Walk Like Past An Egyptian*

*Egyptian Theatre, that is, with apologies to The Bangles.

Bored outta yer skull? Dreary weather, like here? Put on yer best trannyhookerwear so you'll blend in and

Take a virtual tour of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Times’ virtual tour puts readers on the streets of Hollywood to visit the nearly 2,400 stars on the Walk of Fame.

Select a category to learn more about the bombshells, cowboys, crooners and other entertainers who are honored on the walk. An interactive map then takes readers to the exact location of each star along the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street.

My favorite category is Cowboys.

My best memory of the Walk of Fame is my friend Maylee, a professional dancer, doing a number on Reagan's star (while he was the Governor) that drew applause!

"American voters have the attention span of high-speed lint"

Will Durst on the Repugs' "Kill Medicare" program.

Specifically, their plan to reform Medicare, which some folks say is akin to a tornado's plan to reform trailer courts.

The scheme involves replacing blanket care for elders with fixed-value vouchers. You know, like coupons. That's right; he's going to hand out health care coupons. Why? Because it would save lots of money, which could then be given to wealthy people through increased tax cuts and besides, everybody knows old people love coupons.

Yes, we do.

Cognizant of seniors' tendency to mislay important objects, Ryan thoughtfully unburdens them with having to handle the grubby little coupons physically; those will be given directly to the insurance providers for safekeeping. And when people run out of coupon value, banks could be enlisted to suck out account funds for a nominal transaction fee. You know, for our convenience.

I think 'automatic withdrawal' is a big part of the Repug agenda. Why filter it through fraudulent mortgages or the government as bailouts? More efficient and less paperwork to just let them take it directly from the folks who earned it. It's the American way! American bankers, that is.

Obviously the American voters have the attention span of high-speed lint and it's a long way to the 2012 elections. But you might want to install a protective filter on your TV for the impending tsunami of ads featuring parades of elders being attacked by Paul Ryan's Tax-Cut Zombies from the Planet NO!

Much more.

Headline of the Day

School yearbook lists Bush, Cheney among the worst people ever

They placed fourth and fifth, respectively, right after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, terrorist figurehead Osama bin Laden and Charles Manson.

Heh. That truth-tellin' commie school will be a vacant lot before the next term starts.

‘Anybody could be president in this dumb f*cking country’

Expanding on Fixer's post just below. Watch Ms. Harris-Perry crack up!

From Raw Replay:

The Americans are coming!!!!

Oh ... wait ...

Just about any student of American history knows about Revere's midnight ride to warn about the impending British attack. Not Sarah Palin. Apparently, she was absent that day. The GOP presidential contender (or not) thought Revere was warning the British about something:

...

Only in America.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou at The Royal Festival Hall London 1 June 2011

Emmylou Harris ~ Beneath Still Waters

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Please forgive me

I don't think I'm going to be able to order a hot dog with a straight face ever again...



By the way, this 'toon is quite timely.

Shorter Obama to Cantor: Cry me a river*

*From MinistryOfTruth at Kos

John Amato at Crooks and Liars, with video:

I read Jake Tapper's article on the meeting between the President and the House Republicans with bated breath. Republicans described the meeting as being "frosty, good group therapy, nice conversation, frank and productive and even non-confrontational." Wow, who could have guessed that?

This is my favorite part, and it features Eric "The Tornado" Cantor:

Cantor also criticized Democrats’ “Medi-scare” attacks, saying that the charges that the GOP is taking medicine from grandma to pad the pockets of the rich isn’t helpful.

Oh, but they are doing exactly that, but that's beside the point. The President replied:

The president added that he is all for a reduction of demagoguery, an issue he understands since he is the ‘job killing, death panel, probably-wasn't-born-here president.’

The Prez zinged him good but I betcha it went right over Cantor's head.

Eric Cantor, who heartlessly has been refusing to help the tornado victims in Joplin, MO, unless they are first paid for with politically-motivated spending cuts, is openly complaining to the president about how mean they've been treated.

Never fear, The Onion is in no danger. Unintentional irony and self-satire from people who don't get the joke isn't funny, just pathetic.

