What Ya Don't Do

• You don't fight terrorism by becoming a terrorist.
• You don't improve a democratic system by squelching the voting franchise.
• You don't boost Demand in a struggling economy by making it harder for people to buy stuff.
• You don't make your Democratic Party brand stronger by acting just like the Republicans.
• You don't ensure our precious way of life here in God's US America™ by turning the joint into some bullshit parody of itself, as we actually become something more like Noriega's Panama if you look too close.

I'm thinking there's more to this than we know (as usual - it's not about what they tell us it's about).  And what we don't know could easily either mitigate or exacerbate the "scandal", but even if I'm willing to give TeamObama some wagon room on this, I still have a hard time not thinking somebody in Obama's administration - up to and including Obama himself - needs to get kicked right in the nuts.  (And BTW, that goes for the Diane Feinsteins and Lindsay Grahams in congress as well)

At the very least, the politics and the "optics" make this look a lot worse than it may actually be.

I do have to ask one question tho'.  This kind of abusable power has been legal - and has been applied inside the US - for a very long time now.  That doesn't make it OK, even after "9/11 changed everything", but still, why are we gettin' all spastic about it now?

John Mayer

From the Abbey Road sessions in about 2007(?)

--Never Gonna Win The War--

Is there anyone who
Ever remembers changing their mind from
The paint on a sign?
Is there anyone who really recalls
Ever breaking rank at all
For something someone yelled real loud one time

Everyone believes
In how they think it ought to be
Everyone believes
And they're not going easily

Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword
Like punching under water
You never can hit who you're trying for
Some need the exhibition
And some have to know they tried
It's the chemical weapon
For the war that's raging on inside

Everyone believes
From emptiness to everything
Everyone believes
And no one's going quietly

We're never gonna win the world
We're never gonna stop the war
We're never gonna beat this
If belief is what we're fighting for

What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand
Belief can
Belief can
What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand
Belief can
Belief can

Today's Gaffe

It's well known that a 'gaffe' is when some politician accidentally tells the truth.

At a Dallas County GOP event last month, Bishop John Lawson asked Ken Emanuelson, a Tea Party activist, what the Republican Party was doing for African-American voters. The progressive group Battleground Texas posted audio from the event. "I'm going to be real honest with you," Emanuelson said. "The Republican Party doesn't want black people to vote if they are going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats." In Emanuelson's view, in other words, the solution to lack of support from African-American voters is to have fewer of them show up at the polls. When the inevitable criticism ensued, Emanuelson backtracked. In a post on his Facebook page, the Tea Party activist acknowledged that he "misspoke" and tried to clarify what he was getting at. "What I meant, and should have said, is that it is not, in my personal opinion, in the interests of the Republican Party to spend its own time and energy working to generally increase the number of Democratic voters at the polls, and at this point in time, nine of every ten African-American voters cast their votes for the Democratic Party."

And Emanualson isn't the first Repub to say something like that.

1) It's not in the best interests of the GOP for everybody who's eligible to vote to go out and vote.
2) The GOP is working very hard in many places to pass laws that effectively keep people - the big majority of whom are likely not going to vote for Repubs - away from the polls.

Here's a slightly different angle:  When everybody who should vote gets to vote, we say yay, democracy - our system is healthy, and it's working the way it's supposed to work.  That's what America's all about.  But that's what the TeaParty Republicans are against; they're saying it's wrong for so many people to vote; they're saying there's too much democracy going on here.  They're saying democracy is bad for the GOP, and so the GOP is opposed to democracy.

It just seems pretty clear, and it's pretty fucked up.

Today's Quote

"I will continue to work vehemently and robustly to fight back against what most in the other party want to do to transform our country into becoming."
--Michelle Bachmann, announcing she won't run for a 5th term.

Seriously.  That's what she said.  I've checked it several times.  I've checked the actual quote; and I've checked my typing and my hearing and my willingness to keep trying to make sense of what these meatheads have to say.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

A Pretty Good Rant

Dear "Conservatives",

I wanna believe you.  I really do.  I wanna know when the people I'm trusting to run my government are fucking up and/or fucking us over and/or whatever.  We all need you to tell us about the things you find out - especially the shit that goes on in every administration that every administration doesn't want us to know about.  Do that and you're fulfilling your number one obligation to our country.  Your guys aren't in the White House right now, so applying counter weight to the balance of power is what you're supposed be doing.  All well and good - but ya gotta stop just makin' shit up.  Cuz guess what - I'm not inclined to believe one fuckin' thing that falls outa your gob-shite pie-holes any more.

