Monday's Minor Miracle

OK OK - no miracle; just good photography (or PhotoShop or whatever).  

But then again, maybe the miracle is that the wingnuts aren't jumping up and down screaming about how Obama's some kinda evil sorcerer who hates America because he's calling on his African Usurper God to bestow blessings on a buncha black people in Haiti.

And you know none of that's particularly funny because you know it's a little too close to the fucking truth.

Today's Eternal Sadness

Another day, another 1.64 dead children.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A 3-year-old boy picked up an unattended gun inside a home and it went off, shooting a 1-year-old boy in the head and killing him Sunday afternoon, police said.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said investigators are trying to determine where the gun came from.

Emergency workers said the 1-year-old was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Full details about the shooting on the city's east side weren't released, but Williams said at least one adult was home when it happened.

"It's a sad day for Cleveland," he told reporters outside the home. "This fascination that we have with handguns, not just in this city but in this country, has to stop. This is a senseless loss of life."

Cleveland.com (http://bit.ly/1I5oHQ6) reports that the boy's mother could be heard screaming on the back porch after learning her son had died.Neighbors told the news website the mother lived in the house with at least three small children.

"They were really nice," next-door neighbor Larry Simpson said of the family. "It's a shame this had to happen."

It was absolutely not something that "had to happen", Mr Simpson.  And statements like that are a good indication of the kind of unconsciously malicious and deliberately ignorant viewpoint that makes these "accidents" inevitable.

Tunes For Friday

The Walk --Mayer Hawthorne

Harvest Moon --Bedlam

Same Ol' Me --Amazing Rhythm Aces

The Fools --Bob Schneider (hat tip = Little Green Footballs)

Little Green Bag --The George Baker Selection

This Or That (cover) --Dianne Reeves

Number 20,526,718

...but number 1 in your hearts!

As per Alexa:

Phrasing update:  "Opinions are like blogs - every asshole's got one".

The Big Show

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

This wasn't an announcement so much as an attempted Product Roll-out.  But anyway, once they actually got to the point, we got all the usual bullshit. Liberty, justice and personal responsibility.

He's gonna get the economy cookin' by FREEDOM (privatization)!!!

He's gonna break the cycle of Poverty-Lousy Schools-Unemployment-&-Crime by PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY (privatization)!!!

He's gonna get the federal government under control by JUSTICE (privatization)!!!

And he's gonna Take Our Country Back!!!!!!!!!!

I slag the Press Poodles a lot.  And this crap from yesterday is a fair example of why I slag the Press Poodles a lot.  There was almost no real policy in anything Paul had to say.  There was lots of jingoism and the obligatory attempts to seem "Reaganesque" - which for Lil Randy just made him look like the standard 2-year-old wearing daddy's great big shoes.  And nobody said anything about any of that.

I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect somebody to ask one or two obvious-as-fuck questions when these guys disgorge some of the less meaningful (ie: Content-Free) bromides that their focus group gurus feed them.

Senator Paul: "..we're going to take this country back."

Press Poodle: "Take it back from whom?  Who has it?"

-or-

Poodle: "Take the country back ... to the 1950s? - the 1890s?  the 18th century?"

In the end, what this guy wants is to take what's left of this country away from all of us and sell it to his buddies.  So he needs us to go along with the toxic notion that the Noble Rich are the only ones who worked their asses off to build this joint and so they're the only ones who deserve to cash in on it now.  Unfortunately, he's got a fuck-ton of self-loathing rubes standing in line, looking for an excuse to start turning over all the wrong tables and throwing shit thru all the wrong windows.

When there's so much money and power concentrated in so few hands, and when the rest of us are left with nothing more to lose, guess what happens.  Paraphrasing: rebellion is the language of the powerless.

We'd best be making sure we've got this thing pointed in the right direction.

Today's Quote

It occurs to me that seeing all those Islamist martyrs blowing themselves up and crashing various modes of transportation into various symbols of Western Colonialism or whatever, Americans are feeling a bit challenged.  

"We own this fuckin' joint and nobody ever out-maniacs America.  USA! USA!"

But we'll do it our own way, thanks and fuck you very much.

From Addicting Info:

Like the equally discriminatory Memories Pizza, in Indiana, which has earned over $800,000 in sympathy donations so far, Stutzman’s own GoFundMe campaign has pulled in nearly $90,000.

According to The Seattle Times, almost half of the money Stutzman has gained so far has been picked up in the last few days, though. It seems her campaign, created back in February, may be getting a fresh insurgence of support on the coattails of the Memories Pizza success.

