Headline of the Day With Video!

Listening to Republican Talking Points Is Like Being Dropped Into an Alternative Universe

Like the one inside the walls of an old house!

Thanks to scaryforkids.

To Fixer's Friends

Welcome! Enjoy your visit! You have come to the United States at the time of year when we celebrate our independence and if you hear lots of explosions and ambulance sirens, don't take it personally. Heh.

Also, when you take pride in Fixer humming the first few bars of "God Save The Queen", it's really "My Country 'Tis Of Thee". We only steal the best!

The Green and Pleasant Land ...

For my dear friends sharing my home for the next few days:

Apollo Symphony Orchestra - Jerusalem

Tour guiding ...

Showing off my beautiful Island to our friends from Wales. If yesterday was any indication, I'll be scarce around here for a couple days. I have to have them back aboard Queen Mary 2 on Wednesday morning. Their first experience with NYC traffic yesterday, trying to get from Pier 88 on the West Side (Hudson River) to the Queens Midtown Tunnel (East River), took us an hour and a half to go less than 5 miles. Heh ...


View My Saved Places in a larger map

They also got to experience one of our world-class beaches.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmy sings about her long lost Gram. How she can do this song without crying, I don't know.

Emmylou Harris - "The Road" - live @ ROMP 6.25.11 Owensboro, KY

Thanks to ionriff.

Village Virgins

Digby via Crooks and Liars on Halperin's little 'dick'.

This really is nonsense. It's not the word "dick" that's the problem, fergawdsake. It's not pictures of dicks either. It's that these people have contrived this absurd set of shallow manners in which saying dick or taking a picture of a dick is wrong while lying, manipulating and cavalierly risking the country's future (which is what Obama was allegedly being a dick about!) is considered perfectly acceptable.

It's the perfect manifestation of the Village. A bunch of decadent aristocrats pretending to be virgins and nuns, moralizing over trivia as a "lesson" for the rubes, all the while indulging in a debauched orgy of power and privilege.

"You can go to hell - I'm going to Texas!"

Hell? Texas? Mox nix.

EssEffChron

Frontiersman Davy Crockett once said "You can go to hell - I'm going to Texas!"

The New York Daily News is reporting that former Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck is relocating to the Lone Star State in the wake of his departure from the cable news world.

The perfect place for him. Now let's get started on building a wall around it. Or give that place back to Mexico and let them deal with it.

Au revoir...

Strauss-Kahn released without bail

Thanks to slims86.

To the limit

Paul krugman on the Repug extortion over the debt ceiling.

Bear in mind that G.O.P. leaders don’t actually care about the level of debt. Instead, they’re using the threat of a debt crisis to impose an ideological agenda. If you had any doubt about that, last week’s tantrum should have convinced you. Democrats engaged in debt negotiations argued that since we’re supposedly in dire fiscal straits, we should talk about limiting tax breaks for corporate jets and hedge-fund managers as well as slashing aid to the poor and unlucky. And Republicans, in response, walked out of the talks.

So what’s really going on is extortion pure and simple. As Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute puts it, the G.O.P. has, in effect, come around with baseball bats and declared, “Nice economy you have here. A real shame if something happened to it.”

And the reason Republicans are doing this is because they must believe that it will work: Mr. Obama caved in over tax cuts, and they expect him to cave again. They believe that they have the upper hand, because the public will blame the president for the economic crisis they’re threatening to create. In fact, it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that G.O.P. leaders actually want the economy to perform badly.

Republicans believe, in short, that they’ve got Mr. Obama’s number, that he may still live in the White House but that for practical purposes his presidency is already over. It’s time — indeed, long past time — for him to prove them wrong.

No shit.

Clean elections

Thanks to YubaNet.

Health Care Bill for Camp Lejeune Vets, Families Moves Forward

Mostly of interest to me since I was stationed there during the time frame, I'm glad this is moving forward.

YubaNet

WASHINGTON, D.C. June 29, 2011 - Today's Senate committee vote to provide medical care for veterans and families made ill by contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune marks an important advance in the effort to address health problems of an estimated 750,000 Americans.

