Question of the Day

Jury selection has begun for the trial of George Zimmerman which may answer the burning question:

Is a Hispanic white enough to get away with murdering a Skittles-armed black kid because he stood up for himself when confronted for being black?

Update:

Fox News guest suggests Trayvon was armed: ‘You could kill somebody’ with iced tea

Oy gevult...

Oh. the irony...

Ironic Times

Eight Candidates Vie to Succeed Ahmadinejad in Iran
Each promising to wipe Israel off the map in his own particular way.

White House: Congress Briefed 13 Times on Surveillance Program
But how many times has somebody told you they were spying on everyone and you didn't remember?

Vocabulary Builders

apprentice 1. archaic: now out-of-use term for a young person who would work for free for a long period of years hoping to gain skills and connections needed to secure paid work later. 2. intern

Study: PTSD May Be Prevented
By ending war.

In other words, when pigs fly.

Headline of the Day

Hear Ye, Future Deep Throats: This Is How to Leak to the Press

Shorter: Same way you sell dope. Heh.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Great version of two songs.

Song by Nanci Griffith; Kentucky Educational Television's "The Lonesome Pine Specials"; recorded at the Kentucky Center for the Arts; producer Richard Van Kleeck; director Clark Santee; copyright 1992, KET

Sam Bush - mandolin, fiddle
John Randal Stewart - guitar
Al Perkins - dobro, banjo, guitar
Mark Winchester - bass
Larry Atamanuik - drums

Thanks to foxfireman188.

The Spite Cub

Paul Krugman on states opting out of Medicaid expansion.

House Republicans have voted 37 times to repeal ObamaRomneyCare — the Affordable Care Act, which creates a national health insurance system similar to the one Massachusetts has had since 2006. Nonetheless, almost all of the act will go fully into effect at the beginning of next year.

There is, however, one form of obstruction still available to the G.O.P. Last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding the law’s constitutionality also gave states the right to opt out of one piece of the plan, a federally financed expansion of Medicaid. Sure enough, a number of Republican-dominated states seem set to reject Medicaid expansion, at least at first.

And why would they do this? They won’t save money. On the contrary, they will hurt their own budgets and damage their own economies. Nor will Medicaid rejectionism serve any clear political purpose. As I’ll explain later, it will probably hurt Republicans for years to come.

Gee, he says that almost like it's a bad thing!

No, the only way to understand the refusal to expand Medicaid is as an act of sheer spite. And the cost of that spite won’t just come in the form of lost dollars; it will also come in the form of gratuitous hardship for some of our most vulnerable citizens.
...

Just think about this for a minute. It’s one thing when politicians refuse to spend money helping the poor and vulnerable; that’s just business as usual. But here we have a case in which politicians are, in effect, spending large sums, in the form of rejected aid, not to help the poor but to hurt them.

And as I said, it doesn’t even make sense as cynical politics. If Obamacare works (which it will), millions of middle-income voters — the kind of people who might support either party in future elections — will see major benefits, even in rejectionist states. So rejectionism won’t discredit health reform. What it might do, however, is drive home to lower-income voters — many of them nonwhite — just how little the G.O.P. cares about their well-being, and reinforce the already strong Democratic advantage among Latinos, in particular.

Rationally, in other words, Republicans should accept defeat on health care, at least for now, and move on. Instead, however, their spitefulness appears to override all other considerations. And millions of Americans will pay the price.

What goes around comes around. I hope it bites the Repugs on the ass.

Dispatches from Normandy

By Ernie Pyle, one of the great war correspondents. He did not survive WWII.
The following courtesy of the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

Submerged tanks and overturned boats and burned trucks and shell-shattered jeeps and sad little personal belongings were strewn all over these bitter sands. That plus the bodies of soldiers lying in rows covered with blankets, the toes of their shoes sticking up in a line as though on drill. And other bodies, uncollected, still sprawling grotesquely in the sand or half hidden by the high grass beyond the beach.

In the preceding column we told about the D-day wreckage among our machines of war that were expended in taking one of the Normandy beaches.

But there is another and more human litter. It extends in a thin little line, just like a high-water mark, for miles along the beach. This is the strewn personal gear, gear that will never be needed again, of those who fought and died to give us our entrance into Europe.

Here in a jumbled row for mile on mile are soldiers’ packs. Here are socks and shoe polish, sewing kits, diaries, Bibles and hand grenades. Here are the latest letters from home, with the address on each one neatly razored out – one of the security precautions enforced before the boys embarked.

