The Pulpit Of Bullies

Michael Winship

Here in New York State, of course, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who combines the boyish charm of J. Edgar Hoover with the sunny quirkiness of Pol Pot. So extreme are Paladino's views, so volatile his temper, that even Rupert Murdoch's right-wing New York Post has endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, which is a bit like the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano dissing the Pope and singing the praises of Lutherans.

Heh.

Which brings us to Joe Miller, [...]
...

The plainclothes rent-a-cops, complete with Secret Service-type earpieces and Men in Black-style neckties and business suits, come from an Anchorage-based outfit called DropZone Security, which also runs a bail bond service and an Army-Navy surplus store - with one of those anti-Obama "Joker" posters pasted to its window. One-stop shopping for the vigilante militiaman in your life - kind of like that joke about the combination veterinarian-taxidermist: either way you get your dog back.

All of this would be funnier if not for the fact that this kind of hooliganism and casual trampling of First Amendment rights from people who claim to embrace the Constitution as holy writ is symptomatic of a deeper problem.

The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse.

It bears repeating: The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell.

Somehow ...

I don't think this was the doing of the evil Muslims:

LATEST: The package that was sent to [Rep. Raul] Grijalva’s office today was covered with swastikas and the white powder has been CONFIRMED to be a toxic substance!

This should now be classified as an official TERRORIST attack, just like these types of events immediately after 9/11 were.

...

I wonder if the media will call it a "prank"?

Regular folks and small businesses ...

As we all know, the definition of "small business" in the United States is a very wide, gray area. The other day, Idiot Glenn Beck implored his listeners to contribute to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Beck expressed solidarity with Chamber of Commerce: "They are us." As Media Matters noted, on October 14, Glenn Beck launched a donation drive for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying on his radio show, "I would like to make this the biggest fundraising day in the Chamber's history." He also said, "I don't know why we're not" a member of the Chamber and asked, "Can't we join the Chamber of Commerce in New York?" Beck's websites, GlennBeck.com and TheBlaze.com, also encouraged visitors to make donations to the chamber:

...

Yeah, just a bunch of regular folks. Small businesspeople just like "us"*:

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.

Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.

...

I wonder when the rank and file of the Angry White Person Party will figure out they're supporting the people who are trying like hell to separate them from whatever little they have left. I can't believe, still, in my seventh year of blogging, that Americans can be so delusional to willfully blind themselves to their own best interest.

I know a guy who's a full-on teabagger, (he's preparing to take his country back, armed to the teeth, and it's all the immigrants' fault). He gets Social Security, Medicare, State Disability, and a pension from the union job he worked at since he got out of the Navy. What does he bitch about most? The government getting too big and too many people get entitlements. The unions ruining the economy. I just don't get it ...

TGIF!

*Thanks to Chris for the NYT link.

A Defense of Juan Williams and Other Media Idiots

The Rude One follows up on Fixer's post:

One part of the picture that's missing here is that the journalistic landscape has changed. Now, news anchors on all three of the news networks regularly offer commentary on the stories that they're reading off the teleprompter. You can't watch CNN without John Roberts or Tony Harris scoffing at something. And while Fox may have started the smearing of the line between news and punditry, CNN and MSNBC just as surely have stuck their fingers on the painting. That distinction is so blurred now that Wolf Blitzer seems quaint in his attempts to keep objectivity against a full-blown Cafferty assault.

If you're gonna blur that line, if you're gonna encourage your news people to mouth off, if you're gonna tell your commentators to push the boundaries, then don't be surprised if they say something offensive. It's like if you have a lover who wants you to do all kinds of crazy, kinky stuff to him: shoving huge dildos in his ass, stomping his balls, making him wear nipple clamps and a cock ring, jacking him off while he hangs by hooks through his skin, shitting on his chest. But then you punch him in the face and he says, "Whoa, whoa, too far" and breaks it off. How the hell were you to know what was too far at that point? Rick Sanchez's show was essentially about what giant self-righteous douchebag Rick Sanchez was. And they were surprised when he acted like a giant self-righteous douchebag elsewhere? And Williams has said tons of backwards ass shit on Fox over the years, most recently about the Park 51 community center, which he emphatically opposes.

Free speech ain't pretty. It's not supposed to be. But as long as it doesn't get in the way of you doing the job that you have been hired to do, the only combat for it ought to be more speech. And, sure, in the abstract, NPR has a right to fire someone they find offensive, but you know what else it could have done? A story about how a pretty smart guy (even if you disagree with him) can have the kinds of fears and prejudices that Williams talked about. But that would have been more about exploring an issue than having a knee-jerk reaction to anything that might piss off people. NPR was looking for a way to get rid of Williams. Mara Liasson better watch her ass.

NPR and F**Noise are incompatible, to say the least. F** no doubt pays better and I'm sure the gasbags would rather get fired from NPR.

If they bunch up in one place, we can get 'em all with one round.

Snowstorm hampers search for 3 Mt. Whitney hikers

EssEffChron

Snowstorms are hampering the search for three missing hikers on California's Mt. Whitney.

Park spokeswoman Dana Dierkes says the three men from the Omaha, Neb.-area went missing on a hike Monday evening on the 14,494-foot Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States.

The Fresno Bee says about 45 people are assigned to the search but snowstorms are making it difficult. A command post dispatcher says Thursday that there's snow above 8,000 feet.

Welcome to California, gents, and I hope you're OK. Notice any differences from Nebraska yet?

GOP candidates' problem in California? Their party

And yer point is...?

Last coupla ¶ of an op-ed by George Skelton, LATimes:

A blogger who calls himself the Cowboy Libertarian, Dorinson added: "There's an old saying that when you're riding out ahead of the herd, you might want to look back now and then to make sure the herd is following you. The herd hasn't been following the Republican Party for some time."

Whitman has been trying, but she's saddled with a bad brand.

Whitman with a saddle? Ride 'em, cowboy?! Make the visuals stop!

Also, I assume her brand is a wingnut lying on its side under a dollar sign (the Lazy gRafter Whackjob?), but I do not care to see it or contemplate where it might be. I know where they put them on bovine cows. Make the visuals stop, please! Maybe a notch in her ear would be OK...

Emaciated Corpses and Zyklon B

Der Spiegel, a 'recommended read'.

US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler

For most Germans, though, the Hitler comparisons are vastly more offensive. It is almost impossible to finish high school in Germany without going on a class visit to a former concentration camp. They are not pleasant places to be. While the sites themselves might now be little more than windswept rows of foundations where hopelessly overcrowded, disease-ridden barracks once stood, the museum exhibits tend to be much more disturbing. Images of trucks full of emaciated corpses, ovens where tens of thousands of bodies were burned, photos of SS commandos on the Eastern Front shooting row upon row of Jews, a canister of the poison gas Zyklon B -- all are likely to be on display.

During his show on Oct. 5, Glenn Beck said that Obama's science adviser John Holdren's concern about the global population and White House health policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel's warnings about global warming are "the kind of thinking that led to … the extermination program that eventually led to the Holocaust."

It would be hard to find someone on this side of the Atlantic who wouldn't cringe at the ignorance of that statement. Leaving aside the question as to whether or not one should be concerned about climate change and an overcrowded planet, the kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust was a different one. Hitler wanted a racially pure Germany. People with handicaps didn't fit. Neither did Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, blacks, Asians, Arabs or homosexuals.

Let's just say that diversity was not part of Hitler's program. How'd that work out for ya, Adolf?

Us lefties made the same kind of comments about the Bush maladministration of course, but I didn't see a Spiegel article decrying it. That's because we were right.

And as far as the 'racially pure' country the teabaggers wish for, I suggest they wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which hand fills up first.

Word ...

Fez:

No intelligent statement has ever followed, "I'm not a bigot, but..."

Understanding ...

Most of the time, when Long Island makes news lately, it's because some redneck, cracker assholes (and boy do we have our share) decided to beat an immigrant half to death (or actually kill the poor bastid) or some stupid shit like that.

