Missed it by this much ...

You'd think, if you were selling your 'military expertise' on the open market (read: you're a soulless fucking mercenary), you'd at least take pride in doing the best job possible. Well, not if you've sold your soul in service of the U.S. in Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON — For several years, Afghan police recruits under the tutelage of private U.S. government contractors couldn't understand why their marksmanship never improved.

The answer became clear earlier this year. Italian contractors also helping to train Afghan volunteers showed them that the sights on their AK-47s and M-16s had never been adjusted.

...

Whadda da fucka? How canna you shoota wit dis a fuckinga shit?

...

But the training contracts have been plagued by mismanagement. Investigations by the Government Accounting Office and the inspector generals from the Departments of State and Defense have sharply criticized both the contractors and the government oversight. They detailed a lack of supervision and controls over spending, among other failures.

"Just about everything that could go wrong here has gone wrong," Defense Department Inspector General Gordon Heddell told the subcommittee.

...

The Chimp might be gone but his legacy remains.

Great thanks to Mr. Amato for the link.

Let the Democrats Win

Chris Buckley (yeah, yeah, button it, he's fun to read) on financial reform:

As for Republicans, now howling out the windows of their Lexuses that the bill will merely perpetuate bailouts and drive foreign investment away from Wall Street—are they being upfront and honest about all this? Of course not. They’re taking in campaign contributions hand over fist. But Republicans can at least be unapologetic about stuffing their pockets with Wall Street baksheesh. It’s what they do. People expect them to be on the take! (I say this as a lifelong Republican. To us, corruption is just another way of saying, “We are open for business!”) Where Democrats disappoint is when they pretend to be above bribe-taking.

With certain exceptions, such as Senator Olympia Snowe, one is left with the impression that the Republicans would rather kill the bill than suffer the ignominy of another hideous Obama legislative success between now and the November elections.

But if the Republicans succeed in blocking the bill, they may end up electing a supermajority of Democrats in November. For if the Republican message in effect amounts to “No, we must not, we cannot, we dare not regulate the thieving, manipulating swine who caused $9 trillion of your money to vanish! They’re too important to American competitiveness!”—well, whatever the nuances in the bill, it’s hard to imagine that voters won’t punish obstinacy of that order.

Meanwhile, if it the bill passes, then Democrats will own the victory — and the consequences that flow from it, just as they will soon own the consequences of health-care “reform.”

I'm down wit 'owning the consequences'. The Repugs worst fear, of course and rightly so, is that the Dems' bills will not only pass, but succeed.

It's a start II...

US charges Goldman Sachs with fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged investment banking titan Goldman Sachs with civil fraud over a pre-packaged mortgage instrument they say was designed to fail.

This is a civil suit as opposed to a criminal prosecution. Granted, the civil standard for proving a case is lower than a criminal proceeding, "preponderance of fact" v "beyond a reasonable doubt", but it remains to be seen whether the SEC, which was almost a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall St. for years, has the horsepower (or the money) to beat the richest Wall St. player. I'm not holding my breath, but it's a start.

DoJ needs to get into the act. Many, many of the Wall. St. thieves need to go to prison.

Headline of the Day

Obama mocks Tea Partiers: I cut your taxes, so thank me

Fat chance. He's still a black commie nazi fascist socialist foreigner who's going to take their guns away and kill their grandmas. Miss Becky and Moosebreath said so, and you can't put it on TV and the interwebs if it isn't so!

37 things worse than a KFC meatwich

Friday Morford. But first...

Opinions You Should Have

The "Double Down" -- named, appropriately, for a gambling procedure in which one dramatically takes on twice as much risk -- is a "sandwich" where the slices of bread have been replaced by two chicken cutlets, between which are pillowed slices of tasty American cheese, crispy bacon, and zesty but strangely yellow mayonnaise.

"It is to die for," said one food critic. "I'm not kidding." He immediately collapsed and was carried away.

And now to the, er, meat of this post:

But it got me thinking, aside from the food porn on thisiswhyyourefat.com, well, just what are those things that are worse for you than KFC's fistful of karmic hate? What else can you shove into your body, your brain, your very anima itself, if you really despise yourself, stopped caring long ago and just want to curl up and die in a corner somewhere? Shall we list a few? Let's.

