Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Marty Stuart on mandolin

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

Wrecking Ball

Put down your drink! Ya might wanta hold off on lunch for a little while too...

If this goes viral, there won't be enough bleach in the WORLD!

On the flip side, I'm beginning to like Miley Cyrus.

Thanks to American Family Voices.

"48 Solyndras"

Thanks to oldfartrants.

Transcript:

The so called party of fiscal responsibility just wasted the equivalent of 48 Solyndras in taxpayer dollars in just 2 weeks! According to ratings agency Standard & Poor's, the shutdown cost $2 billion in real money, and over $24 billion in lost economic activity - which makes the $60 million Republicans wasted trying to repeal Obamacare over 40 times knowing it was impossible look like peanuts! To the GOP and fleabagger Bible thumpers, wasting billions of dollars on political stunts that have no chance of working over ideology and pride is more obviously more important than stopping starvation in America. And based on putting on a show about their hatred for Obamacare and Obama, they had no problem throwing millions of people under the bus, closing down services which millions of people depend on, and making the United States the laughing stock of the world, again, and a bad credit risk - again! This whole thing was over nothing! They could have done the deal they ended up doing 2 weeks ago - all John Boehner had to do was call a vote - but the Tea Party had him by the balls. So every dollar lost and bit of blame for this fiasco is on the heads of John Boehner, and the Republicans and teabaggers in his house. Approval for the GOP is at the lowest level in history! Every single poll proves it. When they say they're listening to the American people they're lying through their teeth, and always have been -- and anybody who believes it is an idiot! Stupidity is a bigger threat to America than terrorism is. Stupid people elect stupid leaders. What we just saw was an attempted coup by a handful of fascist billionaires who not only tricked a bunch of gullible idiots into voting against their own best interest, they actually infiltrated the US Government with anarchists, and they actually took down the government -- for awhile! This should scare the living shit out of everybody. Thomas Jefferson said "people get the government they deserve." I beg to differ - we deserve a lot better than this. And this is not what the majority of people in America voted for. We have elections for a reason. Well let me tell you something righties - we're coming for you, you treasonous fucks, we're coming in 2014, and again in 2016. But just keep doing what you're doing - it's working just fine... for us ;)

Lunch is served!

Bwahahahaha! Enjoy, bitchez!

A tip o' the Brain to the Brain's Facebook page. It's confusing...

The Sabotage Of American Democracy

Andrew Sullivan

What the Tea Party represents, in stark contrast to conservatism, is a radical attack on the very framework of our governing system. It is not right or left within our democratic system. It is a form of secession from it and a de facto abandonment of the notion of one country under one rule of law. It is about sabotage rather than opposition. It is bad enough when one party will seek to sabotage the law of the land – by attempting to rally the public to spurn the new healthcare law, in the hopes of causing it to collapse. But when the dominant faction of one party is bent on sabotaging our democracy, it must not simply be tolerated or appeased the way John Boehner shamefully did. It must be defeated. Anything less is a form of appeasement of forces and ideas that are truly antithetical to the democratic way of life and to constitutional governance.

Yes, in my view, the situation is that grim. If the Republican right’s fanaticism still blinds them to the error of their ways after they nearly destroyed the global economy (and brutally damaged the American one), it becomes clear that only a total collapse of the American government and economy could truly teach them the futility of their deluded aspirations. The rest of us cannot and must not tolerate that. We must draw a line. That line, for those who still believe in the regular order of our democracy, is November 2014.

Priority 1 in '14.

You are all completely insufferable

No, not you...

There's a lot going on today. Needs some time to settle out. Shorter: we're winning.

I almost forgot that if it's Morford it must be Wednesday. Here young Mark goes on about the Dark Side of the interwebs.

Ah, the Internet. It’s an equal opportunity debaser.

