Goin' Ridin'

Off today to ride the Hard Rock Trial. See yas.

Headline of the Day

Redhook Announces Hemp Beer to Celebrate Cannabis Legalization in Washington

Sounds like a great idea! I hope it doesn't taste like rope...

A tip o' the Brain to David Aquarius.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

An old favorite.

Published on Jul 12, 2013
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell along with the Road Dogs perform a live version of "Pancho and Lefty" from a show in July 2013.

Thanks to TakenAlsoAlso, UK.

Lends a whole new meaning to "motorcycle mama"...

I've got things to do today, one of which is a little repair to my...motorcycle, so I'll just leave yas wid dis...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The GOP Is Terrified Obamacare Could Be a Success

The Daily Beast

Why are Republicans so scared of Obamacare? Because, says Jon Favreau, they’re frightened that it might actually work.

But here’s my question: if Republicans are so confident Obamacare will end badly, why not just shut up about it? It’s not like they have the votes to repeal the law—a math problem they still haven’t solved after 37 different tries. Their appeal to the Supreme Court ended in defeat at the hands of a conservative chief justice. And now the bulk of the plan will begin to take effect in just a few months.

At this point, why not sit back and wait for this crazy experiment to self-destruct? Why not let President Obama and the Democrats reckon with the millions of angry Americans who will undoubtedly hate their new insurance or their new insurance protections?

I sure hate mine. California implemented the laws that were to take effect nationwide in October early, as of July 1. Our premium went from $800 per month to $288 for our Medicare supplement for the same coverage. We have to pay additional for prescription coverage which we did not before, but that's $48 per month. So, from $800 to $326 per month. I hate that. Wouldn't you? Heh.

But today, the antigovernment zealots who have taken over the once-proud Republican Party feel they must burn our village to save it. They are actively trying to prevent Americans who have been too poor or sick to get health insurance from knowing that all three branches of their democratically elected government have passed and upheld a law that will finally allow them to see a doctor without going broke.
...

But there is now plenty of evidence that if we as a nation want Obamacare to work, it will work; that if we can extract ourselves from the trench warfare that preceded the passage of the law, we can all start focusing on fixing and improving it over the next year. Out in America, I know there are not only plenty of Democrats and Independents who feel this way, but Republicans as well. What these Americans need to do now is speak up and be heard, because the antics of their frightened representatives in Washington are endangering the health care of millions and embarrassing their party in the process.

Basically, the Repugs have gone on for so long that government doesn't work that they will do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't work lest their entire ideology be shown as the scam that deep down even they know it is.

Please proceed, Repugs...

Good post at HuffPo on everything the Repug pols are doing wrong, which is everything if they wish to continue as a party of other than scared old southern white people and the Dead End Quarter. Nothing new, but tamped into a nice neat brick.

On issue after issue, the GOP has veered far from the mainstream of the American electorate. Worse, they are swimming upstream against a tide of changing demographics -- and an electorate with ever-increasing numbers of young voters from the "millennial generation" that polls show is the most progressive generation in half a century.

So far, at least, efforts to "rebrand" the GOP have simply collapsed. And even though most Americans are primarily concerned with jobs and the future of the economy, the GOP leadership in Congress insists on focusing on cultural issues that pander to a narrow segment of the electorate -- and are downright unpopular.

They seem to be practicing the politics of "subtraction" -- which is not a good plan if you want to achieve an electoral majority.

A quick look at the issue landscape tells the tale.

Jobs, jobs, jobs, by which I mean abortion. - Rachel Maddow.

With every one of these major issues, the GOP is on the politically losing side.

The Alamo comes to mind. Heh.

We'll see what Boehner, Cantor and the rest of the GOP leadership do in the months ahead. But right now they are riding fast in to a political box canyon from which there is very little opportunity for escape.

Reminds me of one definition of "military intelligence" (an oxymoron, I know) - "I see many hoofprints going in. I see none coming out."

Hopefully this will turn into a box canyon full of skeletons. And soon. This country has work to do to fix the damage they have done over the past thirty-three years.

15 things Apple won’t let you see

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford kvetching about Apple's app-approval funhouse of hoops. Eh.

It is, in turns, a fascinating and infuriating process, getting an innocuous little iOS app approved by Apple’s overburdened team of App Store approvers, people who, since no one knows for sure, we can hereby imagine as an exhausted squad of overworked groaners perpetually terrified of getting the company sued and/or earning it any sort of negative media attention by signing off on an app that’s even slightly salacious, pornographic, offensive to Mormons, racist, sexist, repulsively violent (hi, NRA!), or invented by lonely Harvard frat boys drunk on Coors Light and pimpled sighs (Hi, Zuck!)
...

Long story short: I’m not really all that proud to say Apple rejected my little app six times in a row, and each time I’d strip out more of MOAN’s content, trying to find the line, trying to figure out just how Puritanical Apple really is, and how seemingly random, and how silly. The entire time, we never had a clear idea. All we had were a stack of brief email rejections, telling us we’d violated the guidelines, but not exactly sure how.
...

By the time we finally launched the app in March, my team was exhausted. After all, it’s just a shrewd little vanity app. From a freelance columnist/yoga teacher, just trying to stay afloat in a heartless media world. This ain’t exactly Instagram. I’m not the NYT.
...

(P.S.S. to Apple: I still love you madly, fruit people. I understand your plight; I know even you understand the anti-smut rules are sort of ridiculous. And it’s true that Android’s app store is total chaos. You’re keeping iOS at least passably functional, clean and healthy. But come now. Readers need a live link to the best articles on oral sex ever written [see the app]. And you made me point them to Google instead! Tragic, is what it is).

If you say so. Yawn.

Quote of the Day

From a piece on the Repugs' "rebranding" "effort" at Maddowblog.

Meet the new Republican Party; it looks an awful lot like the old Republican Party. Rebranding isn't a failure; it's a punch-line to an unfortunate joke.

Not sure if "joke" is the right word. Jokes are supposed to be funny. The Repugs are anything but funny. On the other hand, I will laugh my ass off at their funeral.

Related QotD El Segundo:

Also from Maddow, with video.

“Should the Republican Party be just the party of aggrieved white people, even to the extent that it may stray occasionally into Confederate territory in order to do that?” Maddow wondered. “Do you want that in order to maximize every possible white vote you can get out of an electorate that is less and less white all the time?”

The other option was to become a multi-racial party. But Maddow observed that the conservative media appeared to be unanimous in its opinion: Stick with white voters.

I happily say, with a shit-eatin' grin, ¡Adios, Repuglicanos! Heh.

The American Taliban

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

Zip. Zilch. Bupkis.

Nothing's poppin' my cork today. Sorry. Maybe that'll change...

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

From the crawl at the top:

Too soon for "Dancing With The Stars", says Morsi

Heh.

U.S. Adds 195,000 Jobs in June
You want fries with that?

Washington State Farmers Feeding Pot to Pigs
And then smoking the bacon.

Like, oinnnnk, duuuude...

Tape of Rupert Murdoch Admitting Bribing Officials Goes Viral
Now he's frantically trying to contact each of the estimated 15 million who've listened to it and buy their silence.

I hope he gets to go to a very nice prison.

Paris Distributes Manual: How to Not Be Rude to Tourists
City said to be littered with torn, discarded copies.

Oakland A's Want to Move to San Jose
From no there there to somewhere no one knows the way to.

Beating-head-on-keyboard Headline of the Day

Fox News host: Not using God to sell beer means ‘the terrorists have won’

The stupid, it burns...