1) Tea Party Rally. Recently did I stumble, like stepping on a rusty nail, across a surreal clip of Sarah "Queen of Duh" (Don't miss! - G) Palin rallying the "troops" at a Tea Party Express stop somewhere in Gunlick, Kentuckansasiana, and I found my mind suddenly blasted clean by the giant pile of dumb I was witnessing, unable to pinpoint exactly what it was that this circus sideshow reminded me of.

Then I had it. Remember that bizarre, 30-second acid trip of a scene in "The Wizard of Oz," the moment just before a very stoned Dorothy skips away to hook up with her crazy gay pals and traipse through a giant Pink Floyd album, the moment when those three adult dwarves stumble out of the Munchkinland horde wearing little kid outfits, and sing their little surly song, replete with surly, out-of-sync-leg spasms? Yes, the Palin-led Tea Party rally reminded me of the Lollipop Guild, serenading Dorothy. Perfect.

5) The Catholic Church. Sure sure, the Double Down will enrage your colon, toxify your blood, disfigure your heart, greasify your skin, shrivel your genitalia, and dumb you down to the level of slug shoelace. But that's nothing compared to 2,000 years of abuse, lies, oppression, lack of sunshine and dead, leathery skin that accompanies handing over your soul to the sinister clan of old men who run the Vatican. As for the pope, well, it would appear the "holiest" man in the Christian empire cares more about PR than child rape. You know, just like Jesus wanted.

Jesus apparently wanted you to hate your fellow man if he disagrees with you and to carry firearms as compensation for what His Dad didn't give you.

6) "Jersey Shore," cast of. Word has it there's a new spinoff show in the works to augment this oily smear of cultural insect repellent, called "Wicked Summer" (or "Wikkid Summah" for those in the dialect) documenting -- can you guess? -- the awful hair, insane sports obsessions and big dumb babes of blue collar lugnuts from Boston.

The show's tagline, "Five minutes with these walking billboards for 'No Child Left Behind' makes you feel like a genius for being able to work a goddamn can opener" is still, apparently, being honed. Can't wait.

Nice picture of Snooki And The Guidettes at the link. As long as they don't talk...

7) Republicanism. [...]
...

Of course, the party of Lincoln has devolved into a shrill, shrieking puddle of Glenn Beck's crocodile tears, Rush Limbaugh racists and surly white men who hate the fact that you might have decent access to health care, can marry someone you love, and don't hate everything and everyone not inbred near a Texas football stadium. Want to ensure your kids grow up scared, angry, well armed, heavily medicated and confused about everything? Raise them Republican. Oh, and spank the hell out of them.

8-37) And finally,...

Go.

It's a start ...

WaPo via Oliver Willis:

President Obama mandated Thursday that nearly all hospitals extend visitation rights to the partners of gay men and lesbians and respect patients' choices about who may make critical health-care decisions for them, perhaps the most significant step so far in his efforts to expand the rights of gay Americans.

The president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation in a memo that was e-mailed to reporters Thursday night while he was at a fundraiser in Miami.

...

But the 600lb. gorilla in the room is DADT. For a man who claims to understand the fight for civil rights, this should have been his first order of business, before escalating the war in Afghanistan.

They are fucking idiots ...

No comment:

...

But in follow-up interviews, Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security — the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

"That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?" asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. "I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security." She added, "I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind."

Thanks to Mr. Aravosis for the link.

But how would he do ...

Against aliens? The Doughy One opens his trap:

...

No, he wants to know if Barack Obama has the guts of fictional President Bill "Independence Day" Pullman had in using nukes against an actual, but completely fictional, alien invasion.

...

Conservative foreign policy = 24, Red Dawn, Independence Day ... etc. Torture 'em, kill 'em, and then nuke 'em.

Christ ...

Yeah, this'll work. Beck has a plan. Ain't we been down this road before?

Count your blessings

I feel very fortunate that I have enough that I have to pay taxes instead of not having to pay taxes because I have nothing.

Buck Norris sings "Busted" by Johnny Cash

Thanks to bucknorrismusic.

Tax Day Fact Check: Most Americans Got A Tax Cut This Year

Sam Stein at HuffPo.

