2d Amendment spiralling ad absurdum

BooMan

I want a AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. I am assured that it is the best attack helicopter in the world and if it's not, it's close enough. It can fly 184 miles per hour. It can go 323 miles on a tank of gas. It has a 30mm automatic cannon that can fire 1200 rounds, and it can carry 16 antitank Hellfire missiles. It can also carry 76 unguided 2.75 inch rockets. With this helicopter, I could theoretically destroy 80% of a standard Russian tank battalion in a single sortie. I am firmly convinced that possession of this helicopter will prevent me from ever having to worry about a situation where law and order breaks down because the police can’t travel, there’s no communication. And there are armed gangs roaming around neighborhoods. In fact, the mere possibility of such a breakdown in civilization means that I have an inalterable and inalienable right to this helicopter, because there is nothing so poorly regulated as an armed gang.

At first, I thought that a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle or a double-barrel shotgun would be sufficient, especially if equipped with the correct accouterments. But the more I dwell on Lindsey Graham's dystopian talking points, the more I feel compelled to be on the safe side.

I'm going with the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. Just try and stop me.

And if you can operate the thing with an Xbox controller, you won't even have to get off the couch! Neither will the 2d Lieutenant at Nellis who takes your $18 million ($9M (?) second-hand) Apache out with a cheaper-than-dirt (relatively speaking) AMRAAM which he launched from a latest-gen Predator drone, suitably upgraded for just such upstarts as you, using his Xbox controller without getting up off his couch.

Your money will sprinkle to earth but at least you won't be part of the debris. And the butterbar at Nellis will probably get a medal. Heh.

The Sequester is Good for You, and Other GOP Lies

William Rivers Pitt

Let me see if I have this right.

A generation of GOP trickle-down economic thievery depth-charged the American economy and set the nation trembling on the edge of collapse, combined a decade ago with massive GOP-supported tax cuts and two brutally expensive GOP-supported wars that eviscerated the Clinton budget surplus. This was followed by five years of the GOP filibustering everything and the sink in the men's room in order to thwart any genuine economic recovery, because they did not want the president to get the credit, and be damned to the people. Today, that same GOP has forced the country into this sequester nonsense because, according to their bastard gospel, closing tax loopholes for rich people and corporations in order to curb the debt they accrued makes the Baby Jesus cry.

Yep. You're doing fine so far.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that we have spent $767 billion in Iraq since the invasion. The National Priorities Project, a US-based research firm, puts the number at $811 billion.

I think the actual number will be somewhere north of $3 Trillion.

Make no mistake: Iraq was a Republican war, championed by Republicans, advocated by Republicans, defended by Republicans, which paid out vast sums of taxpayer dollars to corporate friends of Republicans. Anyone who says, "But the Democrats did it, too," fine, OK, please name for me the Democrats umbilically connected to Halliburton and KBR. I'll wait.

Now these same Republicans have delivered us into this sequester because they say we can't afford things like Medicare, Social Security, clean air, safe food, the Post Office, staffed control towers, jobs, and adequate hospital care.

The greed frenzy of trickle-down nonsense. Two massive tax cuts, and two wars. Rampant war profiteering. Comprehensive obstructionism in Congress when presented with any effective proposals for salvaging the economy. Now, the sequester, all brought to you by your friends in the GOP, who tell us that we're broke, and can't afford nice things anymore...but whatever you do, don't look at all the ways we throw billions at our friends through the money laundering process of warfare and militarization.

Yeah, I have this right.

Yes, yes you do.

I'll Kill You for This Column

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford, coming to you today from HuffPo, on the deaths of journalists in Mexico.

I've won a few wonderful awards and accolades for my work so far. I've been, in turns, hugely proud and quickly humbled, honored beyond belief, thrilled when someone tells me my work has inspired change or induced a profound realization. In my line, this is all you can really ask for.

I've also been reviled by the Christian right, called the anti-Christ more times than I can count; I've been verbally spat upon by extreme right-wing knuckle draggers, threatened with lawsuit by Mormonism and Scientology, had the head of SF's Catholic archdiocese complain, multiple times, to Chronicle HQ about my ongoing and enthusiastic condemnation of the church. High badges of honor, all.

And yes, I've even had a couple straight-up death threats, but they came from neck-deep in the heartland muck, from sub-humans who are, I'm convinced, far too terrified to come anywhere near San Francisco lest they turn instantly liberal or gay. So it's never been a serious concern.