At least 70 men who lived or were conceived at Camp Lejeune have been diagnosed with male breast cancer, a rare disease with an incidence rate of approximately one per 100,000. High incidences of birth defects and childhood illnesses have also been attributed to evidence of in utero exposure to chemicals found in the water.

I think my man boobs are more the result of All-U-Can-Eat Burrito Nite than Camp Swampy's water. With a drinking age of 18, I didn't drink much water except for the bug juice in the chow hall and that shit'd kill anything.

Pollution at Camp Lejeune is the largest incident of environmental contamination at any U.S. military facility on record. It is the subject of the award-winning documentary Semper Fi: Always Faithful.

"Semper Fidelis" is the motto of the Marine Corps and means "Always Faithful". "Semper Fi" means more like "I got mine, you're on your own" or "Pull up the ladder, I'm on board".

Did Glenn Beck Lie about "Attack" in NYC to Drum Up Publicity for New Show?

Why not? He lies about everything else. Following up on Fixer's post:

AlterNet

With his Fox News show down to its last few days, and about to embark on a risky and probably unsuccessful attempt to replicate his cable success on pay-to-view Internet broadcasting, a desperate Glenn Beck cooked up a transparently phony publicity stunt that began to fall apart within hours.

Beck claimed on his radio show this morning, and then later (at great length) on his TV show, that he and his family were victims of an evil liberal mob in a New York park:

Liberal mob. Yeah, they probly blinded him with rainbows and did unspeakable things to his anus with unicorn horns. Go read.

GOP is like little girls...

...except little girls are cute and have actual value. Politico, links at site:

One of President Barack Obama’s 2012 themes will likely revolve around what his aides call “the contrast” — a portrayal of Obama as a responsible, moderate adult harassed by infantile Republicans who favor the wealthy.

And your point is...?

During his East Room press conference Wednesday — his first since the kickoff of the 2012 Republican campaign — Obama drew that comparison in the starkest terms to date, likening veteran politicians in their 40s, 50s and 60s to his young daughters, Sasha and Malia.

The difference between Repug pols and Sasha and Malia is, of course, that the young ladies will eventually grow up and be productive members of society.

The mindless hysteria of right-wing sheep

Gene Lyons in Salon:

Politics makes people stupid even in good times. Fear provokes irrationality. Given the parlous state of the U.S. economy, it's no surprise that the national conversation has grown shrill. Even so, the level of vituperation and unreason comes as a continuing revelation.

Not that I'm complaining. As a native of New Jersey, the Insult State (official motto: "Oh yeah, who says?"), there's no level of invective to which I can't sink. Anybody who writes provocatively shouldn't complain when readers are provoked. Besides, it's less the anger than the sheer, boneheaded illogic that amazes me.

No shit. How can people be so stupid?

That is, I favor raising marginal income-tax rates on millionaires from 35 to 39.6 percent. Therefore, I must be a communist who advocates the abolition of private enterprise, the confiscation of private property, and the redistribution of wealth to lazy people who won't work.

"Do you get paid under the table by the Democrat Party to spew your hatred of capitalism," asks one fellow, "or is it that you have some deep-seated psychopathic (sic) scars based on the choices you made that limit your economic achievements?"
...

"Good work, comrade," I responded. "Your regurgitation of party dogma is letter-perfect. In the USSR, they actually got to the point of declaring people who failed to conform 100 percent mentally ill."

The irony was most likely lost on him.

Then there's the argumentum ad populum, another favorite of talk-radio fans: somebody with a big audience must be correct. Furthermore -- motive again -- I must be jealous of their success.

That's pretty much like saying Rush Limbaugh's jealous of President Obama. You buy that?

Look, these guys are playing you for suckers. They're reading scripts written to trick you into believing that the bigger Scrooge McDuck's bullion pile is, the better it is for you. Take away the call screeners and the mute buttons, and most of them wouldn't last two weeks. Talk radio is the political equivalent of wrestling.

