Saturday Emmylou Blogging

From Later With Jools Holland, 1995

Published on Jan 27, 2014
BBC2, London, 26 November 1995.
RTP2 - Portuguese Public Televison, Lisbon.

Subtitled for your convenience.

Thanks to Jose Neves.

"Take Orders And Eat Crap"

Christian conservatives constantly skew facts to conform to their ideologies. And they get away with it because the people who listen to them are sheep who never learned skills in critical thinking. They just believe what they're told in their churches and on Fox News.
...

So where are all the verses where Jesus endorses the bullshit conservatives are trying to sell today?

They're in the Bible they haven't read.

Thanks to oldfartrants.

Quote of the Day

From "The Republican Conspiracy Has Worked":

A flurry of executive orders is obviously better than nothing, but it’s hardly the kind of bold change this country needs to undo the destruction caused by thirty-three years of Reaganomics.

No, it's not. Please read the rest.

The myth of the Christian conservative

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford going on about phony christians.

I often wonder, given sufficient whisky and irony and time: Has there ever been a more delightfully inept, wince-inducing oxymoron in the tortured American lexicon than “conservative Christian?”

Speaking of the DeVos clan:

From Reagan to Bush 41, Bush 43 to Mitt, union-busting to anti-choicism, antediluvian “family values” advocacy to pro-corporate think tanks, Blackwater to the unutterably silly Left Behind books, this is the kind of power-hungry billionaire clan that has its tentacles in every right-wing movement, cause and devious conservative ploy since the early ‘60s.
...

Ah, Christians. Always the last to understand irony.

I ponder: What must that be like? To believe you are something that you so very much are not? To hold a set of values that, in truth, have nothing whatsoever to do with the real source that supposedly inspires and defines it?

It’s a severe, almost laughable chasm between what Republicans define as “Christian conservative” values – isolationism, protectionism, love of fireams, suppression of alternative viewpoints, sexual dread, belief in strict gender roles and family structures, institution-as-guardian, and so on – and the teachings of the actual, messy historical Jesus who taught, well, the exact opposite.

Reading this piece, it struck me again, for the 1,000th time: As far as we can tell and if he actually existed, Jesus was a shaman. A seer. A radical. A wild and divinely possessed trickster and spiritual pathfinder. What’s more, it’s possible that he was frequently stoned. Hallucinating. Hey, lots of them were. Wouldn’t you be? Psychoactive plants have been used to commune with sacred realms since cavemen scribbled trippy hieroglyphs on the wall by moonlight. It’s just what gurus, mystics and saviors do.

Yes, yes we do. Heh.

So now it begins to make more sense. While conservative Christians of the DeVos variety aggressively despise everything the real Jesus stood for – nonviolence, aiding the poor, ministering to the sick, equal rights, spiritual autonomy, the anointing of lots of trippy holy oil to commune with sacred realms – they very much value what came next: the institutionalized church and all its megalomaniacal, sociopolitical success, perhaps the greatest, most oppressive corporation/political operation of all time. The GOP can only dream.

Well said, young Mark, but you left out "medieval criminal consortium".

El Rude-o on the SOTU

If You're Not Blaming the GOP for the Crappy State of the Union, You're Lying:
...

We never got to see what an Obama presidency would be like because Republicans decided that there wouldn't be an Obama presidency.

One great experiment of the Obama administration, so far, was to attempt to reel the imperial presidency back in (yeah, we're leaving surveillance off the table here). It was to try to get Congress to do its fucking job. But Republicans changed the rules of the game on Obama. If they had been playing baseball, they'd have said, "Okay, we demand four outs, five strikes, and no foul balls, just for us." And Obama would have said, "Sure. Now can we play?" And they would have said, "And you have to play without shoes and gloves." And Obama would have said, "Sure. Can we start the game?" And they would have said, "And each of us gets to fuck your wife in the ass on the pitcher's mound while you watch." And when Obama said, "No, that's bullshit," they'd've said, "Why don't you want to play baseball?"

The shame is that Obama didn't say, early in his first term, "Fuck off. I'm heading to the batting cages." Now that he's announced he's finally going to use executive authority more broadly, and he's used it less than any president in the last century, the GOP is whining that Obama is doing something unconstitutional. These would be the same Republicans who lapped up President Bush's executive orders and signing statements like jizz-gobblers at a jack-off-a-thon.

