This Is Some Sick Santorum

All I wanted to do was get this sad little girl's name right, knowing that I should avoid Googling Santorum I headed to Wikipedia.  After reading what sick, demented shit these children are being subjected to being raised by Rick and Karen, I'm convinced the boy with the crazed look in his eyes will end up atop a bell tower with a sniper rifle, and the girls would be better off as Mormon Sister-wives.

So much for my original snarky take which has completely left my brain after reading this:

In 1996, their son Gabriel Michael was born prematurely and lived for only two hours (a sonogram taken before Gabriel was born revealed that his posterior urethral valve was closed and that the prognosis for his survival was therefore poor). While pregnant, Karen Santorum developed a life-threatening intrauterine infection and a fever that reached nearly 105 degrees. She went into labor when she was 20 weeks pregnant and allowed doctors to give her Oxytocin to speed the birth.^[13]

Karen Santorum wrote a book about the experience: Letters to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum.^[14] In it, she writes that the couple brought the deceased infant home from the hospital and introduced the dead child to their living children as  "your brother Gabriel" and slept with the body overnight before returning it to the hospital.

After seeing that, forgetting you left your dog on top of the family car seems like something out of a Chevy Chase film, and leaved me with the permanent impression the Santorums are a frightening mix of Amityville Horror, The Stepford Wives (original version) and Night of the Living Dead.

Not to make light of Mitt Romney's criminal neglect of his pooch (having just lost a dog myself to a hit-and-run driver) I feel obligated to link to Dogs Against Romney.

Focus People, Focus

For now, which time period has constituted my entire adult life of watching my fellow liberals snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, I'd like to concentrate on the issues we liberals have a hope in hell of winning.  We can't tax the Oligarchs anywhere near where the vast majority of this nation believes we should and we can't get the money out of politics which shields that corrupt system.  But we can and should ... and have GOT to stop pissing around.  More importantly, we have to stop pissing on each other.

Those two goals, and I can name a host of others, enjoy support in the 60-70 percentiles and yet year after year, decade after decade these "liberal" policy demands are given bare lip-service. Come on people, the Public Option was favored by 77%, but we couldn't get our act together enough to secure a win on that one.  Arguably, unless we tax them and throw them out of the temple of our democracy, the oligarchs will continue to feed their greed and buy off our elected officials with the tantalizing promise of making those crooks rich beyond their dreams as well -- quaint notions of ending wars and poverty will remain a fantasy of the prols and plebs.

So forgive me for not getting worked up when the Death Penalty is once again abused and misused, cuz that little bit of American Exceptionalism ain't going nowhere when only a quarter of the population oppose it.  That's "Birther" numbers people.  I'm not saying to get on any bandwagon, rather quite the opposite.  Just pick your battles. 

State Sponsored Killing enjoys popular support in this country, period.  Which brings us to the sad case of the American in al-Queda, Anwar al-Awlaki.  Barrels of digital ink have been spilled denouncing the assassination as unconstitutional, and frankly I don't care. I've been informed that I've no right to hold the opinion that the President's decision was correct and still call myself a liberal, to which I can only reply in a manner which His Rudeness will understand: "Suck my cock."

The man was a traitor. He had sworn allegiance to an organization dedicated to the destruction of western civilization and the mass murder of it's citizens.  Regardless that his actions didn't technically fit into the definition of treason and war by and between nation-states written centuries before the rise of multi-national corporate "personhood," he had no right to continue to enjoy the protections afforded American citizens -- whatever the hell that means -- and was putting my daughters and your friends in danger.  He had to be stopped. 

I see little distinction about the way in which we should treat such vermin as al-Awlaki and bin-Laden just because they were born on different continents.  Al-Awlaki's cultural heritage is what made him valuable to al-Queda. It's what made him an effective terrorist. I can't condone him being able to use that same background as a shield against recrimination. He cannot use the Constitution to protect him from actively trying to destroy the society it created.

To my eyes, if he should have been captured instead of killed, so should Osama bin-Laden. They were both human beings, were they not? Is one a lessor human just because he was an Arab? Are you endowed with a superiority gene when born in New Mexico instead of old Mexico? Feh! By Digby and the Rude Pundit's logic, anyone who cheered the death of bin-Laden needs to turn in their tie-dyed T-shirts as well, because they aren't "real" liberals either.

If that puts me in the uncomfortable company of Dick Cheney, so be it. I like his attitude on LGBT as well.  If you still think the President should be condemned for taking out a known, admitted and notorious terrorist, then you are waltzing with Ron Paul, so suck on that.

And like Abraham Lincoln, Obama has saved the constitution and the country by defending it against a nihilistic and narrow reading of the constitution that would prevent the country from protecting itself.

I have to laugh that the chief criticism of the Occupy Wall Street protesters is that they are basically an unfocused, quixotic street party.  Good god, they're the only ones out there who've identified a specific target with a grievance that enjoys popular support throughout the rest of the country: the fat cats simply have got to pony up some dough. 

That's doable folks, and it has the potential to fix so many wrongs in this nation. Crying over death row inmates or cave-dwelling bomb throwers while spitting on the closest thing we've seen to a liberally minded President since Reagan declared war on working folk is counter-productive to say the least.

