Goin' ridin'

Spring done sprung early this year so I'm off to ride the PITS trial at Prairie City today. See yas.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

One of my favorite songs. Written by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons.

Published on Mar 18, 2013
Emmylou Harris Rodney Crowell " Wheels" SXSW 2013 Waterloo Records

Thanks to walken16.

This makes me so angry I can't fucking see straight Headline of the Day

TSA orders wheel-chair bound double-amputee Marine to “walk”

"War on Easter" Headline of the Day

Bill O'Reilly: The Left Is Trying to Destroy the Easter Bunny So That Everyone Can Do Drugs and Have Abortions

Mr. O'Rally needs to be shown gently to the door. Of the rubber room.

Repug Autopsy

Click 'em to 'em biggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

Can we skip to the burial now? Heh.

A missed opportunity

Coulda got 'em all with one round...

Click to embiggen

A tip o' the Brain to Seniors for a Democratic Society.

Headline of the Day

Native American Lawmaker To Anti-Immigrant Kansas Official: ‘When You Mention Illegal Immigrant, I Think Of All Of You’

Heh.

Unintended irony is where you find it

What's funny about this is the GOP already has the worst sinners and biggest criminals. Heh.

Click to embiggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

Quote of the Day

From Daddy Frank on the National Circus.

The House GOP still doesn’t know that Obama won the election. This includes Paul Ryan, who is like one of those Japanese soldiers who kept on fighting on a remote atoll years after V-J Day, refusing to believe that his army had been defeated.

Heh. I get a visual of Lyin' Ryan sneaking outta the woods at night to steal food and clothes. From widows and orphans, of course.

Like, Duh Headline of the Day

Republicans can’t tell fact from fiction

Punk'd again. It's almost too easy. Heh.

A Republican discovers his heart

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford on Senator Portman's reversal of his stance on gay marriage.

Bingo. After years of deep homophobia and toeing the heartless party line, the mildly thoughtful senator finally snapped to the fact that his kid deserved as much right to be as in love, legally married, miserable and undersexed as anyone else.

Heh.

By the way, isn’t it interesting how you never see a Portman-type scenario in reverse? How you will never hear an intelligent progressive step up to a microphone and say, “Ladies and gentlemen, after years of fighting for liberal causes, I’ve come to the conclusion, after my daughter revealed she’s a born-again Christian, that I’ve had it all wrong. I now believe women are far inferior to men, and the church should make all the decisions about their horrible vaginas. Also, more guns will solve the problem of all the guns, homosexuality is a disease, and black people should never be allowed anywhere near a public drinking fountain. Thank you.” True heart openings are always toward the progressive; true thoughtfulness never constricts.

Never say never, young Mark. Such thoughtfulness as I've been able to muster has constricted my heart towards conservatives. Whenever, rarely it seems, one of them appears to see the light, I'm suspicious of his motives.

Perhaps this is the ugly downside of Portman’s epiphany, and why it made headlines at all: because of the stark contrast to the norm. Because the right’s intolerance is still so heartless and cruel. Because so many conservatives still react in the exact opposite manner when their kid – or any kid – comes out.

Which is to say, they will not welcome their gay child. They will not offer compassion, understanding or love. Many gay children are instead shunned, abused, beaten, rejected and kicked out of the house. The parents will refuse to attend the gay wedding, refuse to allow the gay partner into the home, will never speak to their godless pervert kid ever again.

Don’t think it happens much anymore? You are wrong. It happens far more than you think. And it’s behavior completely exclusive to the conservative right.

My point exactly. They are slowing the progress of the world.

March Madness

Heh.

Click to embiggen

Thanks to YubaNet.

Letter From A Dying Veteran

Truthdig, in toto.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

You nailed it, Mr. Young, and I think they realize full well what they did. Admitting to their lies is out of the question as is admitting to a "mistake". All the deaths, all the expense, all in vain for nothing but a neocon wet dream and an oil grab.

Even worse would be admitting they lost their criminal war of choice. Also, that they didn't get the oil they went to Iraq after and that they handed the joint to Iran.

They don't give a damn about the death and destruction and expense, now or for the rest of the time our nation will be paying for their crimes in myriad ways until all the Veterans and the memory are gone.

They will probably not get a "day of reckoning" this side of the veil where it might count. We will never get the pleasure from seeing them hang that we deserve.

I just hope the rest of us remember enough not to go to war with Iran.

Two Titans of Titanic Stupidity

The Political Garbage Chute

Karl Rove versus Sarah Palin…every comedic writer’s wet dream. And what makes this showdown even more delicious is that they are both right. I mean not about their ideological points of view. Oh, they’re definitely not right about anything of substance, not at all. But in terms of this feud –and more specifically the barbs they traded — they both landed solid, truthful blows on one another. Two titans of titanic stupidity locking horns, both of them the exact right poison their party needs to take in order to put themselves out of their misery once and for all.

I'm fuckin' lovin' it! More butter on that popcorn, please!

So we have two human beings who really ought to know better making grand statements about the other being the bigger asshole. Meanwhile, the country thinks they’re both assholes and most people don’t care what either Sarah Palin or Karl Rove think about anything.
...

