Arschloch ...

Tell us something we didn't know*:

...

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, of course, had a head start. After being ousted from office in 2005 by Angela Merkel, Schröder immediately set to work penning his memoirs, a document called " Decisions: My Life in Politics" which, when it came out in 2006, was not particularly complimentary towards US President George W. Bush.

He said Bush used "almost Biblical semantics" and, in reference to the US president's repeated mentions of his faith, wrote: "The problem begins when the impression is created that political decisions are a result of this conversation with God."

On Tuesday, the day that Bush's own presidential memoirs, "Decision Points," finally hit the shelves, Schröder went even further. "The former American president is not telling the truth," he said on Tuesday in Berlin.

...

Ya think?

...

Schröder isn't the only one this week to have cast doubt on the veracity of Bush's book. British officials have rejected the former president's assertion that waterboarding, an interrogation method considered to be torture, led to information which "helped break up plots to attack American diplomatic facilities abroad, Heathrow airport, and Canary Wharf in London, and multiple targets in the United States." The line is a reference to the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US. [my ems]

...

So, we have world leaders and statesmen calling him a liar and he admitted to being a war criminal in his book. Can we take him away now?

And on a related item: Fuck you, Jon Stewart.

Thanks to Chris for the link.

See what happens ...

When Gordon goes* to the All-You-Can-Eat-Burrito-Nite? Heh ...

*Either that or it was me during the night after my German "soul food" Veterans Day dinner with Mrs. F and the Widow Harrington.

Tip o' the Brain to Ol' Fez.

Today ...

Stays on top today. What Fixer said. - G

Remember the people who've put their lives on the line, past, present, and, with all certainty, future. Too many have left parts, or all, of themselves on battlefields around the world, doing what they do at the behest of politicians who respect neither their service nor their lives.

Whether the cause is just or not, it is not for them to judge. When you take an oath, especially in a volunteer army, to defend our nation, you agree to give your life to preserve the principles and ideals that made this country great and unique. You hope those above you will not waste or misuse it.

To my brothers and sisters in arms, who have served and are on the front lines now, I doff my cap and raise a toast. Thanks for being there with me when I did my thing, thanks to all those who came before, and a prayer for those who are looking over the barrels of their rifles now.

The flip side of Veterans Day

You hope those above you will not waste or misuse it. - Fixer

I appreciate thanks for my service from other Veterans and some other folks as well, but I come from a time when there were signs that said "Dogs and Marines keep off the lawn", when military service was reviled or at best ignored, and frankly I think the Repug militarism that has made people thank us now is a crock of shit. I have told people "Bullshit. Where were you forty years ago when thanks might have mattered?" and it shocks them, shocks them I say! Maybe I'm just an irascible old fart, or maybe I see hypocrisy under color of 'patriotism'.

Vietnam was less of a criminal act than Bush's War For Iraq's Oil. The difference now is that nobody blames the troopers for it or for going where their overlords send them. I suppose that's a good thing.

Here's the last coupla verses from Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy". He knew.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

You fuckin' well bet Tommy sees. He sees a country that begrudges him anything after he's no longer in service, that wants to privatize and charge him for medical care, that sees a vet living under a bridge from PTSD and claims he has a 'pre-existing personality defect' that his own service used to deny him benefits and help, that tries to rip off his death benefits from his family, that offers him a GI Bill and puts up obstacles to keep him from getting his lawful due, that employers think he's a mental case and won't hire him, that throws him away like so much trash when he's no longer of use to the Military Industrial Complex. In short, "no pull trigger, no get food".

Lip service. When all is said and done about Veterans, more's been said than done.

That said, I got my Veterans' benefits at a time when there was no concentrated demand for them and the VA was struggling to find enough Vets who needed them to stay in some other business besides geriatrics. Now that there's a huge surge in demand it's all about begrudging spending the money and our nation and Vets are the poorer for it.

DADT: Absurd from the Start

The Rude Pundit

Hey, kids, it's Veterans' Day, and what better way is there to celebrate than to fuck a soldier in the foxhole? Or at least that's the ongoing hilarious queer fear that's pervading the conversation over finally putting a bullet in the back of the skull of Don't Ask Don't Tell. The public and members of the military tell pollsters, in large majorities, either "Okey-dokey" or "Who gives a happy monkey fuck?" when asked if they think gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the armed services. So, of course, it looks like Democrats are gonna cave to the last people in America who still think Sgt. Joey Sissypants is gonna get rapey in the barracks with his troops or conjuring a lip-licking bull dyke who stands in the women's shower and thinks, "Smorgasbord."

An account of some Congressional lip-flapping that will make you shake your head at its ridiculousness ensues.

You know what would honor veterans today? To treat soldiers like grown-ups.

Unlike McCain and his ilk, who should be treated like the throwbacks they are. Perhaps it's just that their drool buckets and Depends need changing.

Dear Tea Party: You are hereby wonderfully, thoroughly screwed.

If it's Thursday, it musta been Morford yesterday:

To all of you who either flip-flopped your wishy-washy ideals and switched your vote from bluish to reddish this past election because Obama and the lukewarm Dems failed to solve all world problems in 700 days, or because you got yourself so emotionally riled up/mentally watered down by the sexy caveman grunts of the Tea Party that you actually bought the BS line about being "mad as hell" about nothing even remotely coherent.

Here is your grand message: You are hereby wonderfully, thoroughly screwed.

Oh darling, it's so very true. The fun-filled news is, despite all the bluster and rhetoric, thinly veiled racism and rampant Islamophobia on display, the new army of jittery, anti-everything GOP bobbleheads that you just voted into office doesn't care a single iota about you, or your haphazard values, or what you sometimes occasionally stand for. And what's more, deep down, you secretly know it.

You don't have to believe me. Just wait until nothing at all is done to service the Tea Party non-agenda, because it's ridiculous and impossible to service. Just wait until you note how there is no actual shrinking of government, no restoring some bogus sepia-toned idealism that never existed, no saving of your job. There is, of course, but one GOP agenda: furthering their personal stranglehold on all things powermad and avaricious.

But truly, the issues themselves don't matter. For what Boehner & Co value most is not so much making any sort of significant change in American culture, but rather, in keeping the anger, the dread, the paranoia alive.

In other words, they care most about keeping you in the lower, plebian castes all riled and blind as long as possible. This way, power lies. This way we find war and military expenditure and all manner of misprision, torture, environmental rape, WMD and homophobia, you name it. Just ask Karl Rove. Hey, it's a platform. It worked for Dubya. Well, sort of.

Let's be perfectly clear: The modern Republican party has one masterful, godlike skill unmatched by any other org in this century: Its leaders are geniuses at deceit, at leading throngs of blind believers into rabbit holes of war and fear and factual inaccuracy, often using an aggressively dumbed-down form of Christianity as a trump card. Sexual dread, mistrust of youth, of women, of gays, foreigners, of the ever-changing cultural landscape? It's in the DNA. And the Tea Party chugged it like Coors-flavored heroin.

And the Dems? The Dems wish they could be that masterful. Progressives are just terribly weak in fearmongering. There is something about the liberal spirit that values independent thought and self-determination, that defies screaming eye-glazed megachurch groupthink dread. This makes it tough to hold power for very long. It's so much easier to rally around sameness, conformity, institution, fear of the Other. Right, Karl?

Proof? Look no further than the GOP's leaders and mouthpieces: Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, O'Reilly and Fox News and even newly minted Senate demigod Mitch McConnell, et al. There are almost no liberal equivalents to these professional liars, warmongers, kingmakers and overlords. In the category of media and message manipulation, the libs have proven disastrous.