Hollywood Liberal

From one of those "Vanity Cards" Chuck Lorre puts at the end of his productions, like Big Bang theory, Two and a Half Men, Dharma & Greg, etc.

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #322

If, somewhere in the course of this vanity card, I were to use a monosyllabic, Anglo-Saxon word that sits atop the 'no say' list, my guess is nothing would change in your life. You might form an opinion, have a passing thought, or even choose to be outraged. But, and it's a big but, the choice would be yours. It would not be inflicted on you by the word. The word would be, like Kansas once morosely whined, "Dust in the Wind." And yet, we live in a culture that fears the word. In fact, on broadcast television, the phobia for the word has reached the point where the letter f is, in certain instances, no longer acceptable. F has become a subversive letter. According to our network censor, f is often up to no good. We have been warned. F is being watched! Which brings me to my belabored point. I believe that words by themselves are actually quite impotent. They hardly rise above being noise. Ideas, however, the clever, inane and/or insidious grouping together of words, are dangerous. If history proves anything, the wrong idea at the right time can do unbelievable damage. Bad ideas are what the culture should fear and guard against. Which is why I get spooked watching ox News.

They Need To Get It Together

Boom...Boom. These two items appeared next to each other on my feed reader:

Jim Cramer: President Obama Is ‘Hated Like Jimmy Carter’ By Business Leaders

Republicans accuse Obama of trying to ease regulatory burden on 'job creator' who donated to GOP

Sadly, none of the haters will really see the cognitive dissonance.

That or the really sad news is that no matter how much he tries to appease, cajole, placate, compromise or outright bribe them, the self-appointed Masters of the Universe will ALWAYS hate most any Democrat Harvard Grad Liberal Center-Lefty Northerner Big City Dweller Black Dude.

They Must Be Joking

Monty Python - History of the Joke

Truly inspired thoughts come from all over, more often than not from the lips what Mel Brooks describes as Stand-up Philosophers. That's the job, thinking of the absurdities of life pointing it out in the most devastating way ... while not pissing their audience off (too much).  Laughter is a bonus reaction, the signal that they've hit on something profound startling funny enough to be repeated next time they do their act.

Marc Maron is one such sage, and I've been enjoying his WTF podcasts for some time now. While entertainingly funny the podcasts are profound in that they are not an "act," but a forum where Marc and his fellow comedians discuss the craft of comedy, where it comes from, how it develops.  Like Chris Hardwick's Nerdist podcast (which I also highly recommend), what works and what doesn't is what drives the program, but Maron's WTF is a level all its own.

Where political bloggers and activist Tweeters analyze and advocate in often heroic efforts to spread the message of where our society needs to go, and some are even podcasting to great effect (and here I must plug the Best of the Left aggregator podcast and Mr. and Mrs. Driftglass/Bluegal's Professional Left as personal favorites), let's face it -- they mostly are preaching to the choir.

So, when the nature of GOP nihilism is expounded on at some lefty blog in trying to get a grip on the suicide pact conservatives are using to blackmail the nation into accepting their theocratic policy prescriptions -- or else, "we" know what's up. But "we" are folks who care, sometimes too much, about politics.

Republican hue and cry about the current budget "crisis" is intended to force Americans to embrace their vision for the future whether voters like it or not. Their argument at its essence is, you may not like our vision but at this point you don't have any choice.

But when you hear something that on the surface is not political at all, but is so very applicable to the state of the nation even when it's entirely intended for another audience and merely describing an individual's personality, it gives pause. Maybe it's more about what's in my head and this says more about me than the art of the joke, but take this exchange between Marc Maron and Anthony Jeselnik last week on WTF about Jeselnik's experience playing sports in high school and Marc's introspective reaction and see it you too find it perfectly descriptive of how the leading conservatives of the GOP are operating:

Maron: Did you get shit from the football guys?
Jeselnik: Nah, it wasn't like that. No one cared, no one cared about lacross at all. I think it might be better there at my high school now than at the time.
Maron: ... I always think about that in myself. That if someone had tought me some sense of healthy competition I would be better off in life. Like to me losing, is just, like I'm, if I'm losing I would rather ruin the game ... than lose.

Sure, call me PollyAnna, say it's just wishful thinking, but in the long run the extremism of the right stinks of desperation.  They're losing, and they know it.

They're losing at life, and their attempt to destroy the game, our government, our democracy, our economy, our way of life is a symptom of their last gasp attempt to stop what cannot be stopped. Progress. Progress towards social justice, towards fairness and equality cannot be stopped no matter how many road blocks the conservative cry babies throw at us.

It's all they got. And it works to a degree, but only for so long my friends. Tricks and fear mongering only work for so long.  Face it. No matter how some douchebag like Jim DeMint holds his breath and stomps his feet, Barack Obama is our President. An insanely articulate, extremely well educated, urban black man from a northern state is President, and Jim DeMint never, ever will hold that title. That alone is progress.

We will always need more progress and they will always try to slow it down, but generation by generation, we win, they lose, and life goes on.  Our society will advance and even if they try to destroy it from within, "we" will always be "We the People," (even if we have to include corporations or even androids and zombies as "people" too).

