It's a trick question, right?

Robert Creamer

What's the difference between mainstream Republican leaders and the Tea Party extremists that have been winning Republican primaries across the country?

Reminds me of this:

Q: What's the difference between pygmies and a women's track team?
A: One's a buncha cunning runts and the other's a buncha running....

Sorry. I guess that doesn't fit very well since Repugs and teabaggers are both, but I can't control what pops into my mind.

The main difference is the willingness of the Tea Party gang to say what they believe out loud. This, of course, is driving Republican political consultants crazy. Republicans have never gotten elected by laying out to the voters the core components of their economic agenda. When they have been successful it has generally been by soft-pedaling or sugar-coating the things that mattered most to their corporate backers and playing instead to the fears and anxieties of their rank and file voters.

Nor, of course, did Bush campaign on the pledge that he would take the long-term surplus in the federal budget he inherited from Clinton and turn it into more debt, during his term, than all of the presidents before him in American history put together.

This year, the Republican establishment is not worried about the primary victories of Tea Party candidates because they will advocate "far out" extremists policies. Most of the Republican Party leadership agrees with those policies. The problem is that these candidates don't seem to have enough sense -- or political experience -- to know that they're not supposed to go around talking about those policies before they're elected.

Good long article, but this sums it up:

[...] Tea Party extremists who haven't learned yet to moderate their language - and earnest true believers like Paul Ryan who think they can convince America that what's bad for them is good for them - have complicated the Republican problem. [...]

The Repugs have been successful in lying and fearmongering to Americans to get them to vote against their own best interests for years decades. The real question now that the economy has people paying more attention and might actually listen to the Repug spew is:

Will it work this time?

{Crickets}

Quote of the Day

Howard Fineman in a Newsweek article about Repug fearmongering for the upcoming election. This is good on more than one level:

Given where Republicans — and come November, maybe the country — are headed, I wanted to interview a well-known Republican of color. Rep. John Boehner was out of town, so I called former representative J. C. Watts of Oklahoma. [...]

Heh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Polls Bad News For Obama, Congress, Both Parties
Good news for one-worlders, anarchists, end-timers.

Congressman: Terrorists Having Babies Here, Training Them Overseas
Then returning to run for congress.

Schism in Conservative Ranks
Anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-union, anti-big government wing splits from anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-gay, anti-Semite wing.

United they stand, divided they fall. Things are so shitty, that qualifies as good news. Yeesh.

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal

Following up on Fixer's post, just below and at Worlds, the Nord-Ostsee-Kanal is a very interesting and scenic waterway.

Brought to you by the UCA, here's a choice of videos on how the canal works and the Kiel Canal in 9 minutes. Be sure to duck for the bridges!

Anchors aweigh ...

Made the ship yesterday afternoon and pulled out of Amsterdam right on schedule. We're in the Kiel Canal now, heading for the Baltic.

The egg settin' horse and...

I've posted about Utah Phillips before. He's gone now, but he's still one of the best storytellers goin'. This story is on his CD The Moscow Hold which I highly recommend to anyone who likes to hear funny stories.

His performance at the Strawberry Music Festival Spring 2007, Camp Mather, Yosemite.

Thanks to VeniceArtists.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt ~ Raise The Dead

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Goodbye, Amsterdam ...

Gotta catch a ship. Some stuff from our last day in Amsterdam.

Cal Thomas Says the Terrorists Are Right

El Rude-o

That headline is not hyperbole. Entirely straight right-wing nutzoid Cal Thomas, who is entirely straight despite always looking like he's contemplating balls dangling in front of his face, said so in his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "the incoherent yawps of a man so sexually repressed that he'd make John Calvin say, 'Dude, you need to get laid'"). The entirely straight Thomas writes, regarding the Proposition 8 decision in California, "A nation that loses its moral sense is a nation without any sense at all. Muslim fanatics who wish to destroy us are correct in their diagnosis of our moral rot: loss of a fear of God, immodesty, especially among women, materialism and much more."

