Will wonders never cease?

Yertle finally said something I agree with!

McConnell backs hemp legalization in Kentucky

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday announced his support for hemp legalization in Kentucky.

“After long discussions with Senator Rand Paul and [Kentucky Agriculture] Commissioner James Comer on the economic benefits of industrialized hemp, I am convinced that allowing its production will be a positive development for Kentucky’s farm families and economy,” he said in a statement.

Of course, Kaintuck is setting up for a fight with the feds over this that is exactly the same as the fight over legal marijuana, but it's a good fight whose time has come.

Today In Hagel Bashing

Great article by Charles P. Pierce.

There really shouldn't be as much low farce in confirming a Cabinet appointment than was on display today as the Senate Armed Services Committee got its chance to blow off steam and posture in front of Chuck Hagel today in Washington. If it wasn't John McCain, bellowing his outrage that the world no longer recognizes his obvious geopolitical genius — even the folks in the monkeyhouse love the grumpy old RINO today — and that the world has not rewarded him with laurel leaves and flagons of the finest mead. So he spends six minutes trying to get Hagel to admit how brilliant he was to have recommended the "surge" in Iraq. Hagel declines and McCain's fumes, probably because he'll have to wait until Sunday morning to get the kind of fluffing that's the only reason he's still in public life any more. Well, that, and a war with Iran.

But at least, McCain has a certain amount of what is at least alleged gravitas on the subject of foreign relations. Jim Inhofe was reduced to citing Jennifer (Wrong) Rubin's account of the tiny Hagels that have replaced the tiny Romneys in her tiny brain.(This is the equivalent of a clown taking singing lessons from a goat.) Later, it was time for the rookies to demonstrate that their IQ's doubled as soon as they were sworn in. Hagel's fellow Nebraskan, Deb Fischer, who less than a year ago was a noisy state legislator and the third candidate in a three-candidate primary field, pretended to be well-briefed on nuclear policy. And Ted Cruz, the Tea Party gossoon from Texas, took almost his entire opportunity to fit Hagel for a kaffiyeh. Listening to this interview on...al Jazeera! Here, let me reference the Holocaust. Why hasn't Hagel sent the committee the proof that Hezbollah's been paying his honoraria for 12 years! Listening to his cut-rate Joe McCarthy lounge act makes me wonder about the future of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. I think they may need HazMat suits before this guy's done.
...

It was a bizarre, devotional exercise. Hagel was not being asked for his qualifications to lead the Department Of Defense — which, it should be noted, is largely an administrative one when it comes to the country's foreign relations. He was being asked to engage in a vague kind of theological debate. He was not being asked to profess his faith to Israel so much as to recant his heresies against the policies of the United States that were produced by adherents of a certain sect. He wasn't being asked to endorse Bibi Netanyahu so much as he was being asked to recant his unorthodox opinions as regarding the good works of Bill Kristol or John McCain. He was being asked, en ensemble, by Republicans old and young, essentially the same question John McCain spent six minutes hollering into the wind.

Please admit that we were right.

No. You were wrong. You were wrong in 2003 and you were wrong in 2006 and the Iraq war was a murderous cock-up from start to finish and Hagel, at least, figured that out in midstream.

There's more, and I have nothing to add.

Grampa Walnuts wants Hagel off his lawn...

Andy Sullivan nails the old fool on "the surge".

It didn't work, as we all know by now, on its own utopian terms. It did help us get out with less humiliation. But McCain still insists he was right about everything from the get-go:

McCain to Hagel: Please tell me I was right about Iraq
McCain desperately seeks vindication

Thanks to dkostv.

The good news is that we almost got a real debate on this question. Not exactly, because describing the "surge" as a p.r. exercize to disguise the complete failure of the Iraq War is not something Washington can yet cop to - just as it has great difficulty copping to the fact that the last president was and is a war criminal, under the strictest legal definition of that term.

But Hagel is right: without the switch in Anbar and the exhaustion of ethnic segregation and warfare, those extra troops could have been there indefinitely - and, if McCain had won in 2008, would be there still most likely. What's striking to me is not McCain's fury or douchiness (what's new?) - but his complete assumption that he couldn't possibly be wrong, his insistence that this debate is already over, and his refusal to allow for the notion that this question may only eventually be resolved by a more distant historical judgment.