On Tuesday, a wave of protesters, upset with overly-burdensome taxation by the federal government, are set to descend on the nation's capital to express their displeasure.

But does their anger reflect the truth about today's tax rates?

After all, neutral economists insist that, under the Obama administration, the overwhelming likelihood is that your tax burden has gone down, not up. Even conservative economic analysts acknowledge that there really is no basis for middle- and working-class Americans to believe that they're suddenly paying more.

"The only tax I think that has been put in place so far is an increase in the federal cigarette tax. I can't think of another Obama tax that has gone in place so far," said Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies at the conservative Cato Institute. "I would say that people are angry because big taxes are coming down the road because of the gigantic deficit built up under Bush and continued under Obama."

The bill for the 'borrow and give to the rich' Bush years and the aftermath that Obama may or may not be trying to deal with will eventually come due. Taxes? We ain't seen nothin' yet.

That's no shit about the 'cigarette tax', actually a tax on tobacco. I roll my own smokes and the price of a 6oz can of tobacco went from about $10 to $23+. I know they're trying to make folks quit smoking for health reasons, so I've got no problem with it.

"Belief is triumphing over reality," (my em) explained Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "Part of it is they watch the wrong television shows and believe it. Part of it is the tax cut that went to almost everybody, the making work pay credit, was dribbled out... people didn't get a check. They paid lower taxes and might not have noticed it.

"It is like arguing whether Jesus rose from the dead," McIntyre concluded. "If you believe it, you believe it."

Belief in something that sounds crazy and has no facts to support it is called "faith". The teabaggers and wingnuts have put their faith in F**Noise, Moosebreath, and Miss Becky. Crazy, and no facts to support it.

The biggest part of our income has no withholding taken out of it, and we're still getting money back from Mrs. G's part-time job. There have been years when I had to pay extra, but not this year. Thank you Barry. And TurboTax.

There are other taxes, of course, ask any homeowner who just coughed up property tax. I don't begrudge taxes, we all gotta chip in, but I do resent some of the things my tax money is used for that do nothing for the people who actually need help, such as going into the pockets of all the wrong people who don't need it. I think I need not go into details.

All I really want from the government is for the Fire Department to show up if I need them. And my rocking chair money, of course.

Make Texas a Concentration Camp for Wingnuts

Josh Holland at AlterNet.

It’s Tax Day, and Glenn Beck is talking about secession. But he’s not simply re-litigating the Civil War, as is popular in conservative circles these days, he’s calling for an ideological secession. Right-wingers, he says, would kick the rest of the country’s ass hands down if only they could get their hands on a single state. “Think of it this way,” he says to the treasonous MSM, “Make Texas our concentration camp.”

Man, am I down wid dat! I further propose a double-fenced minefield around it!

Then I thought about what a hellhole that concentration camp would be (even if the barbecue is awesome). Let’s not forget that conservative America, contrary to the Right’s tough talk about being self-sufficient, is deeply dependent on us nasty liberals for handouts; without them, their state’s services would be toast.

A nice red and blue map of the donor and leech states.

If Lincoln had let the South go, we’d be living in a wealthy modern state with universal health-care, and the Confederacy, well-positioned for 19th century agriculture, would have developed an economy similar to Mexico’s.

We'da still have had to kick their ass or they'd still have slaves.

If such a thing came to pass, it would be progressives bitching about illegal immigration by Texicans and southerners. Profiling would be easy - just listen to 'em talk.

I think Miss Becky is right for once, just for the wrong reasons. He has a delusional idea about the outcome, but I say give this theory a test. I betcha within two years we'd have to build a sound wall because of the whining from within. Make sure there's lotsa broken glass embedded in the top.

What they think ...

Digby excerpts an NYT poll on the teabaggers:

...

Here's a shocker: Only 58% of Americans think Obama was born in the US as opposed to 41% of teabaggers. The rest either think he was born in another country or don't know. (It's possible that some of these people don't understand the significance and simply heard something about Indonesia --- or think Hawaii is a foreign country.)

64% of these fools believe their taxes have been raised.

80% think you shouldn't raise taxes on people who make over 250k a year in order to help pay for health care. (That's opposed to only 39% of the public as a whole.)