More.

Note to the teabaggers: You just shot your own foot off because you had an ingrown toenail. Fine. Trouble is, you shot everybody's foot off. Maybe you'll find out you were worked like a redheaded stepchild, maybe you won't, but we all have to live with your mistake, you fuckin' idiots.

Marine Corps Birthday...Ready...Two

Following up on the post just below this one, the Birthday dinner was terrific. I didn't know anyone when I got there, but I did when I left. One of my table mates was a Captain in 10th Marines (artillery). He was at Camp Lejeune when I was there and went on a Med cruise with my old outfit, 3/8, a year or so before I got there. Neither of us had met anybody else that had been to Vieques so we had a lot to talk about. That was brought home by Mrs. G when I noticed I was the last one eating - "Well of course you are! You haven't shut up since the food got here!". Heh.

Dinner was soup, salad, rolls, a humungoid ribeye done perfectly to my specs ("Tear off its horns, wipe its ass, and walk it through a warm room!"), baked potato (the finest butter/sour cream/chives delivery system known to man), and some veggies that were a little too al dente for my no dente. It was excellent. And of course, a piece of birthday cake.

Following tradition, the first and second piece of cake go to the oldest and youngest Marine present. Here they cut it together with a very nice cake knife:

Click to embiggen

The gent on the left enlisted in 1942 and spent WWII in the Solomon Islands (Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Vella Lavella, etc.) as a ground crew chief in the Marine Air Wing.

The younger gent enlisted in 2001 and did a tour each in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tradition was served. The older generation symbolically handed down the tribal memory to the younger.

Me 'n Mrs. G had a great time and will be back next year.

As an afterthought, I didn't notice the blonde in the blue dress until I downloaded the photo. I'll definitely be back next year!

Marine Corps Birthday

Today is the 235th birthday of the Marine Corps. I have decided I'm not going to be able to improve on the post I wrote in 2005. Please go read "The Birthday Ball".

This Message from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen James F. Amos, and the Sergeant Major of The Marine Corps, SgtMaj Carlton W. Kent, marks the 235th birthday of the United States Marine Corps.

Please notice that the new Commandant (who has already tripped over his dick on DADT. Heh.) and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps are delivering their message from our masthead photo at 1:37. You're welcome and it is our pleasure, gentlemen.

Of note in the video:

The custom is that a person is considered to be a Marine upon completion of boot camp. Pvt. Hector Cafferata was in a reserve unit which was activated and sent to Korea before he had a chance to do that. I think he qualifies as a Marine anyway.

Lt. Chew-Een Lee was just a fightin' m**********r who could yell at the Chinese in their own language.

Thanks to JMFiorato1986.

I'm going to a Birthday Dinner this evening at the Sierra Valley Lodge up in Calpine (ePodunk), which is where people go to get away from the hustle and bustle of our Big City of 14,000 people. Sierra County has so few people that it doesn't even have its own jail.

If I'm back at this pop stand tomorrow, it went well.

Semper Fi.

"Us hate truth."

Go read Joe Wilson on Bush's new book.

My expectations for truthful revelation in Bush's book, after his comment, were naturally low. I have not been disappointed. In fact, Deception Points might have been a more appropriate title.

I think that's becoming the generally accepted opinion.

The president appears in this book to live in Htrae, the Bizarro world of DC Comics where society is ruled by the code that "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" To that might be added: Us hate truth

The Chimp'll sell a million copies of his self-serving tripe. To journalists and pundits on both sides who will either consider it proof of his greatness or to debunk his criminal chimpness.

Palin's a hole-y warrior

Will Bunch

Yesterday afternoon, Sarah Palin showed up at a Christian school in a Philadelphia exurbs bearing sugar cookies. By the time she left night, the former governor and possible would-be 45th president of the United States had launched nothing less than a holy war for the nation's political future.

Most people in the media paid more attention to the cookies.

And rightly so. She's done the most damage to this country that is conceivably possible in the longest fifteen minutes of fame in recorded history. I hope her fifteen minutes is about up.

The Twit 'fesses up

Think Progress

Tucker Carlson Sent Insulting E-mails To Philadelphia Columnist While Posing As Keith Olbermann

After MSNBC host Keith Olbermann was briefly suspended for making campaign donations to three Democrats, Philadelphia Daily News Stu Bykofsky columnist wrote a piece about the controversy. Bykofsky sought comment from Olbermann, e-mailing the address keith@keitholbermann.com. Shortly after publishing his column, he receieved a reply. The e-mail, claming to be from Olbermann, insulted Bykofsky, calling him “pathetic” and “beneath contempt.” It went on to insult MSNBC chief Phil Griffin, saying that he isn’t “intellectually qualified” to be Olbermann’s boss. Here is the reply in its entirety:

Ooh! Not nice!

Yet Yahoo News soon discovered that the e-mails were not from Olbermann at all. In a statement given to the site, MSNBC confirmed that the e-mails were not from their host. “Mr. Bykofsky has been, I would suggest, hoist on his own petard,” Olbermann told Yahoo News.

So who was replying from the address keith@keitholbermann.com? Yahoo News’s Michael Calderone reported this past summer that Tucker Carlson, the editor-in-chief of the conservative blog The Daily Caller, purchased the address. “We want to be the Keith Olbermann superstore,” Carlson said at the time. “We want to be your first and last stop for Keith Olbermann analysis.” In a phone interview with Carlson Tuesday night, Yahoo News confirmed with Carlson that he was behind the emails. “Could you resist?” Carlson told them. “It was just too funny. The flesh is weak.”

Ah, but the void between his ears is strong.

Carlson’s juvenile attacks do not reflect well on The Daily Caller. At the time of the Caller’s launch, Carlson wrote that it is “primarily a news site. We see our core job as straightforward: Find out what’s happening and tell you about it. We plan to be accurate, both in the facts we assert and in the conclusions we imply. If we’re not, tell us. We’ll fix it immediately.” One has to wonder how Carlson plans to fix his latest act of deception.

Fuck him. He's slid from being resident wingnut asshole understudy to Bob Novak at CNN to being the editor of a blog nobody's ever heard of. Not much of a job to get fired from and he's his own boss, but I hope he does the right thing for once in his pathetic life and fires himself. As a 'journalist', The Twit's career has already peaked with his appearance on 'Dancing With The Stars'. The bottom's not much farther, and this incident will hopefully be the final push he deserves.

Update:

Just for fun, go sample the comments on this post at HuffPo.

Christie got 'car service' on our dime

Raw Story

Caught: Justice Department probes GOP governor for lavish spending on cars, hotels

The Republican governor of New Jersey spent big money on luxury hotels without proper justification, a new Justice Department report reveals.

The Justice Department's inspector general also found that Christie had "excessive" charges for travel. In the two trips to London and Boston cited, the governor spent $798 on car service.

If bobbers in the limo qualify as 'car service', I got no problem with it if next time, Christie, you get two blow jobs and give me one of 'em.

This is the same asshole who raised taxes, including seniors' property taxes, and cut state funding to a variety of things including education. Don't you dare run for President on 'cut taxes', dickhead. Never mind. You will.

We all know that taxes are going to go through the roof one of these days, and government spending needs to be sharply reduced, and it's Repug liars like this one who caused it. They'll just blame Democrats.