But then again, I've never been involved in the kind of reportage that has you dodging bullets while interviewing surviving family members of a decapitated police captain, or that has you hiding out in a cave to write your report on the Chinese military beating monks in Tibet, all for little pay, for the sheer need to get the story out to a numb and wary world that doesn't really want to hear it much anymore.
...

Of course, I also realize it's nothing new. War zones and deadly hotspots the world over are famously attractive to thrill-seeking writers and photojournalists exactly for their high-adrenaline, death-wish risks. But it's one thing to knowingly incite the fundamentalist clods in Iraq or Pakistan, quite another to face death in a fast-developing first world democracy, a land of ravishing beauty and fine arts, intellectual power and tremendous urban development.

This is, perhaps, the most harrowing aspect of the killing of journalists in Mexico (now second only to Iraq as the most dangerous place in the world to be a reporter): We are not that far removed. Despite America's "maturity," despite all our supposed First Amendment protections and moral righteousness, we are but a few small steps away from Mexico's brutish violence and ingrained political dishonesty.
...

It also begets a strange and tragic irony: I recall a study not long ago from an American Ph.D. student who examined terrorists the world over and found something rather surprising.

All those sophisticated, calculating, evil masterminds orchestrating vast, intricate networks of educated rebels in the art of fear and violence? They don't really exist. There are no smarmy, highly-educated James Bond villains, no evil Die Hard-type Russian masterminds trying to hack the mainframe of international conglomerates, no evil genius sitting in a leather armchair, arming nukes while stroking a hairless cat on his lap.

There is no Scarface. There is no Tony Soprano. There was no Wild West. With rare exception, the romantic American notion of shrewd drug kingpin, sly mastermind terrorist, suave nightclub gangster is pure violence porn, just dumb Hollywood fantasy.

The truth is far more banal...

And it will kill you just as dead and for real.

Just Die, Dick

MoDo gets it right for once in a long time.

In a documentary soon to appear on Showtime, “The World According to Dick Cheney,” America’s most powerful and destructive vice president woos history by growling yet again that he was right and everyone else was wrong.

Yeah, like a military marching formation, everybody was outta step but him. Asshole doesn't begin to cover it.

Talking to Cutler in his deep headmaster’s monotone, Cheney dispenses with the fig leaf of “we.” He no longer feigns deference to W., whom he now disdains for favoring Condi over him in the second term, and for not pardoning “Cheney’s Cheney,” Scooter Libby.

"Feigns deference to W." That was his M.O. the whole time. We know who was in charge, and it wasn't the Chimp.

He was always goosing up W.’s insecurities so he could take advantage of them. To make his crazy and appallingly costly detour from Osama to Saddam, and cherry-pick his fake case for invading Iraq, he played on W.’s fear of being lampooned as a wimp, as his father had been.

But after Vice kept W. out of the loop on the Justice Department’s rebellion against Cheney’s illegal warrantless domestic spying program, the relationship was ruptured. It was too late to rein in the feverish vice president, except to tell him he couldn’t bomb a nuclear plant in the Syrian desert.

“I don’t lie awake at night thinking, gee, what are they going to say about me?” he sums up.

They’re going to say you were a misguided powermonger who, in a paranoid spasm, led this nation into an unthinkable calamity. Sleep on that.

And don't bother waking up. This nation has unfortunately, or maybe cowardly, given him the greatest gift of his misbegotten life - the ability to die a free man instead of in prison or Gitmo like he ought to.

Note to the Dick: Take advantage of that gift and die, motherfucker. Today would be just fine.

Headline of the Day

Why Jeb Bush will never be president

Note to Jeb: Your father wasn't the worst President in U.S. history, but your brother WAS and the Bush name is mud is the real reason you'll never be President. Maybe in ten generations or so, when everybody alive today is dead and the lessons of history have been forgotten once again.

FAQ the Pope

Will Durst

Q. When was the last time a pope retired?

A. Thursday.

Q. No, before that.

A. July 4, 1415. Gregory XII stepped down to head off on a hot weekend with his brother- in- law’s sister’s seamstress’ pool boy in Sardinia.
...

Q. Is it true the Catholic Church is fast tracking the election process?

A. Yes, they’ve thrown themselves into a frenzy of hyperactivity. Which means accelerating all the way past erosion right up to snail’s pace. For instance they have yet to meet to decide when to convene.

