Super Duper Congress. With Cheese. And Goats...

Will Durst on the "Super Congress":

A majority of the committee, equally split between Republicans and Democrats, must agree on the proposal to send it to the whole of Congress who will vote either up or down with no amendments or filibusters allowed: meaning one member has to cross party lines, which is about as likely as pimento flavored Velveeta taking first place in the 2012 World Championship Artisan Cheese Contest.

Just as an aside, no Velveeta in the American Cheese Society's biggest winners. California cheeses that did well include Sierra Nevada Cheese Co. Capretta plain goat yogurt; and Meyenberg European-style goat butter. Goats were well represented.

Now, this group has been called many things. Useless. The Supercommittee. Business as Usual. The Twerpy Twelve. A Dozen Punters. The Craven Caucus. Esteemed Assembly of the Ill- Advisable. League of the Unexceptionally Pontificating Pool of Party Hacks. But most commonly, it is referred to as: "Super Congress."

"Slower than a slug on Thorazine; less powerful than a soggy Kleenex; unable to compromise in a million years. Look! Up in that swiveling leather club seat of that private jet. It's a ruse, it's a sham, it's... Super Congress.
...

And when their capes are discarded and utility belts back in storage, we can move onto the next level of logical suspension and form the Super Duper Congress. Then, Son of Super Duper Congress. And call in Batman or maybe the Justice League or reconvene the Watchmen or that little guy who talks backwards and doesn't make any sense. Mr. Mxyztplk. You may know him as: Ron Paul. More scorpions, please

Hmmmmm...

From MoDo's column:

Let us take today’s lesson from Frost, who deliciously wrote in “The Lesson for Today”:

I’m liberal. You, you aristocrat,

Won’t know exactly what I mean by that.

I mean so altruistically moral

I never take my own side in a quarrel.

"Danger Rick Perry!"

Thanks to oldfartrants.

More about the NAR here. Maybe the batcrappiest craziest christowhackos yet. And they have a potential Presidential candidate.

Secaucus Fats takes easy way out of Repug Prez clown-off

Raw Story

According to the New Jersey Star-Ledger, governor Chris Christie joined Presidential candidate Jon Hunstman in coming out in full support of the issue. "Climate change is real," Christie told reporters. "Human activity plays a role in these changes, and it is impacting our state."

The "easy way out" of the Repug primary flusterpluck is to tell the truth, after which he could never be considered "pure" enough for the Dead End Quarter True Believers. Too bad really. I woulda been dazzled if he coulda fit in the clown car.

Will Antonin Scalia Anoint Another Dim Bulb Cowboy Governor From Texas?

By Tony Peyser

Their last Oval Office resident
Was such a fool and a clod in
Most ways that his profile since
Has been lower than bin-Laden.

Dubya ruined America for two terms.
To many people, what really perplexes
Is his party's new idea now is another
Dim bulb cowboy governor from Texas.

Shit, Perry's the perfect Repug candidate - a true bridge between the batcrap crazy teavangelical wing who want to turn the country into a throwback theocracy and the money wing who will throw them scraps and let them think that way for votes but will never allow it.

Send your condolences ...

Our friend and fellow blogger over at F&G, Bustednuckles, is getting the ball and chain attached tomorrow. He's gonna have some adult supervision from now on, which, if you read 'Nucks regularly, you know he needs, just like me and Gordon. Heh ...

Seriously, I wish him and his new bride all the love and fun the Mrs. and I have, for a very long time. I wouldn't trade what I have for anything and I hope he can say the same thing in 20 years.

As I light a fattie in his honor, I wish them all the best. Why don't you go over there and send your condolences best to him too?

Another one bites the dust.

Queen - Another One Bites The Dust

"Heartland Values"

Personally, I'm sick of journalists and politicians fawning over the people in the "Heartland" like they're the salt of the earth and know how America should work. Horseshit. This statistic ...

Stolen from Fez. Click to make big.

... is just one of many in the "values" department where my decadent, East Coast elite state leads. We have a lower teen pregnancy rate than most and a lower divorce rate as well. We have a lower rate of abortions too.