A Few Random Observations Regarding the Re-Emergence of George W. Bush

By The Rude Pundit:

But, seriously, there's gotta be some dark shit in there, where you're eyeballs deep in a pile of Bolivian blow in some rathole motel in Nuevo Laredo, cutting yourself with the shattered remains of a bottle of Jack Daniels you just polished off, getting your asshole eaten out by an old Mexican whore while jacking off on a picture of your mom, screaming, "I got your pearl necklace, Mother, I got it right here." That's a fuckin' drinking story.

4. You write about 9/11, "We were going to find out who did this, and kick their ass." How'd that work out?

5. Fuck you. Fuck your bullshit justifications. We were there. Some of us know what really happened. So fuck your impenetrable clusterfuck rationalizing, your tautology of excuses. You're pissed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, but you doesn't regret the war. You actually come across convinced of your lies, and now your former employees are out there making sure that you are remembered as the guy who took tough, decisive action when it was necessary. And even if that's true, taking action doesn't mean that you did the right thing. You can firmly say, "Here's the road we're traveling on." Doesn't mean that it ain't the road to the mine field and sodomy pit. The failure to admit that is the damnation we all have to deal with. But your lackeys want us all to just get over it and move on.

You can smooth those edges, W. The hole you left, though, well, we'll all be long gone before we see if it ever closes.

Bush needs a long time in a small barred room to ponder the wrong he has done without any ameliorating influences.

And to quote The Rude One: Fuck you, Bush, you lyin' sack of elite shit.

What the Democrats can learn from California

Dante Atkins at Kos:

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Not this year. This was the year that Democrats had a gubernatorial nominee in Jerry Brown who was too old and disconnected to be able to appeal to the Democratic base that he would need. This was the year that Meg Whitman would absolutely overwhelm the market with her unlimited personal fortune and allow the other Republicans not to have to worry about resources. This was year that Barbara Boxer was supposed to get her stiffest challenge yet from a "moderate Republican" in Carly Fiorina who would be able to peel off the women that Boxer needed to win re-election in an uphill environment. The year that there wouldn't be any way for Democrats to hold the office of attorney general because they had nominated a multiracial woman from San Francisco to run for the top law enforcement office in the state. The year where we could have also lost the spot of lieutenant governor because we had a supposedly polarizing figure in Gavin Newsom going up against a "moderate" Republican Latino, Abel Maldonado.

None of it happened. The statewide races were all routs, with the exception of the attorney general's race, where Harris has for most of the counting held a sliver of a lead. So the question is...why did the red tidal wave halt at the Sierra Nevadas? And how can Democrats elsewhere take advantage?

Why did the red tidal wave halt at the Sierra Nevadas?

Because I'm standing here, silly. Heh. Oh, and it's Sierra Nevada.

And how can Democrats elsewhere take advantage?

Don't waste your breath.

More.

Quote of the Day

From "Negotiating with Nutjobs":

In the witty 1966 classic cult film King of Hearts, a British soldier shows up in a French village run by lunatics after they'd escaped from the local insane asylum as the German Army retreated. Given the number of electoral victories by crazies in the mid-term elections, President Barack Obama might learn more from watching this movie than listening to all the talking heads in Washington.

Headline of the Day

Were American Voters Victims of the Stockholm Syndrome in 2010?

Oops...

Following up on Fixer's post, boy, when the cruise ship engine failed, it was spectacular! Musta filled up from the wrong pump. Heh.

Via Raw Story. Video from NOLINKNEWS.

Missile contrails from Vandenberg AFB were a fairly common sight in L.A. years ago. The best ones were the ones that went crazy, followed shortly by a lovely explosion!

Update:

Note to Chinese/North Korean/Iranian submarine designers: Don't put the button for jettisoning the garbage next to the one for the missiles. It confuses the mess cooks.

Thought on my first cup of coffee

The Chimp oughta call his book "Burger King" 'cuz it's the home of the whopper.

Cruise suckage ...

As most of the regulars around here know, I've had some SNAFUs when on cruises, having to blow off ports because of weather, getting shanghaied by the U.S. Coast Guard for rescue duty, going through Force 9 gales at sea, diverting thanks to a sick passenger, but those all pale when you're stuck on a dead ship:

An engine room fire that began early this morning on board CARNIVAL SPLENDOR has been extinguished but the ship remains without engine power while emergency generators are in use for ships’ services.

The 113,000-ton CARNIVAL SPLENDOR was on the first leg of a seven day cruise from Long Beach, CA and remains drifting approximately 55 miles west of Punta San Jacinto, Mexico with 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members on board.

...

I can happily say that (after 20 years and 30-odd cruises) I've never been on one that had to get towed in.

Government is too big!

Oh ... wait:

darrell issa plans on running up the deficit

by planning hundreds of hearings, investigations and creating oversight committees. aren't the rethugs complaining on how much the government is spending? yet, it's ok to splurge on these unwarranted "investigations" into things that are only in their imagination. how much of the taxpayers money did kenneth starr use to find out that *gasp* president clinton had a consentual affair with an intern?

...

We're gonna party like it's 1994!

Stay out of "God's" way ...

And you won't get run over. Continuing our downward spiral into Third World Toiletry:

...

Of course. These Master of the Universe are the producers, the people who make this nation's wealth so that parasites won't starve. They can't be held to the same silly standards of behavior to which the rest of us are held -- if they have to take something as prosaic as "risk" into account, the whole system will break down. And if these Very Superior People (also known as "Gods") are kept down by some bourgeois notions of "personal responsibility" it will be the poor who end up paying the price because there won't be any small change available to help the unfortunates they runs over with their Bentleys.

...

The rules are different for the filthy rich.

Boehner will fail

Kos, in of all places, The Christian Science Monitor.

Republicans didn't sweep these elections for grand ideological reasons, but because not enough of the Democratic base showed up to vote. Exit polls also show that angry voters who flocked to Republicans will end up disappointed in their actual policies. And in 2012, Democrats will be ready.

Think so, huh? Democrats? Ready? With the balls to take advantage of a political gimme if it pisses off the Repugs? That'll be the day.

He's ba-ack!

Fixer predicted that K.O. would be back on the air today. Pretty close!

Thanks to MOXNEWSd0tCOM.

It just goes ta show ya that if you violate company policy by donating to Democratic candidates without approval and get into a pissin' contest with management by refusing to apologize on air, that if you're making enough money for one of the largest companies in the Military Industrial Complex you get a well-deserved long weekend as punishment.

The 250,000+ protest signatures probly didn't hurt.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

I saw this on Austin City Limits last night and just had to share with the rest of you godless commies:

From Austin City Limits (2010) Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers perform his original a capella "gospel" tune for the non-believers among us.

Thanks to 9firefly9.

Bush Publishes 'I Can Has Prezidensy'

Borowitz via YubaNet

Bush's memoir is a quick read, since 95% of it has been redacted by Dick Cheney

The Chimp can have his people un-redact it shortly. The word on the street is that The Dick is going to run out of unicorn blood and die pretty soon since his people didn't find any in Iraq.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

World's Largest Statue of Jesus Being Erected in Poland
Polish Catholics, pigeons rejoice.

Rare Picture of Henry VIII’s Lost Palace for Sale by Christie’s
Unfortunately, most potential bidders spent their money on Tea Party candidates.

Bush Memoir: He Considered Dumping Cheney in '04
But feared being shot in the face.

I don't believe anything Bush says. Period. Anyway, Cheney would never have given him permission to do that.

REMINDER

The rich people have spoken.

Painting ...

My Dingo Fence project of a couple weeks ago has turned into a repaint of the master bedroom. Back later ...

Update:

Just came in with the dogs. So much for Autumn, Winter's here. Getting our first snow of the season.