Gee, Gene, thanks for the visual of Rushbo in speedos and skin all oiled to a glistening sheen. Runnin' low on bleach again...

Mark Halperin calls Obama a ‘dick’ on live TV

Raw Replay, with video.

Washington Monthly‘s Steve Benen noted that the Morning Joe crew was probably upset that Obama didn’t appear “docile and conciliatory” towards Republicans in Congress.

Yes, not being "docile and conciliatory" to those poor dear sweet Repugs who would never say anything bad about the President. My ass.

“Halperin’s credibility as an objective observer of political events has long been dubious, at best, but this morning’s little stunt should remove all doubt,” Benen wrote.

No shit. Halperin's been a Repugsymp for a long time. Who's the dick?

Assholery ...

Secaucus Fats has it down to an art form:

One would think that now that New York has legalized gay marriage and the world hasn't ended, New Jersey would be the next likely place for equality to take place. Unfortunately, we have a governor who thinks that just because HE is a Roman Catholic (and frankly, a church hierarchy that has harbored and protected child molesters for decades ought to have no moral authority over anything), he, not the voters, gets to decide whether everyone in the state should have this right.

...

Addendum: And if, as Fats has been saying all along, he "wants to lure businesses across the Hudson", he should very much get behind gay marriage. NYC and Long Island wedding halls, bars, hotels, and a whole lotta other businesses are gearing up for a flood of same-sex marriages come next month. A big hall out here on the Island is having a mass wedding (several hundred couples) on 24 July, the day the law goes into effect. The gays might be icky to you, big boy, but us NYers know their money is as green as the straight couples'.

Like our treasure Yogi Berra says: "They give you cash, which is just as good as money."

And you wonder ...

Why the deficit is so high? None of these fucking wars were on the books until Obama took office:

US spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has already cost at least $3.2 trillion, and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, far higher than previous estimates, according to a new study released by Brown University.

The study tries to account not just for the direct costs of the war, but for indirect expenses such as ongoing medical care for wounded veterans. It was carried out by Brown's Watson Institute for International Studies.

The findings contrast with the much lower estimate of war spending offered by US President Barack Obama during his address on Afghanistan last week.

...

So, as we take away grandma and grandpa's health care, tell me again why Bush and Cheney shouldn't be swinging at the end of a rope?

Great thanks to They Gave Us A Republic for the link.

"Welcome to the Big Apple ...

Ya fuckin' fuck." Heh ...

So tell me ...

Why we have to jack up an old lady in a wheelchair :

Destin - Transportation Security Administration workers made a 95-year-old wheelchair-bound woman, with terminal cancer, remove her adult diaper during a search.

...

When a guy from Africa can fly cross-country on a stolen boarding pass and have the opportunity to do it a second time?

(LOS ANGELES) -- The Transportation Security Administration is facing many questions Thursday after a Nigerian man was arrested for getting past security and onto a flight at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport with false documentation.

...

Transportation Security is a fucking joke and just another form of corporate welfare. We're as safe today as we were on 10 September 2001.

Arrest Made in Cattle Drive Hit-&- Run

Following up on last week's post:

On Friday June 24th at about 11:30 pm, two Sierra County deputy sheriff’s located and made an arrest on the suspect who struck five cows, ran over a cattle dog and threatened to run over several riders on horseback during a cattle drive last week in Pike City.

The suspect remains in custody in the Sierra County Jail in Downieville. Bail is set at $100,000. The suspect is 19 year-old Justin Philip Lombardobarton of Camptonville. His current charges are: P.C. 245 (a)(1) Assault with a Deadly Weapon, P.C. 597(a)(1) Animal Cruelty and P.C. 594(b)(1) Vandalism of Property. Additional charges may follow.

Additional charges may include Being An Asshole, with priors.

Maggie the cattle dog is on the mend (conehead photo), and I was wrong about Sierra County not having its own jail, but apparently it doesn't amount to much although this is heartwarming:

Click to embiggen

I'm sure Maggie will be glad to clean up after her attacker drops through the trap door.

You can read the plaque here.