You Asked For My Debate Take

Well, maybe not "you" specifically, but I was indeed asked for my opinion.  Well, I was asked if there was any more comedy gold that could be gleaned from Bachmann's performance, but close enough.

Actually, Bachmann did very well on the attack vs. Perry last night. Made him look like a crooked chump.  It's a bit complicated and I can get into the details if you want, but basically Perry required schoolgirls get an anti-cervical cancer vaccine via executive order. The drug was provided by Merk, a campaign contributor his Chief of Staff used to run. Perry acted offended that he could be bought for a five grand contribution when he raises 30 million. (No mention if he really was a whore and was only dickering over price.) Rick Santorum - in his best debate performance to date - pointed out that you vaccinate kids so other kids don't catch what you got and start an epidemic ... and cancer ain't contagious.  (Okay, those were the details.)

Libertarian tea baggers ended up booing Perry ... and also booed their godfather, Ron Paul, for stating the obvious vis-a-vis 9/11 terrorists motives. They liked his stance that "Freedom" means you take your chances, and those have consequences, so if you ain't insured and get sick ... too bad weakest link, you die. Actually got cheered for that one. I weep for our nation.

Huntsman was there, tried to do stand up and failed. Godfather Pizza guy Cain, tried to be serious and looked like a poor man's Bill Cosby.

Later, Patti Davis, Reagan's daughter, was on MSNBC and said that none of these clowns were fit to stand underneath her dad's shadow.

Meanwhile, half-term Governor Mousellini agreed with Bachmann and piled on Perry, who she'd endorsed for Governor in 2010 and for whom shehad nice things to say about, just short of endorsing, last week.  Onlyknock on Bachmann I saw last night on twitter was that her hair didn't look as good as Perry's or Romney.

Winner, Mittens! Stayed above the fray, got some shots in on Perry too, and didn't get picked on.

AND... ppp polls Obama up 49-45 on Romney, 52-41 on Perry, 53-41 on Gingrich, 53-39 on Bachmann

Forgot about Gingrich. He's so funny, so angry, so full of crap.  Twitter is scoring this debate a win for Bachmann, that she breathed new life into her campaign ... which has zero hope of going anywhere but may have earned her the Palin VP spot as designated attack poodle.

For those keeping track at home:
Bachmann: Pro-life mother of 23 and beard to one very up tight closeted white guy is also Pro Cancer.

Perry: Cannot be bought cheaply, pretty dumb on his feet, great hair, authentic swagger, real ranch, bought and paid for by big oil.  Typical GOP Texas politician. (Got booed by tea baggers for compassionate immigration stance similar to his old boss when he was Bush's Lieutenant Governor - booed for his one decent and human act as governor.)

Romney: The robotic GOP equivalent to Al Gore, the RomBot is a quantum candidate, able to be on all sides of an issue at the same time.

Santorum: STILL the most googleable candidate there, but was not frothy enough last night.

Huntsman: Is obviously in the wrong party.

Paul: Is obviously on the wrong planet.

Gingrich: Is obviously on the wrong end of the space-time continuum.

Herman Cain has a 9 point plan which as near as I can remember stands for a 9 item pizza for $9.99 delivered in 90 minutes.

Speaking of Zombie Reagan

Hey kids, guess what STILL doesn't work .... Star Wars. <<cue Imperial Death Star Theme>>

.
U.S. Ballistic Missile Intercept Test Fails
Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011

A test last week of next-generation ballistic missile intercept technology ended unsuccessfully, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said (see GSN, March 31).

A mock short-range ballistic missile was fired at 3:53 a.m. local time on Thursday from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. A minute-and-a-half later, a Standard Missile 3 Block 1B interceptor was launched from the USS Lake Erie to take down the target. However, no intercept took place.

The SM-3 1B interceptor had not previously undergone a flight trial. The agency said in a press release it would carry out a thorough assessment to identify why the test failed.

For those of you still paying attention, I needn't remind you that the undelivered speech Condi Rice was to give on the ill-fated morning of Sept. 11, 2001, (initially classified to protect the embarassed) was revealed to be a complaint that we were not doing enough to build a missile defense shield, instead of wasting twice as much money on counter-terrorism.

You don't hear as much about Ronny Ray-Gun's SDI anymore. No doubt because the Homeland Security Industrial Scaremongering Complex has supplanted that boondoggle as the preferred cash cow of the Oligarchs.

Tolerating the Intolerant is Bringing Us All Down

Mike Lofgren has written a piece I would consider required reading in any Political Science course that teaches how our government really works and why it doesn't live up to the promise it's institutions inspire when you study them in all your other government classes. Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama's policy of being black.

As they say, Read It All.  Go ahead, I'll wait....

Back in the good old days, like the Summer of 2007, I attempted ever so feebly to make a non-racist, non-sexist argument for John Edwards as a superior presidential contender than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton based in no small part on the innate racism and misogyny of the Republicans in our midst. 

The idea was that Edwards, as a white Southern gentleman, A) was more "electable" and B) almost as an afterthought, that his policies would be easier to get through an otherwise hostile Congress that would constantly filibuster Hillary in a replay of the Clinton Witch Trials of the late 1990s -- and they simply wouldn't be able to deal with a Black guy in the Oval Office emotionally/rationally.

