The Amazing Charlie Pierce

Copied in it's entirety from Esquire - picture and all:

Jesus god, Ed fking Meese?

Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama's health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.

I didn't know that there was an Old Timer's Game for Authoritarian Yahoos.

Will the sad detritus of the Saint Ronnie administration ever stop fouling American public life? We have Our Lady Of The Magic Dolphins on the teevee almost every weekend. We had a whole clutch of the foreign-policy fantasts rehabilitated during the late reign of C-Plus Augustus. And now, this guy, who once advocated concentration camps for student demonstrators, who personally oversaw the most embarrassing "investigation" into the porn industry ever conducted, and who functioned as lookout and getaway driver for the Iran-Contra crooks, up to and including the increasingly dim president himself, comes back to help screw up the nation again. Nobody listens to Gary Hart, but Edwin Meese III still has a place in public life. Wingnut welfare is forever.

At least part of the blame has to be shared by those nominal Democrats who, either through their silence on the crimes of that era, or in their admiration for Reagan's "style" and toothy obliviousness. (The latest of these, alas, is Chris Matthews, who has written a book about how Tip O'Neill and Ronnie made politics "work," and who, between 1980 and 1982, probably sold out truly progressive politics for at least two decades.) A number of truly horrible things were set in motion in our political life in the 1980's. The people responsible never have really been called to account for it. Now, one of the worst of them is back, doing further damage. I am, frankly, stunned.

Tom Foolery

Anybody else notice that the rhetoric of the hostage-takers has kinda slopped over into the stoopid? (I mean more than the usual stoopid)

Repubs say they won't vote to raise the debt ceiling unless the Dems agree to a list of demands.  This of course scares the fuck outa lotsa o' people who're supposed to know about such things because either the debt ceiling goes up or the US government can't pay  everything it owes; and if we don't pay our bills, then others can't pay theirs, and "the markets" get the willies, and the cascade effect makes things real bad real fast.

So the imagery of the TeaBaggers holding a knife to throat of the world economy seems pretty valid.  Except now, we've got guys like Tom Coburn denying the terribleness of what happens if we don't raise the debt ceiling - he says it'll be OK; no big deal.

But that doesn't sound quite right; denying the dire consequences if your demands aren't met - "Gimme what I want or the hostage will probably be OK"(?)

Is this some kind of weird double flip?  Maybe Coburn's denial is aimed at the crazies and not at the rest of us.  Maybe he's trying to talk 'em down(?)

One last frightening tho't - what if it turns out that Tom Coburn is now what passes for a reasonable Republican?

We are so fucked.

Suicide Bombers

...and the American Taliban.  (see handy dandy self referencing reminder here)

Somebody's driving this Tea Party crap and it has nothing at all to do with "the American people".

The Repubs put out "opinion polls" (where the pollsters call only registered voters in the reddest of the deep red districts); then they point to the numbers of people who agree totally with their radical proposals in Saddam-Hussein-like percentages, and then they peddle this glop to us with the perfect complicity of The Press Poodles like David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell and Joe Scarborough.

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And btw, when might we expect Doc Maddow to call bullshit on the bullshit that her colleagues are helping the radicals dump on us every fucking day?

Today's Quote

Today's Pix

Today's Quote

(updating a post from a coupla days ago - Kinda Says It All)

The president also mocked Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) for saying Wednesday that his party has "to get something out of" the shutdown fight, even though he doesn't "know what that even is.”

"You have already gotten the opportunity to serve the American people. There's no higher honor than that," Obama said to applause. "You've already gotten the opportunity to help businesses like this one. Workers like these. So the American people aren't in the mood to give you a goody bag to go with it. What you get is our intelligence professionals being back on the job. What you get is our medical researchers back on the job. What you get are little kids back in the head start."

That's the Obama we need to hear from on a much more regular basis.

I'm not saying The Prez should match nasty for nasty, I'm saying there's no need to suffer fools.  You get a chance to grab a dipwad like Stutzman by the heel and dangle him in the sunshine so everybody can see him for the small and empty-souled know-nothing leech that he is, then you should do it.  And as for pickin' on some junior putz who nobody's gonna remember when he's gone?  Fuck him - little man wants to be in the majors, then he plays the full nine.

Both Sides(?)

In the atmosphere of All Shutdown All The Time, it became fairly easy to overlook this one from a law professor at Liberty University:

The Christian mission field is a “magnet” for sexual abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday (Sept. 26) to a room of journalists.

While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, ”I think we are worse,” he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference, saying too many evangelicals had “sacrificed the souls” of young victims.

