Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Published on Dec 13, 2013
Emmylou Harris,
"Mister Sandman".
Kultnacht, ZDF German TV, 1981.

Thanks to JadeDiscoHD.

Please forgive me...

..for the light-to-none blogging. There ain't much poppin' my cork lately. I guess I've grown kinda numb to all the Repug outrage which has turned into sort of a constant low hum like the machinery noise on a ship. Without it, it would be quiet .... too quiet, and then I'd be worried. Heh. I'm sure this will change so please check in once in a while.

Won’t you please help Liz Cheney save America from evil liberal John McCain?

This is just for fun. TBogg:

In our continuing series on the Dick Dynasty that is la famiglia Cheney we are getting fan-mail from the floundering campaign of Elizabeth “Liz, Not Lez” Cheney whom you may know as Daddy’s Little Deferment or, if you’ve seen her on the teevee machine: Princess Snarlyface. In order to defeat left-wing anarchist Mike Enzi (whose last name sounds suspiciously foreign and, in fact, contains important letters that you would need to spell out the last name of Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Coincidence? Doubtful.) Liz needs you to send her your Christmas Club money before you blow it on presents and food for the kids. (Helpful hint from McDonalds: Happy Meals contain both a toy and “food”, so you’re covered). What is Liz Cheney going to do with this money? I’m glad you asked because now I have something to do with this Very Important email that LIZ CHENEY PERSONALLY SENT TO ME because we are BFF’s even though she blocks me on Twitter which is probably an oversight or something and we will undoubtedly laugh and laugh about it someday.
...

As you can see my friend Liz is under attack from “a shadowy, out-of-state Super PAC” which has launched “a dishonest smear campaign to distort my her record” and by “shadowy out-of-state Super PAC” she means “communist homosexual foreigners” which is also just her nice way of saying “people from New York City”. And these same people are like the ones who tried to elect evil secret-liberal John McCain who Manchurian-candidated his way onto the 2008 GOP ticket and then blew the whole campaign up by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate which reminded people in America that our national elections were established for the purpose of maintaining an orderly transition of power and not as a murder/suicide pact in an abandoned car parked behind a Circle K (also knows as a “Wasilla Divorce”) (my em). I mean, c’mon, McCain had to find some way to lose to a black guy. So, yeah, genius move. Well played, Johnny Mac. Not that Liz Cheney didn’t think something was up at the time.

But that was then and this is now, and these carpetbagging donors are trying to prevent carpetbagging Liz Cheney from claiming her rightful throne as the Cowboy Queen of Wyoming and she needs people like you and me who do not live in her state to give her money because when we give her our out-of-state money it is totally different because shut up. [...]
...

I am SO DISAPPOINTED because I have always wanted to meet undead-thing Dick Cheney and get to poke his unnaturally cool waxy skin and watch and see if floral arrangements wilt and die in his wake like so many Iraqi orphans. Wait til Liz hears my e-vite never showed. She’ll be mortified. I bet she sends me a nice hand-written note of apology.

And then we’ll laugh and laugh about it someday…

I...I...I have nothing to add!

Headline of the Day

New Obama Adviser Calls House Republicans A 'Cult Worthy Of Jonestown'

Quit screwin' around and get to drinkin' the "special recipe" Kool-aid, willya?

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

FAKE SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER FROM MANDELA MEMORIAL HIRED BY OAKLAND ATHLETICS
As their third base coach.

House Republicans Criticize Iran Deal
Fear possible outbreak of peace.

And the resultant loss of profit to their major donors.

World's Largest Ship Launches
Owned by Shell, it will transport vast amounts of oil from autocrats to plutocrats.

With Rules Changes, Your Odds of Winning the Lottery Sink from 1 in 176 Million to 1 in 259 Million
You have a better chance of being struck by lightning while being bitten by a shark.

Odds slightly worse if you don't buy a ticket.

How George W. Bush failed the GOP

How didn't he? And I'm glad he did. NOT glad for what he did.

Rachel Maddow

In the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, no hearty saplings were ever able to take root in the shade of that big tree. No one expected Vice President Dick Cheney to ever be a contender for the presidency — part of his effectiveness was his willingness to say and do very unpopular things. When he snapped at ABC’s Martha Raddatz, “So?” as she questioned him about public disapproval of the Iraq war, he wrote the perfect epitaph for his vice presidency.
...