I never actually put that argument to digital paper beyond the flame wars at Daily Kos, and I most certainly did not flesh it out completely. The ability to govern effectively was a throw-away line, a "By the way..." thing since we were immeasurably more obsessed with the idea of insuring an end the nightmarish Bush administration by any means necessary than the difference between a public option and single-payer. 

Others were making that argument anyway, and getting righteously slammed for being intolerant themselves, only making the argument that it was the Klansmen on the right we needed to fear as a mask covering their own bigotry -- on of the most horrific things you can ever call a true liberal.  Treading among those minefields just wasn't appetizing.

Not that it really would have made any difference, and besides ... my crystal ball is a shattered remnant of it's former splendor from whence it told me Jonny E. was someone America should trust.  However, I do wonder sometimes.  We proved that America was indeed ready to elect a black President, and I certainly believe it's past ready to elect a woman to the White House.  We also have proved these last couple of years that, sadly, America is far from ready to be run by a black President. 

And if disaster should occur and Palin or Backman are able to prove that we are okay with electing a woman as Chief Executive, we will also prove that we are in no way a mature enough society to be run by a Female Commander in Chief, and least not either of those two idiots.  Hillary sure, and dozens of other women I could rattle off would be fine Presidents and effective ones too, but not those T-bagger supported screeching harpies.  I just can't imagine.

And that's the problem. I couldn't imagine just how cravenly GOP operatives would manipulate the public's natural xenophobia and authoritarian tendencies.  I mean, I know they do, and will again.  I just lack the evil genius gene that seems required to second guess how low they can go.  That is the very weakness they exploit in all liberals, and short of becoming what we hate, I don't know how to defeat them.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up trying. 

Score: POTUS 0. GOP minus 5, Pro-Left: Disqualified

The Republicans are in complete disarray, have been since George W. Bush let an American city drown, yet neither the media nor the "professional left" smell the blood in the water as they continue to scratch at Obama, hoping he will topple over from the paper cuts.

Just this week, the last week in the notoriously slow news month of August...

1. GOP House leader Cantor insists that hurricane relief only flows if there are cuts, something even the Jersey Bully rejects. 
2. Wassilla Quitta's non-campaign gets into a snit fit when NotAWitch gets invite/disinvite/reinvite/non-invite to Sarah's non-announcements that she's almost/sorta/kinda wantin' ta run for the nomination ... also too.
3. GOP front-runner (sorta), Governor Goodhair, is being outed as a class one crook with a scheme that makes WhiteWater look like a game of Tiddly-Winks. But even blind squirrels can find good ideas among the nuts.
   
4. Dick F@#$ing Cheney squirmed out of his cave and is all over the airwaves again. That's gotta reinvigorate everyone's sense of nostalgia, like the good old days when we prosecuted criminals.
   
5. GOP Speaker Boehner publicly reneges on agreement for the President to address Congress when he finds out the agreed date conflicts with the clown car freak show where Michelle and the Seven Dorks will debate over Saint Reagan's tomb.

... and it's POTUS that looks bad for being snubbed, disrespected as no President has in living memory, accepting the new date to talk about jobs like a fucking grown-up as the public has demanded.  WTF People?

Mitch McConnell's got an approval rating of 16% while POTUS has 42% approving of him.  A sinking ship drowns all hands. We're looking at 9% unemployment during an election year.  The question isn't who will win, but why would anyone want to.

Got it. Another piece of WINNING for John McCain. (Seriously people, get help.)

No, seriously, would you rather we had an executive saddled with a deadlocked Congress who didn't fight back the anti-abortion fanatics or enforce the anti-trust laws?

Hoping for Change is Hard

I don't want to tell the Firebaggers what to think, the liberals who find themselves at odds with President Obama, let alone that I should tell them what to write. They know well enough the consequences of their rhetoric. At least they think they do, and certainly have tried to justify not clapping loud enough to themselves and their fans that they don't think constant repetition has led to any sort of self delusion.  At least that's the propaganda they've been feeding themselves.

And it's hard.  It's hard when faced with constant frustration to turn your back on the only thing remotely capable of fighting the real enemies of the progressives.

It's hard when those true enemies to progress and prosperity, those that have morphed the very idea of social justice into a dirty word get all the attention, when they dominate the media and frame every debate in a rigged game.  It's hard.

It's hard to be the responsible ones, it's hard to be the grow-up in the room. It's hard to govern.  Much easier to criticize, to express the exasperation and disgust about negotiating styles, the lack of purity and dedication to the cause.  Far easier to turn your back and wash your hands of the entire enterprise.

Too bad the President doesn't have enough good sense to turn his back on us in frustration.  No wonder we don't understand him.  I don't know how he puts up with us either.

Some Science in the Politics of Obama's Negotiation Style

Direct from my Twitter Feed:

thinkprogress
ThinkProgress

by cbn2

NEW POLL: 47% have favorable view of Dems, 47% unfavorable http://thkpr.gs/nO5ToN

»

thinkprogress
ThinkProgress
by cbn2

NEW POLL: 59% have unfavorable view of the GOP, 33% favorable. Worst rating since CNN started asking in 1992 http://thkpr.gs/nO5ToN

»

postpolitics
Post Politics

.@PostPolls: 29 percent say #teaparty has a negative effect on Congress http://wapo.st/qdZoTl

I'm always looking for ways to put the science in Political Science.