Here are toothbrushes and razors, and snapshots of families back home staring up at you from the sand. Here are pocketbooks, metal mirrors, extra trousers, and bloody, abandoned shoes. Here are broken-handled shovels, and portable radios smashed almost beyond recognition, and mine detectors twisted and ruined.

Here are torn pistol belts and canvas water buckets, first-aid kits and jumbled heaps of lifebelts. I picked up a pocket Bible with a soldier’s name in it, and put it in my jacket. I carried it half a mile or so and then put it back down on the beach. I don’t know why I picked it up, or why I put it back down.

Even necessary wars suck. WWII may have been the last of those.

Is it yoga? Or is it ... Satan?!

GOP Candidate: Yoga Opens You to Satanic Possession

This whackjob idea is nothing new, believe it or not. I actually googled it. The usual suspects.

I'm safe. Never touch the stuff. Curdled milk products scare me. I am a little worried since Mrs. G uses it and feeds it to the dogs. Might hafta get some protective juju...

Run, Jesse, run! Oh please...

More popcorn! Extra butter, please!

Thanks to YubaNet.

"I'm Tired Of Transgressive Edgeplay" By Michele Bachmann

Goblinbooks is closing in on Rude Pundit territory! Ya might wanta ice down the ol' unit before reading!

My fellow Americans: I wanted to be honest about why I'm not running for reelection. The truth is I'm tired. Tired of all of it. When I started this job I thought I'd found the purest form of kink possible, something that would never ever get boring. But it's time to admit it: It just doesn't ring Michele's joy-buzzer the way it used to....

[...] I toyed with different kinds of risk-aware stuff: a lot of humiliation and fear play. Then I did some suffocation, some punishment shaving, a little fire cupping... and a few kidnapping scenarios that got deep into some dark territory. But nothing, absolutely nothing, got my rocks off like being a socially conservative Republican. I thought the thrill would last forever. I really did.

Do you know what it's like to pass a law that straps a chastity belt around millions of people you don't even know? Or to start talking smack about how some random Muslim person might be part of a terrorist fifth column - and there's no way to prove he or she isn't of course, so they just have to live in a nightmare of paranoia you created? I choked out a whole roomful of sorority girls once and locked them in a storage unit. But what I did in Congress over these past few years was a thousand times more intense. I think rightwing politicians are exploring the last really shocking and unpredictable kind of dominance work in the whole world. Telling someone their entire life is going to be destroyed because I have these weird religious beliefs... that is one sick, hot ball of deviance right there. Putting a district court judge in pony-leather doesn't even come close.
...

And whoever moves into my old office: You might want to bleach it down. Thoroughly. Every surface. Stuff happened there.

Bleach! On the rocks...

The GOP Knows That it is Broken

BooMan

Last November, after the elections, the House Republicans chose their committee chairmen for the 113th Congress. All nineteen of them were white men. This followed stunning events in the last Congress, like holding a hearing on the availability of contraceptives without inviting any female witnesses. As far as I know, there are no professed Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, or atheists in the Republican House caucus, and Eric Cantor is the only Jew. There are no openly gay House Republicans. There is a stunning lack of diversity in background and belief systems, and the leadership is almost entirely male. Despite this, the House Republicans have broken out in factions. One reason that they have voted to repeal ObamaCare 37 times is that it helps keeps these factions from getting out of control. Whenever the natives get restless, Eric Cantor has another repeal vote to get everyone back on the same page for five minutes. These votes are the equivalent of a zookeeper's tranquilizer gun.

The House keeps somewhat busy voting for things that will never in a million Sundays become law. Cantor has been moving bills that are intended to "frame" the party as policy-minded and family-friendly, but it's nothing but a charade meant to feed some lower reptilian part of the electorate's brain. You're reading this; you must be a political junkie. Do you know what is in any of Cantor's bills?

Of course not. [...]
...

What the GOP is doing makes no sense. They behave as if they can get 100% of what their most radical and deluded members want even though they only technically control one half of Congress and there is a relatively popular and freshly-reelected Democrat in the White House. It doesn't matter how many times the Speaker points those facts out, he has no ability to get those facts to sink in. They act like President Obama is more intransigent than President Clinton, but the Gingrich-led Congress actively worked to find areas where they could work with Clinton. When Boehner tried to do that, he almost lost his speakership. And Gingrich had a lot more leverage because Bob Dole and Trent Lott were in control of the Senate.

I believe the root problem here is that Republicans told lies for so long that they finally produced a generation of officeholders who actually confuse lies with the truth. They got high on their own supply. No wonder Bob Dole thinks they need to go to a collective rehab.