The unpopular presidency of George W. Bush has proved to be a blackball on the résumés of a generation of Republican leaders. Maybe Cheney’s daughter Liz will break the pattern next year with a successful Senate bid in Wyoming, but if you made it through that sentence without spitting coffee out your nose, you’re in rare company.

The fascinating turmoil in the Republican Party since 2008 is not just a personnel problem — it’s also ideological. If you were putting together a legacy to inspire the next generation of conservatives, you wouldn’t pick the Bush administration’s trailing ends of land wars, budget deficits, torture, a crusade against gay rights and a financial collapse to rival the Great Depression. The isolationism and libertarian iconography of the Ron Paul wing of the party really does appeal to young people more than Bush-Cheney Republicanism. Social conservatives really do feel backed into a corner and ready to fight against a country that is turning against them faster than most pollsters can keep up. There really is something ripe for renewal in Republicans’ self-conception as fiscal conservatives, when the clear pattern is that budget deficits grow under Republicans and shrink under Democrats. The Republican Party is a churning swirl of conflicting ideological currents, and that’s going to take some time to work out.

But part of the reason it may be taking so long already is those lost years: the period from 2000 to 2008 that effectively obviated the authority and the leadership potential of all of Washington’s Republican elites. The George W. Bush administration didn’t just cast too much shade on the next generation of leadership — it also apparently poisoned the ground.

It poisoned the whole fucking nation and it will take decades, if not generations, to repair itself.

Inside the White House, the task of growing one’s own successors must seem like one of the less pressing items on the president’s long daily to-do list. But the previous administration’s trail of scorched earth and exiles has curtailed the prospects for the Republican Party and governing conservatism more profoundly than almost anything that administration pursued in terms of policy. It is a cautionary tale that Democrats and the Obama White House should heed sooner rather than later. Grow your successors, nurture your legacy.

Bush's failures were the culmination of failed Repug policies that started under Nixon, accelerated under Reagan, and hit overdrive under Bush, who drove us into the ditch at top speed. We probably would have been OK after 9/11 were it not for his weakness to go along with Cheney's criminal Iraq war. The things he did as the most incompetent President in our history were terrible to be sure, but it put an end forever to Turdblossom's "permanent Republican majority" and for that small silver lining we should be thankful.

And for this: the next Repug President hasn't been born yet.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

From Prague concert

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

The War On Xmas Just For Fun

The Daily Show takes FOXNoise's bottle blondes to the cleaners. Heh.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Wars On Xmas And The Pope

Pretty entertaining take on this sheer right-wing idiocy from The Everlasting GOP Stoppers.

Limbaugh took out his dog whistle, tuned it, and patiently whistled to the rabble of dittoheads, “Here’s the deal. The Reagan coalition used poor white Christians to vote for rich, white libertarians. We scared up their votes using phony culture war outrage so that we could get rich capitalists into office to shred the New Deal and suck all the wealth up to the top. Then we wanted government welfare for the richest and their largest corporations, paid for by the poor and middle class. It took 30 years, but we’ve finally done it, and we’re not about to turn back now. This Pope is a serious threat to the American right, because the Church naturally splits the uprights between America’s social conservatives and economic liberals. For decades, the Catholic Church has been focusing on social conservatism. If this Pope switches to focusing on economic liberalism, as Jesus did, and if this becomes a new norm for the Church, it could eventually siphon off our voters. Even a small percentage of Christian voters flipped from the baloney culture war to the very real class war could devastate the GOP. And if this Catholic ethos were to seep into American evangelical churches, the Republican Party would go the way of the Whig Party. That is why we are desperately smearing him.”

The Tea Partiers clutched crosses and guns to their chests and nodded solemnly as their patriotic Confederate flags flapped in the nippy December breeze.

Just ... go.

Obama and the harsh reality check

If it's Thursday, yesterday must have been Morford on Obama.

You want the good news, or the wincingly bleak news that makes you shudder and sigh and wish you didn’t have such sad dreams? You want a bit of both? You should probably hear a bit of both.

Because here’s the thing: He did more or less what he said he was going to do – so far, anyway – which was to end Bush’s devastatingly stupid war(s), re-establish America as a respectable force in world affairs, orate in complete sentences so as not embarrass the nation on the international stage at every turn, shift the race discussion to the next level, enact at least some modest education reform, protect women’s rights, defend the middle class, slap back the GOP’s toxic plot to rule American politics for the next 75 years, and usher in an impossibly variegated, increasingly messy era of barely controlled, women-empowered, multicultural chaos in which old, fear-soaked white men no longer control every election, industry, media, cultural discussion, power source and hunk of propaganda in the nation.
...

