Hard Times Come Again No More

Here is Nanci Griffith singing that iconic bad times tune by Stephen Foster. Included in the video are the picures of some of the players who helped make our current hard times possible by failing to regulate the mega-banks and Wall Street. It's largely still hats & horns for these rogues. At the end of the piece you will see the photos of three prominent bailed out and bonused bankers. Hard times come again no more with the possible exception of a few politicians and bankers.

Thanks to janhammer39.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

A lovely Irish tune.

Paddy Moloney on pipes and whistle

Sandy Kelly, Emmylou Harris, Dolores Keane ~ Sonny

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Bogus is as bogus does...

Thanks to Slate.

New GOP Challenger!

Goblinbooks

With Rick Santorum out of the race, the Republican base is scrambling to build support around another contender who could beat Romney. And they may have discovered a dark horse candidate: an unidentified shirtless man screaming obscenities at traffic from the parking lot of a Tulsa-area Walgreens.
...

Shortly after beginning his remarks to passing cars and Walgreens security at 6 am, the man surfaced on Youtube, where he garnered more than 100,000 viewers. Conservative groups then raised $3 million in donations to form an exploratory committee for the man, but have not been able to contact him, since he appeared to have thrown his cell phone into a storm drain, before defecating into it. Still, Republicans are hopeful.
...

GOP operatives are not completely convinced the man has the discipline to stand up to Mitt Romney, especially since his first appearance ended with the arrival of the police, and repeated taserings. But Bryan Morris, political science professor at Yale thinks he represents the last, best hope core conservatives have of winning.

"We're looking at 80 year-old Tea Partiers who scream about small government, while they collect their entitlement checks. Politicians making speeches about cutting the deficit, while they refuse to talk about tax revenue or cut a gargantuan military," says Morris. "They say they want a strong defense, while supporting a web of military commitments that does everything except protect ordinary Americans. They say they support freedom, but they want the feds to police your bedroom. I mean, the GOP is doing everything it can to avoid developing any coherent political goals whatsoever. So... some guy hollering about Obama's Arab spies and crapping through a drainage grate seems to be their best bet."

"Unless he's pro-choice."

Sounds like the perfect Repug candidate!

Unless he's pro-choice.

CLEARLY LABELLED SATIRE

Quote of the Day

The Rude One:

... Calling the Ten Commandments a "historic document" is like calling The Cat in the Hat a guide to pet care. ...

Can we trade ...

Bloomberg for him?

A New Jersey mayor was hospitalised after entering a burning house to save a neighbour, US media have reported.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker rescued the woman from the top floor of her house in the city's Upper Clinton Hill area, the New Jersey Star-Ledger said.

...

Cory's a man of the people, that's for sure. He's done a lot with very little and almost zero cooperation from Secaucus Fats. I could imagine what he could do with NYC's resources. I love this kid.

I must be a genius!

Can drinking beer make you smarter? Perhaps, according to a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

...

Heh ...

Shopping Day

Over the mountains and through the woods to the Big City we will go. It's snowing. I'll try to get some video or photos of the rare and pretty sight of the Carson Valley covered with the stuff. If any fell on it. See yas.

Update:

No snow in Carson Valley, windy though. Easy drive, not much traffic today. Got about 40 minutes of Active-i video. It'll be showing up...

It quit snowing when we left and didn't start again in earnest until we got home and I started to unload our purchases. It dumped on me like a sonofabitch while I made six trips from the truck into the house. Then it stopped. Figures. Heh.

Titanic 2012

Difference being, there'll be no tears shed over this one.

Thanks to YubaNet.

Barney bites West on the ass

Daily Kos on Barney Franks' response to the remarks by one of the dumbest sonsabitches in Congress.

"Not even Joe McCarthy would have said anything so stupid and dissociated from reality," Frank said in a call with The Huffington Post. "It's an indication of the significant deterioration of the Republican Party as a responsible entity that an ignorant, mean guy like Allen West is considered one of their stars."
...

"It is exactly the opposite of those of us in the Congressional Progressive Caucus who are in support of freedom, in support of democracy, in support of people's basic rights and civil liberties," he said. "Communism is really a reference to some of the worst human rights abuses of our time ... It is meant to delegitimize people and allow no basis for debate. It's a very nasty label."
He added, "I very much object to being associated with Stalin or Khrushchev."

It is that second point that is most important. So many on the right want to shut down the debate because they know the outcome once that debate happens. Those atop the Republican Party see what has happened during their primary season. As they have lurched even further to the right they alienate more and more voters. The Republican establishment finally has their candidate, but only after he had to tack hard right to win the nomination. That damage is done and no amount of shaking the Etch-A-Sketch is going to change that.