What's the Difference Between Left and Right - 4.6 degrees

This chart illustrates the real difference between the left and right in American politics over the last 25 years. It's the effect of a lousy 4.6% change in the marginal rate millionaires (and half-millionaires) pay in income taxes. That's it.  That difference accounts for about a 12 point swing in the taxes collected from the upper echelon, the so-called job creators who are anything but.

HT TPMDC

[P]rogressives have long pointed out the drop in taxes paid by upper
income earners: in 1986 those making more than $1,000,000 paid 40.2% of
their AGI in income tax, and in 2009 that percentage was 24.2, after
hitting a low of 22.1% in 2006. The drop after the Tax Reform Act of 1986
is evident, then growth after the Budget Act of 1990 and the broken
promise of "no new taxes," the slight continued increase after the
Budget Act of 1993 under President Clinton, then a gradual drop in the
1990s until the more pronounced fall after the Bush tax cuts.

Oh sure, there's a lot more to the tribal nature of our politics. Undoubtedly the most influential element is the purity test required by anti and pro choice advocates. But in economic terms the fight has been in the margins between how low Ronald Reagan dropped taxes on the rich and the Clinton rates.  The fight has been between these margins, more or less, for almost three decades.

The Bush (II) tax cuts that Obama extended are the low point of the spectrum by just a tick under the Reagan rates, but if they were eliminated by the tiny uptick that sank "H.W." Bush's reelection when he broke his "Read my lips" pledge in 1991-2, we're half way to the Clinton era of prosperity.

In reality, the Clinton rates which reached it's zeinith in 1993 (39.6% on plus-$250k/yr earners) were a modest increase compared to the Reagan drop from 63% to 28% during his tenure, and left off at the end the Clinton years at about where Poppy Bush's rates were (much to the betterment of the overall economy) in the amount of revenue collected.

The elimination of the 90s era rates finagled by history's 3rd or 4th worst President (Buchanan's a no-brainer, Hoover and Harding still give Bush Jr. a run for his money, imo) to slightly below the Reagan rates is all this fight has ever been about.  But it's this fight, and the manner in which it's been waged, that makes all the difference between a better future and former Vice Presidents calling us out on to the streets.  It's this fight that stuffs the coffers of the Super PACs and funds the Right Wing Noise Machine.

More starkly put, for those who make one quarter of a million dollars a year, those who could make a million dollars over the course of one presidential term paid an oppressive 39.6% when Clinton left office, and only 35% today.  That's right, a 4.6% difference.

That's all this fucking fight is about. That's where the rates on the top 2% go if and when the "Bush Tax Cuts" are allowed to expire.

We've had our credit rating devalued for that?

We're going to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for that?

We're going to cut Pell Grants for that?

We're going to slash the Pentagon's budget for that? (I'll believe it when I ... nope, not gonna ever believe that.)

4.6%?

Really?

Krugman: Obama turned into the 2nd coming of Herbert Hoover

Krugman is just so mild manneredly shrill on Countdown with Keith (Thank you Al Gore for inventing Current TV, hiring KO, and inventing the Internet so everyone can watch a clip here and there:

What it's most like is actually 1937, when FDR was persuaded to pull back when he shouldn't.

But it is true that you could take speeches that Herbert Hoover gave in 1932 and speeches that Barack Obama has given in 2011 and they look awfully similar. It's very depressing.

Because I want Obama to succeed, I think he's a good man, but somehow he's turned into the second coming of Herbert Hoover.

Paul Krugman on What's Next for the American Economy

One Change that Changes Everything

If you were a Wizard, would you grant Dick Durbin his wish ... Public Financing of Elections?

The Daily Show - Exclusive - Dick Durbin Extended Interview Pt. 3
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Really folks, this would do more to fix this nation than any other single piece of legislation.

Ahh August

Welcome boys and girls to that annual rite of sweltering nonsense where the shouting reveals that our tempers can rise as high as the temperature: The Summer Recess.

August is the only month without an official holiday, the only month when the Post office and Banks don't take a day off.  It is officially Back to School month, and (perhaps more fittingly) National Goat Cheese Month.

It was August when Dear Leader told a CIA briefer," Alright, you covered your ass" when told that Bin Laden determine to attack America.

It was August when the corporate antagonist organized the useful idiots calling themselves Tea Partiers to disrupt every Congressional Town Hall meeting in the country shouting "Keep Gob'mint's hands off Mah Medicare."

And now, it's August when Standard & Poors decided to downgrade the creditworthiness of the U.S. of A to that of a Tin-pot Banana Republic because the GOP still worships at the alter of Grover Norquist's sphincter and won't raise taxes - or even close loopholes to grab some much needed revenue to run things.

It'll start with sit-ins and shouting.  The end will be much uglier.  But this crap will end.  If the geniuses in charge of everything, those Masters of the Universe, if they don't get their collective heads out of their asses and do those very obvious things the country demands, requires, needs, the end will be very ugly indeed.