Q. Who gets to vote for the new Pope?

A. All Cardinals under the age of 80 not currently under indictment are allowed to vote.
...

Q. How does this vote work?

A. For the first seven rounds, a 2/3rds majority if required, after that just 50% plus one. In the past, the College of Cardinals have been deadlocked for up to three years. which would make a great mini-series. NBC should jump on this.

Q. What’s the deal with the smoke?

A. After each vote, the ballots are burned. If no winner is picked, a chemical is added to make the smoke black. If there is a winner, no chemical added- smoke remains white. Green smoke is just some priest encouraging Romans to recycle.

Q. What kind of shot do Americans have?

A. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. Really, does it always have to be about us?

Q. Who the fuck cares?

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

State Dept. Approves Keystone Pipeline
Dept. of Energy approves arming Syrian rebels.

Supreme Court Seems Poised To Strike Down Major Provision Of Voting Rights Act
By a vote of 4 3/5 to 4.

Heh.

Arizona Senate Approves Gold, Silver as Legal Tender
Beefs up stagecoach security.

Supreme Court Shields Gov’t Secret Surveillance Because Evidence Proving It Would Be Secret
Majority opinion written by Joseph Heller, with concurring opinion by Lewis Carroll.

Heh 22.

There ain't enough lipstick in the fuckin' world...

Daddy Frank's latest feature piece. Long, many links, good read.

Lipstick on an Elephant

Deep behind a tangle of denial and rebranding initiatives, a GOP resuscitation plan emerges.

I'm down wid "Do Not Resuscitate", but that's just me.

Pops goes through Repug Plans A to C and then explains why they won't work:

The GOP’s problem isn’t bad messaging; it’s that its message has been, if anything, all too readily understood.

Bada-bing!

He then compares the GOP's problems today with virtually the same problem they had in '64 with Goldwater and the Reagan resurgence which is what we see ending today, thank you Jesus. He then offers probably the only solution that will work for them:

These days, the GOP has no new Reagan as yet waiting in the wings. It faces a demographic cliff that may take far longer than two years to scale, no matter how many blind mountain climbers deliver pep talks—especially if Republicans in Congress can’t even mobilize on immigration reform this year. But the party controls far more of American governance, federal and local, than it did after Goldwater’s defeat. It has continued to push the country—and both the current and previous Democratic president—incrementally to the right. Whatever the acronym stands for, the GOP remains nothing if not true to itself. It could not be rebranded even if it wanted to change—and it does not want to. A cosmetic face-lift would fool no one. Its current leaders are more faithful than ever—more faithful than Nixon, Ford, and both George Bushes ever were—to the principles laid down by Goldwater and Reagan. In the end, the party’s best bet may be not to do something but just stand there until history cycles back to it once more.

That'll work. I'll be dead and gone and I plan to live a whole lot longer than them if just to spite them.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Mar 1, 2013
Singers Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell perform "Chase the Feeling" from their new album, "Old Yellow Moon," in the Wall Street Journal's studio in New York.

Thanks to WSJDigitalNetwork·

"Is John Boehner Drunk At Work?"

Heh. Thank you, Old Fart, for making this so easy!

And I heartily concur that drug testing for people taking our tax money, in this case three breathalyzer tests per day, should start at the top to set a good example.

Scalia's slam of the Voting Rights Act is a bar-stool rant

LATimes

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is alleged to be one of the great intellects of conservative jurisprudence, but his comments during oral arguments over a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act displayed all the mental acuity of a third-tier talk radio bozo.
...

In court on Wednesday, however, Scalia mocked that vote. He said the Senate’s unanimity simply proved the law had not been given serious consideration. The senators were afraid, he said, to cast a vote against a law with a "wonderful" name. He went on to assert that the reauthorization of the act was merely "a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement."

That sort of legal reasoning may be good enough for someone sitting on a bar stool well into his third pint, but it is not good enough for the highest court in the land.
...

Tossing actual statistics back at Scalia, Justice Elena Kagan cited a string of continued voting-rights violations. As to the state of mind of the senators, she said the unanimous vote was pretty good proof that the evidence of contemporary abuses was convincing, even to conservative Southerners.

"It was clear to 98 senators, including every senator from a covered state, who decided that there was a continuing need for this piece of legislation," Kagan said.

Undeterred, Scalia opined that a law governing voting rights is "not the kind of question you can leave to Congress." Oh, really? The right to vote is the core of our constitutional democracy. It is not, as Scalia says, "a racial entitlement," it is an American entitlement. It seems that might be a very useful thing for Congress to watch over and protect. It was eminently important in 1965 and remains important today.

