The wretched mind of the American authoritarian

Glenn Greenwald on the mentality of Doughy Pantload Goldberg and others. A 'recommended read':

Decadent governments often spawn a decadent citizenry. A 22-year-old Nebraska resident was arrested yesterday for waterboarding his girlfriend as she was tied to a couch, because he wanted to know if she was cheating on him with another man; I wonder where he learned that? There are less dramatic though no less nauseating examples of this dynamic. In The Chicago Tribune today, there is an Op-Ed from Jonah Goldberg -- the supreme, living embodiment of a cowardly war cheerleader -- headlined: "Why is Assange still alive?"

There are multiple common threads here: the cavalier call for people's deaths, the demand for ultimate punishments without a shred of due process, the belief that the U.S. is entitled to do whatever it wants anywhere in the world without the slightest constraints, a wholesale rejection of basic Western liberties such as due process and a free press, the desire for the President to act as unconstrained monarch, and a bloodthirsty frenzy that has led all of them to cheerlead for brutal, criminal wars of aggression for a full decade without getting anywhere near the violence they cheer on, etc. But that's to be expected. We lived for eight years under a President who essentially asserted all of those powers and more, and now have a one who has embraced most of them and added some new ones, including the right to order even American citizens, far from any battlefield, assassinated without a shred of due process. Given that, it would be irrational to expect a citizenry other than the one that is being molded with this mentality.

As our pal Badtux put it so simply and succinctly in a comment yesterday. "we are disappearing into a vortex of suck".

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

mark knopfler and emmylou harris red staggerwing 2006-04-25 new jersey msnbc studio broadcast new jersey u.s.a LIVE VIVO Dire Straits

Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris ~ Red Staggerwing

Thanks to lolischiavonni, Argentina.

Truckee's haunted history

In case any of yas are wonderin' why I like it here in this frozen hell*, an article in today's Sierra Sun:

Fussin', fightin' and fornicatin'

TRUCKEE, Calif. — Jezebels beckoned in back alleys, drunken men swaggered the streets and gunshots shattered the dusky, darkening Truckee sky. A full moon cast a milky eye on the Old West town, clouds passing ghostly gray, a foreshadowing of the spooky evening.
...

It was a hub for lumbermen, ice harvesters, brewers and construction crews, Walterscheid said, with 22 saloons that had a reputation for bar fights, cheats and gamblers.

“That's a lot of testosterone,” Walter scheid said.

Ho-hum. Manly men doing manly things. Jist another Satiddy night in Paradise...

*Only part of the time.

You're worried about credibility now?

Seems some Fox 'News' reporters are suddenly worried about their credibility:

Pressure on some Fox News reporters in the Washington, D.C., bureau to "slant news" and "distort" coverage has sparked some discontent in the newsroom there, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

Since Bill Sammon assumed the role of Washington managing editor and vice president of news at the beginning of the Obama Administration, pressure from Fox management to produce stories that lean toward a conservative agenda, and distort news in some cases, has found its way into coverage, the sources said.

...

Please. If any of them had any sense of ethics and credibility, they wouldn't be working at Fox 'News'.

Thanks to Mr. Philadelphia for the link.

If Republicans Lose on Tuesday, There Will Be Blood

The Rude Pundit with a 'must read' on the worst case scenario that may follow the best case scenario:

[...] ...if, as the most optimistic polling shows is possible, the Republicans don't win back the House of Representatives and lose a good many of the close Senate races next Tuesday, the reaction on the right will be violent. There will be a number of instances of Democratic headquarters vandalized, people who support Democrats will be assaulted, bomb threats will be called in, and there may even be an alarmingly well-organized, but supposedly grassroots and spontaneous, riot or two.

The Rude Pundit is not doing a William Kristol here (definition: A "William Kristol" is "pulling a turd out of your ass and showing it to everyone as if you just laid a golden egg when, in reality, it's just a piece of shit"). Look at the behavior of angry white people when there was a chance that George W. Bush was going to lose Florida in 2000 (which, you know, he did). The thugs in suits intimidated a legal body from completing its mandated task. And they won with just shouting and shoving.

Look at the landscape out there. The self-proclaimed rhetorical leaders of the right are already hetting up the blood of their followers. [...]

Beck and Limbaugh are both pushing the power of the ballot box as the solution right now. Why? Because it seems like they're gonna win. Fuck, Sean Hannity is already referring to "Speaker Boehner." So right now they believe that the election is going to be the Republican re-ascendance, but they are planting the seeds for uprising if that fails, if, say, the cell phone factor comes into play and polls are just wildly wrong.