They really don't like poor people. 73% of them think that government benefits encourage people to remain poor (73%) while only 33% of the country as a whole believe that.

...

Behold the power of propaganda:

...

Where are they getting their information? 63% of them get their TV news from FOX. 53% believe that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are news shows.

...

There ya go ...

No pull trigger, no get food

Not pissed off enough so far today? This'll do it:

When the Army Uses "Enhanced Interrogation" on an American Soldier

...to deny him service connected benefits. The Army has saved $billions by doing this. Bastards.

Quote of the Day dos

From El Rude-o in a piece about new oppressive laws in AZ and NE:

Again and again, in Nebraska, in Arizona, Republicans demonstrate that the only response they have to social problems is to punish the victims.

The great happy Vatican death spiral

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

I wasn't kidding above. I firmly believe we have this apocalypse thing all wrong, backwards. The Second Coming has nothing whatsoever to do with some melodramatic return of a bearded, sandal-wearing hippie anarchist who comes back to take away all the booze, porn and tattoos as he whisks away the trembling "true believers" to a land of harps, minivans and horrible sex.

Wrong. The Rapture is when the major karmic roadblocks of man -- all the Vaticans, popes, temples, cults, megachurches and even most organized religions all stagger and collapse under the weight of their inherent hypocrisy, all the oppressed sexuality, the homophobia, misogyny, fear of science, the denial of true spiritual source.

You could call it one of the greatest ironies of man: Only when our supposedly "holy" dogmas, institutions and leaders fail, can the human soul ever truly be free.

Hear, hear.

The Republicans are like frat boys in Animal House

Once again, the Limey press outshines ours. A 'recommended read' from the Guardian:

In the classic teen movie Animal House there comes a moment when the ne'er-do-well students of the Delta fraternity finally realise their pranks have gone too far. Faced with expulsion from university, the most violent, antisocial drunkard of the group, Bluto Blutarsky (John Belushi), gives one last rousing, rambling speech to his crestfallen comrades. "Nothing is over until we decide it is," he yells. "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"

Bluto, of course, ends up as a U.S. Senator. A Repug no doubt.

The Republican party, in particular, and American conservatism in general, have taken to operating in a similar manner to the Delta fraternity – increasingly reckless, anarchic and strident. Faced with defeat they respond with desperation. Only where the Deltas were motivated by ribaldry, conservatives are driven by rage.

On the one hand there are the Blutos – characterised by their contempt for even the most basic facts. [...]

So much for the Blutos. Far from reining them in, the Republican leadership increasingly reflects their excesses. Absent any legislative agenda or coherent ideological approach, they have spent the last two years crafting "a really futile and stupid gesture … on somebody's part" that Otter would be proud of. Small government is a legitimate philosophical and political position. But in the hands of people who voted to bloat the deficit and unleash a huge state-grab of civil liberties, it is shorn of credibility. It isn't government they don't like; it's Democrats in government.

And how would the Republican party explain to most of its supporters that while their living standards stagnated or declined under George Bush they are set to improve under Obama? As Otter explained to one of the fraternity after trashing his brother's car: "You fucked up ... you trusted us!"

That's about it, yep. The right wing didn't fuck up - everybody else did for falling for their shit.

Quote of the Day

Our pal Nunya:

... I'd rather have the bad news than walk around with my head up my ass.

Sarah costs more ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Sarah Palin will get first-class airfare for two and three rooms at a luxury hotel when she gives a speech in June for a university foundation.

And organizers better not forget to stock her lectern with two water bottles and bendable straws.

The details of Palin's contract with the California State University, Stanislaus Foundation were contained in five pages of the document retrieved from a campus trash bin by students who heard administrators might be shredding documents related to the speech.

...

Same old tricks but the Johns are more gullible.

Thanks to Watertiger for the link.

Blah Tuesday

Not much goin' on today that moves me to blog it. Just sittin' here waiting in breathless anticipation of the right's response to Obama's next move. Whatever it is, the response will be the same - lies, bullshit, and fearmongering. Ho-fuckin'-hum.

This is dedicated to those assholes, who are truly running on empty.

Thanks to galantdo007, Japan.