Kenny The Kooch

Ken Cuccinelli is losing to a guy who has all the charisma and star-quality of a handful of wet dryer lint.

Here's a taste of how easy it's been so far for the McCauliffe campaign's 'creative' team:



Let's review:

First
Some say The Kooch was in on it from the start, but at minimum, Cucchinelli got splashed with the scandal of Gov (Vaginal Bob) McDonnell's dealings with "arch-fiend" Jonnie Williams. (and the scramble is on to avoid an indictment, or at least to postpone it til after the election)

Second
The negative ad above points out that Cuccinelli pushed hard for funding for these "crisis centers", which are little more than places to thump your bible at taxpayer expense.  I think it's odd that most people don't see what's wrong with spending tax dollars to push an agenda item that's obviously religious, but it's just flat-out crazy for people to accept spending tax dollars on an effort that actually raises the probability that a young mother and her baby will require years of taxpayer provided assistance because she went to one these stoopid "clinics" and got talked out of using effective birth control.  Go figure.

Third
We had a major dust-up last year at UVa when (McDonnell appointee) Helen Dragas manipulated the Board of Visitors into firing President Terry Sullivan (Sullivan was re-instated after a very ugly and really-fun-to-watch dog fight).  The story line everybody insisted on sticking with was that Dragas had it in for Sullivan - because Sullivan was dragging her feet when it came to mapping out a good strategy for future blah blah blah.  Bullshit.  It's never about what they tell us it's about.  Very soon after Sullivan was installed, Kenny the Kooch started his campaign against Michael Mann.  Sullivan defended against two major efforts coming from the AG's office, and eventually won in the Va Supreme Court.  That kinda thing always makes a politician look bad, and when that politician decides to run for Governor, one of the first orders of business is to shit on anybody he thinks needs a little payback.  Taking a big important scalp sends a big important message - Don't Fuck With The Kooch.  Unfortunately (for Kenny), none of it worked the way he needed it to work.  If you're stomping around trying to show everybody you've got the big dick and you intend to knock things over with it, you damn sure better make it happen.  The Kooch couldn't pull it off, so he's been shown up as a paper tiger.  And that's bad enough when it comes to the voters, but it's really really really bad when the big-dollar donors - who've been paying very large amounts expecting Mr Super Hard-Ass Authoritarian - end up with nothing but a cloud of smoke and ash instead.

Of course, anything can happen - so I have to remember to hedge my bets a little.  But something special has to happen for Kooch to get back in this race.

Oh yeah - do we even have to mention the negative effects of Cucchinelli's "running mates"?

EW Jackson - GOP candidate for Lt Gov

Mark Obenshain - GOP candidate for AG

I just don't know where we get these chumps in a state that gave us 4 out of the first 5 presidents.  And I'm not fond of seeing the bottom of the barrel from way down inside like this.

Thank God - It's Friday

Now wait just a durn minute, I almost fergot - Fuck You, NSA.

Respectability Politics

Jay sounds a bit angry - and if you can make Jay Smooth angry about anything, ya done fucked up pretty bad.



Yes - that's what Jay Smooth sounds like when he's pissed off.

Eva Cassidy

You've Changed:

Yeesh

A recent facebook exchange:

Yeah - there ya go - that third comment is kinda the whole thing in a nutshell, ain't it?Just retire and enjoy life - cuz doesn't everybody own a company they can sell for a jillion dollars, or whatever they think they'll need for their retirement?  You deserve it, because you have it.  And if you don't have it then you don't deserve anything because you're just too fuckin' stupid.

I'd really like to think 'Michael' is just trying to be jovial; or it's his idea of irony or some such(?)

I guess maybe I'm hoping he really doesn't know what a shit stained bag of cat puke  that comment makes him out to be.

But then, how can it be better if he doesn't actually know that saying something like that makes him a total goddamned dick spit?

Birds Do It, Bees Do It

...even politically conscious chimpanzees do it.  Fuck you, NSA.