Sunday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

Michael Nesmith wrote and sings "Propinquity (I've Just Begun To Care)" with The First National Band from their 1971 album "Nevada Fighter".

Video is southbound on CA SR 267 across Martis Valley and just past Northstar ski area.

From the Wiki link:

Nesmith has been considered one of the pioneers of country-rock (along with Gram Parsons) and had moderate commercial success with the First National Band.
...

...the albums they recorded remain on par with the Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco and New Riders of the Purple Sage as some of the best country-rock music.

Update:

Due to this material being owned by Sony (who knew?!), my little homemade vid has attracted the attention of the world and is blocked in Germany. Their loss...

I knew something like this would happen eventually and that is why I try to stick with artists who like to have their work shown and I have the e-mails to prove it.

An Open Letter to the White Right, On the Occasion of Your Recent, Successful Temper Tantrum

Great rant by Tim Wise as he tells the racists what's coming:

For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.

And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor.

Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this…

You need to drink up.

And quickly.

And heavily.

Because your time is limited.

In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won’t be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart.

It’s OK. Because in about forty years, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it.

Nothing, Senõr Tancredo.

Nothing, Senõra Angle, or Senõra Brewer, or Senõr Beck.

Loy tiene muy mal, hijo de Puta.

And I do not mean by that your physical destruction. We don’t play those games. We’re not into the whole “Second Amendment remedies, militia, armed resistance” bullshit that your side fetishizes, cuz, see, we don’t have to be. We don’t need guns.

We just have to be patient.

And wait for you to pass into that good night, first politically, and then, well…

Do you hear it?

The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently?

Because I do, and the sound of its demise is beautiful.

So know this.

If you thought this election was payback for 2008, remember…

Payback, thy name is…

Temporary.

Do not miss the rest of this one!

B.O. Phone Home

Daddy Frank on the spectacular mis-timing of Obama's trip ti India and other things:

[...] Nothing says “outsourcing” to the American public more succinctly than India. But the White House didn’t figure this out until the eve of Obama’s Friday departure, when it hastily rebranded his trip as a jobs mission. Perhaps the president should visit one of the Indian call centers policing Americans’ credit-card debts to feel our pain.

You can’t win an election without a coherent message. Obama, despite his administration’s genuine achievements, didn’t have one. The good news — for him, if not necessarily a straitened country — is that the G.O.P. doesn’t have one either. This explains the seemingly irrational calculus of Tuesday’s exit polls. Voters gave Democrats and Republicans virtually identical favorability ratings while voting for the G.O.P. They gave Obama a slightly higher approval rating than either political party even as they punished him. This is a snapshot of a whiplashed country that (understandably) doesn’t know whose butt to kick first. It means that Obama can make a comeback, but only if he figures out what he has to come back from and where he has to go.

But there was no plan. Even in victory, most Republicans can’t explain exactly what they want to do besides cut taxes and repeal health care (a quixotic goal, given the president’s veto pen and the law’s more popular provisions). A riotous dissection of this empty agenda could be found on election night on MSNBC, where a Republican stalwart, Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, called for “across the board” spending cuts. Under relentless questioning from Chris Matthews, she exempted defense and entitlements from the ax, thereby eliminating some 85 percent of the federal budget from her fiscal diligence.

The Repugs ain't got a clue other than to make Obama and the country fail.

Were they to listen to Americans, they’d learn that they favor budget cuts mainly in theory, not in fact. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this summer found that three-quarters of Americans don’t want to cut federal aid to education — high on the hit list of most fiscal hawks — and more than 60 percent are opposed to raising the Social Security retirement age to 70. Even in the Republican-tilted electorate of last week, exit polls found that only 39 percent favored extending the Bush tax cuts to all Americans, including those making $250,000-plus. Yet it’s a full Bush tax cut extension that’s the entirety of the G.O.P. jobs program in 2010. This will end “uncertainty” among the wealthiest taxpayers, you see, and a gazillion jobs will trickle down magically from Jackson Hole.

Obama has a huge opening here — should he take it. He could call the Republicans’ bluff by forcing them to fill in their own blanks. He could start by offering them what they want, the full Bush tax cuts, in exchange for a single caveat: G.O.P. leaders would be required to stand before a big Glenn Beck-style chalkboard — on C-Span, or, for that matter, Fox News — and list, with dollar amounts, exactly which budget cuts would pay for them. Once they hit the first trillion — or even $100 billion — step back and let the “adult conversation” begin!

Better still, the president should open this bargaining session to the full spectrum of his opposition. As he said at his forlorn news conference on Wednesday, he is ready to consider policy ideas “whoever proposes them.” So why not cut to the chase and invite Congressional Tea Party heavyweights like Jim DeMint, Rand Paul and Michele Bachmann to the White House along with the official G.O.P. leadership? They will offer the specifics that Boehner and McConnell are too shy to divulge.

DeMint published a book last year detailing his view that Social Security be privatized to slow America’s descent into socialism. Paul can elaborate on his ideas for reducing defense spending and cutting back on drug law enforcement. Bachmann will explain her plans for weaning Americans off Medicare.

Maybe some of the big Tea Party ideas will be as popular as the Tea Partiers claim them to be. We won’t know until Congress tries to enact them. [...]

Tar! Feathers! More popcorn!

You know ...

It's Autumn around here when the leaves turn the colors of the rainbow, the north wind begins to blow down the Hudson Valley, the clocks get set back, and the Cattle Dogs begin to blow out their summer coats.

Tete - A la faveur de l'Automne

Somehow ...

Knowing the Brits and French like I do, I don't think this will go smoothly.

Hailed by London as a new chapter in their relations, under a newly agreed joint military force and an equipment-sharing arrangement, NATO allies the UK and France have consigned their traditional military rivalry to the past. Why?

Cutting edge capacity is costly. London’s goal is an eight percent defence budget cut. Paris wants to downsize by 54,000 jobs.

...

This is one of those things that looks good on paper until it gets put into practice. Heh ...

Thank You, Dick Cheney, For Giving Me the Proper Words

From a good rant at the Dems by David Sirota:

The facts are painfully apparent. Though hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people in D.C. are professionally paid to pretend these facts require debate and analysis and parsing and speculation and press releases and pithy Tweets and Sunday Show roundtables and C-SPAN symposia and to-camera cable-TV rants and lengthy thousand-page books, they don't require any of that. The facts are simple. The facts are obvious. The facts are undeniable to anyone not paid fistfulls of sweaty money to lie or sensationalize:

1. The Democratic Party shit on its base with its policies, as noted above.

2. This demoralized the Democratic base, which responded by not turning out to vote. As CBS News notes, "Hispanics, African Americans, union members and young people were among the many core Democratic groups that turned out in large numbers in the 2008 elections (but) turnout among these groups dropped off substantially, even below their previous midterm levels."

3. In cause-and-effect style, the result of all this was, as the Washington Post reports, a freshman congressional class that is primarily made up of angry, white, lunatic-conservative assholes.

So yes, all of you who are wasting all of our time pretending this isn't the basic point-A-to-point-B story of the election -- and there are a lot of you out there -- please, if not for me, then for everyone else: Go fuck yourself.

False Equivalence

Good post by BruinKid at Kos:

Bill Maher blasts false equivalencies in amazing New Rule

And finally, New Rule, if you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you might as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon and Stephen, it seems to me that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable, and not try to pretend that the insanity is equally distributed in both parties.

Keith Olbermann is right, when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts, the other one is very close to playing with his poop.

Now, getting over 200,000 people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement, and gave me hope. And what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August! Although it weighed the same.