This, however, is one of the reasons I love living here. As I've said many times, I live in one of the most ethnically diverse places in the country and we generally get along*. In an attempt to further that understanding, our local Mosque invited all the non-Muslims around here to afternoon prayers the other day and many of my neighbors attended.

At 75, Jan Sepulveda, a Roman Catholic, stepped foot in a mosque for the first time in her life Wednesday.

She took off her shoes, wrapped a black scarf around her head, and entered the Masjid Darul Qur'an mosque in Bay Shore while an imam prayed in Arabic.

"I hate bigotry," Sepulveda said in an interview. "I want to know more about people who are different from me."

...

Makes me proud to be an Islander.

...

Wednesday, the entrance at the mosque in Bay Shore was decorated with red, white and blue balloons, as if to underscore the congregation's allegiance to the United States. The sanctuary was visited by politicians, ministers, community leaders and ordinary citizens.

[Imam] Rehman explained some of the basic practices of the faith, such as the removal of shoes in the sanctuary, the separation of males and females into different areas during prayer, and the five times a day that observant Muslims pray.

...

That, my friends, is what America is all about.

Update:

*Come to think about it, I did yell at the Afghani next door to keep his chickens in his own damn yard so my dogs wouldn't pick up any parasites. Heh ...

Heh ...

Being I'm doing the puppy thing right now, this little vid gave me a laugh:

Thanks to Watertiger.

I ♥ New York!

It ain't just Fixer any more! Nuevo York's gubernatorial debate was a heartwarming demonstration of democracy in all its glorious unmitigated silliness.

The Daily Voice, with video.

This week's New York governor's debate was supposed to be a clash between Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino. Instead, by some accounts, it turned into a "farce" in which independent candidates stole the show.

Among the highlights: Kristin Davis, a former prostitution madam, told jokes about brothels and gay bars. And Republican Paladino surprised the audience by actually walking off stage in the middle of the debate to use the bathroom. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," his campaign manager told the New York Times.

But the real show stealer was Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, who spoke repeatedly about the high cost of rent, which had made it difficult for families to pay their bills, put food on the table, and take care of themselves.

Note to Mr. McMillan: You are one colorful dude! The whiskers are magnificent! Your "The Rent's Too Damn High" philosophy is closer to the truth than most would like to admit if you'd drop that "the Jews" shit, and of course you're as crazy as a loon to most people. Kudos also for collecting the 15,000 signatures necessary to get on the ballot by yourself.

You ain't got a chance and I hope you win. The Jews'll wise ya up as soon as you're in.

Mr. McMillan has been endorsed by the AMI.

Reuters

NY state a brothel in need of a madame – governor candidate

At their first debate on Monday, candidates for New York governor made the usual use of metaphor and cliche about the state’s economic woes.

But candidate Kristin Davis (go look at her logo! Whee!) took it a step further when she compared the state bureaucracy to a badly run brothel, and New York politicians to whores.

And she would know.

She sure would! From the look of this lady, she earned every dime she ever made the hard way. One NY politician at a time.

She hasn't got a chance either, of course, and I hope she wins too.

Most gubernatorial and other political 'debates' wouldn't have let these candidates participate because they're a distraction from the corporate message. I am so glad New York did. We all needed it.

If I were not already blessed by being a Californio, I'd wanta be a Noo Yawkah! They're just as crazy as we are.

Three Things to Do When Clarence Thomas’s Wife Calls You

Andy Borowitz

I know what you're saying: "It'll never happen to me. Virginia Thomas doesn't even have my phone number!" Well, that's what I thought, and several years of trauma counseling later, I've come to realize (the hard way) what a fool's paradise I was living in. Consider this: according to a recent study, the odds of Virginia Thomas leaving a threatening voicemail for you are higher than those of Christine O'Donnell correctly identifying the First Amendment. With those grim statistics in mind, here are three simple steps you can take if and when Mrs. Clarence Thomas calls.

3. Get in the habit of answering your phone, "Long Dong Silver residence."

One final note: if you get a call in the middle of the night and there is silence on the other end, that is not Virginia Thomas. That is Clarence Thomas.

Now that's creepier still.

Dozens of law professors nation-wide endorse Calif. marijuana legalization

Raw Story:

The professors, from schools such as Yale, Harvard, Georgetown, New York University, UCLA, Berkeley, George Mason University, Emory and the Washington College of Law, signed an open letter published by the "Yes on 19" campaign, all calling for legalization.

To the Voters of California:

For decades, our country has pursued a wasteful and ineffective policy of marijuana prohibition. As with alcohol prohibition, this approach has failed to control marijuana, and left its trade in the hands of an unregulated and increasingly violent black market. At the same time, marijuana prohibition has clogged California’s courts alone with tens of thousands of non-violent marijuana offenders each year. Yet marijuana remains as available as ever, with teens reporting that it is easier for them to buy than alcohol across the country.

Moreover, we are deeply troubled by the consistent and dramatic reports of disproportionate enforcement of marijuana laws against young people of color. Marijuana laws were forged in racism, and have been demonstrated to be inconsistently and unfairly applied since their inception. These are independent reasons for their repeal.

This country has an example of a path from prohibition. Alcohol is subject to a regulatory framework that is far safer in every respect than the days of Al Capone. Just like the State of New York did when it rolled back Prohibition 10 years before the nation as a whole, California should show leadership and restore respect for the law by enacting the Tax and Control Cannabis 2010 initiative this November.

Damn, ya get them lawyers out from behind the boilerplate for a minute and they can speak straight and well. Who knew?

Teabagger Freak Show

El Rude-o on teabagger candidates in the wake of The Dumbest Candidate Ever's misunderstanding of the Constitution she claims to revere and knows nothing about:

The scramble was on in the mainstream media for a way to present O'Donnell's statements without saying the truth. Last night, on Anderson Cooper 360 (motto: "AC doesn't think his sexuality is any of your goddamn business"), Paul Begala and Jeffrey Toobin came preciously close, but still tiptoed around the obvious explanation: Christine O'Donnell is a fucking idiot, so fucking dumb that she has to remind herself to breathe. It's the 800 pound motherfucker just sitting there: she's too fucking stupid to be a Senator.

It ought to be okay to say that. It's actually important information for voters. Brian Williams ought to be able to declare, "By any objective measure, by any stretch of the imagination, Christine O'Donnell isn't qualified to be elected Cart Wrangler of the Month at Wal-Mart. Because she's just a fucking idiot." Now, there's a good chance people will still vote for her because, yeah, there are idiots who do see themselves in O'Donnell.

There's no mystery here. All the answers are plain to see when it comes to the array of bizarre and unqualified Republican candidates who are in the running for senator, which we used to consider an important position. Let the freaks and phonies huckster their way in the House, which is a Fellini film set of midgets, geeks, and contortionists.

[...] Joe Miller is a bushel of dicks and a gun fetishist who wants to wreck the Constitution."

So it could go. Sharron Angle? Fucking crazy. Rand Paul? Fucking psycho.

A real media would have eviscerated this collection of buffoons and bastards. The fact that we are talking about three of them as serious candidates means we are skidding toward the edge of a very steep cliff and that we are a very unserious electorate. The look on the face of Chris Coons in that debate with O'Donnell said it all. It was the look of a man who thought he had come for a debate to help voters decide who is going to be one of the most powerful people in the country. But when he showed up, it was a pie-eating contest.

So's the media and we're all going to suffer because of it if any of these idiots get elected. The 24/7 freak show will go on as usual.

Are you not outraged?

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford. On American outrage:

It goes like this: the more ridiculous, tiny, arcane or completely irrational the object of your outrage is, the more you know you have attained ultimate freedom. You are living the real American Dream, hereby defined as being endlessly upset and miserable about totally meaningless bulls--t for no valid reason whatsoever because you have everything you could ever want or need in this life, ever.