The Reverse Bullworth: Come On!

You've seen the historic abuse of the filibuster becoming standard procedure. Now the unprecedented economic blackmail we just lived through and are fated to revisit all too soon reveals a frighteningly undemocratic new normal for how business is conducted in the Nation's capital.

The thought occurs, why haven't we seen this before?  Why haven't we seen the radical right (or left for that matter) act so irresponsibly as to put the nation's economic vitality at risk just to score political points?

Part of it maybe what I'll call a "Reverse Bullworth."

Remember the 1998 Warren Beatty movie, Bullworth. Come On!  You remember.  Hum along to the Bullworth Obscenity Rap:

Bullworth:
Obscenity? The rich is getting richer and richer and richer while the
middle class is getting more poor/ Making billions and billions and
billions of bucks/ well my friend if you weren't already rich at the
start well that situation just sucks/cause the riches mother fucker in
five of us is getting ninety fuckin eight percent of it/ and every other
motherfucker in the world is left to wonder where the fuck we went with
it/ Obscenity?/ I'm a Senator/ I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day
I'm in Washington/ I ain't getting it in South Central/ I'm gettin it in
Beverly Hills/ So I'm votin from them in the Senate the way they want
me too/ and-and-and I'm sending them my bills/ But we got babies in
South Central dying as young as they do in Peru/ We got public schools
that are nightmares/ We got a Congress that ain't got a clue/We got kids
with submachine guns/ We got militias throwing bombs/ We got Bill just
gettin all weepy/ We got Newt blaming teenage moms/We got factories
closing down/ Where the hell did all the good jobs go? Well, I'll tell
you where they went/My contributors make more profits makin, makin,
makin, Hirin' kids in Mexico/ Oh a brother can work in fast food/ If he
can't invent computer games/ But what we used to call America/ That's
going down the drains/How's a young man gonna meet his financial
responsibilities workin and motherfuckin Burger King? He ain't! And
please don't even start with that school shit/ There aint no education
going on up in that motherfucker/ Obscenity? We got a million brothers
in prison/ I mean, the walls are really rockin/But you can bet your ass
they'd all be out/If they could pay for Johnny Cochran/ The constitution
is supposed to give them an equal chance/ Well, that ain't gonna happen
for sure/ Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherfucker and
give a little to the poor? I mean, those boys over there on the
monitor/ they want a government smaller and weak/ but the be speakin for
the riches 20 percent when they pretend they're defendin the meek/ Now,
shit, fuck, cocksuker, that's the real obscenity/ Black folks livin
with every day/ Trying to believe a mothefuckin word Democrats and
Republicans say/ Obscenity? I'm Jay Billington Bulworth And I've come to
say/ The Democratic party's got some shit to pay/ It's gonna pay it in
the ghetto/

Yeah, it's written by that hero of liberal movie aficionados everywhere, Aaron Sorkin of West Wing and American President fame.  Who else?  

Over a dozen years later, after enduring the worst Bush/Cheney and a GOP Congress could bring, and things ain't gotten any better.  Now they're in the process of doing to us what they couldn't even get done with that kind of power and influence controlling the entire government, dismantling the social safety net via extortion -- something they didn't have enough balls to try under the Clinton administration. Why?

Why don't they fear a backlash? Why didn't they try this before?  To me, the take-away money quote that sums up the whole movie's message was this:

Angry black woman:
Are you sayin' the Democratic Party don't care about the African-American community?

Bullworth:
Isn't that OBVIOUS? You got half your kids are out of work and the other
half are in jail. Do you see ANY Democrat doing anything about it?
Certainly not me! So what're you gonna do, vote Republican? Come on!
Come on, you're not gonna vote Republican! Let's call a spade a spade!

What's the reverse of that then? The thing that kept the GOP from complete radicalization for decades (if we only knew then how bad they could truly be when unleashed) was fear of a backlash.  Because unlike minorities who had been purposely vilified and overtly ostracized and insulted by the Republic party for more than a century of fighting civil rights and Jim Crow tactics who would never switch to the other side, the white Republic base could indeed turn their backs on a GOP (and occasionally did) who have always taken pains to spread the fable that "both sides do it" and there's not a whisper of difference between the two parties.

Now, with their uniting principle the failure and defeat of President Obama, they can afford the take one particular segment of the GOP base for granted.  The modern GOP can afford to act like terrorists, irresponsible children, just plain stubborn asshats and they will never alienate the willfully ignorant, bigoted backbone of the T-Bagger consortium no matter who they hurt in the cross-fire or how bad they make the economy.

Come on, what're they gonna do? Vote for the black guy? Come on!
Come on, they're not gonna vote for the black guy? Let's call a racist a racist.

Bend over so they can screw it in tighter

..
see more Very Demotivational

Thoreau notes that some of our most pessimistic and gloomy bloggers have come back to sit under the awning and complain about the rain.

I guess that means I'll be in fine company as I fire up the scripts and widgets to get this old jalopy of a blog back in working order.  I probably need to do more than look under the hood, and may take it into the garage for a full tune up, but I think it's still street legal.