Frank hit the nail on the head. The real problem is not Allen West. It is that the Republican Party has descended so far into the abyss that someone like Allen West is a leader and is mainstream within the Republican Party. That is what we must keep our eye on. Yes, Allen West is the one who made the remarks. However, he is just one of many capable of making them in the modern-day Republican Party.

Every time one of those wingtards opens his mouth, the 'base' roars in approval.

Fuck 'em. Four more years and the House and Senate too.

Note to cashiered Army officer West: ...and the horse you rode in on, asshole.

Update:

Mad Kane:

This undoubtedly sounds naive, but I keep expecting the GOP to disavow Florida Rep. Allen West’s insane lies. (The guy makes your average Birther look nearly normal.) But so far, it hasn’t happened.
...

Limerick Ode To Rep. Allen West
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Republican Rep. Allen West
Invents scandalous falsehoods with zest.
His mad claims don’t compute,
Yet his party stays mute —
His lies thus implicitly blessed.

Cowards, the lot of 'em. Feeding crap to the Dead End Quarter is what they do and nothing, once said, is ever taken back or denounced. Or even admitted to. Bastids.

For Trayvon ...

In light of today's events.

Peter Townshend - I Believe My Own Eyes

1/2 day ...

Rain this morning but I got some stuff done on the deck this afternoon.

Headline of the Day

Senior Citizens Grill Republican Congressman At Town Hall For Supporting Ryan Plan To Kill Medicare (VIDEO)

I think the meeting did not go as planned for the congresscritter, but at least he has a new asshole chewed next to the old one. Should improve his outlook but probably not.

I'm waiting for one of the slimy Repug pols to introduce a bill that prohibits anyone on Medicare or Social Security (which I am) from voting on the grounds that they are participating in a socialist system.

Homophobes need (gay) love too

It's Wednesday. Guess who. Heh. If he hadn't weighed in on this one, I'da been worried about him.

And then came the headline that surprised exactly no one and delighted a great many, even as it openly terrified countless thousands across the deep south and also Utah and Kansas and pretty much the entire GOP. The poor dears....

Case after case, priest after priest, GOP senator after megachurch pastor after spittle-flecked Tea Party zealot -- all suddenly caught pants down in a bathroom stall, in a leather bar, gay chat room, in a Grindr hookup app, living out their real and honest selves even as they rail and oppose and thump their Bibles everywhere else. Hypocrisy, thy name is homophobe.
...

Of course, it's not universal. Not all hardcore conservatives secretly wish for a gay romp or ten. Many just act out of purely poisoned souls, or from the unconscious demon telling them that if they're not allowed to express their deepest selves, if they can't live life at a more honest frequency, no one can.

"How dare you!" they then sneer, to the gay couple, to the Burning Man participant, to the hippie or the artist or the educated deviant, the meditator, the spiritual seeker, the yogi or activist or appreciator of sex and tongue and yes. "What gall you have to be open-minded, autonomous, free to love and screw and dance however and with whomever you want. Don't you know about the rules? Don't you know how ugly life is? Don't you know how flawed and guilt-soaked God designed you to be?
...

This is the lesson: Do not ask deeper questions. Do not tap into your own genuine needs, sexuality, fierce spiritual magma. Do not dare suggest that most fundamentalist notions of Christian God are sort of detestable and gloomy, the exact opposite of what Jesus actually intended. Do not, most of all, dare to define it all for yourself, as your sex, your soul, your internal ethical slut see fit. What the hell do you think you are, free?

The most dangerous person to the Repugs, fundies, haters, racists, etc. is the one who thinks for himself. And rejects their spew.

Personally ...

I gotta hand it to old Fidel myself. I have no love for Communists but anybody who can give the finger to 10 American Presidents and live to tell about it deserves a little admiration.

MIAMI - Ozzie Guillen returned to Miami to apologize to South Florida's Cuban community and face a five-game suspension handed down by the Marlins on Tuesday for comments he made about Cuba's Fidel Castro.

While his team was in Philadelphia, Guillen was in Little Havana expressing remorse in a news conference at Marlins Park. The manager was quoted in Time magazine saying, "I love Fidel Castro."

...

The end ...

Of the Clown Car. The last clown has been thrown under the bus. I think it's nice AI has reprised the Frothy Mixture's greatest shits hits. Sad that we won't have him to kick around anymore ... until 2016. Here's one that dovetails nicely with my post below this one:

...

7. “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”
~Rick Santorum, opposing contraception and frighteningly suggesting that he would make pre-marital sex illegal.

...