First off, there's plenty of stuff about Obama we should be talking about that we're not talking about, because you won't let us talk about it, because you're too busy jumping up and down screeching about stoopid "issues" that're either trivial or straight-up made-up bullshit.

Let's see if Ol' Doc Maddow can 'splain some of it:



Repubs are fond of saying how fucked up Gubmint is, and they seem to be working really hard to make sure it says that way.

Today's Pix

Today's Best Comment

From the comments at The American Conservative:

Cliff says:
June 3, 2013 at 9:18 am

The Tea Party was founded in much the same way as the Monkees…

The Parade Of Clowns

...continues unabated, via James Fallows at The Atlantic:

The menace of the all-powerful bicycle lobby -- revealed at last! Writers at the Onion, take careful notes.

The best part of this video comes very near the beginning when Ms Rabinowitz more than implies (ie: makes a rather straight-up claim) that she represents the entire citizenry of NYC - and the journalist interviewer Press Poodle let's it go completely unchallenged.



The Rupert Street Journal editorial page was a big part of WingNut Central Command even before Papa Murdoch came along, so this shouldn't be such a big surprise for me.  It's just that every time I get a big whiff of the atmosphere from inside that "conservative" bubble, it makes my eyes water and I feel a certain churning in my bowels - like I'd spent the last coupla days chompin' on Feen-a-mint and slammin' Metamucil shots or somethin'.

I mean, c'mon, lady.  Offering bikes for people to ride in a city that's way over-packed with cars - is that really what you're convinced is a sure sign of impending tyranny and enslavement?  Seriously?

This is just too fuckin' weird, man.

It's A Wonderment

From a bit in Forbes, by the leftie-ish Rick Ungar:

With Medicaid eligibility about to be expanded in some 30 states, as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Wal-Mart has responded by cutting employee hours—and thereby wages—even further in order to push more of their workers into state Medicaid programs and increase Wal-Mart profits. Good news for Wal-Mart shareholders and senior management earning the big bucks—not so good for the taxpayers who will now be expected to contribute even larger amounts of money to subsidize Wal-Mart’s burgeoning profits.

But, at long last and in a move gaining popularity around the nation, the State of California is attempting to say ‘enough’ to Wal-Mart and the other large retailers who are looking to the taxpayers to take on the responsibility for the company’s employees—a responsibility Wal-Mart has long refused to accept.

It’s about time.

--and--

Of course, the California Retailers Association, where Wal-Mart Stores WMT +1.14%, Inc. is listed as a board member company, is not quite so pleased with the legislation. According to Bill Dombrowski, chief executive of the Association, ”It’s one of the worst job-killer bills I’ve seen in my 20 years in Sacramento, and that says a lot. The unions are fixated on Wal-Mart, but that’s not the issue here. It’s a monster project to implement the Affordable Care Act, and having this thrown on top is not helpful.”

One wonders if we will ever see the day when Americans will stop falling for the hostage-taking narrative consistently put forward by those whose job it is to defend the indefensible. At the first suggestion of finally putting a chink in Wal-Mart’s policy of profiting at the taxpayers’ expense—a practice that should have every American thinking about what passes for free-enterprise in the United States today—the response is to always threaten to take away jobs if we dare to challenge their business practices, even if those practices cost us billions.

I'm not a regular visitor to their site, so I don't know how often they do this kinda thing, but seeing this under the flagship Forbes brand seems odd to me.  It feels encouraging tho', especially considering that Ungar is staking out what has traditionally been the conservative position when we approach the issue of government involvement in private business.

When Wal-Mart practically owns local and state politicians; when they dominate the retail sector of any portion of any economy; and as a result they get to use the power of government to enforce their business plan - isn't that almost exactly the kind of overly-powerful relationship we're all supposed to be against?

Be sure to browse the comments too - Ungar goes toe-to-toe with some of the more rabid knee-jerkers.