BruinKid makes some good points too;

We all get things wrong sometimes. I don't agree with Jon or Stephen or Bill or anyone else 100% of the time. And we shouldn't. If we did, we're nothing more than sycophants or robots, dutifully repeating what we're told.

Then we'd be them. Shudder...

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Emmylou Harris ~ Barbara Allen

Thanks to rmp1994.

Griftopia

Tristero on Matt Taibbi's book:

Taibbi’s attitude towards the political landscape of America in the Third Millenium is, in some ways, similar to Thomas Frank’s, that there’s a bait and switch being pulled, that the real action is not the social issues - it never is - but rather the money. The looting of America by the Biggest, Ballsiest Crooks Ever is the only genuinely important story. For Taibbi, the teabaggers’ racism, sexism, xenophobia, libertarianism, and other extremisms seem to serve much the same function as geologists see for trees and grass: sure, it's striking sometimes, but ultimately, it's merely hair that covers the bald truth about the world. I’m not sure I entirely agree - but damn, when you read Matt describe what’s really been going on, without any sugar coating or euphemisms, and with that throat-slittingly sharp style... damn if Taibbi doesn't have a point:

It's always been about the money. And power. Progressive ideals will always lose to those willing to do anything to achieve money and power until we realize that kumbaya is sometimes best delivered as a tattoo on our knuckles.

Don't try to get along with bullies. Convince 'em to get along with you. People sometimes act better after you deck 'em. If they don't, deck 'em again until they do. Ganging up on big bullies is plenty OK.

Keith Olbermann Suspended From MSNBC Indefinitely

Mediaite

Blowback to the political donation is immediate, and shocking.

Statement from Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC:

I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.

More coming, obviously.

Oops...

Headline of the Day il due

Grayson: Democratic ‘appeasement’ cost us the election

The Macaca Awards

Mock, Paper, Scissors

We honor all that is appalling in American Politics with the First Semi-Regular MACACA AWARDS.

The first Macaca of the evening is for OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN GRIFTING, and the nominees are:

* Sarah Palin (Mooselini)
* Joe Miller (The Moose-Savant)
* Christine O’Donnell (The Human with the Fully-Functioning Mouse Brain)

Presenting the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Grifting is…
...

…and the Macaca goes to:

Didn't wanta spoil it for ya. Go see. More. Don't step in the macaca...

A Reminder

Excerpts from a speech by my first President, who passed away shortly after I arrived in the womb and hopefully not because of it.

From The Four Freedoms via American Rhetoric:

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

Headline of the Day

In 2012, could Dean beat Obama?

The Focus Hocus Pocus

Paul Krugman on Obama's approach to the economy:

Of course, there’s a subtext to the whole line that health reform was a mistake: namely, that Democrats should stop acting like Democrats and go back to being Republicans-lite. Parse what people like Mr. Bayh are saying, and it amounts to demanding that Mr. Obama spend the next two years cringing and admitting that conservatives were right.

There is an alternative: Mr. Obama can take a stand.

Focus Hocus Pocus? More like Moke-y Hokey Pokey. Time ta turn yerself around, brah. We'll see if he's got it in him.

Friday Monster Blogging ...

The Dingo Sisters behaving because they're half (or completely) asleep.

Da Chooch (l) and Ziva

Dust Howie off ...

And give that idiot Tim Kaine a kick in the ass on his way to the door. Oly Mike:

...

Now that Rahm and his cohort have run the dem party back in to the ditch, maybe it's time for the dems to apologize and ask Howard if he can do it again. I would understand if Howard told the Obama/Clintonistas to shove it, but it's not his style. He is a true liberal, a progressive committed to public policy that would help the vast majority of [A]mericans and would shrink the gap between the have-mores and the have-nots.

...

We had a Dem majority for two years thanks, in large part, to Howard Dean. It's time to bring him back into the fold and let him loose on the Republicans.

Reference material ...

Since we're gonna have to put up with Boner Boehner and the Rethug House for the next 2 years, our pal Montag has found a study guide for us to use.

It's not 1994 again

Doyle McManus

Democrats are apt to prettify recollections of the aftermath of the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. But Obama isn't showing signs of being Clinton, and Boehner's no self-destructing Gingrich.

Obama will also have to find a way to work with Boehner, who is no Gingrich. He's not as brilliant, but he's not nearly as accident-prone either. Gingrich was a messianic insurgent who believed his ideas would conquer the nation; Boehner is a Chamber of Commerce conservative who believes in raising money, counting votes and staying doggedly on message.

That makes him more dangerous to Obama than Gingrich was to Clinton, because he's less likely to self-destruct. Boehner has already said that he's studied the lessons of the Gingrich era; he says he won't even threaten to shut down the federal government in next year's budget battle, let alone actually do it. His message on Wednesday was bland and, except for a promise to try to repeal the healthcare law, almost content-free. "The new majority here in Congress will be the voice of the American people," he said. "This is a time for us to roll up our sleeves and go to work on the people's priorities: creating jobs, cutting spending and reforming the way Congress does its business."

The biggest problem facing Boehner and his Senate colleague, Mitch McConnell, is a potential civil war in their caucuses once newly empowered tea party candidates arrive to begin purifying Gomorrah-on-the-Potomac. The insurgents' floor leader, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, issued their first orders Wednesday in a fiery column in the Wall Street Journal. "Tea party Republicans were elected to go to Washington and save the country, not be co-opted by the club," DeMint wrote. "So put on your boxing gloves."

The only real fun Democrats can look forward to in the next few months is the battle between DeMint and his followers and the old-line GOP leadership. But don't bet against Boehner. He may not have charisma, but he knows how to manage a caucus.

Might as well have some fun while we're goin' down the shitter. Spark up a fattie and pass the popcorn.

CA AG still too close to call

LATimes

Three hours after the election polls closed, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley strode onto a stage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and gave supporters of his campaign for state attorney general some news to cheer.

"Although my … close advisors think it's a little too early, I'm declaring victory," he said to a roaring crowd.

Early voting tallies showed Cooley with a comfortable lead. But within hours, his advantage had evaporated.

Cooley was widely seen as an early favorite in the race thanks to a history of electoral success in Los Angeles County, where he became the first district attorney in more than 70 years to win three terms.

But in Los Angeles County, Harris led Cooley by more than 14 percentage points. The county has nearly 400,000 uncounted ballots.

Something to consider is that L.A. is heavily Latino and Afro-American and so is the population of our prison system. People are unlikely to vote for the prosecutor that locked up a family member.

"Cooley had everything going for him except for one thing: He had Republican under his name," said Allan Hoffenblum, a former GOP consultant who publishes the nonpartisan California Target Book, which analyzes political races.

Democrats swept to comfortable victories in every other statewide office. And Cooley fared better than the rest of the GOP ticket, notching up more votes than gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman, U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina or any other Republican candidate.

In Los Angeles County, each of the other Democratic candidates for statewide office swept aside their Republican rivals by 28 percentage points or more — double Harris' lead over Cooley.

I don't like prosecutors very much and wouldn't vote for one for dogcatcher, but that's what we had for candidates and I just want a symbolic clean sweep for Dems, so GO Kamala!

Canada Reports Huge Jump in Immigration

OTTAWA (The Borowitz Report) - Canadian immigration officials have reported a huge increase in the number of requests for Canadian citizenship in the past twenty-four hours, with over fifty-five million such inquiries pouring in since late Tuesday night.

“My only theory is that after the 2010 winter Olympics, the sport of curling is finally starting to catch on,” he said.

In other news, responding to last night’s election returns, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters, “I’m so stoked I just turned the tanning bed up to eleven.”