Then you can bet that the teabaggers and other nutzoids will start thinking that they better use their Second Amendment remedies.

I'm sure some will.

I'm getting sick of this '2d Amendment remedies' (thank you Angle, you fucking cunt) Repug shit. That's in addition to the rest of the Repug shit I'm sick and tired of. This is America. We have laws. We're supposed to keep or change regimes with ballots, not bullets like in the third world shithole the Repugs are doing their damnedest to turn us into.

I took an oath once. I never un-took it, but I reaffirm it here and now:

I, Gordon E. Moore, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

The second to last sentence is no longer really applicable as there are no officers over me and I dodged the regs and UCMJ for long enough, but the oath will do as it stands.

I got this from Ross Perot and I believe in it: Never threaten, never warn. I will break that just this once: I will do whatever it fucking takes to defeat these Repug threats. With the help of God if He cares or John Garand if he doesn't, hot lead and cold steel.

These chickenhawk phony patriot throwback bastards that think it's OK to fuck with us with all their warlike talk like they know what killing is all about and don't are fixin' to piss me off. I'm a peaceable man but there are things I will not stand for. Play by the rules or stand the fuck by, teabagger motherfuckers. You will not prevail as long as one man stands against you.

Having said all that, I damn sure don't want to have to make good on any of it. When all is said and done, hopefully more will have been said than done, as usual.

Whirl'd Series

EssEffChron, links & photos.

A rally thong with the words "SF Baseball Torture" emblazoned on it might be the quintessential souvenir of the San Francisco Giants' memorable World Series season, but you won't find it in the team's official stores.

The thong, along with T-shirts that read "Fear the Beard," "Bustered," "Castoffs, Misfits, 2010 Champions" and "Let Tim Smoke," are part of a cottage industry of unofficial merchandise being sold online and on the streets around AT&T Park.

Wait'll I get my thong! You'll see some "Giants". Heh. Video of the inspiration for this. The unlicensed Cafe Press thong page is down. Some serious SF Giants lawyering, I suspect.

An 'only in Frisco' kinda oddly twisted (can a thong do that?) comment:

"I'm buying a rally thong for Mike Singletary. Maybe it will help him think clearer when choosing starting quarterbacks. Go Giants! ” by WayOuttaTune

Giants fans weren't the only ones selling merchandise on CafePress - someone, probably a Rangers fan, answered the rally thong with a T-shirt that reads:

"In Texas, only the players' wives wear thongs."

I hear they come off real easy too...

Americans are no longer capable of arriving at opinions through actual thought

Brilliant at Breakfast

A new study shows that Americans are Idiots

Present company is excepted, of course...

We are a profoundly ignorant. People don't know anything about their own religions. We know little of our own history, let alone our history in context with the rest of the world. We worship sports heroes who torture dogs, but we point at scientists and laugh. A profoundly messed-up woman like Christine O'Donnell can run on a platform of "See? I can't manage my finances either. I'm you." We had eight years of a dry drunk as president because people thought he was the guy they'd want to have a beer with -- as if that were ever going to happen. Now there are people who would vote to give the nuclear codes to an aging high school mean girl because they'd like to fuck her -- as if that's ever going to happen. Smart people are regarded with scorn as "elites." Ignorance is regarded as a virtue.

This is how an empire dies. And we are going to be around to see it.

I have nothing to add.

A Boot To The Head

From Michael Moore, a man with whom I am proud to share my surname.

[...] For come this Tuesday, the right wing -- and the wealthy who back them -- plan to take their collective boot and bring it down hard on not just the head of Barack Obama but on the heads of everyone they simply don't like.

Teachers union? The boot!

Muslim-looking people? The boot!

Etc., etc.

And most importantly, the last boot is saved for the black man who probably wasn't born here, definitely isn't a Christian and possibly might be the Antichrist sent here to oversee the destruction of our very way of life. A boot to your head, Obama-devil!

Yes, one big boot is poised to stomp out whatever hopey-changey thing we might have had two years ago and secure this country in the hands of the oligarchs and the culture police.

Nobody's asked me yet "How's that hopey-changey thing goin' for ya?", but I've got a coupla answers ready. The first one is "Very well, thank you, Comrade" and the other is "Fine. Go fuck yourself". I will decide which one to use depending on my mood at the moment.