I will never be so naive or cynical to say it doesn’t matter which party is in office (God forbid we were in a McCain or Romney presidency right now) (my em), but step back far enough and it’s more of a frothy sea of inbred powerbrokers than ever, and Obama, despite all hopes to the contrary, stands right at the helm of the ship.

Not that he necessarily wants to be there. This is easily the most acidic, obstructionist GOP in a generation, a mean-spirited, leprous party full of barely veiled racists and Tea Party wing-nuts willing to sacrifice any core value, constituent, legal precedent, national monument or social service just to undermine Obama and block him from enacting even the most basic functions and services. This appears to be the one over-arcing rule: The smart black guy can never win. No. Matter. What.

It’s true, isn’t it? America has never seen a minority party so openly hateful of a sitting president, one who is at once far more intelligent and articulate than them, but somehow, infuriatingly, far less willing/able to use that intelligence to beat them back like a pack of gun-toting monkeys. Strange.

All of which is to say: What to make of the guy, really?

More.

I'm still down wid da O-Man. Has he done things I don't like? Yes. Has he done things I do like? Yes. Enough of them? No.

The things he has done were with a Democratic-controlled Senate and House. Doing anything significant with the whiny, petty, fearful, obstructionist, racist, and hater present House GOP is like shoveling shit against the tide.

They haven't drowned his black ass yet. Let's give him another Democratic House in '14 and see what happens.

My Civic Duty Calls

Got tagged for jury duty. Jury selection this morning. See yas.

Update:

Part of my Facebook exchange with Fixer:

I did not get selected for the jury. Didn't even get seated for selection. Doesn't matter, I'm opinionated enough I coulda had the defense attorney and the prosecutor fist fight to see which one of them got to throw me out. Heh. It was an ADW and attempted murder case, both felonies. I tend to think the prosecutor overcharged to get the defendant to plead down to ADW when it probably should have been misdemeanor battery and the guy didn't fall for it so it goes to trial. I'm just guessing at that. I don't like prosecutors very much.

I sat there with my hand cupped to me ear so I could hear which I mostly couldn't anyway so the bailiff issued me a Phonic Ear which picks up transmissions from the various microphones scattered about the courtroom. At least it didn't say "Old Fart Hearing Aid" on it. I think people are just talking more quietly than they used to...
about an hour ago · Like

Fixer Don't get me started on DAs. My mother got out of jury duty by being half-deaf. The judge asked her "Mrs. Wood, if you're seated on the jury, would you be able to hear properly?" My mother's response "if they talk into my good ear I can." Mom was like that. Heh ...
about an hour ago · Like

Gordon That was my Plan C or D too. Heh.
about an hour ago · Like · 1

Gordon The judge asked the folks if there was any medical reason they couldn't serve on a jury. My answers would have been "not since I got my medical pot card" and/or "extreme flatulence".
44 minutes ago · Like · 1

Fixer I'm sure you'd have been happy to give a demonstration.
43 minutes ago · Unlike · 1

Gordon Did sneak in a coupla SBDs. Coulda turned the volume up if if I'da had to.
46 minutes ago · Like · 1

All in all, a good day.

Right = Wrong

Conservatives on the Wrong Side of History on Mandela, Most Other Things

We've known it for years.

When has the American right ever — ever — been on the right side of history?

The answer is almost never.
...

Consider the great political earthquakes throughout history and imagine the contemporaneous—not retrospective, as we are seeing in these phony paeans to Mandela, but in-the-moment—conservative posture. The conservative position was wrong nearly every time — not just wrong, but often morally shocking from our later perspective.
...

Do you support the American Revolution? I should hope so. You would not have, however, had you been a conservative in 1785. American Loyalists, perhaps 20 percent of the white population of the day, were devoted to king and crown for mostly the usual reasons: They were older, better established, had more money, were scared of change.

How about the abolition of slavery? I reckon you’re on board with that. Well, Lord knows you wouldn’t have been if you’d been among the 1860 conservatives who started a war over it (and whose apologists today insist the Civil War was not about slavery).