What is it with these god freaks?  If they're not invading the Middle East - or hatching plots in the Middle East to blow up the infidels - they're hanging "witches" or "honor murdering" teenaged girls for the sin of being raped; or they're preaching hellfire and brimstone about home and family while buying meth from their homosexual lovers etc etc etc.  And in this country, they get to do all that in the comfort and safety of a tax-free corporate office.

But back to the point - maybe we should be taking a much closer look at the high rate of incidence of sexual assault/sexual abuse in organizations with very top-down authoritarian power structures - like churches and the US military - and maybe we shouldn't be leaving them alone with the kids.

The Root Of The Problem

Ted Cruz - not Senator Cruz per se - but the generic Ted Cruz kinda personifies what's wrong with this whole Radical Right movement.

Today CNN was reporting on some inside scoopy shit - saying there was a growing number of Repubs who see Cruz as having set himself up as the One True Conservative - that he thinks he's the one with the purest Republican soul - or some other fucked up verbiage that these "deliverers" always try to drape around their own shoulders.

Adam Curtis took a good look at the same kinda of thing in his documentary The Power Of Nightmares, about the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the American TheoCons etc.

And no, I'm not saying these GOP dopes are the same as... well yeah, I guess I am.  Guys like Ted Cruz are almost literally no different from somebody like Ayman Zawahri or Pol Pot or any other fart-breather who thinks leadership means having to prove your moral superiority over everybody else.  So fuck him.

Anyway, the Race To Purity is basically a process of elimination.  "Everybody's fucked up except you and me, and I've got my doubts about you."  Can you tell me honestly that's not what's been going on here?

These guys are NOT conservatives.  And they have absolutely no feeling for anybody who isn't willing to self-immolate to advance their cause.  BTW, pay close attention to the simple fact that they're not the ones wearing the vests loaded with all the C4 and ball bearings - they're always eager to send you out to do the wet work while they wait at home to watch their PayPal receipts go up after the pink mist clears.

So now I gotta wonder - who talked Ted Cruz into this?

'Cuse Me, Mr Speaker

...release the hostages, and then we can talk.

Kinda Says It All

"We're not going to be disrespected," Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) told The Washington Examiner. "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

These guys are a buncha belligerent hyper-testosterone teenagers, arguing that no matter what actually happened, what they insist on believing is that they've suffered an unendurable insult and they're gonna get some payback.

Today's Eternal Sadness

An Arizona woman died after her boyfriend accidentally shot off a handgun he had tucked into his waistband Tuesday morning.

The 18-year-old man had been hugging his 24-year-old girlfriend when she complained that the weapon was making her uncomfortable, according to KTVK.

The man discharged the gun while attempting to remove it, shooting the woman, according to police.

The woman was rushed to an area hospital and later pronounced dead. Police have not released names in the shooting. Phoenix Police Department spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson told ABC Phoenix that the shooting appears to be accidental, but is still under investigation.

The Shutdown Thang

Don't kid ourself - fuckin' up Da Gubmint is what the Radical Repubs want.

They campaign on it.  They raise money on it.  They get elected on it.  And then they go to Washington or their state capitals or whatever and they proceed to fuck up Da Gubmint some more so they can start the whole thing over.

Sometimes, Doc Maddow gets close enough to touch it:

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A little gerrymandering, anyone?

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I guess the point here is that we're not done with this - not by a long shot.  We have to figure out how to step up and put these fuckin' brats to bed.

A Few Special Pix

Parade Of Stoopid

I should give people something of a break on a lot of this stuff because even if they try to get the straight dope, there's plenty of root weevils out there doing whatever they can to make things unclear, but like the man said, "how come we have to be the stupid country?"

The Flower Duet

From Lakme by Leo Delibes.

Never fails to make me cry.

Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca

Tell Me Sweet Lies

Another'n from Linda and Ann - from Adieu False Heart



Talk to me of love
tell me tender things once more
your beautiful speech
my heart doesn't get tired of listening to it
provided that you always
repeat those supreme words:
"I love you"

You know well
that deep inside me I don't believe any of them
but nonetheless I still want to
listen to those words which I adore
your voice with its caressing sounds
whispering tremulously
deludes me with its beautiful story
and despite myself, I want to believe in it

He's so sweet
my beloved treasure, he's a bit crazy
life is sometimes too bitter
if we don't believe in chimaeras
grief eases up quick
and consoles itself with a kiss
we heal the wound of our heart
with an oath which reassures it

And Speaking Of Linda

Ms Ronstadt with Ann Savoy - Walk Away Renee:

Linda Ronstadt

I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance

Les & Mary

I'm A Fool To Care

Why Not Negotiate With 'Em?