Everyone is offering their useless suggestions for "What the President Should Say Tonight." So let the Rude Pundit play Fantasy SOTU. What Obama oughta say to the United States is "Vote these Republican motherfuckers out of here. They have hurt the nation and will continue to do so. You know the deal. You reelected me to get shit done. That ain't gonna happen until these assholes who keep hurting the poor and hungry are fuckin' gone. It's up to you, America. 2014 could be the year you make this a sane country again. You gotta put a hurt on the GOP. Let's hurt them until Ted Cruz is begging to kiss my black ass."

Fuckin' A.

Headline of the Day

Pete Seeger Outlasted the Bastards

So long, Pete. You made a difference.

Stop Beating A Dead FOX

Daddy Frank's latest feature.

The conservative news channel’s only real power is in riling up liberals, who by this point should know better.

The most interesting news about Fox News is that for some years now it has been damaging the right far more than the left. As a pair of political analysts wrote at Reuters last year, “When the mainstream media reigned supreme, between 1952 and 1988, Republicans won seven out of the ten presidential elections,” but since 1992, when “conservative media began to flourish” (first with Rush Limbaugh’s ascendancy, then with Fox), Democrats have won the popular vote five out of six times. You’d think they’d be well advised to leave Fox News to its own devices so that it can continue to shoot its own party in the foot.
...

[...] With a median viewer age now at 68 according to Nielsen data through mid-January (compared with 60 for MSNBC and CNN, and 62 to 64 for the broadcast networks), Fox is in essence a retirement community.

The million or so viewers who remain fiercely loyal to the network are not, for the most part, and as some liberals still imagine, naïve swing voters who stumble onto Fox News under the delusion it’s a bona fide news channel and then are brainwashed by Ailes’s talking points into becoming climate-change deniers. They arrive at the channel as proud, self-selected citizens of Fox Nation and are unlikely to defect from the channel or its politics until death do them part. (As Sherman writes, “Ailes’s audience seldom watches anything” on television but Fox News.) Hard as it may be to fathom, Fox Nation is even more monochromatically white than the GOP is, let alone the American nation. Two percent of Mitt Romney’s voters were black. According to new Nielsen data, only 1.1 percent of Fox News’s prime-time viewership is (as opposed to 25 percent for MSNBC, 14 percent for CNN, and an average of roughly 12 percent for the three broadcast networks’ evening news programs).

The Fox News membership is more than happy to be cocooned in an echo chamber where its own hopes and fears will be reinforced by other old white “people like us.” [...]

I'm 68 and white and I don't watch FOXNoise. I see enough clips from it on the channels I do watch that I don't have to. Heh.

Rather than waste time bemoaning Fox’s bogus journalism, liberals should encourage it. The more that Fox News viewers are duped into believing that the misinformation they are fed by Ailes is fair and balanced, the more easily they can be ambushed by reality as they were on Election Night 2012.

My sentiments exactly. As we used to say (probably still do) in the Corps, "Ambush is murder and murder is fun."

Fox News’s theoretical political power is further compromised by the internal crisis it shares with the GOP: its inability to navigate the conflict between the party Establishment and the radical base that is dividing the conservative ranks. The network has veered all over the place to try to placate both camps, only to end up wounded in the crossfire.

Perfect! When your enemies are shooting at each other and catching their propagandista in the middle and you don't have to do a thing, it's a "couch and popcorn" ambush. The best kind! More butter, please!

Paradoxically enough, the most powerful right-wing movement in the country, the insurgency in the Republican grassroots, loathes the Boehner-Christie-Rove-centric Fox News nearly as much as the left does.

Also paradoxically, this disproves the old adage that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Please go read this.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Pentagon Considers Replacing Thousands of Troops With Robots
Soldiers would be retrained as lobbyists.

Study: Chinese Factories Cause Nearly 25% of California's Pollution
And almost a quarter of its gorgeous sunsets.

JP Morgan's Dimon Receives 74% Raise to $20 Million a Year
Bank's board of directors rewards him for keeping them out of jail.

NFL May Drop Extra Point, Allow Pot to Treat Concussions
According to new league rules voted on by fans.

Headline of the Day

Rush Limbaugh: Republicans Are Not Criminals. Democrats Make Them Look That Way

By telling the truth about them.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Scientists See East Coast at Risk as Seas Rise
However, if you live on the fourth floor or higher, you should be good until 2114.