But former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin struck a more somber note, saying that despite several key victories, “it was a tough night for Tea Party voters because it involved so much math.

Headline of the Day Zwei

Jon Stewart congratulates Chris Wallace and Fox News on retaking the House

Headline of the Day

Obama-Claus steals Christmas in Tea Party children’s book

They liked to get 'em early in the Hitler Youth too. Maybe the Russians'll have to come in and deal with 'em like they did last time in Berlin.

The Hangover

Digby (actual picture of Digby. Be still, my heart!) Damn good read:

The right understood they'd lost the youth vote, the ethnic and racial minority vote and usually the female vote. The only demographic vote they had going for them was the elderly. And they've done a masterful job of making seniors feel like they're doing something for their grand kids by denying them health care and ensuring that there will be no safety net for them when they get old. You have to give them credit for that.

Harrumph! Speaking as an 'elderly', I resemble that remark! Ya ain't no spring chicken yerself, kiddo...

Still, she's right: the Repugs bamboozled the shit outta people with lies and made-up shit. Give the devil his due.

Keep the faith. And anyway, what choice do we have?

Update: Oh, and when they try to blame the bloggers or the liberals, just throw this in their face:

Only 47% of the members of the Democratic “Blue Dog Coalition” won re-election. 95% of the members of the “Progressive Caucus” won re-election. We're divided, but not that way.

And just in case the media hasn't noticed, the Democrats still control one house of congress and the presidency.

We've got two years for the Repugs to tear themselves to shreds while they try to fuck us over. That's something.

"Now, here's my plan..."

I wish I could string words together like El Rude-o in this 'must read':

The overwhelming feeling that the Rude Pundit has this morning is utter disgust with a vast number of the people of his nation, this America, for they have demonstrated, once again, that they are selfish, vain, cruel buffoons who are scared by the wrong things and have decided that the best way to handle it is to say, "Fuck it," build isolated bunkers all over the nation, and tell everyone else to leave them the fuck alone. For what is the end result of the vaguely-conceived ideology that was affirmed last night? It is that each of us should have the right to squat in our shitpiles of ignorance, isolated from one another, coveting our precious money, fellating our guns and fucking ourselves against our 50-inch LED screens in our multi-mortgaged, soon-to-be foreclosed on hovels, and if the world outside our caves goes to hell, well, that's because people don't understand how wonderful it is to engorge your faces with poisoned food and asthmatically heave your chest through polluted air and travel on shattered roads and bridges while picking your unmedicated scabs in order to get to work at Wal-Mart for shit wages but at least there's a wall that keeps the Mexicans and the gays out because that's what pissy God and the screaming ghost of Samuel Adams would fucking want for us. Their ultimate goal is to dismantle society itself in favor of Darwinian anarchy. Thomas Hobbes in action, motherfuckers, the animalistic Yahoos gutting the evolved Houyhnhnms.

We are heading for a dark, dark period. The Congress isn't going to get shit done as now everything will have to be approved by DeMint and Paul, even if the Senate is still in Democratic hands, or Harry Reid won't let the crazy shit passed in the House even come to a vote. There's going to be investigations of every bit of grime that Andrew Breitbart and Fox "news" can scrape from under the fingernails of even the lowliest members of the Obama administration. Impeachment will be on the table. Mike Pence, Darrell Issa, and Michele Bachmann will not be humble and cooperative with victory. They will be mad and drunk and ready for vengeance on the man who did nothing more than try to enact the will of the people who elected him by doing some of the very things he said he would do.

We the people abandoned Barack Obama yesterday. Hate what you will about him and about how he approached governing. The awful frustration of watching him compromise with a majority will seem like a happy vacation compared to what's coming. No, too many people who supported him in 2008 voted against him through their congressional races this year. And it was for the promise of a couple of extra bucks in their shrinking pay checks each week. Hope dies cheaply in this dirty, dead century.

Tomorrow: Enough despair. Let's make a plan, motherfuckers.

Thanks to Shel Silverstein who was way ahead of his time.

Quote of the Day

Last ¶ of a piece by Joe Conason:

The voters have told us that they're mad as hell and won't take it anymore. But their madness has ironically guaranteed that they will get more of exactly what they profess to despise.

It's like buying ammo for someone who is shooting at you. Yeesh.

No one but ourselves to blame ...

If you didn't vote (only 45% of us did), you can blame yourselves for the next two years. If you thought the Bush Years were bad, wait until these wackos get sworn in:

...

The citizens of this country have been anything but united since 9/11 and the SCOTUS's decision only proves that even 45% of our citizens united with the common desire to vote is no match for a handful of corporations and their political arm in the Chamber of Commerce.

You have only yourselves to blame and I have nothing but withering contempt for every single last one of you.

...

And like the people on the government dole who bitch the loudest about said government, the apathetic will complain the loudest when more of their money is given to the rich or just downright wasted by the Republicans.

...

The same party that started needless and illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to no appreciable benefit to either of our three countries and eventually cost us trillions bloating the military-industrial complex, the party that wanted to deport over 11,000,000 hard-working brown people, wanted to spy on you without FISA court warrants, that strive to make our children more ignorant in schools, to make abortion illegal even in cases of incest or rape, the same party that is bound and determined to remove the very last sinew of regulation on any industry even as they're polluting our ecosystem and killing us. The same party that demonized African Americans after Katrina, wounded veterans when their neglect was revealed and the newly unemployed and homeless when they understandably looked to our government for help.

...

Glad I lived part of my life when it was a good time to be an American. I won't see those days again.

The best thing ...

About the elections being over; no more robocalls and no more ads and no more commercials. Yay!!!!!

Simon and Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence

Brrrrr....

I just read my county's election results. Thank God there are 57 other counties, maybe a dozen of which have good sense.

I live in the blue end of an exceedingly red county, almost literally like the county was sitting on its ass in the snow.

Anonymous Wins!

Thanks to YubaNet.

Liquid Alert of the Day

Andrew Breitbart Says ABC 'Humiliated' Him, 'Damaged' His Brand

Bwahahahaha!

Letter to a whiny young Democrat

[A big welcome to Crooks and Liars readers. Thanks, Michael! - F]

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

Oh, now you've done it.

Check it out, kiddo: This is not just any Republican party you allowed back into power; these mealy folks are not anything like the war-hungry, Bush-tainted army of flying monkeys and Dick Cheney moose knuckles you so wonderfully helped bury in the history books last election.

No, the GOP of 2010-2011 is even weirder, dumber, less interested in anything you even remotely care about; this GOP is infused like a sour cocktail with a bitter splash of the most cartoonish, climate change-denying Tea Party dingbats imaginable -- most of whom think you're an elitist, terrorist-loving, gay-supporting threat to "real" American values, btw -- all led by a guy named Boehner who wears a bizarre, shellacked tan so fake and creepy it makes Nancy Pelosi looks like a supermodel.

And you made it all happen. Or rather, you failed to prevent it from happening, by not voting, by turning your collective back on Obama's tough love, by getting all whiny and dejected like some sort of sullen teen vampire who can't get laid.

Look, I'm sorry. I know I'm being far too hard on you. Of course it's not just you. It's not completely your fault these dimwit Repubs were allowed to ooze back into a bit of power so soon. As many analysts have pointed out, this wasn't a vote for the Republicans, but against the limp-wristed Dems who didn't step up and lead with more authority and clarity of purpose. Truly, libs and independents of every age are frustrated Obama isn't governing with the same kind of magical, balls-out visionary zeal that fueled his campaign.