If you think the people in "flyover country" have more "moral values" than we you'd be mistaken, if you're inclined to follow these things. We here don't really care about who's more moral or not as long as they do the right thing. I'm tired of my state being maligned by untruths. I know about my people. I've seen them under strain and pressure and I have seen the best in New Yorkers. I'll put our East Coast "decadence" up against any Jesus-loving "Heartland" state, using any "moral" rating system you want, and bet we'll come out ahead.

Instead of spreading bullshit about how "moral" we are and our "values", we practice our values every day. There are 8 million of us packed in a small space and if we didn't respect each other it would be a war zone.

We don't expect our politicians to be "godly", we just expect them to have our best interests at heart. We don't look at people from out of town (or another country) as "The Other" because they are us. We are The Melting Pot and we still welcome others to enjoy what we have. We don't chase them away. We know that if we take pride in our communities, the crime rate will go down. We know if we give our children a proper education about sex and contraception, they will generally make the right choices when they become sexually active. We know that if we are attacked by terrorists, we will continue on and become better, not arm ourselves to the teeth and abdicate our rights to the government for some feeble feeling of "safety". We survived the worst attack on American soil, we are the targets, and we have become better. We don't let 9/11 rule our lives.

We have more people in a hundred mile radius of my home than a lot of these "Heartland" states do combined, the ones who the politicians and journalists rely on to form their talking points. Tell ya what. Instead of showing up at some diner in Podunk, Wherever (Pop. 25), why not show up at a place on Long Island, or New Jersey, or Connecticut, or Upstate New York? You'll learn about values and you'll learn about the real Americans. You know, the ones who ain't all white and Evangelical Christian. You know, the ones who subsidize the "Heartland" with their tax money. You know, the 8 million who've learned to live together in relative peace without fear of anything that's different.

We are America and I'm tired of being referred to as a place to be tolerated instead of learning from what we've done here over the past 250 years. We ain't perfect, but we're far more ready for the 21st Century than the "Heartland".

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Rolling Stone

July 20, 2011

Emmylou Harris and her band stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night to perform "New Orleans," a charming country rock number from her latest album Hard Bargain. Harris' song pays tribute to the people of the Big Easy who made it through Hurricane Katrina and stuck around for the immediate aftermath. "To cut and run ain't in our blood / we are New Orleans," she sings, delivering the line with both defiance and a touch of sweetness.

[The Audio Perv]

OK, yer crazy...

Following up on Fixer's post, here's some more on Jon "Tweets" Huntsman:

Still, deliberately prodding at Tea Party favorites just doesn't seem a winning strategy for someone who's serious about winning the nomination. As if just to rile up the Liberal Elite-hating base even further, Thursday also saw the release of a Vogue magazine profile of Huntsman, complete with photographs by Annie Liebowitz. The article was broadly favorable to the former Utah Governor, but to those like conservative commentator John Podheretz it came across as "the Plan 9 from Outer Space of political profiles."

Pod-boy, ya got it backwards. As usual. The whole rest of the Repug field is "Plan 9 from Outer Space".

Huntsman is acting like a man with nothing to lose -- or one who has already lost. His campaign did not return a TPM email inquiring how the candidate's new twitter style of prodding fun at core elements of the base was meant to be a winning campaign tactic.

Perhaps, though, the answer came in another tweet. The account @Jon2012girls purports to carry the thoughts of Huntsman's daughters. Friday morning they posted this:

"Dad making a stir on twitter. Guess our gift "twitter for dummies" finally payed off!"

Huntsman, IMNSHO, is THE ONLY REPUG CANDIDATE THAT STANDS A CHINAMAN'S CHANCE OF BEATING OBAMA. Let's hope they don't realize that and start supporting him.

And he's not nearly as negatively Mormon as Willard either.

Update:

Huntsman gets some Twitter love

He's grabbed the second rung...

Perry’s War With the Bushies

This is a sideshow and it's FREE!

Karl Rove and his operatives appear to have launched a campaign to derail Rick Perry’s 2012 bid, beginning with criticisms that he is 'unpresidential.' Matt Latimer on a decade-old feud over power and money.