From the MOT link:

Republicans are wusses. When it comes to beating up on people who are defenseless, people like tornado victims, women, teachers, people who are dependent on MediCare, or anyone who can not afford to make Big donations to the GOP for that matter, Republicans are big badass bullies, but these same tough guys cry their eyes out at how mean that tyrant Obama is when he tells the American public the truth about the GOP's plan take "medicine from grandma to pad the pockets of the rich. " as Eric Cantor so aptly put it.

The Truth has a well-known Liberal bias. To the never-right wing, that's Communism and must be avoided at all cost.

Run, Rick, Run

Another possible entrant into the Repug Presidential Special Olympics For The Terminally Backward. Bob Moser at The Texas Observer, which we remember as Molly Ivins' paper.

It was the strangest thing. Mortifying but illuminating. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, or Donald Trump suddenly realizing he’d been out-Americaned by Barack Obama. The truth struck me like lightning during the turbulent middle week of May. The week that was supposed to end in the Rapture. The week when Texas legislators decided, once and for all, that they were going to gut public schools, dismantle social services and damn the consequences. The week when Rush Limbaugh & Co. restarted the Perry for President bandwagon with a desperate vengeance.

My revelation? I want Rick Perry to run for president. Texas needs Rick Perry to run for president. It could be the only hope, I suddenly saw, for reclaiming this state from the plutocracy whose interests Perry has served with Machiavellian cunning. The only way that this shriveled husk of a human being would ever be put in his rightful place—the only way he’d be unmasked, once and for all, as a pernicious, corrupt and morally bankrupt politician.

And now imagine the questions from the panel of reporters. George Will, George Stephanopolous, Anderson Cooper, Lady Gaga — doesn’t matter. It goes something like this:
...

“Governor Perry, you have hinged your campaign on your success in bringing jobs to the State of Texas. But during the period you boast about, your state added more minimum-wage jobs than the 49 other states combined. Texas now has more citizens living in poverty, more uninsured children and adults than any other state. Is that your vision for America?”

Mote.

Mr. Moser, I understand you're trying to do your best for Texas by getting Goodhair out of the Governor's office and for good reason, but the rest of us are perfectly happy and content to keep your crazy and deluded and corrupt pols inside the asylum/zoo so we can watch from afar.

Quote of the Day

Jurassicpork:

If any more Republicans join the 2012 presidential race in this upcoming political Special Olympics, they may just put the Onion out of business ...

Heh ...

So when ...

Does this stupid shit qualify as terrorism?

A 'sovereign citizen' in Pensacola, Florida allegedly opened fire at a seafood market after learning that they had run out of crawfish.

42 year-old Larry Wayne Kelly allegedly fired upon the L&T Seafood Market with an AK-47 from the window of his pickup truck, after he was told they had sold out of crawfish on Sunday.

...

Another 'isolated incident' I presume? Just because the perpetrators are a rich combination of drunk and stupid doesn't make it less of a crime. To Gitmo with him!

Taxes ...

Are for the little people:

Yesterday, I wrote about how the GOP is falsely pushing the argument that America’s corporations are overtaxed. I included some great data courtesy of conservative commentator Bruce Bartlett whose New York Times piece did an extraordinary job of putting the lie to the Republican assertions.

Today, and not a moment too soon, the non-profit Citizens For Tax Justice (CTJ) has put out their findings revealing that twelve of the nations largest Fortune 500 companies, while making $170 billion in profits during the period of The Great Recession, paid an effective tax rate of negative 1.5%*.

...

*In other words, they got a refund.

Hopefully, according to Robert Reich in Gord's post below, people are starting to wake up but there are still far too many who buy the corporate line. If the rich and corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes, it's all on us. If we can't afford it anymore, the nation begins to crumble. It won't be long before you're afraid to go over a bridge or through a tunnel for fear of it falling apart and killing you in the process. Ask the people in Minnesota how that goes.

Great thanks to Chris for the link.

A Corporate 2x4 Upside The Head?

Robert Reich

How to Get Washington's Attention

We're coming full circle: The stock market is dropping because corporate earnings are slowing. Corporate earnings are slowing because consumers are pulling back. Consumers are pulling back because they don't have enough jobs or adequate wages.

The leaders of the Street and big business may now have to wake up to a reality they've tried to avoid — that the central economic problem of our time isn't the long-term budget deficit but the immediate deficit in aggregate demand.

