Relaxed And Groovy

When Repubs are in the White House, we get Up With People and Pat Boone and Toby Keith - and it seems like everybody in the country's walking around with a big stick up their butts.

Put Dems in charge, and we get BB King and Derek Trucks and Mick Jagger - and even tho' we have plenty of big problems to sort out, and lots of very heated arguments to get through, it all just feels a little better now.  Dunno why.  It just does.

But - you know - all them politicians; they're all the same.  There's no difference.  

Are you fucking kidding!?!

Leadership is hard to put your finger on.  It doesn't lend itself well to objective measurements and the stuff they teach you in Business School about Planning and Action Items and Progress Metrics and the like.  It's difficult to see by direct observation, but leadership - management style - is always well-reflected in the postures and attitudes of the people in the organization.  Help people get their feet under them, let them get a little leverage, and you won't fucking believe what they can do.

It Just Slips Out

It's the old saw - "A gaffe is when somebody in politics accidentally tells the truth"

A big one at about :30.

(hat tip = TPM via Balloon Juice)

That's Great

My adopted home of Virginia is (deservedly, I'm sad to say) becoming the latest poster child for Stoopidly Brutal Government Intrusion.  You may have heard that our legislature has decided women need to be punished and humiliated - to get their minds right and to keep their place - whenever they feel the need to terminate a pregnancy.  If Gov McDonnell signs the bill, women seeking abortions will be required to submit to trans-vaginal sonography; and they will be required to view the pictures while being "counseled" by a clinician.

And the "procedure" has been given a name.  We call it "The Virginia Rape".  Now ain't that just wun-fuckin'-derful.

But guess who's defending this proposed atrocity - and with what kind of rhetoric?

(hat tip = Little Green Footballs, via Wonkette)


Not that it needs a lot of translation, but here it is in case you missed it: "Any woman seeking an abortion is obviously just a slut who wants to have sex with any-body, any-time, any-where, any-way, so what's one more little poke in the twat to a hag like her?"

Nothing could put a clearer focus on the simple fact that the Right Radicals in this country are no different than the Islamo-Fascists they say we need to hate.  As always, they are consumed by their zealotry, and they've become what they claim to despise.

There was a silent protest at the capitol in Richmond yesterday, and sources tell me there's a possibly huge push-back starting to gather steam among OBGYN clinicians.  Fingers crossed.

Ahh - Now I Get It

Let's connect some dots, shall we?

Rick Santorum is hell bent to stop abortion and to get them rascal wimmins off birth control.  Is it because he just luvs dem babies so much?  Well kinda, but not really.  At least not in the way he's been selling it to the rubes.

It's never about what they say it's about.

One good bite at about 1:55 ("What must we do to win?") with the big payoff starting at 2:25.  Give a listen.



Little Ricky's plan is all about beating Islam - by outbreeding them.  All of it.  Abortion, Contraception, Marriage, Immigration; the whole thing is about building up the Enemy into a mighty and malevolent threat, and making yourself out to be the man on the white horse - reluctant, but ultimately willing to lead the forces of good blah blah blah - sometimes my only wish is that I could spell the sound I make when I puke.

Silence Implies Consent - updated

Rick Santorum in 2011:


(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

He'd criminalize the abortion procedure; and he'd go after the doctors, but not the women seeking and/or consenting to the procedure.

Isn't that like saying you'd throw the bartender in jail, but not the drunk driver?

You'd go after the guy who shoots the husband in the face, but not the wife who hired him to do it?

I'm no scholar, but I think the Constitution works just a bit better than Little Ricky thinks it does - or wants it to.

And this is another one of those show-me-the-equivalence things.  Wingnuts like to get all frothy about "abortion on demand", but they just made that shit up.  I have yet to hear anything from "the left" that comes within a country mile of this kind of stupid.

So go ahead and run with this one, GOP - and you can kiss my ass good-bye for another 20 years.

(update) Leaving the woman out of the whole criminalization thingie is just more evidence that these Talibani Americanii aren't interested in anything women have to say about anything.  A woman has to "participate" beforehand, but once that part's over, then they can't possibly be trusted with any of the decisions that have to be addressed afterwards - only men get to do that stuff.  No soul and no honor.

Today In E'Ville

Winter in the Virginia Piedmont is usually just gray and damp and dismal, so we don't get many of these - where it snows a good bunch overnight, and the next day it's crisp and clear and all sparkly (added extra special bonus - the power stayed on the whole time - yay, and thank you, Jesus).  I'll take as many of these as I can get.

Here We Go Again - Maybe

Are we ginning up another war here?  I think prob'ly not.  This looks a lot like the kind of theater that gets put on when you're trying to work some of the levers internal to some other country.

(hat tip = Democratic Underground)



Of course, you can always count on Droopy Dog Lieberman to pretend Congress has anything at all to do with setting Foreign Policy; and the Press Poodles on DumFux News will run with it, especially when they can bring on a right-wing jughead to talk shit about Obama.

But this actually brings to mind a different point for me.  If you look at Americans who're likely to support the Iran-Must-Not-Go-Nuclear approach, I'll bet ass-wipes to Benjamins that demographic is gonna match up almost perfectly with people who say everybody's a lot safer when everybody owns a gun.  When a neighboring country owns nukes and ballistic missiles, how is that fundamentally different from your next-door neighbor owning shotguns and assault rifles?

A Small Question

Lots of righteous indignation this week when Darryl Issa (R-Haugpecker) held a committee hearing on the non-troversy over Contraception Coverage, neglecting to invite any women to participate.

Outrage was voiced by the pundits along these lines: "How does Congress debate a Women's Health issue without any women!?!"

I guess I'm wondering why anybody would accept any debate in Congress regarding ANY policy issue that doesn't include women.

You make your point stick a lot better if you can at least make it look a little less obviously political.

Rollin' 'Em

Along the same lines as the recent  "issue" of contraception, Obama follows it up with Eric Holder saying DoJ intends not to defend a provision in the Veterans' Bennies law that denies benefits to same-sex spouses.

It's not clear to me that they're saying the VA will stop denying those bennies, it's just that if you're denied and you challenge, then DoJ isn't gonna put up a fight.  Not quite as good as I think it oughta be, but they have to make it look like they're at least trying to follow the law.  There're still problems with the whole Torture and Illegal Imprisonment things out there, but hey - I'll take smallish improvements where I can get 'em.

Anyway, add this one to Contraception (and let's not forget DOMA), and we've got something that's starting to look like a pattern.

Obama is aware that the attitudes have shifted.  People who went along with the Right Radicals on the Culture War crap, thinking they'd get something good in return, are seeing now that there wasn't any real payoff at all - it was a gyp.  The Culture War is the agenda, and what you get for your trouble is fucked with your pants on.

So Obama rolls merrily along.  Once in a while he tosses a big hunk of juicy red meat out the window, and we all get to watch as a smaller and smaller pack of increasingly vicious feral dogs tear into each other trying to get at it.

One other little thing occurs to me.  I think this is looking like Obama is finding his footing, and learning how to use his expertise in Constitutional Law to drive the politics necessary to move his policy agenda forward.  Remember the big stupid show the House Repubs made of reading the Constitution, and requiring that every proposed bill include Constitutional compliance / justification?  I think Obama has taken that in hand like a blackjack and is in the process of wailin' the shit out of 'em with it.  I dunno of course, but it's more fun to watch now than it was just 6 or 8 months ago.

One Of My Questions

People in Red States collect more from Washington than they pay in.  So how come the voters in those states are usually the ones who're always screamin' the loudest about what a shitty deal they're getting from The Gubmint?

(hat tip = Balloon Juice)