Hate and meanness, you could say, have reached epidemic levels, seem to have poisoned the national dialogue in ways we’ve never seen before. Witness Congress, the modern GOP and its own pet hate group, the Tea Party, contaminating the US government with an open loathing for the black president so virulent and barefaced, they’re willing to shut down the government, default our national debt, and destroy lives of their own constituents to prove it. Now that’s commitment.

It wasn’t always like this. Sure, we’ve always detested various groups for no valid reason; our prejudices and intolerance for race, gender and nationality are legendary. But America used to be all about broad areas of hate, wide swaths of intolerance: your tribe, your silly god, your heritage, your idiotic national sport. The French! Blacks! Chinese and Jews and the Irish! Gays, New Yorkers, Russians! Feminists who hate love and God and men! My team of violent helmeted thugs is better than your team of violent helmeted thugs, and I’ll shoot you dead and riot in the streets to prove it! See? Easy.
...

And then there’s anonymous commenting. That one gets my vote – and I’m far from alone – for Worst Invention of the Millennia; few things have done more to destroy healthy, intellectual dialogue than allowing anyone to say whatever they want about any topic, news story or piece of journalism without recourse, without any real knowledge of the subject, without putting their real name, face, or email address to their sneer. The consensus is universal: Anonymous commenting encourages the very worst, lowest aspects of the human animal.

Yes, please sign a name or be anonymously ignored.

But I have to say, there is a key distinction to be made between pointed satire/cultural criticism, and straight-up meanness for its own sake, just to get attention, just to hear itself scream and draw more bloody hate into the fray. Not surprisingly, this distinction is completely lost on those who think things like higher education, science and books are for elitist jerks.

Harrumph. At least us elitist jerks are smarter than them ignoramus jerks.

I'm going dark 'til tomorrow unless something breaks that's wonderful enough I need to tell you about. See yas.

Just for fun

Constitutional scholar Sarah Palin explains complicated Constitutional law words to you

Neverending punchline and holder of the Bump-it Industries Constitutional Law Chair at Mat-Su GED’s-r-Us University takes time out from palling around with Canadian terrorists to explain to America that that there Obammer fella is cruisin’ for an impeachable bruisin’ if he doesn’t pay America’s bills the way the Founding Fathers and Jesus would want him to:

(Note: this is also a drinking game. Every time Palin writes the word “debt”: drink a Bartles & Jaymes. But if you wake up tomorrow and find yourself to be a knocked-up-teenager, it’s your own damn fault. Whore.)

I’m sorry. Where were we? Oh yes, Prof. Dr. Palin, please proceed:

Go.

The worm turns...

The funniest thing to me about the teatard rally at the White House is, for the first time in my memory, it was old white right-wingers calling the cops who were there - without pay - to preserve order tools of the establishment instead of young lefties. Probably old law-and-order racist voters too. Also probably the first time they weren't cheering the cops on to whup up on the demonstrators as well.

I see yer deuce-high and raise ya...

I like Eugene Robinson, but he's usually a little too mild for me. He's upped his game some in this piece.

A crazy thing is happening in shuttered, dysfunctional Washington: Democrats are pushing back.

This phenomenon is so novel and disorienting that many Republicans in Congress, especially the tea party bullies, seem unable to grasp what’s going on. They keep expecting President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to fold like a cheap suit because, well, such a thing has happened before. I guess it’s understandable that the GOP might have forgotten the difference between bluffing and actually holding a winning hand.

Dems are famous for caving and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Not this time, and it's about goddam time. Will they hold? We will see.

It is understandable that the activist Republican base might think victory through blackmail is the natural order of things. It’s not. It’s a distortion of American democracy that weakens the nation, and it has to end.

I'm looking at this less like a poker game and more like finally confronting the schoolyard bully. I hope the Dems don't think a bitch slap will do the trick. He needs to be left prone, bleeding and crying.

Update:

Bobby Reich makes my point:

Suddenly the Republicans are acting like the school-yard bully who terrorized the playground but finally got punched in the face. They’re in shock. They’re humiliated. They’re trying to come up with ways of saving face.