You got that? The Muslim terrorists are right. Even though he follows it up with "their solution -- Sharia law -- is wrong," he adds, "they are not wrong about what ails us."

And the entirely straight Thomas doesn't even condemn the tactics of "Muslim fanatics." No, just that they prefer nutzoid Islam to nutzoid Christianity. Thomas says of the post-1950s "destruction" of America through "tolerance," "None of this should surprise anyone who takes the time to read and understand what happens to people and nations that disregard God." See? Entirely straight Cal Thomas is very different from Muslim extremists because...ummm...

I'm sure 'tolerance' is the problem. Yeesh. Right-wing religious nutzoids are right-wing religious nutzoids. Period.

Let's send ours to fight theirs. In Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the middle of the Gobi, anywhere the noise wouldn't keep us awake, and let 'em have at it. They'd be out of our hair for a while and hopefully not many would return.

Spaceballs = No Balls

David Sirota

Call me an '80s junkie, but when I saw the results of this week's closely watched Colorado election, I immediately thought of "Spaceballs." In that Mel Brooks masterpiece, a Darth Vader spoof named Dark Helmet says "evil will always triumph because good is dumb." Make it "dumb and broke," and you have a powerful explanation for incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet's narrow primary victory over former state legislator Andrew Romanoff.

For those who care about a progressive economic agenda and about injecting democracy into the Democratic Party, this is encouraging when put next to the similarly impressive results of White House-thwarting Democratic primary challengers in Pennsylvania and Arkansas. And that trend explains the increasingly fierce pushback from Washington.

Yes, this is why Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, so vociferously berated the progressive movement on the eve of Colorado's primary, and why DNC powerbrokers moved so forcefully against Romanoff. He was the latest candidate to represent what those elites know to be an ascendant national progressive uprising inside the Democratic Party – one that keenly understands money's corrosive effects on public policy and that, therefore, rejects the Beltway's corporatist model.

Seeing that this uprising threatens their power and their D.C. worldview, these elites are desperate to preserve Dark Helmet's principle – so desperate, in fact, they have resorted to employing Obama's presidential campaign infrastructure to prop up more conservative candidates against progressive challengers in intra-party battles.

This unholy alliance managed to hold off the onslaught this time. But make no mistake – Colorado is yet more evidence that the days of "Spaceballs" defining the Democratic Party are ending.

The right has gone farther to the right and so has the left as if it were the right thing to do. It's not. I hope Sirota's right but I'm not holding my breath.

"Spaceballs" refers to the "space" where the Dems' "balls" oughta be.

In The Matter Of Robert L. Gibbs

Paul Krugman. Short, sweet, and to the point.

There he goes again. What gets me is how unprofessional the whole thing is.

Look, if you’re a public figure of any kind, you’re going to face a lot of criticism. Much of it will seem unfair to you; some of the unfair criticism will come from people you expected to take your side; you’ll be angry, you’ll feel that people are putting their egos or their personal aggrandizement above the cause.

Welcome to reality. It’s my reality — and I’m just a professor/columnist. Someone actually in the White House has to be prepared for much more of this kind of thing — and if you don’t have a thick enough skin to take it, find another form of employment.

I’m not saying to turn the other cheek and always say something polite as a general principle; by all means lash out at your critics, if you have something to gain by doing so. Rudeness at the proper moment can serve a purpose — as I hope I’ve demonstrated over the years. But if you vent for the sake of venting; if you alienate people you’re going to need; then you’re just being stupid.

And that, I’m afraid, is what’s going on here. Rachel Maddow isn’t going to go away, or turn all meek, because the White House Press Secretary implicitly denounced her. Even more to the point, liberal critics have an audience because they’re reflecting real concerns of real people. Those concerns need addressing, if necessary in the form of explanations of why their expectations can’t be met. Denouncing the people giving voice to those real concerns as the “professional left” is both unfair and, as I’ve said, stupid.

And both the president and, more important, the country deserve better.