Like anything else that's broken, fix it or junk it. I think the Repugs are too far gone to fix, and since they don't have any usable parts, it's landfill time. Or as we say in the motorcycle biz, best to lift up the gas cap and slip a new motorcycle under it.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Republicans Coming Around on Climate Change
Blame “do-nothing” Obama administration for catastrophic drought, hurricanes, tornados.

Heh. Climate change has gone from being a hoax to just another evidence-free accusation.

Supreme Court Could Throw Out Voting Rights Act
If Justice Thomas is allowed to vote.

Hmmmmm...

New Company Plans Starbucks-Style Pot Stores
Complete with places for stoners to sit all day and stare at their smartphones.

Suggested name: "Munchies"

Mississippi Man Sues Lawn Mower Maker After Being Attacked by Yellow Jackets, Then Run Over by His Lawn Mower
Says he'll also sue the next sonofabitch who thinks it's the least bit funny.

My sides, they hurt...

WTF?! Headline of the Day

WSJ Editorial Board Member: NYC Bike-Share Program Has ‘Begrimed’ Best Neighborhoods

"Do not ask me to enter the mind of the totalitarians running this government of the city," Rabinowitz said when asked what she thought was the motivation behind the program.

Stalin on a bike. Good effing grief.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on May 28, 2013
"Icy Blue Heart" [background vocals by Bonnie Raitt] (written by John Hiatt)

From "Bluebird" album [1989]

Thanks to ilikepants711.

Island Style

I'm as sick of wingnuts as ever, but it's same old, same old, every damn day so I've been listening to music instead. Somehow I got caught up in Hawai'ian music today, which I love.

Recorded at the 2005 festival, Jack Johnson and Jackson Browne join John Cruz for his original tune "Island Style"
As featured on the new release Jack Johnson and Friends "Best of Kokua Festival" available now at

http://www.kokuafestival.com/best

Thanks to KokuaHawaiiOfficial.

Shopping Day

Over the mountains and through the woods to Costco we must go, so I'll just leave you with this list of contenders for the new Bull Goose Loony of Crazytown after Crazy Eyes leaves Congress. All the usual suspects. Heh. See yas.

Family Concerned After John McCain Wanders Into Syria

America's Finest News Source

“Unfortunately, this has been happening a lot lately; he’ll walk out of the Capitol building, get disoriented, and then we get a call late at night saying that John is in Syria,” McCain’s wife Cindy said upon learning that her 76-year-old husband turned up in the war-torn country after ambling across the Turkey-Syria border and delivering a rambling, incoherent speech to a group of rebels.

More. My sides, they hurt...

5 Reasons We’ll Miss Michele Bachmann

Quit laughing. This is serious shit. Heh.

The Political Garbage Chute

I’m not sure if I let out a “Yee-haw!” or a “Fuck yeah!” or a “Boo yah!” but this morning before I had fully woken up I let out a shout of joy the likes of which I rarely get a chance to, especially when covering politics. Literally the first words I read this morning put me in such a good mood that I think if all my extremities fell off right now, I’d still be gleeful.

Michele Bachmann is leaving the House of Representatives next year!

Bachmann is the Queen of Derp, the High Priestess of Stupidity, and the Czarina of Dumbassery. In her time in Congress her most notable achievements were staring into the wrong camera while delivering the Tea Party rebuttal to one of President Obama’s State of the Union speeches and an Islamaphobic crusade she went on that got her smacked down hard by Senator John McCain on the Senate floor. Oh, and she also voted a ton of times to repeal Obamacare…symbolically.

Sure, she’s the personification of all that we hate about Congressional Republicans, but won’t we miss Michele just a little bit? I think we will, and here are five reasons why.

#4. Marcus’ Wonderful Holiday Cookies

It’s a little-known fact that Marcus Bachmann, Michele’s beard totally heterosexual husband and companion who in no way is hiding his own sexuality so that Michele looked more electable to conservative voters makes amazing cookies. Every year around the holidays, he makes snicker doodles, oatmeal raisin, and sugar cookies with his phone number on them and he hands them out at all the YMCAs in and around D.C. With Michele gone after next year’s election, this will be the last year that Marcus’ “Come, Taste My Cookies” tour will come to town.

Apparently, one of the reasons she's leaving is that now that gay marriage is legal in Minnesota, she feels the need to protect the sanctity of her marriage by staying close to home to keep an eye on Marcus lest he run off with the pool boy. Heh.

Democrat Levels Fox News By Explaining Why Karl Rove Should Be Investigated By IRS

I love this photoshop!


Politicus USA

Fox News had a gotcha moment go wrong, when Sen. Dick Durbin explained why Karl Rove deserves to be investigated by the IRS.
...