The crux of the biscuit:

Given the weirdness of his comments, it might not be wrong to assume Scalia's true concern is less about "racial entitlement" than it is about making sure his fellow Republicans are entitled. Entitled, that is, to manipulate elections when they can no longer win fair and square.

Word.

Rachel calls Fat Tony what he is

In case you missed this, you MUST see it!

In this exclusive, unedited interview, Rachel Maddow shares her in-person observations of the Supreme Court, and champions civil rights legislation.

And nails Fat Tony's considerable hide to the barn door in the process.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Headline of the Day

CPAC is the 'Star Wars Bar Scene of the Conservative Movement'

Heh. No shit!

Kagan, Sotomayor Bitch Slap Fat Tony

Dana Milbank

For a quarter-century, Antonin Scalia has been the reigning bully of the Supreme Court, but finally a couple of justices are willing to face him down.

As it happens, the two manning up to take on Nino the Terrible are women: the court’s newest members, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Get that fat bastid, ladies! Good on yas!

The styles of the two Obama appointees are different. Sotomayor is blunt and caustic, repeatedly interrupting. In an opinion this week, she harshly criticized a Texas prosecutor for a racist line of questioning. She has been on the interview circuit publicizing her memoir.

Kagan is choosier about when to interject herself, but she’s sardonic and sharp-witted. (“Well, that’s a big, new power that you are giving us,” she said, mockingly, when a lawyer tried to argue that the justices should overrule Congress’s discrimination findings.)

Both are more forceful than the Clinton appointees, the amiable Breyer and the frail Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The two new justices are sending a message to the court’s conservative majority: You may have the votes, but you’re going to have a fight.

Wednesday’s voting rights case was typical. Surprisingly, the five conservative justices seemed willing to strike down a landmark civil rights law (the provision that gives extra scrutiny to states with past discrimination) that was renewed with near-unanimous votes in Congress. Conservative jurists usually claim deference to the elected branches, but in this case they look an awful lot like activist judges legislating from the bench.

Gee, I thought Repugs frowned on "judicial activism"? Oh, that's right, IOKIYAR.

Sotomayor allowed the lawyer for the Alabama county seeking to overturn the law to get just four sentences into his argument before interrupting him. “Assuming I accept your premise — and there’s some question about that — that some portions of the South have changed, your county pretty much hasn’t,” she charged. “Why would we vote in favor of a county whose record is the epitome of what caused the passage of this law to start with?”

Moments later, Kagan pointed out that “Alabama has no black statewide elected officials” and has one of the worst records of voting rights violations.

Scalia and Justice Samuel Alito tried to assist the Alabama county’s lawyer by offering some friendly hypotheticals, but Sotomayor wasn’t interested in hearing that. “The problem with those hypotheticals is obvious,” she said, because “it’s a real record as to what Alabama has done to earn its place on the list.”

This lawsuit by Shelby County, Alabama, is being privately financed by a big donor, and it's obvious that they want Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act overturned so they can proceed with James Crow Jr. Esq. voter disenfranchisement without the pesky "pre-clearance" requirement. I hope they do not get away with it.

The Crackpot Jackpot and Ghost Boner

A fun and not too off the mark look at Senator Ted "Tailgunner Joe's Ghost" Cruz at Political Garbage Chute. Shit, Cruz even looks like McCarthy.

5 Things Ted Cruz Wants To Accomplish In the Senate
...

The Smarmy Index in Washington has hit an all time high, thanks to the arrival of the Junior Senator from Texas by way of Canada. (Honestly Canada! What did we do to deserve this son of a bitch?) Cruz makes every Tea Party Lady quiver in her nether regions. It’s as if someone created a mold for “Peevish, Accusatory, Inflamatory, Self-Righteous Prick Senators,” poured a glop of hair gel and good ol’ fashioned Texas Bullshit into it, squeezed the damnable thing together, and out popped Ted.

Yeah, Canada, we'll take poutine, Ice Road Truckers, BC bud, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Natalie MacMaster, and many other wonderful Canadian things with great pleasure, but, really, you should have kept this sonofabitch. Honest, Canada, we get it - you're laughin' yer frozen asses off, but still...

[...] But what else can this legislative lightweight hope to accomplish after having pissed off members of both parties in his Hill debut?

Maybe one of these things…
...