I say, bring all the unwanted babies in Mississippi to the Santorum house for Mr. and Mrs. Frothy to raise since they have so much free time now.

More stuff ...

New facts about stuff we knew and now see it quantified:

...

For example, take the states with the highest and lowest teen pregnancy rates. Mississippi does not require sex education in schools, but when it is taught, abstinence-only education is the state standard. New Mexico, which has the second highest teen birth rate, does not require sex ed and has no requirements on what should be included when it is taught. New Hampshire, on the other hand, requires comprehensive sex education in schools that includes abstinence and information about condoms and contraception.

...

A teenage pregnancy is not a gift from god. It's a human life being brought into the world with two strikes against it.

More cutting and screwing ...

Got the 3rd section of the deck built today while keeping an eye on the weather satellite. Back after I clean up my mess and shower ...

...is sauce for the gander!

Somehow I suspect the christowhacktards on the never-right will do this much more than the Dems, but accusing other people of what they themselves do is Repug/Rove policy.

Thanks to YubaNet.

FBI intimidates Paiutes

I live very near Nevada and the Nevada bear hunting season is controversial big news around here. Here's an account of some slimy intimidation tactics used against its opponents.

YubaNet

Nevada Department of Wildlife Requests FBI Investigation of Native American Opponents of Nevada Bear Hunt

Following their appearance at the March Wildlife Commission meeting, where they stated their opposition to the bear hunt on religious grounds, Native Americans from various Paiute Tribes the Pyramid Lake Paiute Band were recently questioned by FBI and U.S. Marshalls. FBI Agent, George Chillito, an FBI agent with the Task Force on Counter-Terrorism in Reno, reportedly stated that he was investigating the Native Americans at the request of NDOW game wardens because the "game wardens" and the "audience felt threatened" by the presence of the Native Americans at the March Wildlife Commission meeting. Several Native Americans appeared at the Wildlife Commission meeting held on March 23rd and March 24th ("Meetings"), and at the Washoe County Advisory Board Meeting held on March 15th, to oppose the bear hunt, adopted in December 2010. Shortly after the Commission meeting, FBI agents and U.S. Federal Marshals began appearing at the homes and places of work of the Native Americans, and questioning them about why they opposed the bear hunt, and what were they going to do if the bear hunt continued, etc.

At the meetings, several Native Americans from various Paiute Tribes were present and spoke on the record in opposition to the Bear Hunt for religious reasons, stating that the black bear was a sacred animal to them, and that to kill one for sport was the same as burning a Bible would be to a Christian.

Shortly thereafter, during the period April 2-4, FBI agents visited and questioned two of the Native Americans who spoke at the open public meetings, by arriving at their homes and places of work. On April 2nd, up to six (6) FBI agents and Federal Marshals came to Lisa Bonta's home in Sparks, NV, stating that the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) "game wardens felt threatened" by her presence at the meetings, and specifically questioned why she was opposed to the Bear hunt, and what was she going to do if the bear hunt continued. Another Native American, Daniel Thayer, was visited by federal agents at his place of work on April 3rd, and was told that NDOW had requested an investigation because the "audience felt threatened" by his presence, and was similarly questioned. On April 4th, another Native American, Raquel Arthur, saw federal agents watching and surveilling her private residence.

When independently contacted, one NDOW staff member stated that he had no knowledge of any request by NDOW for the FBI to investigate Native American opponents of the Bear hunt.
...

This FBI intimidation comes on the heels of alleged racial slurs directed at the Native Americans when they spoke at the Washoe County Advisory Board held on March 15th.

Somebody probably called them "liberals".

The bear hunting law was recently modified and it is now illegal to hunt them on the east (Nevada) side of the Lake Tahoe Basin. Read "where the rich people live".

As soon as the bears cross the spine of the Carson Range, they're safe. I hope they can read the signs.

Burn the bitch!

TPM

In a Phoenix courtroom filled with fellow lawyers and some of his biggest critics on Tuesday, the former Arizona prosecutor who served for years as Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s right-hand man was stripped of his license to practice law.

A three-member panel of the State Bar of Arizona ruled that ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas abused his powers as a prosecutor to target his political enemies. Because of that, they ruled he would be disbarred.
...

Investigators with the State Bar of Arizona said somewhere along the way he became obsessed with his political enemies. He turned disagreements over policy into a full-fledged attempt to see his opponents jailed and disgraced.

With Arpaio’s help, investigators said, Thomas used the powers of his office to target his opponents with criminal investigations. He had some arrested and some charged with crimes. The evidence he and Arpaio used in the process was often questionable. The charges rarely stuck.