Sen. Durbin did a great job laying it out. Karl Rove deserved, and continues to deserve IRS scrutiny because his dark money Crossroads groups are violating the rules for tax exempt organizations. Rove has regularly boasted about how much money Crossroads is spending to defeat Democrats, when tax exempt nonprofits aren’t supposed to be engaging in partisan political activity.

The money shot:

There are two things that Republicans never want to talk about when it comes to the IRS scandal. They try to avoid Citizens United, and fact that these right wing organizations were trying to abuse the system in order to get tax exempt status.

Republicans are working furiously to make the IRS scandal about Obama, because they don’t want America to wake up to the real scandal. The influx of dark money thanks to Citizens United, and the right’s widespread abuse of 501(c)(4)s are the stories that Republicans are trying to hide.

Sen. Durbin didn’t play the Fox News game. Instead of being on the defensive, he laid out the dirty little secret that the right doesn’t want America to know.

Guess what, righties - we know.

My miracle can beat up your miracle

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about how the age of technological miracles constantly leapfrogs itself and has rendered us blasé about it all.

Did you notice? The wow factor of what our consumer tech can do is now so routinely high, so commonplace, we look right past the fact we’re no longer heading toward a truly miraculous tech age; we’re already there.
...

It’s sort of embarrassing. Battles absolutely rage among pale geeks, and even many consumers, over the most inane and miniscule application tics, hang-ups, lack of a certain phenomenal feature in this or that device. It would all be sweet and hilarious, if it wasn’t so frequently hateful and nasty.

It’s like two naïve snobs fighting over the saltiness of the caviar. It’s like arguing over the brand of jet fuel used in the Lear. It’s an embarrassment of riches, with both sides attacking each other over whose enormous pile of gold coins is slightly glitterier on a given day, from a given angle, if you’re wearing the right slouchy hoodie and never have sex.

Sweetheart, can’t you see? It’s a goddamn pile of gold coins. No one cares which one’s slightly better at drunk texting your ex-girlfriend via slurred voice command in the dark. Check that: far too many still care, and modern culture is the worse for it.
...

So it goes for the current state of everyday tech. We’re all driving ridiculous, luxury sports cars now. Even the most basic smart phones can now perform what would be seen as stupefying miracles just a handful of years ago. Any mobile web browser running on any platform can effortlessly reveal the universe. We all have access to everyday tech so advanced, it is indistinguishable from magic.

So smile, biped. Quit fighting about utter nonsense. It’s nearly impossible to make a “bad” choice in the upmarket, high-tech category anymore. You exist in rarefied, first-world air. You are surrounded by magic and wonder. It’s when we stop noticing that fact that the real trouble begins.

It's absolutely impossible for me to make a "bad" choice of these gadgets and gizmos. I don't have any of them other than a computer and don't plan to. I'm surrounded by magic and wonder anyway. It's called "life".

"Without Republicans To Obstruct Him..."

California Governor, Without Republicans To Obstruct Him, Creates Budget Surplus

California has been seen as a basket case with regards to its exploding budget deficits. Interesting enough this was occurring during the administration of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. He attributed the deficits to reduced tax revenues and overspending. He cut programs in draconian fashion but could never escape the reality that he was making the problem worse. Ultimately he did what both Reagan and Bush did, leave exploding deficits to their successors.

California now has a budget surplus. Depending on whose numbers one uses, it is anywhere from $1.2 billion according to the Governor or $4.4 billion according to the Legislature’s independent financial analyst. How did California do it and what should they do about the surplus?

Democrats President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, and Governor Jerry Brown did not attempt an ideological game with blinders to the actual results. They tried basic arithmetic. They raised taxes. Interesting enough, the results were the same.

Bill Clinton got a balance budget with a surplus. Barrack Obama is seeing a budget deficit that is shrinking faster than anyone expected. Suffice it to say that the budget deficit hole left by two wars, two massive tax cuts, and a massive drug program on the credit card by the previous administration along with an irresponsible & intransigent Congress cannot be solved in two terms.

Jerry Brown remembered basic arithmetic as well as he brought California to a budget surplus. He raised taxes on the wealthy and cut programs (some more than he should). Does this sound familiar, the balanced approach? Time and time again the evidence is out there that it works and it improves the economy for all.
...

Maybe the reason back in February California companies did not bite on Governor Perry’s “sell Texas” tour is that inasmuch as they may love that the Governor of Texas is willing to pilfer the middle class to bring them to Texas, they know a pilfered middle class does not make the best workforce. California spending its surplus not on tax cuts, or abusive business incentives but instead on human capital in the form of education and improved healthcare is a sustainable long-term solution.

Go Moonbeam!