They may not yet see the necessity of a renewed social contract linking pay to per capita productivity, but they will understand something must be done to fuel jobs and wages.

Never underestimate the power of Wall Street and big business to set the terms of the economic debate in our nation's capital. After all, Wall Street and big business pay the tab of politicians on both sides of the aisle. Even if the middle class can't get the attention our representatives in Washington, those who fund their campaigns can.

The question is - will they? They've stolen damn near all the money already. What more do they need?

Scammin' Farm

Union Leader

Romney, who fell short in a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, made the announcement before a crowd estimated by the campaign at about 1,000 supporters amid the rolling hills of former New Hampshire House Speaker Douglas Scamman's farm (my em), which has been the scene of a host of political events over the years.

Well, now we know where they get Repug pols from. They grow them. Must use lotsa manure and toxic chemicals.

The article apparently misspelled "Scammin'" in the name of the farm.

One-Stop Shopping

Raw Story

Medical marijuana superstore opens in Arizona

WHERE?!!! Irony, it appears, is still kickin'.

The 21,000-square-foot store offers some 2,000 products, including soil, grow lights and irrigation trays, specially designed for effective marijuana growing, Mann told Reuters.

A doctor also is on site to furnish eligible patients the initial medical approval needed to apply to the state health department for cards authorizing them to legally grow and use marijuana as treatment for a variety of qualifying ailments.

Alluding to some of America's leading big-box chains, the company's own press materials describe the weGrow franchise as the "Wal-Mart of Weed," while various media reports have referred to it as "Home DePot."

Park once, getcher scrip and growing supplies. Can a bakery and food court be far behind?

Major panel: Drug war failed; legalize marijuana

EssEffChron

A high-level international panel slammed the war on drugs as a failure Thursday and called on governments to undertake experiments to decriminalize the use of drugs, especially marijuana, to undermine the power of organized crime.

"Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won," the report said.

The 19-member commission includes former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, Greece's prime minister, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. officials George P. Schultz and Paul Volcker, the writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, and British billionaire Richard Branson.

I'm not sure about the rest of 'em, but I'm pretty sure Branson knows whereof he speaks when it comes to weed. Heh.

The office of White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said the report was misguided.

Of course he did. All these distinguished and erudite panel members, however practical and correct their findings, missed the point entirely:

Enforcement of marijuana laws is too good a method of oppression of The Other* and there's way too much money in the Prison Industrial Complex to liberalize the laws.

*In this case, minorities and anybody else the power structure and the anti-fun people suspect may be having a good time smoking a plant that didn't come from Big Corpora.

Me Lover's Pizza With Crazy Broad

In case you missed it. Noo Yawkahs are serious about their pizza protocol!

The Daily Show - Me Lover's Pizza With Crazy Broad
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I love pizza, but I must confess my dirty little secret - I, too, eat pizza with a fork. I will try to mitigate this horrid revelation - first, I have no teeth, so biting a chunk off the pointy droopy end of the slice is outta the question. It gets messy. Second, I like a thicker crust and my pizza loaded. Folding the slice makes the topping separate so I eat my slice flat. Actually, I use a hybrid method. After the first coupla forksful, the slice is wider and I can gum chunks off it so I pick up the slice and eat it slightly bent.

In my own defense, I would never do this - Trump explains in the 'moment of Zen' that he eats The Holy Pie with a fork so he can get just the topping because he doesn't like the crust. That's just plain un-American! Why doesn't he just order melted cheese with stuff in it? Put it in a bowl and use a spoon.

Ya think this'd fly? "Yo, Tony, gimme a large pie! Hold the crust..."

Weinergate

You simply must go read El Rude-o on Weiner's alleged 'junk shot'!

C'mon, Andrew Breitbart. Where's James O'Keefe's rape boat now? Why not send out that supple little bitch out all cross-dressed to flirt with Weiner and try to get him all erect and bothered and then video that shit and then edit it so that it looks like Weiner gets a hard-on when he sees a tranny?

If I was Rep. Weiner, I think I'da said something like "I don't own any skivvies like that, but it sure looks like someone photoshopped my magnificent crank into 'em!"

I understand ...

About pilots needing to get in their qualification time and that they have to fly regularly, not just on actual operations, to keep up. But, to fly in to your son's baseball game, and then have a limo drag your big ol' ass a hundred yards to the grandstand is just so wrong on so many levels.

