon bastards are against Hagel, then the President made the right choice and I'm for him and Obama better fight for him.

'Twas the night before Christmas in Boehnerville

Via Kos.

Has "Idiot America" Become More Idiotic?

Short answer: Yes. Not so short is this interview with Charles Pierce.

MK: Do you believe that FOX "News" is helping to create an alternative universe Idiot America bubble? You discuss the inanity of being Sean Hannity in your book, for instance.

CP: The bubble exists, and it is goddamn dangerous. It clearly was dangerous to Mitt Romney as a politician because it kept him from believing he was in trouble, right up to the moment they called the election the other way. The bubble is created when we go into denial that there are consequences to believing nonsense. It seems right now that the mother of the Newtown shooter may have been living partly in the bubble of survivalist paranoia. FOX has contributed to both of these bubbles.

MK: Let's look at the rabid denial that global warming exists. More than 80 percent of Republicans in Congress appear to believe that it does not exist - and many Democrats don't seem to see any imperative in resolving it. Here we see a climate change denial propaganda machine - in large part financed by the fossil fuel industry and polluting companies - having, it appears, successfully debunked the growing degradation of our planet. Are we in an age when there are simply no facts; only, as you have noted, falsehoods turned into realties by those who scream the loudest and get the most coverage on television?

CP: Again, the real danger is that we’re in an era where we think there are no consequences to believing nonsense. That’s the reason I went to Shishmaref in Alaska for the book. The people there think the whole “debate” is goddamn crazy.

MK: Are there any regional differences in Idiot America as far as numbers of people living in alternative realities?

CP: Living in them? No. Demanding that other people live in them? Yes. We have actual laws being passed in the South and West enshrining nonsense into law.

MK: One of your final chapters is entitled, "The Principles of Automatic Pilot." In it, you discuss how those who objected to the lies that were created to justify invading Iraq either didn't speak up or weren't listened to. You talk about those who understood terrorists better than anyone, but were ignored. How does this apply to "the principles of automatic pilot"?

CP: The metaphor was based on accounts from airplane crashes in which the pilots forgot to disengage the autopilot until too late. The actual human expert was defeated by the machine. The Iraq war was a bloodier example of what’s going on with the climate crisis. The more you knew, the easier you were to dismiss.

The corollary to which, seems to me, is the less you know and the louder you are, the harder you are to ignore. That esplains a lot.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

NRA: Place Volunteer Armed Guards at Every School in Nation
Says there are millions of out-of-work gun-toting middle-aged men available.

Queen Becomes First Monarch in Over a Century to Attend Prime Minister's Cabinet Meeting
Without jokes about royal family, meeting lasts less than five minutes.

Iran: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khanenei Has Own Facebook Page
Best not to unfriend him.

Stores Quickly Sell Out Last Batch of Hostess Twinkies
Lucky buyers will keep them for their grandchildren to enjoy.

Half of Americans Own Guns
To protect themselves from other half.

Besides being ironic, that may be the most illogical statement Ironic Times has ever made.

Here's-What's-Wrong-With-Our-Country Headline of the Day

Mosque arsonist tells court: ‘I only know what I hear on Fox News’

Fuckin' yeesh...

Neocons' Last Stand

Robert Parry on the neocons' view of Hagel as SecDef due largely to his stance on the Israel lobby. Worth a read.

The neocons were as stunned as Karl Rove and other GOP operatives when their predictions of a Romney landslide evaporated as the actual votes of the American people were counted. Instead of cashing in their chits with President Romney, the neocons were facing four more years on the outside-looking-in under President Obama.

Then, just days after Obama’s reelection, a second shoe dropped. One of the neocons’ last senior allies in the U.S. government, CIA Director Petraeus, was forced to resign as a result of a humiliating sex scandal.

The stunned neocons suddenly looked out over a Washington where they no longer held key government positions and few possessed top-secret security clearances. They still held lucrative jobs at think tanks and had prominent space on op-ed pages but their direct control of U.S. foreign policy was ending.

Thus, the significance of the neocon counteroffensive against Chuck Hagel, a generally popular Republican who served with distinction as a soldier during the Vietnam War. To demonstrate their continued clout in Washington, the neocons must show they can still claim some important scalps and can still frighten President Obama into retreat.

But the risk the neocons run is that their bold march in pursuit of Sen. Hagel’s scalp may turn out instead to be something of the Neocons’ Last Stand.

I'm down wid dat! Wishing the neocons a speedy demise, here's a little song for them.

Thanks to gypsytwo.