Surgeon General Report: Cigarettes More Dangerous Than Previously Thought
Urges smokers switch to marijuana immediately.

Yes, the Prison Industrial Complex needs you healthy to cut down on healthcare cost while you're incarcerated for smoking marijuana.

Amazon Patents “Anticipatory Shipping” That Will Ship Items Before They've Been Ordered
Patent pending on “anticipatory billing” that bills you for something you didn't order, don't want and can't return.

Why do I have no trouble believing this?

Report: Smart Appliances Hacked to Send Computer Viruses
Warning: don't answer any emails from your toaster.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Thanks to ElskeW1.

Note to Conservatives and the Media:

Most of Us Still Don't Give a Shit About Benghazi:

El Rude-o, links at site.

Dear, sweet Republicans and Fox "news," truly, really, speaking for the vast majority of the nation that doesn't watch Bill O'Reilly after dinner or listen to Rush Limbaugh while driving or have Glenn Beck on in the background while boning a blow-up doll, we don't give a happy monkey fuck about Benghazi. Beyond "Man, that was a bad thing that happened. Let's try to stop it from happening again," there is nothing there. No cover-up. No one had any heads up. There were a few tragic errors in judgment on security that, had they not been made, might have prevented shit from going south. That's it. If you read the actual Senate intelligence Committee report, what comes through is the dude who fucked up a great deal on boosting security was Ambassador Chris Stevens, who died in the attack on the consulate. He was asked repeatedly if he needed more military in Benghazi, and he declined. Sorry if that fucks up the fun narrative, but truth will do that every time.

Desperately trying to damage Hillary Clinton pre-2016, especially now that Macy's balloon Chris Christie has been punctured, conservatives are out in force, trying to pin the blame for the attack on Clinton, even though the report does nothing of the sort. Besides the completely nonsensical comparison between Christie's bridge problem and Benghazi, we have every other Republican with presidential ambitions jumping in to try to show their conspiracy-theory cred to the nutzoids in the base. Rubio promised more hearings. The always-high Rand Paul slurred something incomprehensible. Ted Cruz said obvious Ted Cruz-like shit.

Look, unless you've got evidence of a deliberate cover-up, unless you've got video of Hillary Clinton personally slitting Stevens' throat while Barack Obama fucks his ass as al-Qaeda militants ululate and fire their rifles into the air in praise, the vast majority of us in the United States, the ones who aren't the delusional GOP primary voters, simply don't care.

But, hell, that never stopped the GOP before.

Normally I'd try and think up some clever comment but I think Rude just about covered it.

The Republicans' Obamacare Hypocrisy: A Mystery Solved

Paul Krugman

And here's the thing: Republicans don't want to help the unfortunate. They'll propound health-care ideas that will, they claim, help those with pre-existing conditions and so on - but those aren't really proposals. They're diversionary tactics designed to stall real health reform. Hence the rage of the right.

Here they were, with a whole raft of ideas they could throw out like chaff to confuse enemy radar, to divert and confuse any attempt to actually provide insurance to the uninsured. And those dastardly Democrats have gone ahead and actually incorporated those ideas into real reform.

Shorter: If you think government can't do anything substantial, then you'd better make damn sure it can't, for when it does it makes you look like an idiot or a liar. Both of which the Repugs are.

Ouote of the Day

I'm not too interested in "Bridgegazi" as other than a "popcorn - extra butter!" moment. Anything that keeps the ostensibly "sane" Repug out of the '16 Presidential race is a GOOD thing. If the crazies are the only ones they can field, we're safe.

That said, the Repugs are putting a double-reverse spin on the whole deal that I find hilarious. From a pretty good piece called "Christie apologists hit rock bottom: Why the right’s lame, new defense is doomed to fail":

Conservatives can (and do) whine that the problem here is media bias — that the media largely ignored IRS and Benghazi then swarmed over the Christie story because he’s a Republican. The scientific term for this argument is “bullshit.”

"Bullshit" is the all-encompassing scientific term for everything else the Repugs do as well.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Britain to Introduce Plastic Money in 2016
In 2017: brightly colored beads.

List Whittled Down to 1000 Eligible Applicants for One-Way Trip to Mars
Eliminated: old, infirm, anyone who plays the banjo, harmonica or accordion.

??? ~ News Quiz ~ ???