After Iraq and Afghanistan, McCain's views on military intervention have not changed. Hagel's have. Somehow, I think Hagel is closer to where the country actually is.

Probably. And McCain is most definitely not and hasn't been for a long time on foreign policy. It's rockin' chair time, Gramps.

Shot by Their Own Men

A tip o' the Brain to Citizens UnTied.

Truthout

While this might seem like just another instance of silly old Southern Republicans doing silly things to keep the good ole' boys back home happy, I would argue that it is emblematic of how the Republican Party is content to destroy itself, shattering itself on the petard of its own bigotry. The gerrymandering the Virginia Senate Republicans did just before Senator Stosch moved to adjourn for the day is helping it hoist that petard.

This is why the January 21 moment in Richmond is symbolic of why gerrymandering is not going to work for the GOP in the long term. So long as the GOP gambles on redistricting - often based on rather crassly corralling or breaking up areas predominantly based on color (and especially if it does so by playing as dirtily as they did in Virginia on MLK day) - it will ensure that some number of its politicians will take care to speak to the extremists, the crazies and the bigots in the party. In the age of the Internet, this gets noticed. If Republicans think that Hispanics and Asian Americans - or young voters, or non-Christians, or women - won't notice or mind Republican bigotry even if aimed at other groups, then they're in for a surprise. And don't forget about those unloved Republicans-in-name-only, aka RINOs, who keep leaving the party. The GOP is going to end up as a farm team to nowhere.

There's a final irony here. Just as the Republican Party is accidentally destroying itself through acts of gerrymandering and bigotry like commemorating Stonewall Jackson instead of Dr. King, one might note that something similar happened to old Stonewall himself.

You know how Jackson died, right?

At the Battle of Chancellorsville 150 years ago this coming May, Confederate troops accidentally shot him.

"Accidentally". Yeah, right. Today we call that "fragging".

If the Repugs wish to self-frag, I'm totally down wid it. And if they need to hoist themselves by their own tiny petards to get a better shot, I'm down wid dat too.

Godless liberal sickos win again

Great title, ain't it? If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on the culture war.

Your old-world grandmother will refuse to believe it. Your Southern cousin will likely shake his head like he’s throwing off lice, completely unwilling to process. Rick Santorum will, with any luck and God’s good graces, spontaneously combust. And of course, the NRA will shudder and reload in a panic because, honey, they’re afraid of everything.
...

And the Republicans lost.

The culture wars! What a silly idea. What a ridiculous and lopsided fight. All about gay marriage, women’s rights, pornography, censorship, “elitist” higher education, support for the arts, for science, immigration, the environment, legal marijuana, gays in the military, a black president, self-determined spirituality versus the deep poison that is organized religion.
...

On it goes. From environmental awareness to legal pot to abortion rights, movement is toward the progressive – or at the very least, away from the regressive (not quite the same thing, but in this climate, you take what you can get). Even many leading Republicans don’t want to discuss the classic cultural issues that defined them for so long, recognizing them as toxic to their future, realizing that the younger generations simply don’t believe in the harsh institutions and repressive dogmas of yore.
...

And of course, the South, despite flickers of progress in various college towns, remains as racist, anti-smarts, and gun-lovingly homophobic as ever. The good news? This used to be a problem. The South used to have enormous influence on culture and politics, acting as the genteel, racist heart of “real” America. But as the new rainbow constituency takes hold and a calm, intellectual black man enters his second term as president, that influence is waning; the South is now more isolated, emasculated, increasingly meaningless in the new America dialogue. This much we know: The South will not rise again. Ever. Praise.

I would like to see the South rise again. To its feet and walk out the door. It won't. It needs OUR money to survive. Flappin' their lips is the best they can do.

Please go enjoy the rest of young Mark's column. I think I'm in "good news" mode this week. So far. I'm sure it will change but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. It's been a long time coming.

The Real ‘60 Minutes’ Revelation

Michael Tomasky

But here, conservatives, is what you are missing and what you need to reckon with. Americans—except you—like these two people. Most Americans look at the pair of them—this black man who is still remote in some ways and this so-familiar woman who is now aging before us and allowing herself to look just a little frumpy—and feel reassured. Most Americans are cheering for them, and hence, most Americans probably wanted a softball interview. We have thus passed an important portal in American politics: Democrats are now the regular guys. Conservatives are the weirdos. (my em)

And your point is...?