Hell's Barbie

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford:

...she wants people to understand she is very serious about this campaign thing and is definitely not as totally loopy bats--t crazy as your demented Aunt Sylvia with the twitchy eye, 23 parakeets and the addiction to little tubes of Oscar Meyer bologna wrapped around a fistful of oxycodone.

Except, of course, that she totally is.

Yes, Michele Bachmann is running for president. Michele Bachmann, fundamentalist Christian zealot, paranoid isolationist, lowbrow conspiracy theorist, heavily shellacked automaton, anti-choice anti-gay anti-everything neo-Stepford throwback and easily the flat-out nuttiest female ever to raise a hugely depressing $13 million for her clumsy campaign launch, Michele wants to lead us all to salvation.

Well OK, not all of us exactly, mostly the whites and the rich and people who collect colorful black-light posters featuring sweaty, bare-chested Jesus riding a T-Rex into the Castro to smite the gays. But you know, that's nitpicking.

But let this not solely be a column detailing the well-documented and -- let's just admit it -- hugely entertaining insanity of Michele Bachmann. I don't nearly have the space, and Matt Taibbi's fantastic Rolling Stone piece, combined with Mother Jones' disturbing three-page list of assorted Bachmann bombs, does a far better job of cataloguing her big box of crazy than I ever could.

Bachmann's big box? Gee, thanks for that visual, Mark...

No matter how you slice it, it's guaranteed to be a stretch of political theater so wonderfully absurd and surreal, so brazenly insulting to history, grammar, science, logic, sexuality, common sense, gender and fundamental human progress itself, well, you'd have to be crazy not to watch it.

It's like watching a volcano erupt and hoping the lava flows toward someone else. Go read the rest.

A Boston Story

William Rivers Pitt, a Bostonian, on the Stanley Cup and Whitey Bulger:

The story of Whitey Bulger is a Boston story, right down to the roots, but it is also an American story, one that has been repeated ad nauseam through the years. Criminal acts are committed, nests are feathered, and the occasional body thumps into the bottom of an unmarked grave. Instead of justice, however, there are backroom deals, payoffs, and cover-ups. It is the story of Congress, of the courts, of corporate America, of a political and legal system that has been utterly corrupted by those with no honor or decency, who are motivated by greed and a lust for power, and who operate beyond the reach of the law because they are protected, coddled, and insulated from justice.

Compared to the criminals and confidence men who rule this country, Boston's Whitey is less than a cipher. He killed nineteen people, while the powers-that-be can lay claim to corpses beyond numbering. Whitey ripped off drug dealers, while the powers-that-be rip off every single breathing person in the land. Whitey is is jail, while the powers-that-be who outstrip his bloodthirstiness by orders of magnitude walk around free and easy. Whitey's version of "organized crime" is a child's game compared to what these people do, day after day, without any fear of ever being brought to justice.

But in the end, Whitey Bulger is a metaphor for all that ails America today, and it will not be changed unless we the people change it. More than a million people took to the streets here to celebrate the Bruins. Imagine what might happen if crowds of that same magnitude took to the streets of Washington, New York, of every major city in this country, to demand that the Whitey Bulgers who are the real power in America be brought, at last, to true justice, and that the John Connollys who protect and enrich them are chased from their cozy positions and run out of town on a rail.

Gee, sounds like a revolution! Didn't one of those start around Boston once before?

History ...

Is what you make it.

Oliver Willis:

You knew it was going to happen at some point. Here are the edits some Bachmann fan attempted to add to Wikipedia in order to prove Bachmann’s false allegation that the then-child John Quincy Adams was a founding father. They were soon reverted with an admonition to "Please don’t edit an historical article based on current events."

...

Din't the Soviets (you know, Socialist Commies) do this shit too? Just askin' ...

"If the most heavily guarded ...

Hotel in Afghanistan comes under attack, what does it say for security in the region?" - George Alagiah of the BBC.

...