It all adds up to one conclusion: We are so wildly, stupidly free, it's rather hilarious. And savagely ironic. Because you can also say it culminates in perhaps the ultimate expression of Outrage USA, the single place where all such screeching congeals in a shrill, silly little group, signifying nothing.

It's called the Tea Party, that gaggle of terrified, white, middle-aged men whose actual slogan is "mad as hell." What are they mad about, exactly? They have no idea. What do they want to do to change it? No clue. From whence does their timorous fear and dread come? They can't quite say. Perfect.

This is aimless, abortive outrage in its purest form, just infantile rage aimed straight into the Void, like a baby that has every comfort and hug and blankie imaginable but still screams like a banshee, wailing and squirming at the sheer terror of ... well, of merely existing. Of being alive. Inhaling and exhaling, over and over again, trying to make sense of it all, somehow, even just a tiny little bit, in a glorious neverending tinkling hellride of pure existential terror, until you die.

Wonderful.

BTW, I've been on "tinkling hellrides". When the bike's pistons and/or con rods start going 'tinkletankletunk' in the hot lane at rush hour, by the time the rapidly slowing 'hellride' to the right shoulder is done, some other 'tinkling' has occurred as well.

Welcome Back!

Dan the Man is back in the Army!

Lt. Dan Choi, the Iraq war veteran, Arab linguist, and West Point grad turned "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal activist, today got what he had said he wanted from day one: the opportunity to serve his country in the armed forces again. This afternoon, amid dozens of reporters, and thousands of passersby -- most totally unaware they were seeing history in the making -- Lt. Dan Choi, the former Army infantry officer, re-enlisted in the military, this time, as an out gay man.

...

Thankfully, our armed forces will be able to welcome many other good soldiers and talented people back into its ranks.

The past is never dead ...

Think Anita Hill is having a PTSD episode right about now?

WASHINGTON — Nearly 20 years after Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Justice Thomas’s wife has called Ms. Hill, seeking an apology.

...

"Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas," it said. "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband."

Ms. Thomas went on: "So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day."

...

Assholes, she and her husband, and, for as long as he is alive, he will play a part in shaping the direction of this nation. Thank you, Republicans.

"Whites Only" ...

That's what it all boils down to:

Senate candidate John Raese, vying to replaced deceased Senator Robert Byrd in West Virginia's delegation, may have inadvertently been outed as a member of a problematic Florida country club by no other than Rush Limbaugh.

...

Limbaugh is a member of the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, which is infamous for having virtually no membership rules but still managing to keep from ever letting a single African-American join through 2008.

...

"Take my country back" ... to the time when people of color had to do as massa told them or fear for their lives. 150-odd years and we have yet to move past the Civil War.

Great thanks to Ol' Fez for the link.

Grip & Reality-free Zone

WaPo

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.

The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons' position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that "religious doctrine doesn't belong in our public schools."

"Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?"
...

"You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

No questions here. Like most teabaggers, her grip is, to be charitable, a little tenuous. On reality, let alone the Constitution and the Bible.

"Talk about imposing your beliefs on the local schools," she said. "You've just proved how little you know not just about constitutional law but about the theory of evolution."

I rest my case. Yeesh.

Family values ...

...

So we have Gingrich on his third marriage (with two adulteries thrown in), Palin with a kid who got pregnant out of wedlock (and, according to the NYT, whose own first pregnancy appears to have happened a tad early with respect to her wedding day, shall we say), Limbaugh on God knows how many marriages now (it's four, I believe), a party chairman who holds events at S&M bars, the party chairman before him is gay and raising money for gay marriage, a GOP spokesman who reportedly gets more "tail" (that's promiscuous unmarried sex) than anyone in DC, and a possible incoming Speaker whose response to charges of cheating on his wife is simply "no comment."

...

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

False idols ...

A libertarian opens his eyes:

In trying to understand how so many Americans adore people like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh I have come to this critical understanding: Poorly educated, terribly informed, intellectually deficient and downright stupid people need idols. They feel angry, frustrated, ignored, cheated and disillusioned by so much going on in American society. They find the emotional, political and philosophical rants by talk show, loud mouth celebrities matching and justifying their feelings. Of course, those celebrities work hard to fan the flames of all that unhappiness and discontent, and also perpetuate ignorance. They sell stupidity to gullible dummies, teaching them who to blame for their misery.

...

This guy probably wants a different result than I do, but at least he realizes that most of the conservative 'base' are gullible lemmings and are being used by the right wing 'power players'.

...

I can easily relate to the many people treated unfairly, unjustly and even brutally by the political and economic system. But those who have drifted over to the dark side of the right-wing, conservative arena and become addicted to the rhetoric of delusion have nothing in common with those that once made the United States a noble nation worthy of respect. Their idols talk a lot about the Founders and Constitution, but share none of the fine qualities of those that created our republic. They also pick and choose what parts of the Constitution to adore, mocking the rule of law.

...

Seems, if the TV 'pundits' predictions are correct, we're in for a whole lot more stupidity after 1 January.

Thanks to Tommy T for the link.

"If East Germany can do it, we can do it!"

Firedoglake

At a town hall meeting Sunday afternoon(1) in Anchorage, U.S. Senate campaign GOP nominee Joe Miller was asked a long question on how we should keep illegal immigrants out.

His short answer: "If East Germany can do it, we can do it!"

Jaw, meet floor. From the link:

As many of you are no doubt old enough to remember, the barrier separating East and west Germany was no mere fence. It was called "The Iron Curtain", and it certainly lived up to that name and then some.

This so-called "fence" had armed patrols watching for anybody foolish enough to climb over. And they killed between 100 to 200 people who attempted to get around, or over, the obstacle to reach freedom in the forty or so years of its existence. Is THIS what Joe Miller envisions for the southern borders of California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico?

Just long enough to get him elected, I think.

Also, at the same meeting, he had a lefty journalist/blogger put in irons by his 'security' goons for trying to ask questions Miller didn't want to hear about alleged improprieties and possible felonies he may have committed whilst he was an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

Go read this stuff. Not only is Teabagger Joe an arrogant IOKIYAR type and "noun, verb, unconstitutional" unless it helps him, he's a less-agreeable(!) Palin with a five o'clock shadow and no rack.

Update:

Shannyn Moore

Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia

Shorter: right-wing goons, mercs, former Blackwater types.

Having a personal militia is not common. Joe Miller's narcissistic, militant disorder has come to full light with the detainment of journalist Tony Hopfinger. Political candidates with their own mercenaries are a recipe for disaster.

Update II:

Sam Stein

Tony Hopfinger, Reporter Detained By Joe Miller's Security Guards, Speaks Out About Ordeal (VIDEO)

A good read, but now a few personal words about handcuffs.

I have been handcuffed more times than I care to admit. Always applied by cops per their SOP. No problem there. Resist a cop, the charges will be worse than they would have otherwise been. Their rules, their courts, their jails. I get that.

I have had civilians try to handcuff me as a gag. I do not permit this under any circumstances and none of them succeeded. Bottom line: enough thugs can probably put me in irons, but they will motherfucking PAY on their way to it. Anybody but a cop that wants to handcuff me is gonna have to bring some to get some.

Headline of the Day

11 Freedoms that Drunks, Slackers, Prostitutes and Pirates Pioneered and The Founding Fathers Opposed

Now we're talkin'!

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Report: U.S. Still Leads World in Two Major Industries
Porn and spam.

Record Amounts of Undisclosed Money Pour Into Campaign Coffers
Unknown sources give uncounted millions to unproven candidates to do unfathomable harm.

Lack of Hitting Has Baseball Owners Worried
One change under discussion: fewer drug tests.

The American Bible ...

The fucking idiot teabaggers see the Constitution like the Bible, though it's obvious they don't understand either of them:

...

The truth is that for all their talk of purity, politicians like Palin, Angle, and Miller don’t seem to be particularly concerned with matching their actual positions to the Constitution they profess to worship. For them, the sacred text serves a higher purpose—and in the end, that purpose isn’t hard to pinpoint.