Make no mistake about it, my friends. A perfect storm has gathered of racists, homophobes, corporatists and born agains and they are on fire. Two years of a black man who secretly holds socialist beliefs being the boss of them is more than they can stomach. They've been sick to death since the night of 11/04/08 and they are ready to purge. They won't need a rope and tree this time to effect the change they seek (why bother when a nice shoe on another's skull will do just fine, thank you)

What say you? Stay home and punish the weak-kneed, sell-out Democrats? Or spend every free moment you have between now and Tuesday trying to protect what little progress has been made so we can live to fight another day (even if it is with “allies” like a Democratic Party that will more than likely still not get the message of what they need to do -- and has, in fact, spent much of the past two years giving progressives the boot)? Perhaps our job, post-election, is to provide a gentle but swift boot in the bee-hind of the party whose mascot is an ass.

Please read the rest.

In the face of the escalating physical Rethuggery in our land, far be it from me to suggest that anyone arm themselves illegally, but neither do I think we turn the other cheek or submit quietly to the Repug brownshirts. I suggest a legal pepper spray for the ladies and a roll of coins for the gents to hold in the fist. Tape the ends real good. I used to carry a dandy gadget of my own design consisting of an old Chevy wrist pin with a leather thong wound through it in such a manner as to either slip my hand through it and have a nice thin leather strap over my knuckles or be able to swing it. I think that's illegal these days. Probly was then too.

For those of us who don't mind the "up close and personal" approach to attitude rearrangement, I suggest learning a little of this:

It's a martial art without the art. It's not fancy. It's not pretty. It's not sexy. It's efficient and effective. It's kinda like a fire extiguisher. Good to have around but you hope you never have to use it.

DVD here. Easy to learn and effective.

The Repugs' thuggish and cowardly behavior lately has taken the "peace, love, dope, rainbows and unicorns" shit off the table. That part of the '60s is over. John Lennon's dead.

Good question ...

Fez:

How many disasters can Halliburton be involved in before they actually start to lose business?

When you have the juice, you can fuck up everything you touch and still make billions. And they said patronage was rampant in the old USSR?

Third World Toiletry ...

We haz it:

On Tuesday, the residents of New Jersey saw the future - in China. On the same day that Governor Chris Christie killed funding for the badly needed second Hudson River rail tunnel, Beijing rolled out its fastest bullet train yet. As it turns out, Christie's budget ax is just the latest symptom of a growing epidemic. Across the country, the United States is walking away from its crumbling infrastructure even as America's competitors commit the resources to win in the 21st century global economy.

...

The big choice in Chez Fixer is whether to learn Mandarin or Cantonese.

Shopping Day

Yesterday was payday, so we're headin' to town for supplies. See yas later.

F**Noise: All Trick, No Treat

From Slate

More dangerous than Islamists ...

Michael makes the best point about why you should vote on Tuesday:

...

I think that's exactly right. The Ken Bucks and Christine O'Donnells and Sharron Angles of the Republican Party, the "Taliban wing" of the GOP that more and more is taking over the party, are profoundly dangerous and deeply anti-American, and it's not enough just to laugh at them for being stupid. They pose a threat to American democracy, and to America itself, and to the very idea of "America," that, in a way, far exceeds, is far more nefarious than, and is far more likely to succeed than the threat posed by Islamic jihadism.

...

These assholes want to turn this country into Iran. I know most of the Dems suck, but they're far better than this clown show.

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

... These bastards wouldn't know freedom if it fucked their faces.

Your mind, well and nicely blown

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford, this time on, well, fish and ever so much more.

We are never going to run out.

This is the good news. Wait, check that: This is the astonishing, God-exploding, soul-altering, holier-than-wow news you must sip like a fine absinthe and jack straight into your bloodskin like a heroin bomb and then suck into your very anima like Lindsay Lohan on a coke bender.

Sounds good so far...

To put it simply, to fear evolution and change is to fear the very nature of God. It's just sort of silly.

A profound statement, Mark, but it's not silly. It's dangerously ignorant.

Kamala

After a prolonged examination of Fixer's list, here's an oddball follow-up. Hey, "oddball" is the way I roll...

No. 16 is "Kamala". So's the Dem candidate for California Attorney General, Kamala Harris.

Kamala Devi Harris (born October 20, 1964) is an American attorney, author, and the current District Attorney of San Francisco. She was first elected in 2003, defeating incumbent district attorney Terence Hallinan, and was re-elected in 2007. She is currently a candidate for California Attorney General in the 2010 California state elections.[1] If elected, she would be the first woman[2] and first African-American elected to the office.[3]She would also hold the distinction of being the first Asian-American attorney general in California and the first South Asian-American attorney general in the United States of America owing to her Indian descent.[

Damn, if she was an elephant her ears would be different sizes! Heh.