From a similar piece at Raw Story, suitably out of context (by me):

“We found a witch,” they wrote, purportedly speaking as the public officials who filed charges against Thomas, “May we burn her?”

Indubitably, sire! I'll kick down a can of "Boy Scout fluid", aka "gasoline", and a box of matches. And light Sheriff Joe (pronounced "Ho") next.

"Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout Sentenced to 25 Years; Trial Ignored His Ties to U.S., Dick Cheney

Well of course it did. Cheney is still dangerous as long as he lives. Video at Democracy Now.

Notorious arms smuggler Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death," has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to commit terrorism. Our guest, former United Nations arms trafficking investigator Kathi Lynn Austin, says the case allowed American companies to avoid exposure of their collusion with with the U.S. government and private companies linked to Dick Cheney during the Iraq war, even after United Nations sanctions against him in 2004. Authorities say Viktor Bout was involved in trafficking arms to dictators and stoking conflicts in Africa, South America and the Middle East. He has also been accused of furnishing weapons to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and achieved particular notoriety for selling arms in Rwanda in 1998, just four years after the Rwandan genocide. [includes rush transcript]

The real "free market".

Supreme Court Agrees to Reconsider Citizens United

Newser

The Supreme Court has agreed to take a case that justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer say will give it a chance to rethink its infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision. The court is being asked to look into a Montana Supreme Court decision stating that its law restricting corporate election spending in state elections is fine, because it "arises from Montana history," UPI reports. Essentially, Montana is arguing that Citizens United only applies to federal laws and elections, not state ones.

Two Montana corporations are asking the court to make a summary judgment to the contrary; their lead counsel argues that otherwise, "free speech will be seriously harmed," because states anywhere could "ban core political speech." But Ginsburg and Breyer earlier wrote that the case "will give the Court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates' allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway."

Best of luck on this, SCOTUS. I hope you do the right thing and throw that monstrosity of a decision out, but I think I know how the Koch brothers, pardon me, the bought-and-paid-for four, will go. The never-right-wing never admits mistakes.

Who doth protest too much ...

Like in Gord's post below, something we knew already but it's nice to see facts back us up:

...

OK, so for the record: A collaborative team of researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex (England) and the University of California in Santa Barbara have definitively confirmed that those people who have the most hostile and negative feelings towards homosexuals are themselves secretly attracted to members of their own gender. Their hostility can be seen as either a conscious or unconscious effort to affirm a false heterosexual or bisexual identity to themselves and the world.

...

Personally, I don't care if you want to live your life in a closet or not, just don't try to deny other people things you can't, or don't want to have.

We knew that...

HuffPo

As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.

Ouch.

And now there's the new study linking conservative ideologies to "low-effort" thinking.
...

Does the finding suggest that conservatives are lazy thinkers?

"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."

Wait for it...

Bar patrons were asked about social issues before blowing into a Breathalyzer. As it turned out, the political viewpoints of patrons with high blood alcohol levels were more likely to be conservative than were those of patrons whose blood alcohol levels were low.

Stupid, lazy...and drunk. The wingnut pols exploit this:

"Keeping people from thinking too much (my em)...or just asking them to deliberate or consider information in a cursory manner can impact people's political attitudes, and in a way that consistently promotes political conservatism," Dr. Eidelman said in the email.

Make it easy, make it quick, make wrong seem right. The Repug strategy.

Heh ...

Too bad he spawned such an asshole kid.

Pic via our pal wkmaier's FB page.

Back to the deck ...

Quote of the Day

Comrade Misfit:

...

I believe that American presidents should do what is in the best interest of this country. To put the interests of any other country before ours smacks of treason.

How I spent ...

My Easter Sunday. More cutting and screwing in the backyard.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

NORTH KOREA POISED TO LAUNCH SATELLITE, DESPITE PROTESTS
Especially those from three dissidents sitting inside capsule.

BP Arctic Oil Spill Response Plan Questioned by Coast Guard
Calls for immediate deployment of PR agents.

Cheney Leaves Hospital With New Heart
Will take up watercolors, give all his money to ACLU.

Thank you for that! A blip in the flatline of irony!

30% of Health Care Procedures Not Needed, Say Doctors
Thanks for the tip, say insurers.

Proves the "Cheney" one above. Definitely not in the interest of anyone.

Virginia Study Shows Bringing Dogs to Work Reduces Stress
Bringing cats to work reveals you are in need of professional help.

Word.

Wall Of Death

Notice to those who think life is a high-speed, high-risk journey that goes nowhere with only one outcome: you're right. Heh.

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Word ...

Stolen from the Being Liberal FB page.

More deck ...

I was pretty productive yesterday.