His brazen and transparent attacks on a leader of his own party, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, may be the greatest test yet of Rove’s remarkable resilience. Some, in fact, are starting to question if we have at last reached “the moment.” Years from now, will we look back at the 2012 primary season as the time when Rove put on his Fonzie jacket, flashed a thumbs-up sign, and then—finally—jumped the shark?

Yes, at long last, the 2012 race is actually starting to get interesting.

In a really creepy yet schadenfreude-filled way.

Now he and his henchmen are undertaking their most serious gamble. Rick Perry managed to shine in Texas without Rove's permission, and now threatens to become the current Republican frontrunner without Rove’s blessing. This, Rove has decreed, must be stopped, even if his party is destroyed in the process.

Get some, Turdblossom! Oh please...

The Bushes are usually more cautious than this, which means they must feel they have no other choice. A Perry victory would end whatever chokehold the Bushes still have on the GOP establishment (my em). It would cut off many donors to Rove, Inc. Worse yet, Karl Rove and his compatriots simply cannot fathom the idea of having to sit on Fox News for four years defending the policies of the man who dared to cross them.

The crux of the biscuit. Turdblossom & Co. are trying to protect the asset-stripping cultist who is all they've got in the Repug establishment wing from the apostolic reformer/stoopid-talkin' shitkicker who did well in Texass without their permission and now threatens their power/livelihood.

I'm purely enjoying the crap outta all this. I would love to see an Old West reenactment with the Bushes and Perrys instead of the Earps and the Clantons. Heh.

Headline of the Day

Rick Perry Has A BIG PORN Problem!

Won't hurt him with his supporters. They lurves them some porn!

Heh ...

The General cashes in.

Quote of the Day

TBogg:

...

Go down to the worst trailer park in whatever town you live in. Look for the 50-year old, leather-skinned, gap-toothed, chain-smoking tweaker in filthy sweatpants and a tank top that says “Kitty needs a lickin’”.

That woman?

Well, Sarah Palin is her evil twin ...

Definitions ...

You know about "Santorum", right? Well, Tintin finds a definition for "Bachmann":

Bach'mann n. 1. The act of inserting a broomstick or other household tool into one's anus while singing "Gladly The Cross I'd Bear" or other hymn. 2. An insane Republican Congresswoman.

Heh ...

Wah-wah-wah ...

We spend more money on "defense" than every other country combined. Now, since the nation is in a headlong rush to cut spending, Big Bullet is getting worried about their piece of the pie:

Facing the possibility of actual defense spending cuts for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the nation's biggest defense contractors have put aside their traditional hyper-competitiveness and joined forces in a messaging and advocacy blitz under the slogan "Second to None."

The campaign's website, secondtonone.org, warns that "American leadership in aerospace and defense is being threatened by forces in Congress and the administration."

...

Rat bastids. They've all made a good living since World War 2, especially in bullshit wars (beginning with Korea) that served no purpose other than to kill young Americans and native innocents.

Like our pal Montag says:

...

Cute slogan Second to None and so true. Who else creates multi million dollar planes that look great on the ground but can't fly? And let us not forget the Navy's new vessels that will either break apart or rust out in their first year of operation.

...

It would be nice if the American people woke up and realized the real "welfare queens" in this country are the multi-national corporations and the filthy rich.

Fuck them.

No, I'll call you ...

"Out of the race":

After Perry dismisses evolution as a "theory that's out there," Huntsman jumps on twitter and says "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

Talk about political suicide*.

*You know he's speaking to the very, very few sane Republicans saying "I'm the good Mormon".

All you need to know ...

About Rick Perry in three pictures.

If this woman ...

Is elected President, we'll deserve what we get as a result.

...

"But what people recognize is that there’s a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward. And especially with this very bad debt ceiling bill, what we have done is given a favor to President Obama and the first thing he’ll whack is five hundred billion out of the military defense at a time when we’re fighting three wars. People recognize that."

...

So, a person who wants to be President believes a nation dead 20 years is "on the rise"? And, Ms. Bachmann, maybe if we weren't "fighting three wars" the MIC* wouldn't be looting the Treasury at the rate they are now and we wouldn't have to keep the most expensive standing army in the world prepared for a fight with the ... Soviet Union.