Over 200 comments. I won't go quite as far as No. 5 because the wingnuts are the greatest danger to this country in our history and I'm not going to sit out any elections ever, but this is what could happen:

I can only speak for myself, I'm not going to vote for Obama or the Democratic party any more. They give a harsher lashing to the left than the right. The people on the left have a desire to improve things and the people on the right only want to win. If the president doesn't denounce these comments and get his act together very soon, he's lost a strong supporter. This is not an overreaction. He just doesn't get it and doesn't deserve reelection. I'd rather see Palin destroy the Republican party for good as president than watch Obama prop it up with his naiveté.

Obama's not going to lose those who know over Gibbs' comment, but he needs to not lose those who aren't as committed to truth, decency, and reality. He might not have turned out the way we wanted, but he's what we've got.

I've been insulted before. I'll get over this one too. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Repug rule can and will and must be prevented from doing so.

Voting for Democrats may have devolved into simply being the lesser of two evils, but that's the system we're stuck with.

Update:

One of the commenters has linked us to "The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity".

Go read this. Fits the right to a T.

Canals and jetlag ...

Got to bed early Wednesday night but not before cruising the canals of Amsterdam.

Update:

Since I had some time this afternoon (tough day of shopping with the Mrs.), I figured I'd put a post up of yesterday's adventures.

I'm taking today off

The wingnuts are going more batcrap crazy by the day. The White House is too afraid to take on our enemies so they're making their (former) friends into straw men and calling us names. Yada yada. Nothing new. I'm dead from it. Fuck it for today.

Dam straight!

We're here and I got wifi in the hotel room! Yay!

Take this job and slide it

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) August 10, 2010 – Effective immediately, all workplaces in the United States will be fitted with inflatable slides to enable disgruntled employees to quit as dramatically as possible.
...

Starting on Monday, inflatable slides will be installed in such diverse workplaces as Home Depot, Starbucks, and the White House, said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

"If post offices had inflatable slides, think of the lives we could have saved," she said.

Alarming Repuglicants

Thanks to YubaNet.

Cast thy gaze heavenwards

YubaNet

The Perseids come every year beginning in late July and stretching into August. Among the many nights of the shower, there is always the one night that the viewing of the shower is at its best. This year, that evening falls on Thursday, August 12. Sky watchers can witness colorful fireballs, occasional outbursts and long hours of gracefully streaking meteors.

Get a chaise lounge and do some oohin' an' awin'. Hints & tips.

Note to The Biggest Little City In The World, 35 miles away: Turn them f**kin' lights down for a while, willya?

Gibbs attacks the fringe losers of the left

Glenn Greenwald, links at site:

You may think that the reason you're dissatisfied with the Obama administration is because of substantive objections to their policies: (list follows, yada yada yawn)

But Robert Gibbs -- in one of the most petulant, self-pitying outbursts seen from a top political official in recent memory, half derived from a paranoid Richard Nixon rant and the other half from a Sean Hannity/Sarah Palin caricature of The Far Left -- is here to tell you that the real reason you're dissatisfied with the President is because you're a fringe, ideological, Leftist extremist ingrate who needs drug counseling:

So, to recap: (1) The Professional Left are totally irrelevant losers who speak for absolutely nobody, and certainly nobody in Real America who matters; but (2) they're ruining everything for the White House!!! And: if you criticize the President, it's only because you're such a rabid extremist that you harbor a secret desire to eliminate the Pentagon -- that's how anti-American you are! You're such a Far Left extremist that Dennis Kucinich isn't far enough Left for you, you subversive, drug-using hippies! You're so far to the Left that you want to turn the U.S. into Canada. As David Frum put it today: "More proof of my longtime thesis, Repub pols fear the GOP base; Dem pols hate the Dem base."

Perhaps one day the White House can work itself up to express this sort of sputtering rage against the Right, or the Wall Street thieves who destroyed the American economy, or the permanent factions that control Washington. Until then, we'll have to satisfy ourselves with White House explanations that the Real Culprits are not (of course) them, but the Professional Left, that is simultaneously totally irrelevant and ruining everything. I'll give credit to Gibbs for putting his name on this outburst: these are usually the things they say anonymously and then deny afterward on the record that it's what they think.