Wednesday's Child

...is full of piss and vinegar.  Fuck you, NSA.

The KrugMan Speaks

August 6, 2013, 10:42 am 48 Comments

Another Bad Story Bites The Dust

One of the remarkable things about the ongoing economic crisis is the endless search for explanations of something that’s actually quite simple — the sluggish pace of recovery. You have a large overhang of private debt; you have a still-depressed housing sector; and you have contractionary fiscal policy. Add to this the well-established fact that recovery tends to be slow after recessions caused not by tight money but by private-sector overreach, and there’s just no mystery that needs explaining.

Yet we’ve seen an endless series of analyses declaring that there is indeed a deep mystery, and it must be Obama’s Fault. Probably the most influential of these analyses was the claim that Obama was creating “uncertainty”, and this was holding everything back.

Larry Mishel did a thorough debunking of this meme almost two years ago. And sure enough, the index of uncertainty that everyone was pointing to has plunged, with no visible boost to the economy.

Will anyone who bought into this story engage in some serious self-analysis? Why am I even asking?

That last line is the dominant theme of our current dysfunction, and I'm trying hard not to think we can just slap some sense into people.  

Groundswell

David Corn talking about the Wingnuts planning to take over the whole joint.



It's a bit less scary when we learn more about it.

But something that stays a little scary for me is that "the messaging" effort (ie: Corn's point about the apparent collusion between GOP and "The Press") is pretty solid simply because we've grown accustomed to the false assertion of a "librul bias in the media".  How long have 'Conservatives' have been bitchin' about that one?  The frame's been in place for a long time, so we're ready to accept this development as just another example of Both Sides Do It.

So here's the pitch: "the media's been lying to us all along - we all know that.  We're breaking away from 'the establishment' and we're gonna tell the real truth about what the government doesn't want you to know...blah blah blah."

Another weird development is that DumFux News is starting to become identified (by some) as not being Pure Right enough.

The glimmer of hope is that these new revolutionaries can be recognized as being  different from the old ones only in the extreme levels of their hunger for power.  And the exceedingly dangerous deliciousness is that Ginny Thomas and Ted Cruz and Alan West make up the monster of the Republican id.  Created for a political purpose, the monster now turns to destroy its creators.

Here's to keeping the collateral damage to a minimum.

One more random connect-the-dots wondering:  how does Jeff Bezos buying WaPo figure into any of this?

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

If It's Tuesday

...it must be time for me to say, "Fuck you, NSA" - and also we should prob'ly figure out how to co-opt something.

So here it is:

That's a t-shirt you can buy at a joint called Red Bubble

I ♥ Capitalism.

Feelin' It

White Privilege - pretty much the king of all redundancies.



Hayes works for a company owned by a company owned in turn by a company that's being run by a lot a people who aren't voting for many Democrats - not the librul Dems anyway - but still sometimes he dances dangerously close to the point where he almost but not quite says there's an awful buncha bullshit about the way we're doin' things here.

Props when they're due tho'.  Nicely done, Chris.

Today's Pix

On A Monday

Good mornin', heartache - and fuck you, NSA.

A Little Serious Mumbo Jumbo

I think somebody needs to do another Jefferson on the bible - that joint's in dire need of an update cuz y'know what? (and this comes as no big surprise) when smart people take a slightly different look at it, sometimes they find a tiny inkling of truth that's managed to leak its way down thru the centuries while they trim away all the suck-up crap and the self-congratulational/flegellational junk.

Anyway, this is from The Book of Habakkuk, chap 2 - which ends up kinda just sounding like, "don't worry so much - what goes around comes around".

Here's the setup: this Habakkuk guy sees that the people with all the power get to keep doing whatever they wanna do, and they never get called on anything, and so his whole world's pretty fucked up, and of course, he's pissed at god because of it(?) and so he lodges a complaint with god somehow(?) - I dunno, but apparently, god made it far enough thru his inbox that day, and this is how he answered Habakkuk.