...

Just like Jesus, the Founders are puking.

Great thanks to Skippy for the link.

Meghan knows nutjobs ...

Much as I love Christiane Amanpour, I try to avoid her "Round Table" if there's nobody good on. Unfortunately, I was doing some work in the house and couldn't change the channel, so I was subjected to the abominable George Will, the hack Matthew Dowd, and Meghan McCain (I have no idea what she's supposed to be). Blind squirrel that she is, she did find at least one nut, though, unlike the other two:

...

But Meghan knows nutjobs. Because Meghan's dad brought to national attention the original model: Sarah Palin. And for Meghan to opine on the vacuousness of Christine O'Donnell without acknowledging that trail was blazed by her father's running mate is disingenuous and laughable.

Sunday dope blogging ...

If you didn't get the gist of my last post (you gotta stop hanging out with so many white people), I posted a comment about getting dope and paraphernalia into the United States from Europe (I go to Amsterdam regularly) and I linked to this in comments, which I sing every time we have to cross a border. Sometimes I'm serious, sometimes I'm not (When the Mrs. hears me start, she gets all uncomfortable because she doesn't know if I'm serious or not either. I don't tell her if I'm carrying or not. Keeps her on her toes.). Heh ...

Arlo Guthrie - Comin' Into Los Angeles

The Real Terrorists

Go see the video at montag's place.

Ratigan explains who the terrorists are and he is says more in 5 minutes than all the talking heads on cable TV have crapped out in the last 9 years. And he did it on Morning Joe.

Sto mi e milo

Here's Lilly Drumeva, the "Bulgarian Bluegrass Sensation!" and a pick-up version of her band "Lilly of the West" performing in Budapest. She sings a lot of bluegrass and country songs in English, but I know all those. Here's a Bulgarian bluegrass tune I hadn't heard:

Lilly Drumeva from Bulgaria (guitar, vocals) performed together with musicians from Slovakia: Lubos Yurkovic (guitar, vocals), Michal Barok (mandolin), Peter Szabados (Dobro), Richard Cifersky (banjo) and Anton Naroda (bass)

Thanks to LillyDrumeva, Bulgaria.

Country music is country music, don't matter which country.

Heh ...

Needless to say, I was researching a subject (cleaning one of my ... antiques from Amsterdam) and of course I had to stumble across this:

...

Investigators say Garcia admitted to setting his own home on fire with a bong.

"While cleaning his bong with rubbing alcohol, he turned the bong over and ignited the rubbing alcohol and decided he was going to set his mobile home on fire,” Bo Nevarez, DASO Investigator, said. “[Garcia] went to the curtains and lit the curtains on fire then went to the children's bedroom."

...

Never been that stoned ...

Note to self: Put cigarette out when cleaning ... antiques.

The Tea Party and Himmler's Black Legion

Omer Bartov lays into Nazi-symp House candidate Rich I(di)ott:

The revelation that Rich Iott, the Republican candidate for the 9th Congressional District seat in Ohio and a Tea Party favorite, has been in the habit of dressing up as a Waffen-SS soldier, is just one more sign of the heroic ignorance that characterizes large sectors of American politicians, the media that covers them, and the public that votes for them. Such monumental ignorance, of truly Wagnerian dimensions, [...] Criminal war and genocide are not a joke, and before one dresses up in the uniform of its military instruments, one should be informed of their deeds.

Freedom is apparently a relative term. The SS fought for a Jew-free Europe; it also disliked the Sinti and Roma (gypsies), blacks, the disabled, homosexuals, Slavs, as well as liberals, democrats, socialists and communists. It was a serious, quite humorless organization, and it never joked about its ideology. Hence, it was deeply involved in the genocide of about 6 million Jews, alongside the mass murder of altogether millions of Roma, Catholic Poles, Soviet citizens and PoWs, gays, inmates of insane asylums, members of trade unions, and so forth. The Soviet Union alone sacrificed about 28 million lives in the struggle against those who allegedly "gave their lives for their loved ones and a basic desire to be free." Under the rule of these freedom-loving SS legionnaires, Europe and possibly much of the rest of the world would have indeed become free of all those who were not healthy and Fuhrer-worshipping Aryans.

[...] Playing at being a Nazi is playing with fire. And political pyromaniacs are a very dangerous lot indeed, perhaps especially when they have no idea of the kinds of demons they may awaken, having sheltered themselves so hermetically from any knowledge of the past.

Note to Iott: you and your moron friends dress up like a Nazi SS outfit and go re-enact the Battle of Stalingrad on location, you fucking idiot, and let's see what happens. You like re-enactments? The old Russians would rush out of their senior citizen homes and tear your Nazi ass to shreds like they did last time.

Related:

Hitler Exhibit Explores a Wider Circle of Guilt

This show, “Hitler and the Germans: Nation and Crime,” opened Friday. It was billed as the first in Germany since the end of World War II to focus exclusively on Adolf Hitler. Germany outlaws public displays of some Nazi symbols, and the curators took care to avoid showing items that appeared to glorify Hitler. His uniforms, for example, remained in storage.

Instead, the show focuses on the society that nurtured and empowered him. It is not the first time historians have argued that Hitler did not corral the Germans as much as the Germans elevated Hitler. But one curator said the message was arguably more vital for Germany now than at any time in the past six decades, as rising nationalism, more open hostility to immigrants and a generational disconnect from the events of the Nazi era have older Germans concerned about repeating the past.

“The only hope for stopping extremists is to isolate them from society so that they are separated, so they do not have a relationship with the bourgeoisie and the other classes,” Mr. Thamer said. “The Nazis were members of high society. This was the dangerous moment.

“This we have to avoid from happening.”

“I think if you had someone like him today, it could be very dangerous,” he said halfway through his walk through the displays about Hitler. “There are a lot of people out there who want jobs, who are not happy with the political leadership, who would vote for someone like him if he came along.”

“This exhibition is about Hitler and the Germans — meaning the social and political and individual processes by which much of the German people became enablers, colluders, co-criminals in the Holocaust,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin. “That this was so is now a mainstream view, rejected only by a small minority of very elderly and deluded people, or the German extreme right-wing fringe. But it took us a while to get there.”

We have farther to fall before we re-learn the lessons of the past. The Germans are way ahead of us on this one. Their first clue was the absolute destruction of their nation. What will our first clue be?

Repug Mean Girls

MoDo

We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.

These women — Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine — have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama. Whether they’re mistreating the help or belittling the president’s manhood, making snide comments about a rival’s hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men’s fashion show, the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold. They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate.

The rest of her column is mostly about Crazy Sharron.

I finally figured out why I don't like Carly Fiorina, besides her abysmal record at Hewlett-Packard that is - she's got the same arrogant I'm-better-than-you-are perma-smirk that Bush did.

The Rage Won’t End on Election Day

Daddy Frank is not optimistic.

That wave of anger began with the parallel 2008 cataclysms of the economy’s collapse and Barack Obama’s ascension. The mood has not subsided since. But in the final stretch of 2010, the radical right’s anger is becoming less focused, more free-floating — more likely to be aimed at “government” in general, whatever the location or officials in charge. The anger is also more likely to claim minorities like gays, Latinos and Muslims as collateral damage. This is a significant and understandable shift, if hardly a salutary one. The mad-as-hell crowd in America, still not seeing any solid economic recovery on the horizon, will lash out at any convenient scapegoat.

Don’t expect the extremism and violence in our politics to subside magically after Election Day — no matter what the results. If Tea Party candidates triumph, they’ll be emboldened. If they lose, the anger and bitterness will grow. The only development that can change this equation is a decisive rescue from our prolonged economic crisis. Not for the first time in history — and not just American history — fear itself is at the root of a rabid outbreak of populist rage against government, minorities and conspiratorial “elites.”