The Republicans? It’s not just the extreme ideology. Of course it’s that, but it’s more. The whole shtick is old. Where once the Middle American ear may have been soothed by that low Cheney rumble belching out its grave assessments of the world situation, today it is accosted by all those caliginous Southern accents warning of socialism and collapse, and thinks: will these people ever shut up? Georgia Congressman Paul Broun told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that Obama “upholds … the Soviet Constitution.” On any given week, I could fill a whole column, or two, with such nuggets. Enough already.

No shit. Waaaaaay past enough.

Conservatives, you can call me and others like me all the names you want, and you can whine about the evil CBS all you want. But Kroft and his network were actually in touch here with the pulse of the country, which wants Obama to succeed and Hillary to go have a nice long rest (and, maybe, get ready for 2016). Meanwhile, even Roger Ailes has gotten sick of Sarah Palin. Get the picture?

Here's the picture: I quote Colonel Shoup, who was the Commandant when I was in the Corps, in his assessment of the situation on Betio in 1943 and not a bad way of putting the slightly ascendant reality-based liberal/progressive/godless commies that we are:

On D+1 (21 November 1943) Col Shoup sent a message to divisional headquarters detailing the situation on Tarawa. This transmission has become one of the most famous of the war. Shoup radioed: "Casualties many. Percentage dead not known. Combat efficiency — we are winning."

As well we should. This country has been on the downslope since Reagan took office, and the Chimp threw it off a cliff badly enough that people finally noticed. The pendulum, if not swinging back the other way just yet, has at least stopped in its rightward arc.

Headline of the Day

Call the Waahmbulance! WaPo’s Chris Cillizza hurt GOP Sen. Ron Johnson’s wittle feewings

Heh. One would think that's the least of his problems after Hillary the Warrior Princess cut his balls off.

Makers, Takers, Fakers

Paul Krugman on the crux of the biscuit.

Republicans have a problem. For years they could shout down any attempt to point out the extent to which their policies favored the elite over the poor and the middle class; all they had to do was yell “Class warfare!” and Democrats scurried away. In the 2012 election, however, that didn’t work: the picture of the G.O.P. as the party of sneering plutocrats stuck, even as Democrats became more openly populist than they have been in decades.

As a result, prominent Republicans have begun acknowledging that their party needs to improve its image. But here’s the thing: Their proposals for a makeover all involve changing the sales pitch rather than the product. When it comes to substance, the G.O.P. is more committed than ever to policies that take from most Americans and give to a wealthy handful.
...

Why is this happening? In particular, why is it happening now, just after an election in which the G.O.P. paid a price for its anti-populist stand?

Well, I don’t have a full answer, but I think it’s important to understand the extent to which leading Republicans live in an intellectual bubble. They get their news from Fox and other captive media, they get their policy analysis from billionaire-financed right-wing think tanks, and they’re often blissfully unaware both of contrary evidence and of how their positions sound to outsiders.
...

Which brings me back to Mr. Jindal, who declared in his speech that “we are a populist party.” No, you aren’t. You’re a party that holds a large proportion of Americans in contempt. And the public may have figured that out.

Yes, yes we have.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

France Sends Troops to Mali
Hopes to follow Vietnam strategy by staying a few years then handing off operations to Americans.

Hmmmmm...

Study: Recent Elections Show Strong Link Between Racism And Political Preference
Most whites who hate blacks voted for Romney; most blacks who hate whites voted for Obama.

Sounds about right.

Virginia GOP Sneaks Through Redistricting Bill During Inauguration, Then Adjourns “in Memory of Stonewall Jackson”
And you thought the Civil War was over.

We may have to prove it to them again. Sigh.

Berlusconi Defends Mussolini For Supporting Hitler
Surprised others in attendance at Holocaust Memorial took offense at remarks.

WTF? Somebody should remind him how Il Duce ended up. Along with his bunga-bunga. Not the kind of "swinging" Berlusconi is used to...

"Minority Rule"

Old Fart Rants about Repug election rigging - "If ya can't beat 'em, cheat 'em".

Notable quote:

What a bunch of morons! The Republican Party, and its base, have degenerated into a pack of lying, thieving, anti-science, head-in-the-sand, backwards, vile, vulgar, evangelical, willfully ignorant delusional know-nothings with nothing to offer society but hate and divisiveness, especially since the Tea Party cockroaches infested Congress. They're a disgrace to America. Every one of these knuckle dragging idiots should be put on an inner tube and pushed out to sea. The depths to which the Republican Party has sunk in order to win elections is painful to watch and is a national embarrassment.