And let's not forget a shockingly unintelligent Tea Party movement that stands for exactly nothing and fears exactly everything, all ghost-funded by a couple of creepy libertarian oil billionaires -- the leathery old Koch brothers -- who eat their young for a snack. Who could've predicted that gnarled political contraption would hold water? But hey, when Americans are angry and nervous, they do stupid things. Like vote Republican. It happens. Just did.

So here's what you need to know, right now: Barack Obama is, and will continue to be, a bit of goddamn miracle. He's simply as good as we're going get for an articulate, thoughtful, integrity-rich Democratic prez in your lifetime. Period. To hamstring his administration out of spite and laziness is childish and sad. Check the accomplishments. Understand the process. Deal with the messiness.

It will never be perfect. It will never be giddy liberal nirvana, because it doesn't work that way. Politics is corrosive and infuriating, de facto and by definition, even with someone as thoughtful as Obama in the Big Chair. Understand it. Deal with it. Get back in the game. If you don't, we all lose.

Your choice, kiddo.

The same kinda thing happened in the '60s too. A lot of youngsters, full o' piss and vinegar, took on the older generation and thought they were going to change the way the world worked.

They did, too. For about ten seconds. And then a shiny nickel rolled by and it was over. The pissed-off old white people gave us Nixon and started our downhill slide.

Not all the youngsters in those days were liberal activists, of course, but boy were the ones who were loud!. Today's youngsters do not have the draft and Vietnam to look forward to, and while a lot of them are liberal, they'll never have to go to war for capitalism and big oil and thus have no skin in the game. They helped elect Obama and Dems. And then a shiny nickel rolled by...

A lot of us didn't change much from back then, but the others are having their turn now and are today's pissed-off old white teabaggers, and boy are they loud!

And the downhill slide continues.

The Thick Blue Line

From California girl Joan Walsh:

In California, Democrats win big, showing wealthy Republicans can't always buy what they want

As it often is, my state of California is an outlier. Listening to the sports radio station that broadcast my World Championship San Francisco Giants games all summer (you knew I'd get that in on this sobering night) I got an earful of the GOP strategy for the 2010 elections. Meg Whitman had her harshest anti-welfare ads on KNBR; just today, ran an ad absolutely lying about Brown's (disappointing to me) position on Prop. 13. Only yesterday, I heard an ad attacking Jerry McNerney for supporting "the Wall Street bailout" and "the failed trillion dollar stimulus."

So even though I live in a blue-state, I got the gist of the GOP message that won nationwide -- but was defeated in California. We live in a blue bubble: Whitman lost to Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer defeated failed Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Gavin Newsom is our new lieutenant governor, and even McNerney seemed on the verge of pulling it out early Wednesday morning.

The McNerney ad was a window on the message that worked for Republicans nationwide. They attacked Democrats for Obama programs, and pledged to look backwards – and still they won. Still, 25 vulnerable conservative Blue Dog Democrats lost too. It was that kind of year.

California will have turned out to be the party's thick blue line, especially in the Senate, where Boxer's victory almost assured the Dems would hold that body. I'd like to say that's our superior judgment and better candidates, but I'm not sure. Fiorina and Whitman defeated themselves; they were two wealthy ex-CEOs who thought they could buy their way into office, and who overlooked state voters' hunger for a government they can trust.

There were other bright lights in the darkness: Harry Reid defeating Sharron Angle; Tea Party candidates losing 54 of 89 contests, John Boehner strangely losing his composure even as he became the likely speaker, Christine O'Donnell going up in flames. But the results were bad news for Democrats, and we'll be diving into the details of the results for weeks to come.

That last sentence gets my "No Shit! of the Day" award!

Coulda been worse here too...

My big deals were Brown, Boxer, legal weed, and defeating the oil companies who wanted to end CA's AB32 climate change legislation. Oh well, three outta four ain't bad. Ah-nold damn near made mota legal recently anyway.

The other Props went mainly OK and so did the statewide offices.

The Repug wave crashed on the rocks before it got to the West Coast. A 'sea wall' of sensibility perhaps.

Headline of the Day

Thank you Sarah and Sharon, and all Tea Party candidates. You just handed President Obama a second term.

Not much meat in the article but I like the headline.

Quote of the Day

Mr. Philadelphia:

I'm reasonably sure that the lessons learned [from the election] will be that we need to cut taxes for millionaires and repeal health care reform, at least all the good bits.

Same old song and dance.

Coulda been worse ...

Dave Neiwart sums up the carnage succinctly:

...

We'll all talk about this more tomorrow, but I blame the geniuses in the Democratic Party -- both in the White House and elsewhere -- who failed to establish firmly the narrative after the election that needed to be hammered home daily and relentlessly and fearlessly: that Americans had repudiated conservative rule because it had manifestly proven itself a failure. Instead, Democrats thought "bipartisanship" was more important. Sure it was.

...

Finding one gem, I'm proud of my fellow NYers for going "D" in a big way. The Teabaggers got no traction here and that's good. We'll still have major dysfunction in Albany but I give thanks that our senators and governor, and most house seats, remained blue.

Hi, I'm a Tea-Partier

A Tea Party Patriot tries to explain how our freedoms are in jeopardy.

Thanks to TrendingToday.

Headline of the Day

Johnny Cash’s daughter to GOP chief: Stop using my father’s name, you ‘asshat’

I hope Boner's asshole (redundant, I know) is a burning ring of fire...

Thoughts on election day

Right now whilst awaiting the results, I feel like I've just died and am in limbo waiting to see if the elevator goes up or down. I wonder if I can pay Charon for the boat ride with these cucumber slices on my eyes...

Being pissed off at Obama for not fixing the damage caused by Bush as the final insult of thirty years of Repug greed in two years is like finding a rare old English motorcycle under a rotten 40-year-old pile of hay bales in a barn and being pissed off because you can't ride it the same day. Illogical, to say the least.

Repugs may take control of the House after today. I'm sure that if when they screw everything up even worse over the next two years, our rocket scientist voters will elect even more of them to fix it even worse. Yeesh. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results...

Also, if you haven't read "Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party", do so.

Update:

Me 'n Mrs. G voted at 11AM, nos. 109 & 110. We had to stand in line, which is unheard of around here, and people just kept coming.

Our old cardboard-and-trash-bag voting booths have gone the way of the buffalo, replaced with circular booths with red, white, and blue steel poles with blue and red curtains in which maybe four people can vote at one time. The booths are from Ireland. I guess American voting booth jobs have been outsourced.

I used the electronic machine. It's got a wheel that scrolls you from place to place, an 'enter' button, and a printout that appears to let you double check your selections before you cast your ballot. I didn't have my reading glasses with me, so the poll worker assigned nearest the machine, a gorgeous young thing about my own age, loaned me her own bifocals right off her face so I could read it.

As she handed me my "I voted" sticker, I mentioned the turnout thus, "Boy, ya put weed on the ballot, Truckee turns out, huh?". She just smiled and nodded and said "Yeah, they sure do!". Heh.

As an informal poll, I checked bumper stickers in the parking lot. The cars that had them all had Librul-type stickers. I guess Repugs don't like to advertise. There was one contractor truck with Nevada plates with a "Sandoval for governor" sticker. That's his problem. Musta been there on business as our polling place is at the Public Utility District building.

Anyway, I voted straight D and legal weed and yes or no on a buncha other propositions and a few local offices that I gave a shit about. Mrs. G was waiting outside for me after I waited inside for her for a little while.

It's all over but the counting. Seeing as how the 2012 election countdown doesn't start 'til tomorrow, I'm taking the rest of the day off from politics. Unless something interesting pops up, of course...