So far neither party has offered a comprehensive antidote to our economic pain. The Democrats have fallen short, and the cynics leading the G.O.P. haven’t so much as tried. We shouldn’t be surprised that this year even a state as seemingly well-mannered as Connecticut has produced a senatorial candidate best known for marching into a wrestling ring to gratuitously kick a man in the groin.

I'm a little more optimistic about the Dems staying in the majority, but not very optimistic about the future of our country as long as the loudmouth fringe right continues to be suckered by their Big Biz masters into thinking we should do things their way and damn the cost to the rest of us.

Sunday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

Kathy Kallick sings "You Took Me Away" from her 2003 CD "Reason & Rhyme". A signature tune of hers and one of my favorites

Nina Gerber - guitar
Herb Pedersen - vocals
Sally Van Meter - dobro
Downtown Cindy Browne - acoustic bass

Video is Brockway Rd. in Truckee , from McIver Rodeo Grounds through rush hour traffic to the Post Office.

Sunday Morning Music Of Faith And Inspiration Blogging

More modern-day gospel featuring the Reverend Tom Pittman and the heavenly sounds of the Austin Lounge Lizards — recorded live @ the Armadillo Xmas Bazaar 08

Austin Lounge Lizards ~ Jesus Loves Me But He Can't Stand You

Thanks to coondogtheman1234.

Saturday Crazy Redneck Music Blogging

Our Songs by The Desert Rose Band - from their 1988 "Running" album - great song with some great lyrics from Chris Hillman - I hope you like it.

Memorable line:

We tried to shape the world
Like a sculptor with one hand

Thanks to nipsterstang.

Seagoing Headline of the Day

Queen Elizabeth cruise ship: An insider's take on Cunard's latest launch

Headline of the Day

Amy Goodman interviews on NPR 'Democracy Now' via Truthout. 'Recommended'.

Backing Prop 19, California NAACP Calls Marijuana Legalization a Civil Rights Issue (Video)

No great loss ...

Got this email from my cable company this morning:

We regret to inform you that News Corp, in an act of corporate greed, has pulled Fox 5 and My9 from your Cablevision channel lineup. This is an unfortunate attempt to extort unreasonable and unfair fee increases from Cablevision and our customers.

...

As long as they don't pull Fox Soccer Channel (the only good Fox network, IMHO), I don't care. The less Fox anything on my TV, the better.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris ~ Guitar Town & Half As Much

Thanks to 1000Magicians, UK.

I got a nice e-mail from 1000Magicians earlier in the week thanking me for my support by putting her uploads on the Brain. Quite the pleasant surprise! I use a lot of her stuff because it's among the absolute best on YouTube that I can snag, so I've sorta been expecting a "cease and desist" order. Heh.

Thank you, Laurie in the UK, for uploading such good Emmylou (and others) clips, particularly her European performances that us gringos wouldn't otherwise get to see.

The Mortgage Morass

Paul Krugman on the recently disclosed mass consumer fraud by alleged mortgage holders:

True to form, the Obama administration’s response has been to oppose any action that might upset the banks, like a temporary moratorium on foreclosures while some of the issues are resolved. Instead, it is asking the banks, very nicely, to behave better and clean up their act. I mean, that’s worked so well in the past, right?

The response from the right is, however, even worse. Republicans in Congress are lying low, but conservative commentators like those at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page have come out dismissing the lack of proper documents as a triviality. In effect, they’re saying that if a bank says it owns your house, we should just take its word. To me, this evokes the days when noblemen felt free to take whatever they wanted, knowing that peasants had no standing in the courts. But then, I suspect that some people regard those as the good old days.

Ah yes, a return to the good old days of droight de seigneur, "the lord's right". There aren't any virgins anymore and the Repugs can't get it up anyway, but your home will do. IOKIYAR.

Feds oppose Calif. Prop 19 to legalize marijuana

Like duh. SacBee:

The Justice Department strongly opposes California's Proposition 19 and remains firmly committed to enforcing the federal Controlled Substances Act in all states, Holder wrote in a letter to former chiefs of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter, dated Wednesday.

"We will vigorously enforce the CSA against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law," Holder wrote.

Yo, Eric dude, yer feds better bring their own food and gas and toilet paper and anything else they might need. When Prop 19 passes, ain't nobody here will sell you any. We're gonna have a 'tea party' that'll knock yer socks off!

And rightly so!

Thanks to the EssEffChron.

The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' Myth

Robert Parry with a 'must read' historical look at why Dems MUST NOT sit out this election.

Tragically, too, the Left’s sideline-sitting contributed to the unnecessary deaths of millions of people in wars from Vietnam and Central America to Iraq and Afghanistan. Arguably even worse, U.S. inaction on global warming – a neglect surely to be continued if Republicans and Tea Partiers are victorious in Election 2010 – may doom the future of a livable planet.

In other words, the “teach-the-Dems-a-lesson” strategy not only doesn’t work, it’s extremely dangerous.

Over the past four decades, the only times when the Left and the governing Democrats have pulled together in a meaningful way were when the Republicans were in power and when that power went to their heads.

Dems don't have the balls to use the power when they have it, and the Repugs get drunk on the power and beat us to death with it.

In selling his policies, Reagan also was aided by a rapidly expanding right-wing news media that was bankrolled to challenge the remnants of the Watergate-era press corps. Meanwhile, the Left largely abandoned the goal of having a national media infrastructure.

How's that working out for us?

To justify spending hundreds of billions of dollars more on U.S. military hardware, Reagan also oversaw the politicization of the CIA’s analytical division so it would exaggerate the Soviet threat in the 1980s. Two decades later, that perversion of U.S. intelligence would help justify the invasion of Iraq with “fixed” analytical reports about non-existent WMDs.

In terms of government personnel, Reagan credentialed a young group of intellectuals and ideologues who became known as the neoconservatives. To justify U.S. interventions abroad, these neocons felt justified in using propaganda techniques to manipulate the American people, herding them like cattle in a desired direction.

Here's the money shot:

It may be a bitter irony that the one major political accomplishment of America’s Green Party will be that it helped condemn the world to environmental disaster. Whether Nader backers acknowledge their complicity or not, the hard truth is that the American Left – in this attempt to “teach the Democrats a lesson” – contributed to the dangerous ascension of George W. Bush to power.

In other words, the Left’s notion of “teaching the Democrats a lesson” is a myth. It may make some progressives feel morally pure, but it doesn’t work. And, the results of the last 42 years should make clear that the idea is not only folly but it is dangerous.

If the pundits are correct and the Democrats go down to a crushing defeat on Nov. 2, the result will not be more progressive legislation but even less; not more spending on green jobs and a rebuilt infrastructure but more neglect; not a strengthening of the middle class but even starker financial inequities and enhanced corporate power; not a reordering of priorities away from the military-industrial complex but more tough-guy foreign policies.

Indeed, some of the more extreme Tea Party-backed candidates have made clear that their ultimate goal is the total repeal of FDR's New Deal. For both governing Democrats and disaffected progressives, the results of Election 2010 could well prove catastrophic.

The choice is yours. To slightly modify what one of our readers said, "Hold your nose and vote Dem or hold your ankles and don't vote."

A vote not cast is a vote for the Repugs. The Repugs are counting on it.

Ear necklace ...

When I was growing up, I was about 5 years too young to get drafted for Vietnam, but all of the kids I hung with had older brothers who went over for a tour or two. I knew a couple guys who didn't come back quite right (looking back at it from an older man's perspective now, I realize they weren't quite right before they left). One of them had a necklace made of ears, 'souvenirs' he took home from the war. Another had other souvenirs, personal possessions (cigarette case, watch, stuff like that) from those he'd dispatched on the field of battle. At 12 and 13, we thought they were cool, tough men of the world. As I got older and began to understand, I became more revolted.

That said, I thought we'd left that problem behind in Vietnam. Not so:

...

The portrait of rogue soldiers at a forward operating base in Afghanistan has been painted by the Army itself in chilling charge sheets leveled at 12 members of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Washington.