It’s always interesting to see in the dirty, sell-anything world of capitalism when Jesus and morals win, isn’t it? Yes, you too can hate and get paid!

Stutzman was fined by the Benton County Superior Court last month for refusing service to a same-sex couple two years ago, claiming her Southern Baptist beliefs prohibited her from doing so. She is the owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts.

So what’s the moral of this story, and is it anything remotely “Christian?”

So in light of this "hot new fashion trend" of good Christian entrepreneurs lining up to make a show of their eagerness to become martyrs to the noble cause of TheoCommercialist Bigotry, I tho't Mencken's quote from about 90 years ago might be timely.

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” --HL Mencken, Chicago Tribune 1926

One of the favorite themes of all three of the Book Religions is the one about being Persecuted For Your Faith.  And it doesn't matter that you're a totally dominant majority of your country's population.  If there's any chance for you to reaffirm one of the big deal tenets of your religion, you jump on it.  It also doesn't matter if you have to make up some shit about your current circumstances to get everything to fit, because religion is all about making shit up to begin with.

I guess I'm a little surprised that anybody - including me - is at all surprised by any of this.

Happy Easter

Another Good One

History.  

Forget your own history, and you won't know who you are.  You'll lose the understanding of yourself.  

So if I can change the historical narrative, I can make you believe you're someone other than who you are.

And then it'll be just that tiny bit easier for me to influence (if not control) your thinking and your behavior.

The Professional Left podcast (via Stitcher):

Things Jesus Never Said

Following the trend:

'Do not welcome strangers.' #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
— Isabel Losada (@IsabelLosada) April 4, 2015

#ThingsJesusNeverSaid "It's an act of God when kids get shot on playgrounds." @glencasada @BillHaslam #tnlege http://t.co/saAWBlZELZ
— Demanda Evers (@ActUpSpeakOut) April 4, 2015

"Blessed are the cherry-picking fundamentalists for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." #ThingsJesusNeverSaid .@JohnFugelsang
— Kenny Pick (@kenpickles) April 2, 2015

#ThingsJesusNeverSaid I will only heal you if you can prove you didn't have this illness when we first met.
— MATTY ICE (@MattyIceAZ) April 2, 2015

#ThingsJesusNeverSaid "I'd like my life to inspire a massive pompous money-grubbing global corporation that harbours child abusers"
— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) April 2, 2015

Why are we all sitting on the same side of the table? #ThingsJesusNeverSaid pic.twitter.com/esVy9LyCC5
— Jonathan (@Haymaker710) April 2, 2015

#thingsJesusneversaid Anything in English
— David Andignac Jr (@RwdaveJr) April 2, 2015

#thingsJesusneversaid pic.twitter.com/mqEI5Xlgr8
— Celeste Smith (@celestemsw) March 15, 2015

"Bomb them, Father, for we don't know what we're doing." #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
— Andrew Wilson (@AJWTheology) February 16, 2015

When someone hits you on the cheek, shoot him #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
— chattelgirl (@chattelgirl) November 2, 2014

"Go into all the world and make republicans." #thingsjesusneversaid
— Stephen Collins (@stephenNcollins) November 8, 2013

hat tip = Addicting Info

Today In GlennBeck-istan

Christian holocaust.  The delusions of persecution just get deeper and deeper, right along with the phat stacks of spending green in Glenn Beck's bank accounts.

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Bad Senator - Bad Bad Senator

Bob Menendez may be carted off the field pretty soon - for stepping on his own dick with a track shoe.  And while I won't say it shouldn't happen, I guess I could say this looks a whole lot like Praising-By-Faint-Damnation. 

It's pretty obvious ol' Bob is a fine example of the kinda Coin-Operated Politician I love to slag.  The guy sold favors.  He used the power of his office to grease the skids for a buddy in exchange for campaign donations.  First, let's be real clear - this should come as no surprise to anybody.  It's a manifestation of the system of legalized bribery we've developed.  I'm a lot more amazed that Bob's buddy, Salomon Melgen was willing to pay $750k in campaign contributions to get visas for a coupla Dominican girlfriends - that is some top-shelf high-priced pussy, my friend - and hey, what else is this guy willing to overpay for? And how do I get in on that action? 

(sorry, not sorry - even if you think I should be a bit more restrained in my expression, or that I'm being cynical because of course we're all supposed to have evolved enough to believe power and money are used for better purposes, thinking they won't be used in the traditionally relentless pursuit of sex is just silly).