The Texas commission in charge of reining in predatory lenders is headed by a top executive of:

A ) an oil company
B ) a textile company
C ) a predatory lender

Hint: remember, this is Texas.

Target Now Says 110 Million Accounts Hacked
As a result, it could take weeks before hackers start stealing from you.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris ~ Going Back To Harlan

Thanks to elp1978.

Bridgeghazi

There's been so much about poor innocent victim Secaucus Fats and his fucked up lane closure that I've been hesitant to post anything because it's old news about the time I hit "publish". Heh. Old Fart's got a good take on it. I wanta be like him when I grow up!

Thanks to oldfartrants.

NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong

A 'recommended read' at Consortiumnews.com

In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.

The sadder reality, Mr. President, is that NSA itself had enough information to prevent 9/11, but chose to sit on it rather than share it with the FBI or CIA. We know; we were there. We were witness to the many bureaucratic indignities that made NSA at least as culpable for pre-9/11 failures as are other U.S. intelligence agencies.
...

Pre-9/11 Intelligence

“That’s where I found the pre- and post-9/11 intelligence from NSA monitoring of some of the hijackers as they planned the attacks of 9/11 had not been shared outside NSA. This includes critical pre-9/11 intelligence on al-Qaeda, even though it had been worked on by NSA analysts. I learned, for example, that in early 2001 NSA had produced a critical long-term analytic report unraveling the entire heart of al-Qaeda and associated movements. That report also was not disseminated outside of NSA.

“Make no mistake. That data and the analytic report could have, should have prevented 9/11.

“Top NSA management knew that. They knew that I knew that. I was immediately shut down. In spring 2002, the remnants of THINTHREAD were unceremoniously put on the shelf in NSA’s ‘Indiana Jones’ data warehouse, never to be seen again.
...

“Against this background, it is difficult to listen to the manufactured claim so frequently heard these days to the effect that, had bulk collection been operational before 9/11, it would have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The mantra is convenient for those defending NSA overreach; it is also bogus.

“It masks the reality that, as indicated above, NSA had already collected highly significant intelligence on the hijackers themselves but did not disseminate it outside of NSA before the attacks. At best, the claim about bulk collection is one part wishful thinking and nine parts red herring.

“Not only does it exaggerate the efficacy of a collection method with zero demonstrated successes to date, but it also blows smoke in the eyes of those genuinely interested in knowing what role NSA played, or failed to play, in the months and weeks before 9/11. Worse still, this specious claim amounts to a cruel hoax on the thousands who died on 9/11, and the hundreds of thousands who died when Bush/Cheney used the attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq.”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is widely reported to have been principally responsible for suborning then-NSA Director Michael Hayden into violating what had formerly been the “First Commandment” at NSA – “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans Without a Court Warrant.” So it is no surprise to see Cheney come out of the woodwork and renew his contribution toward giving dishonesty a bad name.
...

It should now be clear, for those who can handle the truth, that the problems at NSA run deep – in terms of effectiveness, integrity and respect for the Constitution. By withholding information and exploiting secrecy, NSA’s leaders past and present have pulled off an unparalleled coup in concealing the sad reality that NSA could have prevented 9/11 and didn’t. And Schadenfreude chortling by leaders at the top regarding the demonstrated bureaucratic advantages and success of such dishonesty has a tendency to be heard down through the ranks, corrupting even dedicated workers.

Which brings us to Snowden. I'm glad he blew the whistle, but he's no hero. Neither is he a villain except to the powers that be whom he blew the whistle on.

He is smart enough to have ran and hid in more or less plain view of the media while all the info got swirled around and people noticed. If he'da stayed in the U.S. he'da been buried under a jail somewhere along with all the information.

At least the warrantless spying is poking its way out into the open, along with the uselessness and waste of the program.

And we need to lock up all the unicorns so Cheney can't drink their blood and will die.

Oh, the irony...

The guys at Ironic Times were late yesterday.

Comments by Duck Dynasty Patriarch Phil Robertson Divide Nation
On one side, those who hate homosexuals, blacks, immigrants, Jews, anyone not like themselves; on other side, those who don't.

Poll: One Third of Americans Don't Believe in Evolution
Do believe in Hell, which is where you wind up if you believe in evolution.

Brazil in Race With Poor Planning, Criminal Negligence, Widespread Corruption, to Complete Stadiums in Time for World Cup
Poor planning, criminal negligence, widespread corruption favored to win.