That ol' boy needs to come out of his shell and say what he really means. Heh.

Laissez le bon temps fool, eh?

Think Progress

Five Reasons Bobby Jindal Is Responsible For Transforming The GOP Into ‘The Stupid Party’

There's a paragraph on each one.

1. He permits Louisiana schools to teach creationism.

2. He allows state employees to be fired for being gay.

3. He has signed bills to intimidate women seeking abortions.

4. He seeks to dramatically cut taxes for the wealthy, increase taxes for everyone else.

5. He refuses to provide health care for Louisiana’s poorest.

There ain't enough lipstick to make the GOP pig look good as long as stupid is as stupid does.

Update:

El Rude-o weighs in.

When you live in Louisiana, you get used to a certain amount of Neanderthal savagery and brute stupidity. Sure, the education system is getting fucked beyond fucked and the state legislature thinks it's just jim-fuckin' dandy to teach that everything was created when an invisible sky wizard puked it all out, but, hey, how about that food? Sure, sex education is pretty much non-existent in a state where they have the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, but, man, ain't that band playin' some hot zydeco? See? It's a trade-off. A state with a high sales tax, including taxes on food and clothing, lottery, and gambling, along with a state income tax, can't stay out of the red because tax cuts for rich people are so fucking important, so why not raise the sales tax even higher? It's what you get for wanting to laissez les bon temps rouler.

Other than teachers (who are really just terrorists with tenure, but, gosh, shouldn't they be armed?) protesting the shifting of public school funds to private ones run by churches and cults, there's been no real outcry against Governor Bobby Jindal and his merry band of GOP scum weasels in the legislature. But... [...]
...

Yeah, it's a cruel, cruel life in the Bayou State. But, hey, throw us some more beads, mister.

Thoughts on high capacity magazines

The United States won World War 2 and kept South Korea from being overrun by Communists with an 8-round magazine capacity. To wit:

After that, military magazine capacity went to 20 rounds in time for Vietnam and we lost that and every mostly unnecessary war since.

So ... if you want to lose every fight you get yourself into, go with large magazines.

Headline of the Day

Judge who ruled against Obama’s recess appointments has long list of ties to republican party shenanigans dating back to Oliver North

Fearless prediction: This ruling will be overturned and Obama's recess appointments will stand.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Something a little different. I have pre-ordered this new album. If you order albums from Amazon, a lot of them now come with AutoRip which means you can download them while you're waiting for the physical CD. Pretty cool.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell give the BBC an interview about their new duet CD Old Yellow Moon live Jan 21 2012. The good news for UK/Europe is that Emmylou says June 2013 is being lined up for a leg of the CD tour, I have left a couple of buffering stops in the video, I would normally edit these out but as it is an interview have left them in. Please click like and comment in the box below, thanks Ally.

Thanks to TakenAlsoAlso, UK.

Ho Hum...

Nothing much going on today that pops my cork.

The righties are going farther right. The ones that know what's going on are gaming the system to win with a minority. If ya can't beat 'em, cheat 'em.

Harry Reid snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Again.

Clinton and Kerry kicked the GOP House's ass. That was the bright spot of the week.

Ho hum...

You and me, Nuge

It's a slow day so pardon me for once again giving this asshole nobody space. It's Bob Cesca's fault. Heh. Many links at site.

Yes, Nugent not only threatened the president again, but he implied that he and his "buddies" would stage some sort of geriatric armed revolt if the president continues to push for new gun safety laws. I used the phrase "another chat" because this is the second time in less than a year that Nugent has popped off with some sort of not-so-subtle threat against the president. Rewind back to April, 2012 when Nugent said at the annual NRA Convention, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." The Secret Service responded to that one by paying a visit to Nugent's compound. Oh, and you might recall how, at a concert back in 2007, Nugent said that Barack Obama can "suck on my machine gun."

Yes, one of the gun culture's A-list spokesmen -- and a Republican campaign prop.

A-list? Really?! Asshole? Anachronism? Anarchist?