⁵ Wealth^[c] is treacherous,
    and the arrogant are never at rest.
They open their mouths as wide as the grave,^[d]
    and like death, they are never satisfied.
In their greed they have gathered up many nations
    and swallowed many peoples.

⁶ “But soon their captives will taunt them.
    They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
    Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
    but how much longer can this go on?’
⁷ Suddenly, your debtors will take action.
    They will turn on you and take all you have,
    while you stand trembling and helpless.
⁸ Because you have plundered many nations,
    now all the survivors will plunder you.
You committed murder throughout the countryside
    and filled the towns with violence.

⁹ “What sorrow awaits you who build big houses
    with money gained dishonestly!
You believe your wealth will buy security,
    putting your family’s nest beyond the reach of danger.
¹⁰ But by the murders you committed,
    you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives.
¹¹ The very stones in the walls cry out against you,
    and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.

¹² “What sorrow awaits you who build cities
    with money gained through murder and corruption!
¹³ Has not the Lord of Heaven’s Armies promised
    that the wealth of nations will turn to ashes?
They work so hard,
    but all in vain!
¹⁴ For as the waters fill the sea,
    the earth will be filled with an awareness
    of the glory of the Lord.

¹⁵ “What sorrow awaits you who make your neighbors drunk!
    You force your cup on them
    so you can gloat over their shameful nakedness.
¹⁶ But soon it will be your turn to be disgraced.
    Come, drink and be exposed!^[e]
Drink from the cup of the Lord’s judgment,
    and all your glory will be turned to shame.
¹⁷ You cut down the forests of Lebanon.
    Now you will be cut down.
You destroyed the wild animals,
    so now their terror will be yours.
You committed murder throughout the countryside
    and filled the towns with violence.

Not sure what any o' dat has to do with god actually - I guess I was just kinda going for the Authority Confirmation. Maybe it carries a little more weight with 'conservatives' if they hear it from "their book"(?) Prob'ly not - I dunno - worth a shot?

hat tip = The Professional Left podcast

Yay - It's Sunday

...and fuck you, NSA.

Diana Krall

All Or Nuthin' At All.

Paul Simon

Mr Alienation his-own-self.

Phoebe Snow

Goin' on 40 years - still can't beat this.

Welcome To The Jungle

There was a "decent" jobs report that came out a day or two ago, and it indicated a bit of drop in the unemployment rate and some other fairly OK stuff, but the thing I remember most is that the majority of the 162,000 new jobs were Part-Time.  Yay us.

47% of American adults don't have a Full-Time job.

That ain't good, but hey - it gets worse.

A Little Light Reading

Aha - suckered you into a post about science.

From The Verge:

Beams of light are usually speeding along at around 186,000 miles per second, but for one minute, researchers in Germany brought some to a screeching halt. Using a crystal frozen to temperatures below negative 450 degrees Fahrenheit, a research team managed to hold light in place for a full minute — marking a drastic increase from the previous record of just 16 seconds. The technology will eventually be applied to quantum computing as a way to retrieve and read data, but it'll have to work on a much smaller scale and for much longer periods of time before that can happen.

And here's a Peer-Review paper for any uber-nerds who happen by.

Now I suppose I need to ask all you 'conservatives' to stay calm and try not to get too frightened by all this.  I realize you guys can take just about anything and turn it into a massively spooky conspiracy aimed at contaminating our precious bodily fluids or some such nonsense, but really, you don't have to feel threatened by every fuckin' thing that comes around the corner.

And BTW - how come this is the kinda thing that gets done in Germany, and not here in USAmerica?  This wasn't a "pure science" thing - it's happening because there's an application in mind - but this is exactly what we need to be funding in some pretty big ways.  If we just kinda let the smarts guys do what they do, maybe we could find a really great use for the ability to store light that doesn't have to be about blowing shit up or knocking shit down.  Could we at least try that for a while?