Exactly the same ...

Just go read Drifty:

...

Because after six years, two failed wars and a smashed global economy later we on the Left are watching exactly the same coalition of intractably ignorant bedwetters, religious bigots and racist yahoos who are still freebasing exactly the same toxic witchbag of Hate Radio and Fox News lies, slander and fake patriotism about to march into the same exactly the same polling places to double down on their democracy-killing insanity and prove once again how proudly impervious to facts and reason they really are.

...

Same old song and dance and the sheeple fall for it every time.

Voting ...

As we've said around here for the last few months, voting for Dems this cycle is generally distasteful, but the alternative is much worse. Get out and vote now.

Update:

Electronic voting machines in NY this year. Don't know if I'm happy about it, but it was a lot less hassle than the old museum pieces we used to have. Once again, the Mrs. and I were #3 and #4 at our local polling place. Gotta start getting up earlier to beat my neighbor there next year. Heh ...

Scares me...

Digby

A reader sent in this extremely apt quote for a Halloween night by none other than HP Lovecraft from 1936:

“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”

Boo.

"...these are cynical, awful times right now"

The Rude One on the Rally For Sanity:

...it was meant to be a little something for the fans at the end of a brutal, awful campaign season where Hope got raped by Hate

(That sign above was on a park police horse trailer in DC on Saturday. It apparently fell over onto the ramp when the doors opened, and a horse shit on Glenn Beck's face. The Rude Pundit hopes it was a commentary by the cops on the previous rally on the Mall. Tip o' the rude hat to pal Dean T. for the photo [and the weekend lodging].)

Smart horse.

Re-Bush

Tony Peyser

Ex-Girlfriend Of Clarence Thomas: He Was A Mean Dry Drunk Who Exercised Obsessively & Couldn’t Concentrate On Work
...

He’s unfit to be on the Supreme Court
But each & every allegation
Proves that he’s ready for the GOP’s
2012 presidential nomination.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Bush's Biggest Disappointment: Not Privatizing Social Security
Or the National Guard.

KKK Holds First Public Cross Burning in 50 Years
Anticipating Republican sweep in mid-terms.

Quote of the Day

MoDo on Obama via Mr. Aravosis:

It never occurred to the Icon that such wildness and gullibility would trump lofty rationality.

And it'll come back to bite him in the ass tomorrow.

Accusations ...

Comrade Misfit has a great post up that should be read by everyone before they go (or not go) to the polls tomorrow.

I accuse the Republican party of actively working to sabotage the Federal government, including the destruction of Social Security and Medicare.

I accuse the Democratic party of craven collaboration with the saboteurs of the GOP. I accuse the Democratic party of lacking the spine and courage to stand up to the saboteurs.

This is my brief.

...

Believe me, I'm holding my nose tomorrow when I vote for some of these characters, but we can't let the Rethugs win. We can't afford it.

Real simple ...

People who don't have jobs don't give a shit about the deficit. They care about staying in their houses, keeping the lights on and the water running, and not going broke if somebody in the family gets sick. It'd be nice if the talking heads could wrap their brains around that fact.

Whaddaya mean ...

It's dangerous?

Click pic to change from a 20mm to a 155 shell.

It's a bloody cigarette lighter.

Security took this away from me when we boarded the ship after visiting Tsarina Katrina's Summer Palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia. They gave it back when we disembarked in England.

And just a note: If I'da known I'd get hassle over this, I woulda bought the old grenade too. Heh ...

A Modern U.S. President

A little Pirates Of Penzance-inspired comic opera frivolity for your Sunday enjoyment.

Thanks to omovies.

Headline of the Day

Why We Filed Racketeering Charges Against Karl Rove’s Election Operations

Because you couldn't declare him an enemy combatant?

Silence Of The Lambs

Good rant at TPJMagazine.

“To survive, one must be harmless as doves — but wise as serpents.” That was the admonition from Christ to followers, whom he called “sheep.” The instruction is fitting to all humans, regardless of ideology. What if the lambs no longer are informed against the tyrannical wolves about to devour them? What if they are unable to discern between a regular sheep and a wolf dressed up as one of their own? That’s America’s Achilles Heel. If any element takes down this great nation, the religious right it will be… for their chronic naivety and gullibility.

The FOX guarding the hen house is another metaphor apropos, since FOX is the principal right-wing propagandist and the chickens are the naïve, religious right that empowers any scoundrel that mouths their sacred lingo. Satan would be welcome in their churches if only groomed to look like them and coached to speak like them.

Not only have they vowed to tear down government, they’ve promised to take down the President. Republicans will investigate the hell out of Barack Obama, find nothing, but continue probing until he’s out of office. They’re committed to making life miserable in America.

It's working...

Nothing was done by Bush for the public’s welfare and the best long-term interests of the United States. We sit in economic depression as testament to his legacy. Yet the blind sheep still admire the false shepherd that led them over the cliff and are eager to throw the new shepherd to the wolves if given the chance.

A nation that slides backward into Third World governance will soon manifest a Third World economy. That’s the lesson that should have been learned from the Bush years. There is no escaping more national tragedy if the lambs again welcome back the wolves.

Reference is to Isaiah 11:6 - "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb". One of them will always be freshly BF'ed and the other will be well fed.

The Grand Old Plot Against the Tea Party

Daddy Frank on how the teabaggers have been and will continue to be worked like a redheaded stepchild by the GOP elite.

ONE dirty little secret of the 2010 election is that it won’t be a political tragedy for Democrats if a Tea Party icon like Sharron Angle or Joe Miller ends up in the United States Senate. Angle, now synonymous with racist ads sliming Hispanics, and Miller, already on record threatening a government shutdown, are fired up and ready to go as symbols of G.O.P. extremism for 2012 and beyond.

But whatever Tuesday’s results, this much is certain: The Tea Party’s hopes for actually affecting change in Washington will start being dashed the morning after. The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.

Trent Lott, the former Senate leader and current top-dog lobbyist, gave away the game in July. “We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,” he said, referring to the South Carolina senator who is the Tea Party’s Capitol Hill patron saint. “As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.” It’s the players who wrote the checks for the G.O.P. surge, not those earnest folk in tri-corner hats, who plan to run the table in the next corporate takeover of Washington. [...]

What the Tea Party ostensibly wants most — less government spending and smaller federal deficits — is not remotely happening on the country club G.O.P.’s watch. The elites have no serious plans to cut anything except taxes and regulation of their favored industries. [...]

Aw, hell, Pop, tell us something we don't know.

But those Americans, like all the others on the short end of the 2008 crash, have reason to be mad as hell. And their numbers will surely grow once the Republican establishment’s panacea of tax cuts proves as ineffectual at creating jobs, saving homes and cutting deficits as the half-measures of the Obama White House and the Democratic Congress. The tempest, however, will not be contained within the tiny Tea Party but will instead overrun the Republican Party itself, where Palin, with Murdoch and Beck at her back, waits in the wings to “take back America” not just from Obama but from the G.O.P. country club elites now mocking her. By then — after another two years of political gridlock and economic sclerosis — the equally disillusioned right and left may have a showdown that makes this election year look as benign as Woodstock.

Oh fucking swell. I hope I live long enough.

Sunday Homebrew Crazy Redneck Music Video Blogging

Tony Rice is lead vocal on a country version of The Grateful Dead's "Friend of the Devil" from the CD "Rice, Rice, Hillman, and Pedersen".

Video is southbound on CA SR 267 across Martis Valley.

Thanks to ME!