Nato helicopters were called in to kill three militants to end a five-hour clash by suicide bombers and gunmen on a hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The attack on the Intercontinental Hotel, frequented by Westerners, left six more attackers, two police and 11 civilians, including a Spaniard dead.

A security official said the militants may have exploited renovation work to gain access to the high-security hotel.

...

Beeb story here.

It says, 10 years on, that even in Kabul, security is a most tenuous thing. Is this where Obama and his Corps of Ass-Kissers generals say "never mind" on the troop withdrawal or will it be the next incident that gives them the opportunity to say "we'll have to stay longer because Af-Pak is still a haven for terrorists"?

The only people who've benefited from this war are the American Military Industrial Complex, Hamid Karzai and his 40 Thieves, and the Pakistani government (who are playing both sides for profit). The rest - American soldiers, Afghan and Pakistani civilians, and the American people - are all paying the price in one form or another.

None of us can afford to pay any longer.

Fairy tales ...

Echidne has one with no fairies and it ain't much of a tall tale either:

Once upon a time there was a country where the peasants and serfs did fairly well. They had to work hard, true, but they got to keep at least a portion of their own harvest and the annual days they had to work for the feudal lords were bearable in number.

When they got old and sick the feudal lords and ladies brought them doctors and baskets of food. In some towns the children of the poor even had schools paid by the towns or the feudal lords. They were taught to read and write and to do simple sums so that they could work in the workshops of the wealthy.

...

You know how it goes. We saw it before, when there really were feudal lords and wealthy merchants.

...

The stories told of those events depends on the teller. But what we know is this: The feudal lords suddenly had their bards sing about the ungrateful and lazy peasants, the great expense they had to keep the system going, the unfairness of having to care for the sick and infirm servants after they no longer could serve.

...

Think about reading this one to your grandchildren in 20 or 30 years. It's about the time it should change from "fairy tale" to "history".

Christine!

A woman I've been fond of (smart, independent, beautiful) for the better part of 20 years (who would run a close second to Mrs. F) has been named head of the IMF, replacing the alleged rapist.

The International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board selected Christine Lagarde to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the post of Managing Director and Chairman of the Board for a five-year term.

With the former French Finance Minister taking the top seat, the IMF continues its tradition of European leadership, relegating Mexican Central Banker Agustin Carstens who didn’t manage to win the support of fellow emerging market economies Brazil, Russia, and China. Lagarde will become the first woman to head the Fund since its inception in 1944. (Read Emily Lambert’s analysis of Lagarde’s fashion sense, The New IMF Leader And The Leather Pants).

...

Pic from here.

La bonne chance, la belle fille.

GOP Survival Suit

Click to inflate

Thanks to YubaNet.

Hot God Sex!

Last part of a post by The Rude Pundit. The first part made me blush!

It was helpful that your aide clarified what you meant. "Conservatives believe rights are granted by God and it is the responsibility of government to aid in protecting them" is what communications director Steve Taylor said. And "Liberals believe rights are granted by government...Congressman Akin believes those two concepts define the basic debate between the two ideologies."

That's fucking great. Welcome to the Bachmann School of American History. So essentially, your ideology says that kings and tyrants are more powerful than God. Or that God is such a cunt that he doesn't care if some people get to use the rights he grants while others have those rights cock-blocked by other people. That's the follow-through on Akin's conservative belief, no? Whereas god-fearing liberals believe that people take care of people shit and God takes care of God shit and thus God can just stay above it all. Like a good grandmother, not a molesting uncle. (By the way, atheist politicians of both parties don't give a fuck, but mostly they have to pretend that they do.)

So, sure, Toddster, if you're going to say that liberals hate God, then, fuck, have your God do something about it. Or is he just that much of a pussy?

God don't give a shit. He was invented to scare and suppress people millennia ago. Some people still fall for it. Too many.

Ship starting to sink, rats starting to flee

WSJ

KABUL—Afghanistan's central bank governor has left for the U.S. and isn't expected to return because he fears for his safety after investigating fraud allegations at the country's largest lender, according to two Western officials.

