A Special Logic

EXPOSED: Paul Ryan helps his donors block family leave bill, then demands Congress give him personal family time https://t.co/3DY2O4AA3G

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) October 23, 2015

Here's how I think it plays out in Paul Ryan's "brain": I'm against family leave, and you're against me for being against it.  So then, when I demand family leave, you don't get to be against me now that I'm for family leave for myself - because if you're against my being against it, then you being against me now for being for it makes you a typically hypocritical Libtard.

It's entirely possible guys like Ryan (and GOP operatives in general) do that kinda shit on purpose - not so much the Etch-A-Sketch thing (although there's plenty of that to it too) - but more like, "these blockheaded rubes who make up the GOP base aren't exactly deep thinkers anyway, so we can throw a buncha smoke and eventually they'll get confused and tired and they'll just leave it all to us like they always do.

'swhat it looks like from here right now anyway.

Yeah, About That

My main contention about Politics In Public is that nothing is ever about what the pols are willing to tell us it's about.

So I'm wondering - the Repubs might be trying really really hard to make Benghazi about Hillary because they desperately need us not to be thinking of the obvious connection between The Bush Doctrine and what an even bigger total cluster fuck "The Arab World" has become since we started swinging the big USAmerica Inc dick around knockin' shit over late in 2001 - which, btw, every "liberal" tried to warn us was likely to happen, while every "conservative" kept telling us it couldn't possibly happen because after all, inside every stoopid mooslim is a clean-cut Methodist-wanna-be with a burning desire to open up a shoe store in Topeka and join the local JCs.

How often do we hafta make the same fucking mistake before we get with the fucking program here?

Another great tweet:

How @TheDemocrats have felt about the GOP for the last 30 years in one picture. #p2 pic.twitter.com/6YrfUmwpVn

— Jason Hitchcock (@JasonHitchcock) October 22, 2015

And one more thing - I've been watching the Benghazi Circus today, and I've been hearing HRC trying mightily not to end every sentence with "Silly Goose" or "Sonny" or "you scabrous fucking twat-waffle".

Wow, Maybe?

Yeah, OK - it's Vermont.  But when was the last time anybody running at the national level as a Democrat managed to score with farmers of any stripe or region?

Gotta give Bernie some props here.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Today's Tweet

From driftglass (aka @mr_electrico on Twitter):

via @mr_electrico CC: @GottaLaff @lafloran pic.twitter.com/1qO7gVLSTm

— Blue Gal/Fran (@bluegal) October 22, 2015

Nobody does the Photoshop thing better.  Catch his blog here: driftglass.blogspot.com

Today's Takedown

Haven't seen a better hunk of satire in quite a while.  Copied whole from The New Yorker:

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

Tom O’Donnell’s children’s novel, “Space Rocks!” is out now.

Happy Day, Nerds

It's Back To The Future Day!

But alas, no flying cars.

Today's Pix

Today's Tweet

Martin Shkreli got rolled on the internet because - well because he's a top-shelf douchenozzle.

We may be super divided politically right now, but at least we can all come together to laugh at @MartinShkreli pic.twitter.com/mFZsbxO6Zu

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) October 19, 2015

Today's Etch-A-Sketch Moment

George Pataki, via Addicting Info

"What I said 38 seconds ago means nothing now - why do you insist on living in the past!?! This is what I'm saying right now because I need everything to mean something else. And I didn't even say what you say I said - I was misquoted and taken out of context and YouTube doesn't even exist as far as GOP voters are concerned (unless of course the title says 'Stupid Librul Totally Destroyed On Fox And Friends'), so I can say any nutty thing I wanna say because I can count on plenty of good Americans to think of nothing but their burning urgent need for instant gratification, and by the grace of God, FREEDOM!!! Am I right, America? USA! USA! USA!" 

Somebody hand that guy the Etch-A-Sketch.

There is no soul and no honor in way too much of the GOP.