In terms of domestic politics, few polemical tasks are easier than demonstrating how wrong conservatism has been about pretty much everything in all of American history.

Sadly, a tradition that continues. Much more. Read on.

GOP Guide: 'How To Talk To Women'

Or "How To Never Get Laid Again!" Via TPM.

Thanks to americanbridge21st.

Quote of the Day

From History Palinized:

If you could turn stupid into a fuel, you could use Sarah Palin to leave the Solar System.

Too late. She's already left it. Heh.

Light blogging today

I'm having trouble with my internet connection today. Loads very slow and cannot click through to very much. Better than yesterday but not much. I suspect a frozen server somewhere. We'll see how it goes. Later.

Update:

It was my router interfering with the connection. Unhooked it. OK now.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

On Her Birthday, Republican National Committee Tweet Honors Rosa Parks for “Ending Racism”
And making civil rights movement unnecessary.

Dildoes, the lot of 'em.

Swedish TV Show “Biss och Kajs” (Wee-Wee and Poo-Poo) Educates Children About Bodily Functions
Late night show “Such och Foch” does similar for adults.

Report: Federal Register, a Government Agency, Still Uses Floppy Disks
It's the only agency whose data is secure.

Bob Dylan's Electric Guitar From 1965 Newport Folk Festival Sells for $965,000
To an anonymous old folkie who plans to “burn it to a crisp.”

Heh. Yeah, there are still folks who are pissed off about him going electric.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

No info but it looks like it's from the Transatlantic Sessions.

Mary Black and Emmylou Harris ~ The Loving Time

Thanks to Michael Martins.

Note: YouTube went down while I was posting this. If no video, please check back later.

The GOP’s ‘Hey Ladies, Me Love You Long Time!’ outreach is probably gonna fail big time

TBogg, many, many links.

The GOP is taking great pains to prove to the wimmins of America that, despite their fumbling attempts to transvaginal-wand love the gals for their own good, they are super cool with other things that the ladies want as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with equal pay (including for their own), or talking about their vaginas, or destroying the First Amendment with those aforementioned vaginas. Which leaves the GOP with only forcing approving of women having lots more babies who might grow up to be another Louie Gohmert, not holding down jobs to ensure that their kids don’t become manic bomb-building pixiechildren, and probably taking time out to watch a Lifetime movie or two during the week as long as it doesn’t disrupt sammich making.

So this week the GOP is sending everyone to Camp Justwannacuddle to demystify the baffling ways of these mysterious kitchen-dwelling creatures so that they don’t startle and scare them away when attempting to woo them for their valuable votes and trust and also probably their boobs.

I think it was Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert who said the GOP approached women and the women got a restraining order. Heh.

The Repugs' idea of "outreach" is to keep the ideology the same but on the down low while they sweet-talk the wimmens with lies. The Repugs are gonna get their asses handed to them. Rightly so.

The Worst Reactions to Nelson Mandela's Death

Lest we think he was universally admired as he should be.

Mother Jones, with links and video.

Yes, some of the reactions to Nelson Mandela's death have been less than ideal. As a few have pointed out, the comments on, say, this National Review blog post or Sen. Ted Cruz's Facebook page regarding Mandela (the guy was a commie, racist murderer, yada yada) are fairly disgusting. To be fair, some commenters on the internet are always nasty and dumb, whatever the topic. But how about people who (maybe?) should know better? Here are the worst reactions to Mandela's passing, courtesy of…

1. Rick Santorum: With a straight face, the former Republican senator and failed presidential candidate, who is now making pro-Christian movies, compared Mandela's long struggle against the apartheid regime to Republicans' battle against…Obamacare: "He was fighting against some…great injustice," Santorum said on Fox News yesterday, "and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives, and Obamacare is front and center in that."

His Mixture is extra Frothy on that one.

And for good measure:

Ted Cruz posts Mandela tribute on Facebook. His fans go crazy.

That's a little off. His fans are crazy. This time they're meaner, nastier, and dumber than usual.

RIP Nelson Mandela

Being Liberal

There are many people in America who have no moral right to quote Nelson Mandela and ride the sudden wave of interest about him... If you have ever been supporting George W. Bush and his War in Iraq you are entitled to share Mandela's memes ONLY with a public admission that you were wrong... The best way to honor Mandela's Legacy would be to listen to wise men in the USA AND around the World BEFORE they die...

Fat fuckin' chance.