Five of the dozen are charged with pre-meditated murder in what investigators call the "staged" killings of three civilian Afghans. Those soldiers and the others face various other charges as well from unlawful use of illicit drugs, possession of a human skull, fingers and leg bones to the assault on Stoner.

Two directives have been sent to military and civilian attorneys representing the Stryker dozen. They involve grisly photos allegedly showing dead bodies and body parts, and soldiers posing as if they had killed a deer on a hunt.

...

As our good pal 'Nucks (from whom I stole the link) says:

... These people are going to come home to us.

God fucking help us ...

I am so fucking glad it's Friday.

I hope you sell a lot of 'em, General

Raw Story

Ex-top soldier: Iraq war ‘fiasco’ due to Rumsfeld’s ‘lies’

The US had no reason to invade Iraq in 2003, and only did so because of "a series of lies" told to the American people by the Bush administration, says Gen. Hugh Shelton, who served for four years as the US's top military officer.

"President Bush and his team got us enmeshed in Iraq based on extraordinarily poor intelligence and a series of lies purporting that we had to protect Americans from Saddam's evil empire because it posed such a threat to our national security," Shelton writes in his memoir.

"Spinning the possible possession of WMDs as a threat to the United States in the way they did is, in my opinion, tantamount to intentionally deceiving the American people," Shelton writes.

Like duh. Gee, General, we knew all this years ago. I mean, thanks, but why wait 'til now?

Shelton's book goes on sale on Friday.

Oh.

"Kosher" is an "entry drug" ...

They get crazier by the day:

...

And just as its a small step from a simple nosh on a kosher hot dog to waking up one morning wearing a yarmulke and sporting newly-grown payots, just tasting one tiny spoonful of halal Campbell’s Soup will have you shouting Allahu Akbar during Monday Night Football and surfing the web for the latest in suicide vest fashions.

...

Anybody know where to buy a prayer rug?

Christ ...

I don't bother ...

To try and talk sense to rabid Republicans anymore. It ain't worth the effort and if they haven't seen the light by now, they never will. That said, sometimes pearls are found among the acorns:

...

To be perfectly honest, I didn't really participate in the conversation all that much. I didn't have to. The two cousins sparred for the better part of the meal and I sat and nodded my head - when I wasn't defending my new "leftist" cousin. Cousin #1 left the restaurant looking defeated and confused, albeit better informed than when he walked in. He conceded nothing, but was forced to admit that the Republican party had turned into a bunch of far right wing extremists and probably more extreme than he was comfortable with.

...

An' a one an' a two an' a 19 an'...

YubaNet

Sacramento, CA October 13, 2010 - Voters looking for help sorting out California's nine ballot propositions have a new tool at their fingertips. "The Proposition Song" is a three-minute, nonpartisan music video now playing on YouTube. The song describes each of the nine measures and the video displays the lyrics to the song while it plays, encouraging viewers to "sing along".

Anybody got the bongo player's phone number? I've got a Proposition for her...

Thanks to kimalex3.

Headline of the Day il due

Cast of Jersey Shore: ‘Carl Paladino Giving Italians a Bad Name’

Wait'll he gets a Speedo...

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor...

TPM

Carly Fiorina: 'Every Speech Should Begin With A Shot Of Tequila' (VIDEO)

Republican Senate nominee Carly Fiorina sure can trill, and both she and gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman seem to be able to hold their liquor*.

Friday night at the Hispanic 100 Lifetime Achievement award dinner, the women -- both former CEOs of Silicon Valley businesses -- were captured on video doing tequila shots and getting into the spirit as a mariachi band played.

*Old punch line: By the ears?

Lightweight! Let's see ya do eight shots and see if ya can hold yer mud on yer talkin' points without throwing up.

And remember, Carly, when ya drop the drape and make wit' the shake, everybody's got a vidcam these days. Heh.

Thanks to JoeNicholsVEVO.

Headline of the Day

When Karl Rove Squeals, You’re Doing Something Right

A little "Dueling Banjos" please, Maestro! Heh.

"Dear Sen. DeMint: Your mom called. She's having some regrets."

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford with a 'must read'.

In my calmer moments of euphoric benevolence, when the wine has opened nicely and the light is streaming in just so, I sometimes find myself awash in unexpected feelings of kindness and generosity aimed in a very unexpected direction.
...

Do you ever feel, that is, a wave of empathy for the various egomaniacal, powermongering doorstops of America, the wonks and politicos, crusaders and congressional chyme, thinking, "Oh you poor, poor thing, there there now, it will all be over soon, you'll be dead in a relatively short time and no one will care anymore about that Very Ridiculous Thing you think is so mandatory to the lifeblood of American ignorance and pain?"

I do. Well, sometimes.

Behold, Sharron Angle, Glenn Beck, Jim DeMint. Behold the endless parade of Tea Party dinkbuttons, Nazis and homophobes and God-fearing yoga haters, oh my.

Note to Mark: Lose the wine, dude. Go straight for the 100-proof vodka and you'll power on down to blessed oblivion right through empathy for the devil so fast you'll never notice it.

What to make of Ohio's very own Republican (of course) congressional candidate and Tea Party nutbunny Rich Iott, who's been dressing up for years in Nazi Waffen SS outfits to participate in wacky little historical re-enactments? Iott says it's all just innocent fun, all for the love of WWII. Sort of like dressing up as a serial rapist just because you like women, eh, Rich?

On Witchy Woman:

What's it like to wake up in her shoebox of panicky fairies every morning? What's it like to be a bar of soap in her lukewarm bath?* Shudder and sigh and wish her well on her demon-haunted path, that's what I try to do.

*Take a well deserved bleach break and go read the rest.

Death From Within!

As the resident VFW member-at-large (our local post is still on the books, but it's deader'n a carp) around here, I see this as a microcosm of the right wing eating its own.

MoJo

They've made it through Tarawa, Chosin, Khe Sanh, Desert Storm, and a whole lot more. But the Veterans of Foreign Wars are waging a new battle for survival this year: They're fending off a mutiny by tea partiers.

"Stand by to repel boarders! Man yer walkers!" Heh.

[...] In all, at least 11 GOP tea party candidates (see a list below) with solid military credentials have been passed over by the VFW, even as it's endorsed incumbents like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and Jesse Jackson Jr. (The VFW's also proven friendly to incumbent conservatives like John McCain, Chuck Grassley, and Joe "You Lie!" Wilson.)

Meanwhile, there are a handful of astroturf right-wing groups, seeded by big conservative money and interests, for vets who've started to endorse the tea partiers—and they stand to gain clout with disaffected VFW members. West's website boasts that he's been "endorsed by Freedom for Vets PAC." (Actually, he meant Vets for Freedom, a PAC run by former soldier and Bear Stearns banker Pete Hegseth that has deep GOP and Swiftboater ties.) Besides Vets for Freedom, there's also Move America Forward, Combat Veterans for Congress, Gathering of Eagles, and others—all ready to cater to the military tea partier. "VFW CONTINUES BAD ENDORSEMENT BINGE," Move America Forward's PAC blog gleefully points out. "Shouldn’t groups like the NRA and VFW give preference to endorsing it's [sic] own members wherever possible?"

Wolf's not ready to defect just yet. While he personally is threatening to leave, "I don't want to see the VFW get broke up," he says, gruffly. And he's not crazy about the alternatives: While he admires Hegseth's group, he takes issue with Vets for Freedom's political stridency and its legislative scorecard. Lilyea agrees, saying VFF's right-wing litmus tests are ridiculous. "They're gonna vote against a good bill that gives funding to veterans because it has some amendment for, I don't know, $4 million for a NAMBLA monument or something," he says, conjuring an extreme example of how VFF caricatures its political opponents.

If that's the alternative, Lilyea says, he hopes the VFW will get out of politics altogether. He likens it to Afghanistan: "I'm not anti-war, but if you're not in it to win the thing, then get the hell out of there." But a withdrawal from the political theater is unlikely until the VFW gets some fresh blood. "Have you seen these guys? These members of the board of the PAC look like they rode with Pershing," he says. "They don't know what's going on."