Bank Governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat left Kabul for the U.S. about 10 days ago, one of these people said. Last year Mr. Fitrat opened an investigation into Kabul Bank, which nearly collapsed amid public allegations that its owners used it to make favorable loans to themselves and politically connected associates.

Most of that money is ours anyway. Never fear, it will return to the U.S. and Europe by the suitcase-full when the rest of the rats leave Clusterfuckistan one step ahead of the new Taliban regime after we leave. Or whenever it looks like we'll leave.

Governor Abdul is well placed to greet them.

Headline of the Day

Tom Petty reportedly issuing cease and desist letter to Bachmann

Also see:

"Wingnut Cooking With Hot Air And Bat Shit"

Quote of the Day

Mr. Philadelphia:

I give it about 2 days before Republicans start screeching about how Democrats want to cut defense money while our heroes are in harms way, blah blah blah.

Translated: "Heaven forbid we cut back on the corporate welfare for the Military Industrial Complex."

Busy, busy ...

I got 3 days until our friends Chris and Terry get here from England (unless Queen Mary 2 hits an iceberg or encounters a U-boat) to spend the July 4 holiday with the colonists (us) and the Mrs. is away on business until tomorrow night (the Dingo Sisters are no help whatsoever, heh ...). I'm busier than a 1-armed paperhanger.

See yas when I see yas.

For Soccer (Football? I'm so confused...) Fans

In Gold Cup final, it's red, white and boo again

On a balmy early Saturday summer evening, the U.S soccer team played for a prestigious championship in a U.S. stadium … and was smothered in boos.

On a street outside the Rose Bowl before the Gold Cup final, Sanchez was hanging out near a motor home that was hosting 17 folks — 15 of whom were Mexico fans. Inside, that ratio held, there seemingly being about 80,000 Mexico fans among the announced crowd of 93,420.

This was Staples Center filled with Boston Celtics fans. This was Chavez Ravine filled with Giants jerseys. This was as weird as it was wild and, for a U.S. team that lost, 4-2, it had to be wearisome.

Well, where the hell d'ya think you are? It's LOS ANGELES fer chrissake! 'English as a second language' is not a class in school!

How many places are so diverse that it could fill football stadiums with folks whose roots are somewhere else? How many places offer such a freedom of speech that someone can display an American flag on their porch one day and cheer against the flag the next?

They weren't cheering against the American flag except in the limited sense of wanting to see their original country's team kick our ass. There's a lot more soccer on Telemundo than on Wide World Of Sports. Most Americans are a little scared of soccer, if they even know it's played in this country, because of its furrin commie popularity. I think the writer is a little over the top there.

I hated it, but I loved it. I was felt as if I was in a strange place, and yet I felt right at home.

Certainly, for the U.S. team, it undoubtedly stinks. But then, well, to be honest, the team stinks.

Ah, Grasshopper, perhaps enlightenment dawns! Heh.

Rita Moreno reflects on 'quite a life'

I ♥s me some Rita Moreno!

LATimes

With a one-woman show and a role on TV Land's 'Happily Divorced,' the Oscar-, Emmy-, Tony- and Grammy-winning Moreno remains a creative force at 79.

Rita plays a Jewish Mother. Oy. 'Happily Divorced' comes on right after 'Hot In Cleveland'. I'm glad HIC's a summer show because I watch it with my pants around my ankles...

Good article about this talented and lovely lady. A Boricua for the ages.

Sic 'im!

International Court issues arrest warrant for Kadafi

No mention of a bounty. Never mind, Dog.

Headline of the Day

Pat Robertson warns God will destroy America over same sex marriage

God is currently destroying the Bible Belt with tornadoes and floods. They must all be homosexuals.

Supreme Court: Violent video games may be sold to children

Raw Story

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a proposed California law that would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors.

In a 7-2 ruling, both liberal and conservative justices agreed that the video games qualify for First Amendment protections.

"Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas-and even social messages-through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player's interaction with the virtual world)," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the court's majority opinion (PDF).

Violent video games for children are valuable to the right-wing agenda. They want those kids in the right frame of mind when they reach military age and want to kill for real in The Endless War For Profit.