"Yes, Madame President, the missiles are on their way."

*MIC = Military Industrial Complex

Great thanks to They Gave Us A Republic for the link.

Update:

Heh ... Bachmann thinks she's "Jane Bond" now. Personally, I get the feeling that infiltrating a federal agency in order to destroy it carries a jail sentence ... except if you're a Republican.

When I knew ...

Obama wasn't gonna be what we hoped after 8 years of Bush. When Joe Lieberman campaigned for Obama's opponent, Grandpa Walnuts, and the half-Governor of Alaska. When Lieberman was allowed to retain his committee chairmanship* after supporting the enemy, instead of having it shoved up his ass by pulling his seniority, I got an inkling "hope and change" carried a different meaning in Obama's dictionary than mine.

You'd think the rotten prick would be somewhat grateful (were I Obama, my first order of business would have been to ruin Lieberman politically). But no. Dickface went on Fox 'News' to proclaim he doesn't "... know who I'm going to support at this point... I want to see who's got the plans, who the Republicans nominate... Bottom line, too early to say."

...

"It really is too early to say," Lieberman insisted. "I never have really met Rick Perry. I must say that I watched the launch of his campaign the last few days and first impressions are important. He's made, to me, some very good first impressions."

...

Self-serving scumbag. I can't remember the last time he put the interests of the people of Connecticut and the United States ahead of the interests of Joe Lieberman. Miserable scumbag.

*And an aside, I know now why Obama twisted Harry Reid's arm to let Lieberman stay as committee chair; because it was a sure bet Lieberman wouldn't investigate Chimp & Co's "indiscretions". That's when I first figured Obama was a big-talking pussy.

If you read anything today ...

Read this. A post by a guest blogger at the Rude One's page who's been there. As one who's been there myself, I can relate to this:

...

My recruiter forged his smile while he fed me everything I wanted to know about the U.S. Army: "Free college! Steady paycheck! Getting your head sawed off on YouTube!" I guess by "career" he meant only if you don't die fighting the civilian being paid to endlessly throw rocks and grenades at your convoy. With this career, you'll be left feeling skull-fucked on a daily basis by flashbacks of seeing that brown civilian kid take a .50 caliber round to the face. That subsequent nagging urge in your guts to go on a homicidal rampage. One recruiter called me and based his entire campaign to enroll me based on the fact that I'd get into Disneyland for free. How did he know that I always wanted to hug Mickey Mouse with blood all over my hands? Yes, PTSD is very real, and anyone related to a service member will tell you that their soldier was not the same after coming home, but they won't tell you that he wakes up at night running around looking for his M16 that isn't there, while tactically clearing the living room of insurgents.

...

When you can get so angry at someone you try to twist their head off their shoulders. When you get so angry with yourself, you want to drive your car into a bridge abutment. When you wake up screaming because one of your mind's safety valves pops and it shows you something you thought buried long ago. When you shut the lights and curtains, making your family take cover because you're convinced someone is outside, trying to infiltrate the perimeter (makes for a wonderful family Thanksgiving, believe me). And the bitch of it is, you don't know what will set it off. A smell, a sound, a poem (once a poem a friend wrote himself and read to me flipped the switch), anything in the course of your day can send you there quicker than shit. Picture a million or so people walking around with that hair-trigger, able to be pulled by just about anything.

If you're wondering what it's like to be a spouse of somebody with PTSD, send an email to Mrs. F and she'll explain it to you. She's a good woman.

We've destroyed a generation of our young people, the extent of which we won't know for a decade or two once we leave. Our "jails for hire" will begin to fill up with people who just can't tell what's real or what's not anymore, or live with the things they had to do in order to stay alive, or because some politician said it was the right thing. We'll have people who self-medicate (you're looking at one) who will fall afoul of the law for whatever reason. The soldiers who are "fightin' for our freedoms" today will be the "burdens on society" tomorrow.

The Republicans say we're handing down a big deficit to our children. I'll posit we're leaving a far worse legacy. We're leaving them with destroyed minds and bodies at the behest of war criminals. In an age of spending cuts, I wonder what will become of them.