So here's what he said at the SHOT Show last week via a Guns.com video attained by Media Matters:

I'm part of a very great experiment in self-government where we the people determine our own pursuit of happiness and our own individual freedom and liberty not to be confused with the Barack Obama gang who believes in we the sheeple and actually is attempting to re-implement the tyranny of King George that we escaped from in 1776. And if you want another Concord Bridge, I got some buddies.

Do we have to go over this again? Nugent and his buddies would be utterly wiped out. Full stop. Actually, they might as well be threatening to ride velociraptors into the White House, armed with magic wands and accompanied by Space Monkey Gleek. It's just that ridiculous. The whole notion of an armed revolt and secession from the United States failed miserably in 1865, and the revolutionaries at that time were headed by skilled West Point commanders like J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee who directed massive armies. These gun nutjobs today have -- who? -- octogenarian D-list electric guitar player Ted Nugent and a gaggle of his redneck disciples. Good luck, boys.

In fact, you know what? Bring it on. Seriously. I'd like to see Nugent try his hand at something like this -- to actually follow through on one of his kneejerk treasonous threats. But considering how he chickened out of the Vietnam draft, we can safely assume that Nugent prefers to only shoot at things that don't fire back.

Note to Nuge: Your "buddies" won't show up anyway, so I got an idea - you and me, Nuge. One on one. We're both old farts so it'd be even. No guns, just you and me. Oh, and a few TV crews to document you saving the nation from the likes of me.

Besides, it'll be fun for the country to watch you get your mouth shut once and for all - swollen shut for a while, anyway - by a godless commie fuck pussy liberal. One who also avoided the draft. By enlisting instead of shittin' his pants.

Update:

It occured to me that if Nuge's dick was as big as his mouth, he could be a porn star. Then it further dawned on me that he could be a porn star anyway. With that mouth he could take an even bigger porn star, if you get my drift. If he could find one that would stick it in a garbage hole.

Poll of the Day

From an article in the LATimes. It looks better there and you can vote if you wish.

Should the president's inaugural speech have included more "outreach" to Republicans?
Yes No
7% 93%

In other words, fuck 'em.

Republicans may have their finger on the faint pulse of an America that is passing away, but Obama’s inaugural address spoke to the emerging majority in this country. Perhaps that is really what Republicans found unsettling in the president’s speech.

The dinosaurs weren't too happy with the meteor either. RIP.

Obama 1; Netanyahu 0

There's a lot on the interwebs today about the results of Israel's elections. My favorite is Andy Sullivan's.

Bibi is still highly likely to be prime minister for a while, but also as decapitalized by his re-election as Obama was recapitalized by his. That leaves an opening. In my view, the president and next secretary of state should now lay out a detailed, mapped, two-state division that the US supports and present it to both Fatah and Jerusalem. If Jerusalem balks, the US should switch its vote at the UN to abstain on Palestinian statehood. If the PA balks, we'll discover something important about them: their willingness to sacrifice for a state alongside and at peace with a Jewish one. Hamas? Leave them out of it for a while, or open up a back-channel. But as Obama's power waxes and Netanyahu's wanes, it would be crazy not to seize the moment.

And that moment is defined by a core fact: the Israeli public is clearly not on the same page as America's neoconservatives right now, not as fixated on the same things they are, and more concerned about their own core well-being than geopolitics or apocalyptic family psychodramas. What the American electorate just told the GOP, the Israeli electorate just told its own far-right government: moderate or get out of the way (my em). Which could be put more simply.

Meep meep.

Heh.

Four more years, oh thank God

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford being grateful. Here's just the last three ¶:

Which leads us straight to perhaps the largest gratitude offering of all. It is a kind of stunned, dizzy appreciation for the now-permanent truism the Obama era hath ushered in, once and for all and never to be repealed. Do you know it?

It goes thusly: When all the old, clenched white males are, en masse, apoplectic, when all the clammy, bloated representatives of the Old Guard could not be more full of hate and resentment for the polyphonic, multicolored direction of the nation, when it is very possible the seeds of calmly chaotic diversity and deep intelligence Obama has planted will bear fruit for decades to come, this is how you know. This is the kind of evolution you want.

Don’t worry, there is plenty of time to complain, find flaw, hold presidential feet to the fire. But let us, just for a moment, be glad those feet are his.

Amen and no shit.

Headline of the Day

Fox & Friends: Obama’s Inauguration Day Happens To Be The ‘The Most Depressing Day Of The Year’

Bwahahahaha! Suck it, bitchez!