... All governors will abuse their state police aircraft, it goes with the turf. But most of them can walk a 100 yards ...

Firstly, it feeds the stereotype that all overweight people are lazy.

Secondly, it's unseemly when you're complaining that your state is broke, and its cities are cutting their police forces in half, and then using an able-bodied NJ State Police aviation team and chopper for personal shit (and the limo to drag him and Mrs. Fats 200 yards, to and fro from said aircraft). Let's remember, he flew off in the 5th inning to meet with "big Republican donors" from Iowa about running for the presidency so none of this could be classified as "state business".

Thirdly, it's a giving a big middle finger to the people who voted for you thinking you were a "fiscal conservative".

Somehow, I think Secaucus Fats' chances of becoming president are getting ... slimmer. Heh ...

I love the wide eyes, the long fall, the puff of dust...

Thanks to YubaNet.

Coyote

The Coyote mythos is one of the most popular among Native American cultures. Coyote is a ubiquitous being and can be categorized in many types. In creation myths, Coyote appears as the Creator himself; but he may at the same time be the messenger, the culture hero, the trickster, the fool, the clown. [...]

See also Coyote Waits by Tony Hillerman:

But the hungry and mythical trickster Coyote is waiting, as always, in the shadows to add a strange and deadly new twist.

Myth, trickster, fool, clown. The blanketasses described the Repugs perfectly centuries ago. Musta been the peyote...

No wonder there's a war on drugs.

Related:

Donald Trump: Ryan’s Plan Is A ‘Death Wish’ For GOP

I hope Trump's right for once even if it screws up his batting average. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.

People with a 'death wish' usually connect if they're serious about it. I wish the GOP much success.

Also Related:

Paul Krugman:

Mr. Ryan may claim — and he may even believe — that he’s facing a backlash because his opponents are lying about his proposals. But the reality is that the Ryan plan is turning into a political disaster for Republicans, not because the plan’s critics are lying about it, but because they’re describing it accurately.

"Twisting his words by repeating them verbatim". Thank you, Tina Fey!

What the Ryan plan is, instead, is an attempt to snooker Americans into accepting a standard right-wing wish list under the guise of deficit reduction. And Americans, it seems, have seen through the deception.
...

What of Mr. Ryan’s hope that voters will realize that they’ve been lied to? Well, as I see it, that’s already happening. And it’s bad news for the G.O.P.

Good news for us.

Living in sin is now the norm

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

Here now, a hot factoid of curious news that will stupefy your parents and confound any extant grandparents and make many fundamentalists and most Mormons clutch their dogmas to their quivering breasts in mild but surefire panic.

The item goes like this: For the first time in US history, married couples are no longer the majority of domestic couplehoods in the United States, and have instead been replaced/outnumbered by... what shall we call them? The unsure? The pleasantly stoned? Freedom fighters? Those Who Still Have Somewhat Hot and Mostly Regular Sex?

For the rest of us, it's easy to get snagged on one of the polarizing views. On one hand is the typical conservative recoil, claiming the very cornerstones of what once made this country great -- early marriage, traditional family structure, factory jobs, free guns at church, xenophobia, mommy's vodka and daddy's stash of gay porn -- are crumbling to dust, America is in a liberal-induced deathspin and the "Greatest Generation" now only refers to higher Medicare payments and sepia-toned WWII Spielberg movies on HBO.

Be married. Or don't. Wait longer. Or don't. Have beautiful children, buy a home, get a certain kind of job, settle down, follow some sort of path you think you're supposed to follow. Or don't. There are alternatives, variations on a theme, inversions and permutations and reinventions on a dime, and this is generally a very good thing indeed.

To think it's supposed to be some other way? To keep believing that if everyone would just follow a similar and harshly regulated path to the same narrowcast ideas of love and marriage, that we'd somehow have peace in our time and Jesus would finally return carrying a million pink roses and a billion $99 heart pendants from Zales? That we think we have the slightest clue how it's all supposed to unfold? This is, by a huge margin, the most dangerous idea of all.

Me'n Mrs. G have been married for 38 years. Like the fellow who jumped off the 30th floor said as he went by the 15th, "So far, so good..."