With bloodied nose, House Republicans are running home. They’ve abruptly turned negotiations over to their Senate colleagues.
...

The question is how thoroughly President Obama has learned that extortionist demands escalate if you give in to them.

We will see.

Headline of the Day

Read This One Document If You Want To Understand Why Republicans Followed Ted Cruz Off A Cliff

I may just wait until I can go stand on the edge and piss on the pile of 'em...

Oh, the irony...

I need some comic relief. Ironic Times.

GOP Confused, Divided About Why It Shut Down Government, What It Wants
As predicted in Revelations.

REMINDER
There's no such thing as a free credit score.

Actually, there is: AnnualCreditReport.com

More Drama in NYC Motorcycle Melee
Everyone involved was an undercover cop.

Now that's undercover work!

Weighing Campaign Finance Law, Scalia Says, “I Don't Think $3.5 Million is a Heck of a Lot of Money”
Barely enough to buy a Congressman.

Scalia Says He Believes in the Devil
Consults him regularly.

Easy. Ol' Scratch shares a phone number with the Koch bros on Fat Tony's speed dial.

Hanukkah, Thanksgiving Fall On Same Day for Last Time In Nearly 80,000 Years
Providing extremely rare eight days of indigestion.

Burrrrrp....

"Let's go wave the slave flag in front of a black guy's house! That'll show 'em!"

10/16 - Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the link!

The Confederate Flag Won't Help Conservatives Win the Shutdown

Someone actually thought it was a good idea to bring a Confederate flag to protests at the White House, ones attended by Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz. Shockingly the flag's presence is backfiring for conservatives who hoped today's protests would be the big momentum turn in their favor.
...

Never mind the horrible polling numbers that show Republicans taking a huge hit for the shutdown. At their big turnaround effort to win public opinion, the Confederate flag reared its ugly head and undid any progress or good will they hoped to earn on Sunday. Many were quick to explain just how terribly, impossibly bad this looks for Republicans:

A tweet:

Good for the media. They've finally found the grand mastermind of all conservative politics: some random jackass with a Confederate flag.

Typically representative, I would say.

The secesh, aka "the losers", slave flag is reviled by MOST of this country. If brains were dynamite, the teatards couldn't blow their nose.

The asshole in the center is disgracing MY Marine Corps flag. It needs to be properly disposed of by burning. With him wrapped in it if it was up to me. The goddam slave flag needs to be properly pissed on. Who the fuck do these clowns think they are, anyway? Good Americans? My ass.

If ya can't fix 'em, fuck 'em

This is unconscionable and needs to stop toot de fuckin' sweet. Dopin' 'em up rather than spending money and time on 'em is no way to treat Veterans or anybody.

VA doctors tell House lawmakers of pressure to prescribe veterans opiates

Department of Veterans Affairs physicians told a House subcommittee today that hospital administrators regularly pressured them to prescribe highly addictive narcotic painkillers to patients, even those they had not personally examined.

The hearing marked the first time VA officials have spoken publicly about the skyrocketing number of painkiller prescriptions since The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed the trend last month.

“There are multiple instances when I have been coerced or even ordered to write for Schedule II narcotics when it was against my medical judgment,” said Dr. Pamela Gray, a physician who formerly worked at the VA hospital in Hampton, Va.

Primary care doctors who don’t want to prescribe large amounts of opiates may resign, do as they are told or be terminated, Gray said. Gray was fired.
...

CIR found that VA scientists have known for two years that the fatal overdose rate among the agency’s patients is nearly double the national average. Since then, CIR’s analysis showed, the rate of opiate prescriptions has continued to rise.
...

Veterans told lawmakers that alternative treatments to opiates existed only on paper and that they find it very difficult to get medical care that goes beyond powerful medication.

Please read the rest. This is disgusting.