And BTW, credit where credit is due - way to go, Chris

On The Downside Of Up

(Update: Prob'ly not a real tweet - couldn't find it anyway)

"Conservatives" are always on about "they're coming to take our jobs!"  And the Un-Crazies have so far only rebutted by saying things like, "they're only taking jobs we don't wanna do anyway", and "what fuckin' jobs you even talkin' about?".

Here it is:

These Trumpkins (et al) - are they thinking they can't compete?  These awesomely awesome Americans just aren't up to it?  And so what they really really really want is for Da Gubmint to do something about it?  Is that what I'm hearing?

You're welcome.

A Culture Of Mediocre

Rap. Gangsta Rap. Hip Hop. Swag Rap. Grime. Pick a Sub-Genre.

We were afraid.  The youngsters were outa control, listening to the horribly horrible-est noise ever to emerge from the pits of hell; nobody'd ever come up with anything so evil ... and ... yeah - prob'ly not so much.  At least not considering that everybody's said exactly the same thing about every shift from one pop music era to the next, going back thru Rock-n-Roll and Swing and Jazz and all the way back to the fucking Waltz and beyond.

Insert standard rant(s) about American Pop Culture Is Bullshit - or - Stupid Corporate Bastards Are Killing The Vibe - or - what-the-fuck-ever, man.

Evolution, motherfucker - it gets shit done. 

hat tip = tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors

Today's Vast RW Conspiracy

That's been rattling around in my head for a while now. So why does Limbaugh feel the need to slag NASA for finding water on Mars?  

I'm thinkin' a couple or three things here:

1- He has to push back against the normal tendency to give Obama credit for anything (it happened on his watch, so yeah).

2- If there's life on Mars, and it confirms an already-known-as-probable connection to life forms here on Earth, then it further erodes (ie: finally and completely dismantles) the bible's creation myth; and there goes sin; there goes the redeemer; there goes the religion - poof it's all gone.

3- If they can't find some kind of specious denial, then it all plays against the "conservative" strategy to move us closer to authoritarian rule which depends on blending church with state (see #2 above).

But then (not to give y'all whiplash or anything by swerving violently), I gotta ask, why are the wingnuts so strident about "fighting radical Islam"?  Why are the "threats" always Iran and ISIS and al-Qaeda, instead of the real ones like a resurgent Imperial Russia or Global Corporatism or the crashing biosphere?

I think what we're looking at here is pretty much the same old game of Fear Mongering, but nobody's gonna get much traction from the Arms Race / Missile Gap thing, plus this is the age of Branding & Differentiation, so they have to transition to something more topical and up-to-date, so we get something like, "What we have here is a Theocracy Gap - we can't afford to let those Moozlum bastards get ahead of us on this!"

People who're supposed to know about such things are telling us that the governments that're more authoritarian will be better able to react to the enormous shit wave that's beginning to swamp the world because of Climate Change.  The near-total disruption of everything we think of as stable and permanent; all those systems of Politics and Economics and Civilized Societies; all of that will change in a big way, and a shitload of that change will not be for the better.

Controlling the power of the government is the goal for these guys (btw - fuck Godwin, I'll go with Fascism - or TheoFascism if you prefer - on this one); theocracy being both the means to that end, and the mask of benevolence necessary to rationalize and excuse the brutality that always follows.

They don't like democracy. The don't trust us with our own governance. They insist on our complacency and our compliance, which makes us complicit in our own downfall.

And now, for your dining and dancing pleasure, here's a quick look at Proto-Limbaugh and the original Dittohead.

If it was any less tragic, it wouldn't be so fucking funny.

The I's Have It

I'm not contending that this says more than it says; or that it's indicative of any deeper meaning.

But it does line up pretty well with what we're always being told about leaders and leadership.

hat tip = (#1 Son) NN

Today's Pix

And The Hits Keep Rollin'

hat tip = Facebook buddy BD