What the fuck do we know about "how it's supposed to be"? Works for us. We like pushrod engines and revolvers too. Throwbacks 'R Us.

By the way, our pal Bustednuckles, "Ornery Bastard", is engaged to Nasty Girl. Besides wanting to see that in the Wedding Announcement section of the paper, congrats and welcome to Officially Behind The Times. Heh.

There's no sin in a loving relationship. There may be in living a lie and being miserable. Hey, whatever blows yer skirt up.

No surprise ...

But it's nice to see it quantified:

...

The result of this concerted campaign of disinformation is a viewership that knows almost nothing about what’s going on in the world. According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Shariah law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship. In fact, a study by the University of Maryland reveals, ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network. That’s because Ailes isn’t interested in providing people with information, or even a balanced range of perspectives. Like his political mentor, Richard Nixon, Ailes traffics in the emotions of victimization. [my ems]

...

The Dead End Quarter.

A small part of a Rolling Stone article on Roger Ailes and Fox 'News'.

Thanks to karoli for the link.

But will we learn?

The International Atomic Energy Agency has released its report on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Whether the sea wall protecting the plant was swamped because "no one could have known" or because of allegiance to the bottom line by Tokyo Power and Electric (I'm going with the latter), the protection was sorely inadequate ... obviously.

...

The inspectors pointed out a key failure, already admitted by Japan, to plan for the risk of waves crashing over the sea wall and knocking out the plant's back-up generators.

Even though a major faultline lies just offshore, the sea wall at Fukushima was less than 6m (20ft) high. The height of the tsunami wave was about 14m.

"The tsunami hazard for several sites was underestimated," the UN team's three-page preliminary report said.

...

The thing that cracked me up was this quote:

...

The report also emphasised the importance of independent regulators in the nuclear industry.

...

Yeah, ain't happening in America, that's for sure.

Oh shit! Oh dear!

Danger! Danger! Congressman frets over Obama's use of automated pen

That didn't sit well with Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.), who is fairly sure the Framers didn't use autopens. He wrote a letter to Obama Friday asking him to cite the legal authority for using an automated pen instead of the real thing.

Yeesh.

Headlines of the Day

Squaw Valley USA to Open 4th of July Weekend for Skiing and Riding

Heh.

Orwell: "Bwahahahaha!"

Raw Story

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun field testing new technology designed to identify people who intend to commit a terrorist act.

Nature reported that the DHS has been conducting tests of Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) in the past few months at an undisclosed location in the northeast.

The technology uses remote sensors to measure physiological properties, such as heart rate and eye movement, which can be used to infer a person's current mindset.

According to a Privacy Impact Assessment (PDF) released by the DHS in 2008, the technology is intended to measure a person's malintent -- the intent to cause harm.

"Undisclosed location in the northeast." That would be the van outside Fixer's house. The one parked over the soon-to-be crater. Heh.

Looks like fiction is all the rage in National Defense these days. By scaredy-cat paranoid and power-mad civilians who don't know jack shit. The Chimp and Darth Cheney used 24 to foment their torture agenda, and it looks like DHS watched Minority Report a few too many times in their Moms' basement. Think 'jizz-soaked Cheeto crumbs' rather than 'civil rights' and 'Constitution'.

Sarah Palin: “I love that smell of the emissions!”

The Political Carnival with a nice post on why they feel the need to continue reporting on Palin like the self-serving fraud she is.

That said, today’s L.A. Times had a half-page story about Palin’s ridiculous bus tour-slash-embarrassing motorcycle photo op*, and three paragraphs stood out to me:

Amid the rumble of motorcycles, she was also asked whether all of her tour events would be so loud.

“Oh, it would be a blast if they were this loud, if they smelled this good,” Palin said. “I love that smell of the emissions!“

Either she’s totally into the effects of her cooking on Todd, or she has a bizarre pollution fetish.

More.

*I had hoped that link would show her suck-starting a 110ci Big Twin with 12:1 compression with one lung pull, not that it would have embarrassed her. A good rich mixture and the resulting cloud of black smoke outta the pipe mighta done something to her vocal cords and got rid of that awful screechy voice for a while.

Also, I got some emissions I'd love for her to smell. Right after All-U-Can-Eat Burrito Nite. Put yer nose right there, bimbo, get the full effect...