But that leads me to the second thing, which is: what the fuck - Bob Menendez is the guy we need to go after?  Maybe that's why there's not a whole big magillah being made about it - yet.  Or maybe there's a lot more to it(?) - like maybe everybody else is really busy making sure all their own hookers and pimps are properly masked before they jump into it.  Dunno, but it is politics after all.  And it's Jersey to boot.

Today's Pix

This Modern GOP

(I was desperately hoping this was some kind of April Fools gag - but alas, Beshear put his name to this crap and sent it to SCOTUS ... and so the search for intelligent life among Republicans continues)

Via HuffPo:

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's administration is arguing the state's ban on same-sex marriage isn't discriminatory because it applies to straight people, too.

"Kentucky’s marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral. Men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under Kentucky law, and men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law," the Democratic governor said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on March 27.

That's what passes for "logical thinking" in the GOP now.

So the argument in favor of (eg) the anti-miscegenation laws in the Jim Crow era would be: "the laws against Inter-Racial Marriage are not at all discriminatory because they make it illegal for both whites and blacks to marry outside their race".

It seems so easy to identify this Beshear guy as just another dipwad politico pandering to a slice of the voter demographic.  My standard complaint is that he needs the rubes to send him their butter-n-egg money on a regular basis, and he needs to count on 'em showing up on election day, so he needs to rile 'em up with some bullshit issue-du-jour that keeps them feeling justified in thinking they have somebody they can spit on (which keeps them too busy to notice what Beshear's bosses are doing to them and everybody else); and that what he can't afford to let happen is for any one slice of the voter demographic to make common cause with certain other slices of the voter demographic, because if we ever really get hip to these divide-and-conquer strategies, these guys are toast.  

But my main problem now is that it seems like Beshear (eg) isn't simply making cynical calculations on how to stay in power.  It's possible he's just not good at the Rhetorical Spin Game, but I'm thinking some of these guys actually believe the shit they say.  How does Beshear try to make that point if he's not a true believer?

Seriously - we gotta stop electing these assholes.  We have to show up and vote every time we get the chance.

Keith Speaks

Keith makes a great point by stitching the actions of "sports figures" to the politics of their contemporary circumstance.  He says you don't get to separate sports-world events from the political environment in which those sports-world events occur.

Here's my fer-instance:  If racial segregation wasn't political; if figuring out ways to force the realization of the need for change wasn't political, then how is it that Bear Bryant waited for exactly the right time to invite USC and Sam Cunningham to come to Tuscaloosa and kick Bama's all-white SEC ass on national TV?

Ya gotta be a little careful about drawing parallels between (eg) racism and LGBT discrimination, but when we're talking about equal rights, we're supposed to be talking about everybody being afforded the same rights as everybody else.  

Equal. Fucking. Rights.

Go Keith go.  Pretty smart guy.

Money Well Spent

If I had any real money - and if there was still something a lot less rare than a Community Orchestra to give it to - I'd give a lot of dough to get something like this going.

Teenage Dirtbag (cover) --The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain

No matter what the source, there's just nothing like good tunes played by good players.

hat tip = Mock Paper Scissors

One More Time, Indiana

Apparently, Mike Pence has been quite surprised and even a little shocked that the reaction to his little Fuck-Them-Uppity-Queers-Anyway law has caused such a stir.  I'd really like to see the law as just another political calculation to appease the Right Radicals who got out the vote and put his ass in the governor's chair etc etc etc, but I think he's being fairly genuine here - I think he was actually convinced that what he did was gonna be OK with everybody.  

And I think he believed it because he's so totally insulated from everything that might in any way run contrary to his preconceptions.  Nobody ever says 'no' to this guy, and that's the way he wants it.

Pence is like your knuckleheaded brother-in-law or Uncle DumFux who never seeks out any information that might require him to modify his positions, or to rethink any of his opinions on  policy.  Call it Government By Confirmation Bias, or whatever, but here's the thing, Mikey:  when you've got your head up your ass, even if you open your eyes, all you're gonna see is your own shit.

hat tip = phantom power at Democratic Underground

And I'm still wondering (as well as still waiting for a Press Poodle to step up and ask) - precisely what "religious freedom" has been lost that makes government intervention necessary to restore it?

From The Other Side

Guys like Mike Pence just always seem not to understand that laws regarding anybody's rights have to ensure everybody's rights - and it doesn't matter that you didn't think of all the extreme shittiness that follows the logical progression of the effects of the law - you don't get to elevate the rights of your favorite group over the rights of any other group based solely on who they are, Mr Pence.  And the fact that you were completely in the dark about that shittiness shows how insular and beholden and captive you are to a radical cadre of Theo-Fascists.