Sen. Joe McCarthy just got a ghost boner while he works the phone bank in Hell.
...

#4. Getting To The Bottom of [insert CRAZY RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY THEORY HERE]
I don’t think Republicans in Congress are interested in anything unless it involves vaginae or a conspiracy. If you could somehow concoct a conspiracy around President Obama using the vaginae of all the women in the land to smuggle guns into Mexico so that they may one day ban both guns and female genitalia, you would hit the Republcian crackpot jackpot. It’s not shocking or surprising at all that the GOP loves their conspiracies – whether they be Fast & Furious or FEMA death camps — they’re the party of alternate reality as it is anyway. After all, it takes a certain conspiratorial dismissal of truth to not only believe in but proselytize trickle down economics.

#3. Outlaw Dancing In His Town
I know he’s Canadian. But Senator Cruz came to Congress by way of Texas. And it’s probably safe to say that approximately 82% of all towns in Texas qualify as being “Footloose-ian” in nature. That is to say that most small towns in Texas could easily play host to a Kevin Bacon and/or Kenny Wormwald figure to stroll into town and wreak havoc on the elders, inciting rock and roll dance marathons! And women wearing dungarees!
...

#1. Be A Complete and Total Dickhead
Oh wait. He’s already accomplished that. So maybe it should say “Continue Being a Complete and Total Dickhead” instead. Oh well. The point is that Senator Ted Cruz is a complete and total dickhead.

Word and Amen. Go see the rest.

Backing Into Equality

I think I'm getting jaded over politics in my old age. Or something. Anyway, I'm not finding much to be outraged about today. Perhaps the Repugs have moved the bar of hate, fear, and delusion to a new normal and I'm just getting used to it after eight and a half years of doing this shit. Ho-hum.

Or maybe we really are finally starting to win and I just feel more relaxed about it all.

Anyway, here's some educational light entertainment. I really like the Carolina Chocolate Drops (website) and I watch L.A.-based Tavis Smiley pretty often. This was just put up a few days ago. Enjoy. Learn.

Published on Feb 19, 2013
The original trio of Dom, Rhiannon and Justin made an appearance in 2010 on the Tavis Smiley interview show (PBS). Their 2nd studio album "Genuine Negro Jig" was released that year to great critical acclaim and much media attention. The album won a 2010 Grammy in the Best Traditional Folk album category, and reached the top 10 on the Billboard Folk Album chart and the top spot of the Bluegrass album chart.

Thanks to lordchauncey.

Here's a tune.

Published on Jun 18, 2012
This Quick Hits video brings together all four members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, including cellist Leyla McCalla, for a rendition of a bluegrass standard, "Don't Get Trouble in Your Mind." It's hard to imagine a quartet being more in sync than the Drops are during this virtuoso, rowdy romp.

Thanks to SoundTracksQH.

And for good measure, this outfit'll liven up yer next square dance! "Homebrew alcohol" is a staple at those.

Published on Jun 18, 2012
Featuring Dom Flemons on the bones and Rhiannon Giddens on the 5-string banjo, "Old Corn Likker" was performed backstage exclusively for Quick Hits. This is a square dance song with Flemons calling out to the dancers and telling the story of a man who fell off a wagon and lost his hat due to some overindulgence in some homebrew alcohol.

The reason for the title of the post is that instead of raising themselves professionally and socially by going for high-class bullshit, these folks have used their Master's Degrees to show that being hillbillies ain't just for whites no more, not that it ever really was. They're doing a damn fine job of it. Heh.

"Why Are You Still Here?"

I'm still suffering from truck lag from driving home from the coast yesterday so I'll probably take the easy way out today with light entertainment for you.

Old Fart tears Limpbaugh a new one but he's still more polite than I would have been.

Thanks to oldfartrants.

Oh. the irony...

Ironic Times

Supreme Court to Revisit Campaign Finance Limits
Why, it will ponder, can't one person, like ExxonMobil, give as much money as it wants to a candidate.

Well, this stuff is supposed to be irony...

Americans Prepare for Last-Minute Sequestration Frenzy
Stock up on earplugs.

Boy, that one's no shit either.

Headline of the Day

Texas bans shooting immigrants from helicopters

How sporting of them. Yeesh.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

"Long Black Veil" is a dark tune originally recorded by Lefty Frizzell in 1959.

Published on Sep 22, 2012

Not sure where and when - looks like around 2000

Dave Matthews & Emmylou Harris : Long Black Veil (Live)

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.