That 'Pershing' crack is real similar to the attitude a lot of Vietnam vets faced when they tried to join the VFW. A lot of the mostly WWII and Korean vet members, aka "the tailgunners", didn't see Vietnam as a 'real' war and Vietnam vets as 'real' war zone veterans, probably because we lost, and resisted them joining. Cooler heads prevailed as the tailgunners started to die off and membership shrank. Now the Vietnam guys are in the majority and are the dinosaurs to the younger vets.

The VFW is an old-line conservative outfit, but they do a lot for veterans. While I'm not thrilled to have to give them any credit at all for supporting yingyangs like McCain, at least they're resisting the whackjob teabaggers in their midst. It might tear them apart. Again, they do a lot for veterans and in that regard it would be a loss.

As the teabagger shit passes, and it will, they'll probably recover.

I wish Fixer'd join the VFW. I betcha he'd liven up his post's meetings. I'd go to New York just to go to a meeting and watch. Heh.

Quote of the Day

Montag:

Hey President Obama!

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that Judge Virginia Philips of the U.S. District Court in California is more of a man than you and a damn sight better Constitutional scholar.

...

But it's okay ...

If you're a Republican:

...

So, let's be clear about this: Bashing Obama for knowing Illinois politicians or where he went to Church in Chicago or where he was born or being a community organizer, that's OK.

Asking Joe Miller why he is against government handouts when he colluded with is wife so she could file for unemployment assistance or why he takes the state's oil money (him, wife, 8 kids, means they collect $12,810) or why he has six figures of credit card debt or why he availed himself of government-backed student loans, that's not OK.

...

Always.

***

Schedule's all screwed up today. The Mrs. is taking me to work, dropping off the older dog at the vet for a spay procedure. The little one needs shots so she's coming along too. Chooch (the older one) wasn't allowed to eat since last night so we decided the Mrs, would feed the little one when they got back. Then she has to come pick me up to get the older dog after she comes out of anesthesia. Needless to say, neither of the dogs are happy right now. Heh ...

In a sane world ...

Guys like Alan Grayson would be elected in a landslide. In a sane world, guys like 'Taliban Dan' Webster and their associates would have been institutionalized, or, at the least, publicly humiliated into irrelevance.

...

Lovely fellow. I sure hope all those Orlando voters who plan to vote for Webster because he's such a nice Christian man who should never be compared to the evil Muslims enjoy being governed by a good friend of Bryan Fischer.

I remember when there was a time these people would be taken for what they were (at least in this little corner of the world where our local crazy is Carl Paladino), fringe lunatics. As I reach middle age, I'm horrified these people now have a voice in our political discourse.

Neocon College Hijinks.

Interesting story about yet another Bush maladministration fuckup in Iraq.

John Dolan

I Was a Professor at the Horribly Corrupt American University of Iraq... Until the Neocons Fired Me

Horror stories from the graft-ridden American University of Iraq campus in Kurdistan.

There was an even bigger problem with fulfilling our messianic mission: the faculty. We were not an impressive bunch. There were good teachers at AUIS -- I won’t name them, because praise from me might get them fired--but they survived by lying low; being bright and a good teacher made you suspect in a place where center stage was firmly occupied by a clique of loud, provincial rightwing nuts. In this sense, AUIS was an excellent microcosm of the American polity that had produced it: the best lacked all conviction, while the worst (with apologies to Yeats) raked in the cash and talked nonsense.

Successful Profs: Red-State Brown-Nosers with No Qualifikashuns

There was a clear, simple formula for success at AUIS: be a Southern white male Republican with a talent for flattery, an undistinguished academic record, and very little experience in university-level teaching.

The American who boiled over was a strange little fello-- a hollow-eyed fanatic, one of those tenth-generation Calvinists who can’t help meddling in everyone else’s business. And what he hated most, naturally, was … free, independent women.

I felt the same mental confusion as when the HR director told us to keep any Jewishness to ourselves. Had Natali actually said that it was the rape victim’s own fault, and that any other woman who dressed immodestly deserved to get the same treatment? I remember hesitating to believe what I was hearing. I grew up in Berkeley, where you assume the world would end if anyone said such things out loud. But she was saying them, repeating them in the same crazy shriek, and everybody was taking her very seriously, or pretending to.

“[W]hen we in and out of the academy complain that our students are being indoctrinated rather than educated, our main examples all seem to come from areas like … English departments or, God help us, in the various sub-departmental “studies” -- Women’s, Gay, Chicano, and so on.”

Maybe Agresto enjoyed using the jargon of those “God help us” fields he despises to accuse me of “racism” toward white Americans, or maybe he’s just too stupid to see the contradiction between his scorn for the leftist critique and his eager use of it to quash a heretic. As always when dealing with the American Right, it’s difficult to say where stupidity gives way to malice, if indeed the distinction can be made at all.

The neocons have the 'Reverse Midas Touch' - everything they touch turns to shit, and they are still in charge in far too many areas. One is too many.

Stoners against Prop 19? Say whaaaat...

Good article at AlterNet, many links:

The Prop. 19 Battle Lines Are Drawn: Will Californians Make the Right Decision and Vote to Legalize Pot?

List of 'pro' outfits, shorter list of 'anti' ones.

The opposition so far has been relatively low profile -- because it doesn't have any money. [...]

Good.

[...] There is an additional fillip of conspiracy-tinged fears that Prop 19 will lead to a corporate takeover of the pot industry. Left unspoken is the economic self-interest of growers and dispensary operators.

None of those are reasons not to pass it.

Tensions boiled over during a debate last weekend at the Cow Palace in San Francisco during the International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, a pot industry trade show. Medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee, the primary motivating force behind Prop 19, was subjected to loud heckling and shouting as he attempted to explain why pot people should vote for the initiative. A disgusted Lee finally rolled away in his wheelchair, leaving Conrad to carry on.

Nevertheless, Conrad sees the "Stoners Against Prop 19" types more as a distraction than as serious opposition. "I don't think they're that important, really," he said. "We have some serious opposition, and we're waiting for those ads to come out, we're waiting for the school bus full of children with the stoned driver. We're more worried about that kind of opposition in the works than we are by these people."

"What's not so clear is whether local governments might not have more power to tax, regulate, and potentially ban medical marijuana collectives," said CANORML's Gieringer. "The initiative gives very strong authority to local governments to do such things. It's not clear what their authority is now. Many patients feel that, under current law, local governments have to accept collectives and maybe dispensaries. My reading is that that is not required by Prop 215, but might arguably be required by SB 420. But SB 420 is a statute and can be changed by the legislature at any time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start tinkering around next year regardless of Prop 19. But the stronger the vote Prop 19 gets, the stronger the position of both patients and other users next year."

On November 3, regardless of the intricacies of the arguments over Prop 19, the rest of the world is going to wake up to a headline from California. Is it going to be "California Legalizes Marijuana" or is it going to be "California Rejects Marijuana Legalization?" California voters have 27 days to decide.

I'm going for the Nov. 3 trifecta - Brown, Boxer, and legal mota!

We need government ...

And D-cap explains why:

...

We could argue the merits of a large and sprawling public works - managed by a large and sprawling bureaucracy. We can also argue the problems and pitfalls of the nanny state and an over-reaching legislature.

What we can't argue is that the underlying premise of government is to keep order,civility and provide for a safe and secure country. That safety and security is not limited to fighting useless wars and preventing those nasty turrorists from flattening buildings. It also includes the simple things like putting out fires and protecting citizens with adequate public health.

...

The folks who don't want government are the first to bitch when their house gets flooded, or when their beaches are polluted, or when the roads are impassible and want "somebody from the government there now". They wanna see the President come to share their pain and tell 'em "everything's gonna be all right". They just don't wanna pay for it.

I gotta ask my boss ...