And we're off to the races now.

I hereby do establish my religion - the Church of Our Lady of None Of Your Fuckin' Business, and I do further establish and ordain myself Lord High Inquisitor and Defender Of The Fairytale.  I will therefore go forth to impose upon the great unwashed the Holy Admonition according to The Gospel of The Coital Conifer Flower, for it is truly the foundation of faith for all who are stoopid enough to believe as I do - and judging by the current crop of idiot rubes who're more than willing to subscribe to just about any nonsense anybody can imagine as long as it allows them to feel special by slagging people they need to believe are worthy of being beaten down, my coffers will be filled beyond the dreams of Croesus in no time at all.

So here's the thing - my religion requires me to tell Gov Pence to go fuck himself with a pinecone, so the laws against public verbal assault and threatening behavior towards public officials mean nothing.  As of this summer, Indiana law requires the cops and the prosecutors to leave me alone and let me scream my silly little profanities at the governor every time I'm in earshot of him, or any of his staffers, or any of the suckers who think this stoopid law was a good idea.

But also, I wanna say it loud and clear to every eligible voter who stayed home on election day; everybody who was eager to sit on their asses while somebody else was out there doing the work of self-government.  Ya'll sat there and let this happen, so you can all go fuck yourselves with a pinecone too.

A Giant Killer

Elizabeth Warren continues to be a great example of what political courage looks like; and what happens when somebody who knows a little something about leadership in a representative democracy stands up and speaks the kind of truth that makes oligarchs very uncomfortable.

(Reuters) - Big Wall Street banks are so upset with U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren's call for them to be broken up that some have discussed withholding campaign donations to Senate Democrats in symbolic protest, sources familiar with the discussions said.

Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party's tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week.

Bank officials said the idea of withholding donations was not discussed at a meeting of the four banks in Washington but it has been raised in one-on-one conversations between representatives of some of them. However, there was no agreement on coordinating any action, and each bank is making its own decision, they said.

The amount of money at stake, a maximum of $15,000 per bank, means the gesture is symbolic rather than material.

Moreover, banks' hostility toward Warren, who is not a presidential candidate, will not have a direct impact on the presumed Democratic front runner in the White House race, Hillary Clinton. That's because their fund-raising groups focus on congressional races rather than the presidential election

Still, political strategists say Clinton could struggle to raise money among Wall Street financiers who worry that Democrats are becoming less business friendly.

The bit that I hi-lited in yellow wins this week's Corporate Bullshitter award.  A "cap" of $15,000 is window dressing.  It's "symbolic rather than material"?  Well dip me in shit and call me lonesome - whooda thunk it?  When you threaten to take that away from a candidate, it's a signal - it means you'll (prob'ly) be spending hundreds of times that amount on attack ads and mailings and blowjobs for the pimps at AEI so they'll pop up on DumFux News & Meet The Press Poodles to spout warnings about all the horribleness that's just gotta happen if Bad Ol' Perfesser Egghead won't let the Giant Vampire Squid continue sucking the life out of everything we thought we were all supposed to be working for.

But the red part's the real kicker.  More and more, it's not about who lives in the White House.  It's about who owns the US Senate and the Governors' mansions, and the state legislatures and on down the line.

So we're busy arguing over the Federal-level shit - where we get to have a president and a coupla dozen high-profile Senators and Representatives in order to maintain the illusion of "self-government" (and that's not bound to last much past the next few cycles if things don't change in a big fuckin' hurry) - while the American Aristocracy is even busier puppeteering the rubes into slashing and burning at the state- local- and municipal levels.

And one last item: I know it sounds like I'm railing against all the doom-and-gloom coming from "the right" by railing about doom-and-gloom from what you might see as "the left".  If that's how you hear it, then you've internalized all the Middle-Ground bullshit we hear every day from practically every media outlet everywhere, and you must get the fuck over it.  

The difference is that I'm arguing in favor of the firewalls that have to be in place as a way of preventing the toxic and corrosive effects of having too much power concentrated in too few hands, while the other side is pimping the wholesome goodness of outright authoritarian rule.

Get up on your hind legs and make some noise.

God Love Larry Wilmore

Sunday Music

My Oh My, Boll Weevil, Magnet, Julep --Punch Brothers

Peace Train (cover) --10,000 Maniacs