I mean, it's not like anything's changed in the year or so I took off from serious blogging.

We're still screwed.  Just as screwed as we were when PrezO harshed our buzz the night he was elected, saying such nonsense that he was elected to be President of ALL of us.  How's that working out? 

“Obama’s support among Americans who identify themselves as both liberal and Democratic was 83 percent last week, little changed from previous weeks and slightly higher relative to Obama’s overall approval rating than it has been historically,” Gallup said.

“Although President Obama’s job approval rating hit the low point of his administration during the past week and is down among most subgroups, there are no signs yet that he has taken a disproportionate hit among his traditional base of liberals and Democrats. On a relative basis, both of these groups remain as loyal to Obama compared with Americans overall as they have been on average since he took office in January 2009,” Gallup added.

The president’s overall approval rating is at 42 percent, down from 50 percent at the beginning of June.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60471.html#ixzz1TteAFklL

The left still likes him ("love" is too strong a word at this point), but are freaked that not supporting him could lead to President Bachmann. The right can't fucking stand him. ("Hate" is a mild descriptor, as in "I hate spinach." They're way beyond hate and always have been.)

For those who insist that either his policies, his style, or his negotiating (for lack of a better word) "strategy" are all politically motivated, are designed in some nefarious way to increase his chances for reelection are deluded and stupidly buy the spin from his spokestools. The frightening thing is the realization that Barack Obama thinks he's doing the right thing.

FAIL: REPORT: Debt Ceiling Deal Will Cost 1.8 Million Jobs In 2012

As with most centrists/moderates/sheep he lacks an underlying ideology that can guide him when you can't see the shit right in front of your eyes because the shit-storm raging all around you has reduced visibility to zero.  It's not a backbone he lacks, but much like Poppy Bush the Elder, he doesn't have that "vision thing." Bureaucratic plutocrats like that are more than satisfied with getting something done instead of getting something they want.

When historic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities have presented themselves, like single-payor, a Stimzilla that REALLY invested in our future, or killing the Bush (II) tax cuts, we we told that the half-a-loaf was delicious.  Sorry, but it left a sour taste after seeing how much a minority faction of loons can get out of our system if you DON"T play by the rules and act like a grown up.

Whatever you want to call it, it ain't democracy.  Not when less than 10% of the country gets 98% of what they want.

So I'm back. Back because I'm angry again. Angry like I was when we went to war over a pack of lies and I started this blogging adventure.  Back because it's time. Back because the reason I stopped -- that I didn't want to bash the President but could no longer act the cheerleader when he extended the disastrous Bush tax cuts -- has come back to bite us all in the ass, because it revealed Barack Obama's fundamental weakness in negotiating with the GOP instead of breaking their back when they were down.

bin Deaden, bin Shark Bait, bin Shot in the Eye.

You were looking for a theme for our foreign policy. While I think that
of course is a media driven contrivance, bumper-stickers work. Bookend
this with the Cairo speech, and use the Arab Spring as the meat of the
sandwich ... then repeat this slogan: "America, FUCK YEAH!"



W. got a call from POTUS before the announcement. Thanked Barry for the
heads-up, congratulated all involved, and pronounced "Bong Hits for
Everyone" from an undisclosed location.  Other than that, he still doesn't care. Just like nobody gives a damn what Dick Cheney has  to say, so just go away.

Ghadaffi has run out of pants he's shit himself so much in the last 24 hours.

May Day...Anniversary of "Mission Accomplished" speech... and while Barack was waiting to hear
results from Pakistan he pointed out Trump's difficult decision making
expertise in deciding Gary Busy had to be fired because he failed to
give Meatloaf proper supervision at Taco Bell. Nice that he waited
until after The Apprentice showed to interrupt network programming
though. Showed class.

In an utter corruption of the words of Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan, she praised, "the Return of Competence." (Okay, that's actually a fairly direct quote.) How's that for your Bumper Sticker.  Right now, does it really matter that he's a secret Muslim/Commie/Kenyan when you can retort ... Yeah, but HE got Osama bin Laden.  Dropped a house on him, shot him in the eye and dumped the fucker's body in the ocean.  You're going to have to get wet to find the Long-Form Death Certificate.

Fox Noise had it's own slant on the story, but Osama with a B instead of an S was small ball compared with al Jazeera insisting in it's chyron that drones carried out the attack after they carried the President's speech live, which spelled out how this was a manned operation.  Another interesting juxtaposition was their "experts" insisting that the American people (who they were showing celebrating in front of the White House) would insist on DNA evidence and a picture of an American soldier standing next to Osama's corpse.  That was 180 degrees from CNN's "experts" saying the Arab World would insist on strong evidence of the same. 

Lament there wasn't a trial before the World Court, accuse us of Beowulf Ethics all you want my lefty friends, the Freeperati can out-crazy any hippie and is still bummed a terrorist is living in the White House.  These tea-baggers no doubt will feel even more marginalized in a coffee caffeinated nation when they hear the resounding chant: "America, FUCK YEAH!"

Bernie Sanders' Guide To corporate Freeloaders

Spread This Chart

Dudes! (Shout out to Wisconsin)

I do mind, the Dude minds.
This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man.

