Willard's Bain

El Rude-o

See, as the Obama campaign and its SuperPAC tear into the Bain jugular, which is as Rovean as it gets by going right at your opponent's perceived strength and turning it into a weakness (see "Truth, Swift Boat Veterans for" in the index of campaign horrors perpetrated on Democrats), they need to remember that not only was Bain Capital itself an entity that destroyed some companies in the name of investor profits, but that Mitt Romney couldn't even bother to get his hands dirty.

He wasn't a vulture capitalist. He was a pussy capitalist. It's like having your friends hold down a gay classmate while you cut his hair. No, wait. It's like paying someone to do the cutting while you watch and jack off at the sight.

And from the post below that one:

The Obama campaign has gone after Romney's lie of a business record with a Rovean savagery that's kind of boner-causing. More on that later this week.

Not sure I wanta know more about yer boner, Rude-o, but I'll take one for the team. Heh.

Headline of the Day

The New Right-Wing Meme – Obama Is Gay

It must follow that Michelle is transgender and they found two kids who look like them alongside the road. Must be some Kenyan tradition. Yeesh.

Why do conservatives hate freedom?

Salon

Why do conservatives hate freedom? The question may be startling. After all, don’t conservatives claim they are protecting liberty in America against liberal statism, which they compare to communism or fascism? But the conservative idea of “freedom” is a very peculiar one, which excludes virtually every kind of liberty that ordinary Americans take for granted.

The conservative campaign against gay rights is equally impossible to justify, in terms of America’s Founding philosophy of natural rights. Unable to come up with any Lockean liberal reason why citizens of a democratic republic should be discriminated against, on the basis of their sexual orientations, conservatives are forced to cite the Bible or thousands of years of tradition. The whole point of the American Founding, however, was to establish a regime that was not based, like the premodern monarchies of Europe, on revealed religion or ancient custom. In the words of General George Washington in his circular to the states, shortly after victory in the American war of independence:

The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government…” A theocratic or tribalist Right that argues for public policies by invoking divine revelation to some ancient prophet or immemorial custom dating back to “the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition,” is profoundly, radically un-American.

Un-American? Absolutely. Getting to be all too common as well. Desperate measures by desperate throwbacks.

They will ultimately lose if we keep our eyes on the ball.

RNC PR BS sticks head up ass. Again.

The Political Carnival, with video if it won't make you throw up.

RNC Chair Reince Priebus*: Gay Americans who want marriage equality don’t deserve civil rights, dignity, or respect.

*Take away the vowels, that's RNC PR BS.

No civil rights, dignity, or respect is what we get with those throwbacks for being right when they're wrong if we let them take over like they are desperately trying to.

Priebus is just another ideological idiot and an old crony of Goobernor Scott Walker. Perfect for the head of the RNC.

In other news, the impending murder of the Repuglican't Party by the far right is being celebrated by everybody with any smarts and going entirely unnoticed by the soon-to-be deadee.

When I think of the despicable and last ditch tactics of the Repugs all over the country I am reminded of the old gearhead saying, "They always run best just before they blow". If the Repugs are runnin' so good, Lord please let 'em keep their foot in the fuel pump until there is a loud noise and a hot mist of oil followed by the sound of metal hitting the deck and then blessed silence!

Headline of the Day

Angry opponents of N.C. amendment call for moving Democratic convention from Charlotte

Gee, maybe they could move it to Liberty U!

ALEC Act Would Give Legislatures Power Over AGs

NPR, text and audio.

The conservative group that helped spread Florida's Stand Your Ground gun law across the country holds a closed-door issues conference in Charlotte on Friday. On its agenda is legislation that would prevent a state's attorney general from pursuing lawsuits except as authorized by the state legislature. Peter Overby is at the conference and talks with Audie Cornish.
...

OVERBY: Yeah, one proposal is called the ALEC Attorney General Authority Act. And to really boil it down, it would give state legislatures more power to tell attorneys general when they can and cannot file lawsuits. Just for example, it says the attorneys general's client is the state, not necessarily the people of the state.