If I run his business into the ground, force him to take loans and charity to get by, do I get a bonus at the end of the year?

And quite frankly, why not? Who has done more to help the global economy rebound than Wall Street? If ever there was a group of people who fully appreciated their role in a global crisis that will drag on for years, it's Big Finance.

...

Methinks I'm in the wrong business.

NY Nutz ...

Teabagger candidate for NY Governor, Carl Paladino, has spent the last 3 weeks saying stupid shit and then walking it back. This weekend didn't break his routine:

Is there some unspoken competition within the Teabagger candidates’ club for the title of “His/Her Royal Heinous”? Because if there is, I’m putting my money on New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino to walk off with the crown.

...

It was only a matter of minutes before Paladino had to explain away his latest outrageously offensive comments. He took to the broadcast airwaves this morning, where he tried to spin himself out of the hole he’d dug.

...

If Cuomo loses, it'll be his own fault.

Headline of the Day

Raw Story, with a video you should watch. Puke first to save your keyboard.

California shooter says he saw Glenn Beck as ‘schoolteacher’

An awful lot of Miss Becky's and the fringie wingnuts' True Believers are a taco short of a combination plate, but they're not short on ammo.

Marijuana, Once Divisive, Brings Some Families Closer

NYTimes

To the rites of middle-age passage, some families are adding another: buying marijuana for aging parents.

Florence, 89, an artist who lives in New York, smokes mainly for relief from her spinal stenosis — usually one or two puffs before going to sleep, she said. She buys her pipes through an online shop and gets her marijuana from her daughter, Loren, who is 65.

“A person brings it to me,” said Loren, who uses marijuana recreationally. “I’m not out on a street corner.” Florence said that she had told all of her doctors that she was using marijuana, and that none had ever discouraged her or warned of interactions with her prescription drugs, including painkillers.

“I think I’ve influenced my own physician on the subject,” she said. “She came to me and asked me for some for another patient.”

I knew some kids whose parents smoked weed, and they grew up thinking it was something old folks did so they didn't do it. They're grown now and have wised up.

I like to lump myself in with old folks who are smart. The circle has come around, and old folks vote. I think California is going to have legal weed come November.

Related: The view from Canuckistan.

Going its own way as only California can, an otherwise grumpy left-coast electorate is clearly tilted toward outright legalization on Nov. 2. But good luck sorting the yeas and nays.

On the Yes side you’ll find everyone from doctors to lawyers to Facebook founders to the state’s largest public service union. And plenty of retired drug warriors, who no longer see weed as a demon worthy of the fight. Even some Tea Partiers bidding to end prohibition in the spirit of government-shrinking libertarianism. For many, the argument that ‘if you can’t beat it, tax it’ is the glue that binds in a time of extreme budget crisis.

The Nos, meanwhile, are lined up in a mismatch worthy of Monty Python. Here you will find old-school Reefer Madness rejectionists shoulder to shoulder with ethically challenged pot farmers and the cops who would jail them — all agitating for the status quo of more war, albeit for starkly different reasons. Soccer moms, polls show, worry the ballot initiative known as Proposition 19 will bring proliferation. Beer breweries worry about market share. Small-time growers and cartels alike worry about the taxman.

Whatever happens, a substantial legal battle seems like in the event of a Yes vote — one which could involve the Obama administration, which has yet to signal how it will respond to California taking a legalized leap on what remains classified a Schedule 1 controlled substance under federal law.

“I don’t see the feds coming in with guns blazing. Even under George W. Bush there was only one single tokenistic raid in Humboldt County,” said Hoover, the Arcata publisher.

“But the fact right now is we’ve got these four sets of laws — federal, state, county and city — none of which agree. And if we can change to remove the faux medical mantle over it, great. When you have guys in leather baseball hats running around saying, ‘Yo, I’m a medical care provider, dude,’ you just shake your head. We can do better.”

Yes We Can! Wow, déjà vu all over again...

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

OBAMA INSTALLS SOLAR PANELS ON ROOF OF WHITE HOUSE
Despite fierce Republican opposiiton.

Iraq Says it Now Has World's 2nd Largest Oil Reserve
U.S. stops withdrawing troops.

Dow Over 11,000 for First Time Since May
Roll over and tell the guy in the next cardboard box.

Sex Survey: Most Women Fake Orgasm
But sincerely enjoy dinner that preceded it.

More disconnect ...

From Jill:

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So let's see...they like Social Security and Medicare, but they want spending cut to the bone. They want Washington to be involved in schools, but they want Washington out of their schools. They want Washington to help reduce poverty, but they don't want social programs for "Those People."

...

We are so fucked in addition to it being Monday ...

This is how an empire dies. And we are going to be around to see it.

Unfortunately.

Disconnect ...

I don't get these people, but then, I don't get much about America in the 21st Century:

Toon stolen from our pal Creature. Click = Big.

Thanks ...

Sometime in the past couple days, we got our half-millionth hit. Thank you all very much. In the Big Scheme Of Things, it ain't much, but in our little scheme, it's a great milestone.

Thanks again.

Frisco Fleet Week

Article and photos in the EssEffChron.

Lt. Col. David Mayhan of Foster City brought his family up to get a look at the machinery he rarely gets to see as a Marine reservist stationed in San Bruno.

His 8-year-old daughter Megan peered into a high-tech sardine can that swims at a speed of 6 knots or travels on land with two dozen Marines wedged inside for hours at a time, knees interlocked, en route to combat.

After having a look, Megan decided she'd rather be a kindergarten teacher than a Marine.

"It smells weird, like oil," she said. "And it's dark."

Maybe it's just me, but dark and smelling like oil sounds like it beats the shit outta a roomful of kids who smell like, well, kids who are trying to give you a cold for nine months of the year. To each his own.

The photo gallery placed way too much emphasis on aviation. Some nice shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin Headlands, and an inflatable Marine (aren't we all?).

The centerpiece of Fleet Week should arguably be USS Makin Island (LHD 8) so I went and scrounged a photo for you. Here she is transiting the Straits Of Magellan:

Sunday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

Tony and Larry Rice, Chris Hillman, and Herb Pedersen do "Hard Times" from their 1997 album "Out Of The Woodwork".

Chris Hillman on lead vocal. Some absolutely lovely flatpickin' and dobro work by Tony Rice and Jerry Douglas, two of the very best.

Video is northbound on CA SR 267 from Northstar Drive across Martis Valley to Truckee Airport Road. I was catchin' all the lights!

Facebook Politicians Are Not Your Friends

Daddy Frank on social networking in politics:

Sometimes I wonder if the most “real” candidate this year is the one most derided by Democrats, Republicans, the news media and late-night comics alike: Alvin Greene, a 33-year-old previously unknown military veteran who won the Democratic senatorial primary in South Carolina with 59 percent of the vote over a Charleston city councilman. Greene achieved his victory without giving any speeches, raising any money or stating any positions. As soon as he won, even South Carolina Democrats said his candidacy was a Republican prank. The most incriminating piece of evidence was the fact that he doesn’t own a computer.

As it turned out, Greene’s résumé actually is more authentic than those of O’Donnell, Blumenthal, Quayle and Kirk. He really is who he said he is — a genuine nobody with no apparent political views. That he drew 100,000 votes — more than three times O’Donnell’s tally in her Delaware victory — leaves you wondering if he’d have a shot at the presidency had he only been on Facebook.

Dingo Fence ...

They got one in Australia so I'm making my own.

The dogs sleep in my office, which adjoins our bedroom through an open arch. Over the past couple nights, the dingoes have decided they'd like to sleep in our bed with us. Not happening. So, since yesterday, I've been building a gate/fence to separate the rooms but still allowing sight lines, hence my absence here lately. Hopefully I'll be done this afternoon.

Update:

F-man's Dingo Fence w/Dingo:

Chooch: "Dad, I could begin to take this personally."

I got some detail work to do and then paint it, but it's operational as of now. Heh ...