Update:

El Rude-o weighs in:

Chances are that you heard about none of these yesterday because the ratings machine deigned that only one person could suck on the air pipe. Yes, dressed in a black helmet and black leather jacket and posed on the back of a motorcycle on the way to a bus that she's probably not even riding in to surprise stops o' history, Sarah Palin not only huffed that pipe (and all the emissions therein), but she gobbled that fucker like a champ, like a young starlet blowing Louis B. Mayer for a bit part in a Busby Berkeley musical, stealing air from fellow Republicans, from veterans, from the crazy POW/MIA-loving chumps in the Rolling Thunder thundering roll into DC.

Whether she sucks air or sucks exhaust or sucks whatever, me'n RP agree she sucks.

Westboro Haters In Joplin

From Truth Wins Out, in toto:

Westboro Baptist decided to protest at a large memorial for all the victims of the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, at which President Obama was in attendance. What happened? Enter our commenter Troy, a resident of Joplin:

I live in Joplin, Mo. today the president came and visited our city that was destroyed by this tornado!! We all heard the Westboro idiots were coming to protest! And so did about three hundred bikers!! The bikers all showed up and parked across the street from the University where Obama held a ceremony for the many good people, friends and family we lost!! The only report of any Westboro people actually being there was one guy strolling through all the bikers, when they found out who he was it got ugly for him real quick his shirt got torn off and he was pushed around pretty good! When the police saw what was about to happen they grabbed him and tried to push the bikers back!! Then they told the guy “run you stupid mother fucker” And I am quoting!! :) We heard that more of them were blocked at a local truck stop by a few awesome truckers!! They pinned them in until it was over, not sure about this one just what we were hearing!! You may think of bikers as mean or lawless but when it comes to things like this they really step up!!! p.s. most of the bikes were flying the American flag!!!!!

That’s right. Tell those un-American scum from Westboro where they can shove it. Love and support continues to go out to all in Joplin. Y’all aren’t that far from me, and it could have just as easily been us. Stay strong, lovely people.

There is nothing I could possibly add to that!

Update:

RawReplay

A protest by the infamous Westboro Baptist Church was not carried out in Joplin, Missouri on Saturday as planned after a large contingent of bikers showed up and flushed them out of a zone marked off for their demonstration.

As you can see from the video below, it did not turn out well for the protesters, as one — surrounded by police at the start of the footage — is forced to flee as hundreds of noisy bikers swept past the police line and occupied the protest area.

There are more videos in thumbnails after the first one.

Only in America ...

The KKK protesting Westboro Baptist. I guess there are some things even those racist low lifes can't cotton to:

Washington (CNN) -- Protesting members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church were met with an unlikely group of counterprotesters Monday at Arlington Cemetery.

Hours before President Barack Obama led the nation's Memorial Day observances at the Tomb of the Unknowns, three members of the Westboro Baptist Church were challenged by others who disagreed with them -- including members claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan.

...

What I'd have given for a well-placed grenade. Get 'em all in one shot.

Great thanks to DU for the link.

Fuck us ...

If you're not rich and conservative, you're basically in the Republicans' crosshairs. As Gord pointed out yesterday, they're screwing the troops any way they can. They're also taking great pleasure in fucking over the poor people in the aftermath of natural disasters (In case the Rethugs have forgotten, these are the people who vote Republican).

Fez hits it on the head:

...

Eric Cantor apparently comes from the kind of family that will not spend the money to get their dog spayed only to later go on to drown the resulting puppies. Sure it is somewhat motivated by being cheap and short-[sighted], but mostly for the thrill of possibly killing puppies.

...

I'm beginning to believe that qualification to be part of the Republican leadership is you have to be a psychopath/sociopath. Where taxing the rich and defense spending are off the table, yet people who've had their lives wiped out are held hostage to conservative ideology, there can be no other explanation.

If they weren't sick, they wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

The ones who really remember

I used to do this, but I gave up when the Army and Navy Vets around here decided they knew more about flag details and close order drill than an old Marine and embarrassed the crap outta all of us in front of the civilians. We made F Troop look professional.

Note to the 4th gent from the left: Next time, wear sunglasses so we won't see you close yer eyes when the boomstick goes off. Marines are laughing. Heh.