Harris was born in Oakland, California. She is the daughter of a Tamil Indian mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer specialist, who immigrated to the United States from Chennai*, Tamil Nadu, India in 1960, and a Jamaican American father, Stanford University economics professor Donald Harris.

*That's where my motorcycle is from too!

Ah, Grasshopper, it appears that many planets collided to make this Kamala!

Marijuana profiling

This anti-Prop. 19 op-ed in the LATimes is simultaneously a very good, though biased, read on one problem and the most wrong-headed approach to another that I've seen.

Though they use marijuana less, more blacks than whites are arrested for it, a new study shows.

NEW STUDY?!!! For a big city newsrag, you guys don't get out much. Damn, go outside once in a while, willya?

According to the new study, issued jointly by the California NAACP and the Drug Policy Alliance, blacks in Los Angeles are arrested for possession of marijuana at seven times the rate of whites; in San Diego, at six times the rate. In Torrance, the numbers are particularly striking, with blacks arrested at 13.8 times the rate of whites. Indeed, the phenomenon occurs in every county in the state and involves almost every police department. The upshot for those arrested, even if they don't end up in prison, is a permanent record that has lifelong consequences. Most marijuana possession arrests do not lead to long prison sentences these days, but having an arrest record and the stigma of being a "drug offender" negatively affects opportunities for employment and housing and higher education. Such information also is visible to credit agencies, licensing boards and banks. California recently downgraded the charge to an infraction — a positive step — but collateral damage is still likely; the low-income people most commonly arrested would have the most difficulty paying the fines for the infraction — and failure to do so would bring the charge back to a misdemeanor.

Why are blacks arrested at such disproportionate rates? The report concludes that it's not personal prejudice or racism on the part of police officers. The NAACP says it is the result of the long-standing strategy of saturating minority communities with officers who then overzealously stop and frisk people. Were such a strategy pursued in a white community, a high number of arrests would result there as well. The police say they are simply trying protect the citizens in high-crime areas.

I agree with protecting citizens in high crime areas, but that's a possible side effect of the real reason they do it: protecting white citizens from their own fear of black citizens 'coming to get them' by bottling the blacks up in fear of the cops in their own neighborhoods.

Whites would not stand for the type of heavy-handed 'overzealous stop and frisk' methods the cops use in "The Others" neighborhoods and they have the political clout to stop it should it occur. It won't.

Supporters of Proposition 19 say the solution is to legalize marijuana for all. But that's addressing a symptom, not the problem. The real culprit is not marijuana laws but policing practices that vary wildly from community to community. That's why Proposition 19 is not the answer.

Wrongamundo, LATimes. The answer is to do both. We gotta start somewhere, and 'policing practices' ain't on the ballot. I'd say it should be, but as long as white voters are in the majority it will never change, nor will it ever appear on a ballot in places like L.A. where white voters may not be in the majority.

Cops, racial oppression, and jails are the preferred approach over equality, education, and opportunity, but there's a lot more money in the former.

Alpha-Political Verse

Mad Kane

U is for our Union which secessionists would flee.

V is for the voters drinking Kool-Aid-flavored tea.

W’s for the many wars we’re fighting — can’t keep track.

X is for the xenophobic anti-”other” pack.

I give her about an A; 95.5% on this one.

Nineteen Reasons Pot Should Be Legal

Truthout

19. To change the world. Prop 19 is not just another California initiative. Prop 19 is being watched in all fifty states and throughout the hemisphere as the “shot heard round the world” in ending the prohibition of marijuana.

Turdblossom Election Theft Subpœna

OpEdNews

Imagine the look of contempt on Karl Rove's face this past Sunday as he swaggered toward his star turn on CBS's Face the Nation only to be served with our subpoena sanctioned by the Secretary of the State of Ohio.

The federal subpoena orders Rove to testify in deposition. Our attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, intends to ask Mr. Rove about his role in the theft if the 2004 election, and to discuss his orchestration of tens of millions of corporate/billionaire dollars in the one coming up on November 2, 2010.

"From the fiasco of Florida 2000 through the theft of Ohio 2004 to the present, there has been no significant federal reform of the electoral process or curtailment of the use of easily manipulated electronic voting machines," adds Arnebeck. "With the added tsunami of cash from Citizens United , Rove's role as the principal perpetrator of a racketeering conspiracy, as defined by the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act, has been vastly enhanced."

"Our lawsuit stemming from the widespread 'irregularities' that defined the 2004 election has never been settled," concludes Arnebeck. "With the approval of the out-going Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, we have served Mr. Rove with a legally binding requirement that he answer a few questions."

Stay tuned.

Please God, let him lie under oath about something where they can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he's lying!