Yeah, it's been a while.  Glad to see you're still alive too.  I said (well, tweeted actually) "I'm out" if the Bush welfare program for millionaires continued, and it did, and I am ... or at least was ... out.  Can't get fired up defending the status quo that is masquerading as change.  Wasn't surprised, only mildly disappointed that the corporate kleptocracy continues it's hold, but encouraged that there still is some backbone to what used to be considered middle-class values and now is labeled liberal/progressive/leftist.

What can I say? I'm a Dude.  Not in a guy way, a Dude way:

A dude is an individual, typically male, particularly somebody
well dressed or who has never lived outside a big city. The female
equivalent, which is used less often, is "dudette" or "dudess". However,
"dude" has evolved to become more unisex to encompass all genders,^[3] and this was true even in the 1950s.^[4]

So yeah. Chicks can be Dudes.  They do it better sometimes. Think of it as an honorific, like when a female Midshipman graduates from Annapolis.  They still salute her and call her "sir."

Mind you, there are dudes that give other Dudes a bad name.  Surfer/Stoner dudes with generally no clue usually achieve full Dude-dom when enlightenment hits and they awaken from their slumber.  (It's in all the movies, that's why we love Dudes.  They ain't as stupid as they'd like to be. They even manage to save the universe while finding their ride, man.) It's Dude Time in America, or at least Madison, Wisconsin.

No, Wisconsin ain't Egypt - and the Midwest ain't the Middle East.  But after these pricks are done union-busting and ruling by decree in Madison, they're going to set their sights on Ohio.  And I think we might as well get ready.

WSJ: For a second straight day, thousands of Wisconsin public employees converged on the state capitol in Madison to protest Gov. Scott Walker's plan to close the state's projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall by increasing the cost of their pensions and health benefits and taking away their collective bargaining rights.

If they get away with this there in Wisconsin, they'll try it everywhere. For the honor of becoming a public employee you are no longer merely a public servant, but now are a public serf.

Now we don't dream of letting the military go on strike, of putting benefits, pay, sick leave and work hours up to a vote of the soldiers. Vital security stuff, right.  So their theory is that should also go for safety services like fire fighters and police.  Essential services shouldn't be allowed to even collectively bargain so goes the slippery slope -- just ask the Air Traffic Controllers who were the very first target of the ongoing Reagan Revolution.

Aren't all government services, "vital" in one way or another?  Where does one draw the line?  Newsflash: All Politics is about drawing lines.  All laws are subject to that imaginary line where a "reasonable man" believes the whole thing could fall off a cliff - and doesn't think we should cross that barrier.

"We're at a point of crisis," Mr. Walker told reporters.

You bet your sweet ass we are, Governor.  There are rules to this game, physical laws of the universe that the Wingnuts have forgotten along the way.  Rule one is don't piss off the vast apathetic hoards enough to put down their remote controls and put on their marching shoes.  The only thing that keeps the wall street types in enough caviar, cash and campaign donations to buy capital buildings throughout the land is the overwhelming numbers of people that simply don't give a crap.

As long as there's a couple of layers of flim-flam between "what they do" and"how does it affect me," these guy can get away with murder.  Sometimes literally. (Illegal wars, rendition and torture anyone?)

The bait-n-switch game continues indefinitely as long as there's an ample scoop of deniability.  But when they rub it in our faces, actually start doing the things proposed on their bumper-sticker slogans and focus group tested sound-bytes - those simpleton fixes for complicated policy considerations masked as  middle-class panaceas funded by the Fortune 500 (who didn't get that way by looking out for the little guy) - the sleepers will awaken. 

"Oh no, really. All those things that are good for Big Oil, Big Telecom, and Halliburton are good for you too." We've always knew that was crap, just like we all know TV wrestling is fake, faith healers and magicians stage their "miracles" with smoke, mirrors and plants in the audience, and that snake oil claiming to make you bigger and last longer really is oil of snake. 

Dudes will be dudes, and will look the other way when it suits them. Sometimes they get caught looking the wrong way, cuz dudes can be, and often are distracted. But they know what they want. Simple creatures with simple desires.

Sure, there's always going to be that 20% of the idiot-cracy that buys into the crap, where belief is stronger than any factually based argument.  There will always be birthers and flat-earthers, those rubes born every minute who paid full price for Sarah Palin's second book.  But just because they got motivated enough to take advantage of an exhausted, laurel-resting majority that just wanted to get back to not caring anymore and win some power back in an off-year election marred by low-turnout and hyperventilating wackos, that doesn't mean they can get away with screwing us over. 

We all had teachers we liked. If we didn't, we're stupid dumbfucks who can't get enough of Limbaugh and Beck, which explains a lot.  You don't screw with teachers, or the guys who collect the trash, fill the potholes, build the bridges, keep our water clean and our street safe.  You don't do that, even if you think unions aren't just a collection of working men and women, but some evil cabal sent from Stalin's grave.  You don't do that without pissing enough of us off to start marching and protesting and ... voting.

So, to all you dudes out there who never erased me from your RSS feeds, or still pick this thing up via Twitter and the dreaded Facebook.  What Up?  Where do we sign up?  When do we stand up?

Who do we follow?