Seriously, good on these guys. They're nicely uniformed and they have BFAs so the rifles will chamber the next round by themselves. Cocking those things by hand in between shots makes the whole show look like a monkey fucking a football. My VFW mob used two bolt-action WWI Enfields that we borrowed from the local American Legion post, so we had to work the bolts. We should have practiced with them but we just showed up and did it. I got to hold one, and the fellow who held the other one had actually been shot at in service. By a cab driver in Germany he tried to stiff. Yes, the monkeys became aroused if not the football.

We showed up in honor of our comrades who couldn't, but these old soldiers look a lot better.

Click to embiggen

Thanks to the LATimes.

Thanks for your service, suckers. You made us all rich. Now go away.

Thanks to YubaNet.

I agree with George Will on a no-brainer

RawReplay with video:

Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week”, George Will stated that it is abundantly clear that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin isn’t fit for the presidency. The Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan aide said, “The threshold question, not usually asked, but it’s in everyone’s mind in a presidential election. ‘Should we give this person nuclear weapons?’ And the answer [in Palin's case], answers itself.”

Shit, Moosebreath came within a few inches of wrecking D.C. and causing a massive traffic pile-up! Luckily, the cooler heads of Rolling Thunder put her on the back seat of a motorcycle where she couldn't reach the throttle...

Also, she appears to have written more stuff on her telepalmter at the biker rally. Rumor reaches me from within that it said:

"Don't call 'em Hondas!"

Republicans Propose Replacing Social Security with Groupons

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Presenting what he called a revolutionary plan to slash the nation’s mountain of debt, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) today proposed eliminating the Social Security program in its entirety and replacing it with Groupons.

“Instead of waiting each month for a check from Social Security, America’s elderly will receive valuable Groupons for everything they need, from Ramen noodles to cat food to caskets,” Mr. Ryan said in an appearance on Fox News.

Adding that Groupons would also help provide for elders’ medical needs, the congressman illustrated his point by holding up a Groupon offering 30 percent off on open-heart surgery in Cincinnati.

Moving on from Social Security, Mr. Ryan also proposed replacing Medicare with a new program in which seniors are shot at by Predator drones.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, appearing alongside Rep. Ryan, offered these words of praise for the Wisconsin congressman: “Preachers like Harold Camping go around predicting the end of the world, but it’s guys like Paul Ryan who do the hard work of making it happen.”

Word.

How America Screws Its Soldiers

Andrew J. Bacevich

Whatever practical meaning the slogan “support the troops” may possess, it lays here: in praise expressed for those choosing to wear the uniform, and in assistance made available to those who suffer as a consequence of that choice.

From the perspective of the American people, the principal attribute of this relationship is that it entails no real obligations or responsibilities. Face it: It costs us nothing yet enables us to feel good about ourselves. In an unmerited act of self-forgiveness, we thereby expunge the sin of the Vietnam era when opposition to an unpopular war found at least some Americans venting their unhappiness on the soldiers sent to fight it. The homeward-bound G.I. spat upon by spoiled and impudent student activists may be an urban legend, but the fiction persists and has long since trumped reality.

From the perspective of those who engineer America’s wars, the principal attribute of this relationship is that it obviates any need for accountability. For nearly a decade now, popular willingness to “support the troops” has provided unlimited drawing rights on the United States Treasury.

Since 9/11, in waging its various campaigns, overt and covert, the United States military has expended hundreds of billions of (mostly borrowed) dollars. By the time the last invoice gets paid, the total will be in the trillions. Is the money being well spent? Are we getting good value? Is it possible that some of the largesse showered on U.S. forces trying to pacify Kandahar could be better put to use in helping to rebuild Cleveland? Given the existing terms of the civil-military relationship, even to pose such questions is unseemly. For politicians sending soldiers into battle, generals presiding over long, drawn-out, inconclusive campaigns, and contractors reaping large profits as a consequence, this war-comes-first mentality is exceedingly agreeable.

One wonders how many of those serving in the ranks are taken in by this fraud. The relationship between American people and their military—we love you; do whatever you want—seems to work for everyone. Everyone, that is, except soldiers themselves. They face the prospect of war without foreseeable end.