What Rove and Palin’s clash demonstrates is that the GOP is in no position to recover from their tailspin of 2012. Both of them are nothing more than media whores at this point, trying to capitalize on former fame or success, though with Palin it’s fame without any real measurable success…other than being famous. In Rove’s case he’s a has-been who helped dismantle the Republican Party’s reputation for fiscal responsibility by helping secure eight years in office for the freely spending Bush Administration. The GOP’s survival depends on its ability to shun both Palin and Rove; neither represent a path forward for the party. But then again, not much that the Republicans have been doing would give anyone any indication that they even want to move forward.

Seeing the internal dysfunction within the Republican Party should give the rest of us our clearest insight yet into why President Obama has had such a hard time working with the House Republicans. They’re a party lost right now. The world is moving on without them. Marriage equality is a foregone conclusion, as at the very least removing marijuana from the list of drugs included in our insipid War on Drugs, and true single-payer health care isn’t that distant a dream either. Whether the Boomers or their children – the generation to which I belong — accomplish just these goals is the only real question. But regardless, these three unavoidable milestones are in America’s future, and what the GOP has to ask itself is just how far onto the wrong side of history do they want to be.

The Moosebreath/Turdblossom turkey slap and hissy fit of irrelevance between the money end of the GOP and the whackjob end is something we've seen coming since Grampa Walnuts' defeat and it's getting into full swing! About fuckin' time.

That's the federal GOP. The state GOPs are busy wrecking the joint, red state by red state. Elections matter.

Cheney Marks Tenth Anniversary of Pretending There Was Reason to Invade Iraq

Borowitz

The ceremony, held on the grounds of the Halliburton Company headquarters, brought together the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and other key members of the lying effort.

Calling the assembled officials “profiles in fabrication,” Mr. Cheney praised them for their decade of dedication to a totally fictitious rationale.

“Making up a reason to invade a country is the easy part,” Mr. Cheney told them. “Sticking to a pretend story for ten years—that is the stuff of valor.”

Mr. Cheney added that their “steadfast charade had raised the bar for all future administrations.”

“When it is time to invade Iran or Venezuela, will the President have the will to make up an entirely fake reason to do it?” he asked. “That remains to be seen.”

It'd be a lot funnier if it wasn't for all the needless death and expense.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

FAR RIGHT LOCKS OUT FAR FAR RIGHT FROM CPAC CONFERENCE
Those too conservative for Sarah Palin met in adjoining rubber room.

New Pope Gets Right to Work
Hunkers down with Vatican lawyers.

Leaked Pentagon Report: F-35A Joint Strike Force Stealth Fighter Would Be Defeated in Aerial Combat
Recommends planes be sold to our enemies.

Who'll buy 'em now? Yeesh.

Subaru Recalls 47,000 Vehicles Because Their Engines Might Start Up on Their Own
Several have returned themselves to the factory.

Oh, the irony I missed...

The guys at Ironic Times haven't got this week's up yet and I have to go out. Here's one from last week that I missed:

Karzai: Taliban Working With U.S. to Keep War Going
Analysis: somebody didn't get his sack of cash this week.

That is probably closer to the truth than we'd like to think, but we're used to that.

New Republican Plan: Try to Fool All of the People All of the Time

El Rude-o on the Repugs' autopsy of Why They Lost.

[...] In other words, how to lie better and how to get more people to believe the lies, a new and improved motherfuckery.

See, the big problem is perception, you know. Yeah, it took massive polling and surveying and phone calling and a shit ton of money paid to someone to find out that when people are "[a]sked to describe Republicans, they said that the Party is 'scary,' 'narrow minded,' and 'out of touch' and that we were a Party of 'stuffy old men.'" Honestly, it sounds like they're describing a cabal of creepy child molesters or the Catholic Church (or, you know, both at the same time). And it ain't helped by shit like Mitch McConnell's white staff doing the "Harlem Shake."

The problem here isn't that people see the GOP as a bunch of cigar-smoking bankers. It's that people know what they are: a bunch of jerk-offs who believe appalling things who do nothing but block the efforts of the President they elected twice and who are supported by an assortment of Obama-deranged racists, gun-toting idiots, sexist and homophobic assholes, and Rush Limbaugh, along with the cigar-smoking bankers.
...

How hilariously does this document miss as a self-examination? Well, it's as if it grabbed its balls, felt a strange lump on one, and decided that all that it needed to do to make that go away is to masturbate more.
...

Here's a solution the Rude Pundit has proposed a number of times to Republicans: Stop being dicks. It's really that simple. You're a bunch of dicks. When you look in the mirror, that's a dick looking back at you. Honestly, if you want to have any relevance at all, it's all you gotta do. We see through the smoke screen, no matter who is blowing it.

Fat chance. To quit being dicks, they'd have to abandon their "principles" like they know the meaning of the word and give up all the mean-ass bullshit they've been peddling all these years. Ain't gonna happen without one helluva lot of funerals. Fine by me.

When a motorcycle is as broken as the Repug party, new chrome ain't gonna fix it. The only solution is to lift up the gas cap and slip a new motorcycle under it.

They need to break off the Tea Party but then they wouldn't have ANY voters. Heh.