SCOTUS may revisit this when some game company comes out with a first-person shooter graphically and gleefully depicting the killing of wingnuts and Supreme Court Justices.

¡Chinga La Migra!

Raw Story. Interesting.

Computer hackers with the group 'Lulz Security" have unearthed a Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) intelligence assessment of Barry Cooper, the former Texas narcotics officer who turned against the drug war and began setting up hidden camera stunts looking to catch corrupt police in the act.

The FBI's "Situational Intelligence Report" on Cooper is marked "unclassified," and recipients were specifically instructed to take "precautions" to prevent it from falling into the media's hands. It came to light after hackers stole a trove of documents from police in Arizona and published them online in an operation they called "Chinga La Migra" (or "Fuck the Border Patrol").

That's a very loose translation but it gets the point across.

Mr. Cooper apparently caught a few corrupt cops in the act and is currently awaiting trial.

Georgia immigrant crackdown backfires

Following up on last week's post. These articles actually predate the one I used, so they knew this was going wrong before the failed solution was made public. Heh.

Politico

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s program to replace fleeing migrant farmworkers with probationers backfired when some of the convicted criminals started walking off their jobs because field work was too strenuous, it was reported Wednesday.
...http://www2.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

In a story datelined Leslie (read this - G), in rural south Georgia, The Associated Press writes of convicts calling it quits at 3:25 p.m. — more than 2½ hours before the crew of Mexicans and Guatemalans they replaced.

“Those guys out here weren’t out there 30 minutes and they got the bucket and just threw them in the air and say, `Bonk this. I ain’t with this. I can’t do this,’” said Jermond Powell, a 33-year-old probationer working at a farm in Leslie. “They just left, took off across the field walking.”

Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, on her blog, compared the practice of sending probationers to work on farms to an earlier practice of Southern police departments arresting black men on dubious charges and sentencing them to work on local farms that needed the labor.

Hey, you cracker farmers, how's that wingnut goobernator you helped elect workin' out for ya? As ye sow so shall ye reap? No, no, no, not this year, more like 'ye sowed, now watcheth it rot and be careful what thy wisheth for, for thee might getteth it back many fold'. Up thine ass and thee deserveth it, I might add.

By the way, we have a few field hands out here in California. We also have 100+° heat for them to work in. I get tired watching them from inside an air-conditioned truck.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Republicans End Debt Talks with Democrats
Begin talks with Fox News.

President Says He's Withdrawing 33,000 Troops From Afghanistan
Hiring 33,000 mercenaries to replace them.

Experts: Oceans Heading For Mass Extinctions
First sign: H. Salt Fish & Chips now H. Salt Chips.

Japanese Shocked to Learn Pop Star Actually Computer Generated
Shock compounded when she releases sex tape.

"Yew mean mary-ju-wanna?!"

I don't get Current TV but I want to! From RawReplay. Clip contains the three most stereotypical movie portrayals of mota it is possible to find!

Note: I removed the video because it started up by itself every time the Brain loaded and it was a PITA. Here's a link to it.

We Invent Enemies to Buy the Bombs

Common Dreams, from The Guardian/UK.

It is not democracy that keeps western nations at war, but armies and the interests now massed behind them. The greatest speech about modern defense was made in 1961 by the US president Eisenhower. He was no leftwinger, but a former general and conservative Republican. Looking back over his time in office, his farewell message to America was a simple warning against the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" of a military-industrial complex with "unwarranted influence on government". A burgeoning defense establishment, backed by large corporate interests, would one day employ so many people as to corrupt the political system. (His original draft even referred to a "military-industrial-congressional complex".) This lobby, said Eisenhower, could become so huge as to "endanger our liberties and democratic processes".

I wonder what Eisenhower would make of today's US, with a military grown from 3.5 million people to 5 million. The western nations face less of a threat to their integrity and security than ever in history, yet their defense industries cry for ever more money and ever more things to do. The cold war strategist, George Kennan, wrote prophetically: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented."

It's the Bottom Line.