[...] On September 9, 2008 -- roughly two months before the election -- Barack Obama addressed a large, enthusiastic crowd and said: "As president, I will lead a new era of accountability in education. But see, I don't just want to hold our teachers accountable; I want to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable." In 20 short months, we've gone from "hold me accountable" to "get drug tested," you wretched ingrates.

Heh. If he isn't already, Gibbs is going to rue the day he went off like that.

"They're hiding behind the Constitution!"

The Political Carnival on the latest media darling right-wing moron, links and video:

Back in April he railed against “liberal elites”. Today he railed against the cultural center and prayer room that is at the center of a firestorm, because it would be built a couple of blocks from Ground Zero. My previous post explaining why barring it’s construction would be a mistake is here.

What struck me about his laughably irrational punditiocy was this quote (nearly verbatim):

In this case, “they’re gonna hide behind our rights– freedom of religion– hide behind the Constitution.”

How does this guy get himself out the door in the morning? Does he realize what he said? Carl Paladino just condemned the Constitution for being the the supreme law of the United States, the ultimate, top, super duper, ultra, go-to document:

The nerve– the very nerve!– of Americans to “hide behind” the U.S. Constitution and all those freedoms! Why, the founding fathers are turning over in their graves! Following the laws of the land is a sin! A sin, I say!

That man… is an idiot.

Yes, sometimes "that goddamned piece of paper (GWBush)" is damned inconvenient to wingnuts. The Bill Of Rights is there to protect us from mob rule, whether the mob is ignorant peasants with teabags and misspelled signs, or even or maybe especially if the mob is rich and powerful.

And while I'm on the subject:

Neutie's at it again:

Newt Gingrich is the latest Republican to speak out against the Muslim community center planned for near Ground Zero, arguing on his Web site that New York should ban the lower Manhattan mosque "so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia."

Yes, we must hurry and catch up with Saudi Arabia as a model of religious freedom. Yeesh.

On the other hand, Neutie and his ilk would probably like the United States to be a one-party totalitarian state run by a minority throwback religious sect.

"Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca."

I'm sure Jews probably aren't allowed in Neutie's neighborhood either and I'll bet they're not exactly thrilled by real Christians.

You better be careful about dissin' the Saudis, Neutie boy. The people who are funding you have interests there and might not like you rockin' the boat.

Shorter Gibbs: Left Wing Pressure is Working

A 'must read' at Antemedius.

When Obama took office, the voters had had enough of Republicans. But as a nation we were still trapped in the very powerful cultural and political atmosphere of fear imposed by the Republicans after 9/11. The paradigm of the Right Wing had been shoved down America's throat for so long that everything...and I mean everything was approached, examined, and acted upon from a RW viewpoint.

But now with the Republicans out of political power, and thus unable to effectively ratchet up the fear without the bully pulpit, and with a new generation rising that does NOT buy their divisive wedge tactics such as gays are evil or mosques are evil and Muslims are coming to kill you in your bed or that Christianity is the State Religion. And with the rash of Republican sex scandals that have forced them to back away from claiming the mantle of Family Values....

The cost of being forced to pander to the Republican paradigm on absolutely everything from national security to health care has taken an immense toll not only on the sensibilities of many of the folks who would like to support Obama....but even worse, on the policies themselves. Pre-compromising to the Republican paradigm, going way too far, farther than was absolutely necessary, to pander to the Republican paradigm lost Obama a LOT of goodwill. And that and that alone makes the arguments that "Obama has achieved more than any President" ring false to aware lefties. We KNOW we could have gotten much more through Congress if it wasn't for this pre-capitulation to the existing paradigm.

As the old paradigm fades and a new one is established sans the Cheney/Bush/Religious Right influence, the Obama administration will be forced (kicking and screaming apparently. in Gibbs' case) to adjust to the new paradigm. A paradigm where the horrific, ineffective and just plain wrong policies and views of the past have far lesser currency.

This guy had me going 'til the very last line and then I was forced to nod my head and agree, but it reminded me that even a spark plug takes time to fire the mixture. It has to start somewhere.