This bill comes from a law firm in Mississippi. One of the firm's clients is a big utility company, Entergy. And in Mississippi the Democratic attorney general has a three-year lawsuit going against Entergy. His question is whether Entergy manipulated prices and overcharged consumers. So this seems like the kind of case that could be reined in by the ALEC Attorney General Authority Act.

Gee, Repug legislatures would never do that, would they?

Of course they would, and the rest of us would be the worse for it.

The right wing's state-by-state power grab is proceeding apace.

A dead and dismembered ALEC needs to be found alongside the road like the narcotraficantes do in Mexico.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Greene County Virginia Republican Party Calls for “Armed Revolution Should We Fail With the Power of the Vote in November”
Secret Service, FBI: hello?

Report: Romney Bullied Gay Student While in Prep School
Burnishing his image with conservatives.

Long-Range Sonic Weapons Emitting Painfully Loud Beams to Be Deployed at London Olympics
They will be used on anyone caught blowing a vuvuzela.

Heh...

U.S. Leads All Developed Nations in Percentage of Low-Wage Workers
We're the model others aspire to.

Cleaned out ...

Got the last of the stuff out of dad-in-law's house this weekend and the last load of clothing donations delivered. Getting it ready for an estate sale for everything else and then it'll go on the market. Anybody wanna buy a house in Levittown/North Wantagh, Long Island? Heh ...

And this is what I did yesterday afternoon. I got a TV app for the laptop so I can watch football (soccer) outside now!

Conservatives: Always On The Wrong Side Of History

Addicting Info, links at site.

My friends over at Americans Against the Tea Party put it best when they said, “What does it say about a movement whose brightest “stars” are the dimmest bulbs?” It says, laugh at them, pity them, but if you want to live in a modern nation of laws which evolves with the rest of the globe, for Heaven’s sake, DON’T look to them for ideas on how to operate a functioning society, since the only thing conservatives have been successful at is proving that everything they stand for is wrong.

Let’s imagine this scenario: You have an uncle…a loud, opinionated, uncle who’s thinly veiled racism and misogyny is only superseded by his not-so-thinly veiled hatred of gays. He says he’s a Christian, but never misses the opportunity to cheer for war and bloviate proudly about how merciless he is. He fights anything that has a hint of challenging his perceived position in the straight/white/male catbird seat, even if that seat came from the fact that the Liberals he hates fought for the Social Security, Medicare, etc. that allows him to live in dignity. He regales you with factually incorrect tales of American history, despite having never read a book in his life. He disdains “intellectuals,” and perceives science as a “liberal plot.” For as far back as you remember – and as far back as the family tree goes – he has been wrong about everything.
...

Yes. It is exhausting to live among whiny children sporting “Made in China” American flag lapel pins, working incessantly to devolve this nation into the antithesis of a free society – simply because they can’t handle the “freedom” they pretend to love.
...

We all must continue to evolve – without them.

We evolve, they do not. Stuck in an imaginary past and scared of the future.

The 12 Best Reasons Why The U.S. Is Not Now, And Never Should Be, A Christian Nation

Addicting Info via The Christian Left.

9) “What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people… A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.” –James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785 
.

10) “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” –James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance

Enslaves and makes ignorant. That oughta be enough reasons right there.

"One man and one woman ..."

Not so much:

Pic stolen from Kenneth Quinnell.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Nice slide show of the main reason the motorcycle was invented. You don't have to feed them when you're not using them, but you still have to clean the barn floor. :-)

Ballad of a Runaway Horse performed by EmmyLou Harris

Thanks to utuber423.

"Did FLOTUS Kill Breitbart?"

Note to Michelle: I'm down wid it if ya did! Work on Limbaugh next...

More at oldfartrants.

Da Braddah or the Sociopathic Entitled Prick?

From the LATimes with accompanying article.



El Rude-o weighs in:

As with many things about Mitt Romney, it's hardly a surprise to learn that he was one of those pampered nancy boys who, because he wouldn't drink or ball like crazy because he'd get raped by the ghost of Brigham Young or however the fuck they threaten Mormon kids, took out his young adult hormonal rage on others around him through "pranks." So he treated a nearly blind teacher like the man was Mr. Magoo, tricking him into walking into a door for the giggling approval of the other prep school bitch boys. Romney was a joker, don't you know?