As the 10th anniversary of what Americans once called their Global War on Terror approaches, a plausible, realistic blueprint for bringing that enterprise to a conclusion does not exist. Those who might once have felt some responsibility for articulating such a plan—the president, his chief lieutenants, senior military leaders—no longer feel any obligation to do so. As a practical matter, they devote themselves to war’s perpetuation, closing one front while opening another. More strikingly still, we the people allow our leaders to evade this basic responsibility to articulate a plan for peace. By implication, we endorse the unspoken assumption that peace has become implausible.

Here at last we come to the dirty little secret that underlines all the chatter about “supporting the troops.” The people in charge don’t really believe that the burdens borne by our soldiers will ever end and they are not really looking for ways to do so. As for the rest of us, well, we’re OK with that.

No we're not.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Patriot Act Extension Passes Senate 72-23
Also known as Last Refuge of Scoundrels Act.

Palin: No Thoughts Yet About Running
Too busy hiring political advisers, buying estate in Arizona, promoting film about herself and embarking on bus tour of East Coast.

Pawlenty Enters Race, Says He'll Cut Spending on Everything
Everything except 60 to 100 new stealth bombers that can reach Moscow in less than eight hours.

Study: Aging Brains Less Able to Learn from Experience
Resulting in the Tea Party.

Indian Firms Looking for Cheap, Compliant Labor Find New Opportunities
In South Carolina.

Our third world status will spread from there.

Headline of the Day

Pig Rides Hog

Memorial Day ...

To all those who came back with less than they went over with, be they dead, blind, crippled, or crazy; you're all in our thoughts today. For those out there now, I hope they bring you home soon.

What Gordon said.

And this lady is a saint:

Remember

Today I will remember the 4454 American fighting men and women who died in vain in Iraq for the sins of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, damn their souls to Hell.



Singer is Leann Rimes.

Thanks to hugenuts69.

VA Patients To Share Prosthetics After Kasich Denies Funds

Do not miss this!

Delaware Ohio News

All amputees being treated in Ohio Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals will be forced to share prosthetics after Governor John Kasich formally denied a $5,000,000 grant from the federal government late last week.

Under normal circumstances, veterans who lose a limb in battle are fitted for their own custom prosthetics. Without the funds necessary to continue this program, Ohio veterans will now have to share a dozen or so generic prosthetics across the entire state.

In a speech at Ohio State University on Sunday, Kasich said the grant is unnecessary and is a prime example of “irresponsible liberal deficit spending.”

“The federal government is 14 trillion dollars in debt,” Kasich said. “I won’t stand by and let President Obama waste our hard-earned tax dollars on these freeloading veterans of foreign wars.”

“I think most of the hard working, decent people in Ohio agree with me that there are better things we could be spending our tax dollars on than war veterans crying for a handout. ‘Ooooh, I want to be able to walk up to my house to see my child for the first time.’ Please. Watch out for the land mine next time, idiot,” Kasich said. “And what are these veteran amputees going to do to stop me? Walk up to the voting booth on imaginary legs in three years? Press the button for another candidate with the arm or hand they don’t have? Not if I can help it.”

VA nurse Bonnie Bennington was disappointed by the governor’s decision.
...

“I bet if the money were going toward cardboard cutouts of Jesus for veterans who lost their faith, Johnny Boy would jump right on board.”

Sergeant Tim Mentos was the most visibly upset veteran during the speech. A 2004 explosion in Iraq left him without his legs or vocal cords. Lacking the verbal and ambulatory means to properly demonstrate his outrage, he signed to his son who was standing at his side to toss him toward the governor in order to deliver an elbow drop. He was caught in midair by the governor’s security detail and nearly beaten to death by guards who were wielding some of the newly confiscated prosthetics.

Ten year military veteran and amputee John Walker said this wasn’t the first time he had been raped by the government and that the new policy really didn’t surprise him.

“We aren’t surprised when politicians send us off to war and we end up maimed,” Walker said. “So there’s no reason anyone should be surprised when they put their fully functioning foot up our ass when we get back home.”

Satire is near to extinction when compared to the reality of the times. Sigh.

Start of summer, my ass...

This morning

The sun came out a little before I adjusted the time/date. Noonish.

But still...

Thanks to IrelandCladdagh.

More busy ...

Putting in a wheelchair ramp at dad-in-law's place. Later ...