Sure, sure, there's shit that Romney did that can be chalked up to stupid teenager behavior. But at least two of the acts detailed by the Post would be considered felonies. There's the hair-cutting incident, where scared, closeted, hippie-haired John Lauber, "his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help" as he was tackled and held down by a group of classmates, while "Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors." Romney can't even claim he was drunk or on drugs. He just did it.

Then follows a newspaper photo of Willard The Rat from back in the day with a verrry ironic and cautionary caption and this observation:

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like. And that's the look a bell tower sniper gives just before opening fire on the school below. Let's not allow America to be that school.

We're trying desperately to get over the last sociopathic entitled prick we had for Preznit. He goddam near wrecked the joint. Willard would finish the job.

No choice. None at all.

10 Reasons To Ban Gay Marriage:

Stolen from my brother John's FB page.

"Our bodies are ballots and every step's a vote!"

This is a band out of Portland fronted by Utah Phillips' son Brendan. I heard this tune today on KVMR.

For any young'uns that might blunder onto this page, "fast rattler" is depression-era slang for a freight train. Woody Guthrie used the term in "Hard Travelin' ".

As Utah said, "A long memory is the most radical idea in America".

Enjoy.

"Take It To The Streets" by Fast Rattler

Thanks to bmediacollective.

Shopping Day

See yas later. I'll leave ya with this:

Thanks to YubaNet.

"Must Read" of the Day

William Rivers Pitt

You want to know the really funny joke?

OK, here it is: Once upon a time, there was a center-right political party that felt like it was losing its way after a guy named Clinton won the White House twenty years ago. So what they did was spend millions and millions of dollars in a radio, television and direct mail campaign aimed at convincing the same Americans who were suffering from their bad ideas that poor people, minorities, women and Democrats were the breathing essence of evil...
...

But all of a sudden - and here's the funny part - the horse got out of the barn and went pounding across the countryside, absolutely beyond control. Twenty years of peddling hate and fear metastasized into a 'Tea Party' base whose real muscle came from championing hate and fear...and the smart boys who started the whole thing two decades ago were left in front of an open barn door wondering how things got so bad so fast.

Suddenly, the worst elements of their dark creation - Christian dominionism, anti-gay zealotry, anti-woman Biblical dudgeon, unabashed racism, cocked-rifle xenophobia, and an all-out assault on even the most meager concepts of government - went from being the crap they'd once ignored as bad noise from their "useful idiots," to being the hood ornament on the careening juggernaut of a party they no longer had control of.

The rest, as they say, is history:

If your upbringing or pastor or background or whatever leads you to hate total strangers because of who they love, where they live, what they look like, how they worship or if they worship, if you have devoted yourself to an 'Us' or 'Them' mentality and refuse to abandon such poison, if you have no ears to hear, but instead choose to pursue a course of vitriol and division, here is a truth: we will break you across our knee like so much kindling (my em and halle-fuckin'-lujah!). We are large, we contain multitudes, and yours is a course of dissolution and despair.

Cast aside your furious obedience. Freedom begins with a "No."

People like that are scared to death of freedom. George Hanson was and is right:

"This used to be a hell of a good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it." He observes that Americans talk a lot about the value of freedom, but are actually afraid of anyone who truly exhibits it.

Especially if they're brown or black or gay or female or intelligent.

Headline of the Day

Richard Mourdock: ‘Bipartisanship Ought To Consist Of Democrats Coming To The Republican Point Of View’

Fat fuckin' chance, Sparky.

Pleasant surprise ...

It was a pleasant surprise yesterday afternoon to see President Obama do the right thing [video link], especially at such a politically dangerous time. Good on him and god bless Joe Biden.

The only drawback is that we'll have to hear the GOP Faux Outage Machine at full volume from here until November. Barry went out and got this one and it's red meat for the Christofascists. Buy earplugs.

And, heh ...

Pic stolen from Lamebook.