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:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A little gerrymandering, anyone?

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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?

Today's Pix

Looking Back To See Our Own Arrival

Little Red State Fundy by driftglass:

One day we will have to explain to the children what happened when Thurston Howell III lost his right mind and decided that for the sake of some tax cuts to make him incrementally more comfortable, his very bestest buddies in the whole, wide world were the Ultra Right Wing Gorgons down in Jesusland.

May I suggest the following?

The Story of Little Red State Fundy

Little Red State Fundy found a grain of hate.

"Who will help me plant the hate?" she asked.

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she buried the hate in the bloody ground of the Old Confederacy. After a while it grew up paranoid and ignorant and violent.

"The hate is ripe now," said Little Red State Fundy. "Who will do the mass mailings and preach bigotry from the Pulpit?"

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she licked envelopes until her bill was cracked and dry and stood up into the House of God and crowed to her flocks in their millions that God Loved Them for hating and killing creatures who were not like them.

Then she asked, "Who will help me focus this hatred politically?"

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she made databases and phone banks, and walked door-to-door with petitions that talked of Gods Great Hatred of Gays, and Gods Great Hatred of Judges that did not worship the Hate God in exactly the way the Little Red State Fundy told them to.

Then she carried the hate to steps of the Congress and the White House.

"Who will make a mandate from this hate?" she asked.

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she got on the phone with her very good friend Karl Rove and with his help organized carpools to the polls, and get-out-the-vote drives, anti-gay marriage amendments and smear campaigns. For Jesus.

And Little Red State Fundy delivered the margin of victory and was featured in many, many magazines: without Little Red State Fundy, the Republican Party could never, ever, ever win anything.

And now everybody knew it.

Then she said, "Now who shall help me Rule the Earth."

"We will!" said Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.

"I am quite sure you would," said Little Red State Fundy, "but see, now you are all my bitches."

Then she called Randall Terry and Tom DeLay and Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson, and they and the rest of the Shining Path Republicans used what was left of the Constitution as ass-floss.
And judges were terrorized into silence.
And those deemed ungodly were beaten in the streets.
And they invaded whoever the fuck they felt like, for whatever fucking reason they chose.
And the very idea of a Free and Fair press died.

And to people who had been very clear all along that they genuinely believed in a Theocratic Nanny State and thought that precipitating Armageddon and triggering the Second Coming should be the highest calling of any worldly government, were handed over the police, courts, government, treasury and nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States of America.

And in the end -- just as they had been warned for the past twenty years -- there was nothing whatsoever left at all for Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.

Today's PFU

Today's PSA

Of all the slick shit(*) the Repubs have shoveled at us about the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, I think the one that's the most dishonest is how they talk about Obamacare as if it were a brand in itself.  It isn't.  If Obama hadn't folded like a fucking lawnchair on the Public Option, then maybe you could make that case - but he did so you can't so shut up already.

If you don't qualify for Medicare; and if you're not poor enough to be covered by your state's version of Medicaid; and if you don't wanna pay a fine; and if you want healthcare insurance, then you buy healthcare insurance from a healthcare insurance company.  That's the law - deal with it.



(*)
The abortion surcharge
Medicare as we know it will end
Death Panels (you don't really need a link on that one, do ya?)
Raiding Medicare for $716 Billion
Obamacare will cost twice the original estimate
Employers are dropping their coverage because of Obamacare
and on and on and on

The Art Of The Editorial

I mentioned Victor Juhasz - here's some more:

Today's Reading Assignment

(hat tip = Charlie Pierce)

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:

This is the third act in an improbable triple-fucking of ordinary people that Wall Street is seeking to pull off as a shocker epilogue to the crisis era. Five years ago this fall, an epidemic of fraud and thievery in the financial-services industry triggered the collapse of our economy. The resultant loss of tax revenue plunged states everywhere into spiraling fiscal crises, and local governments suffered huge losses in their retirement portfolios – remember, these public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.

Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn't just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it's also about blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America's states and cities.

And nobody makes it easier to understand than Victor Juhasz:

A Question

If it's wrong to steal the wealth from rich people in order to make poor people less poor, then it's just as wrong to steal the labor from poor people in order to make rich people richer.

Having believed that first part while purposefully ignoring the second part is what haunts me about my own career history, and what leads me to believe that the flirtation with economic justice we've indulged in since the 1930s is all but over.  We're sliding back into the old ways of doing things and so we need to call our system by it's more suitable name: Kleptonomics.

I've had a bad feeling when thinking about the downward pressure on real wages and earnings here in the US over the last few decades.  It's almost as if somebody wants us to feel guilty about our success in order to make us more willing to do more and to accept less in return for it; while workers in other countries are portrayed as making "great strides" and how they're humble and so they're grateful for whatever crumbs the noble job-creators are willing to let fall from their tables; and so "why can't you spoiled rotten Americans just take whatever we give you and shut up about it?"

While we're being distracted by game shows and disaster porn and attention whores, the real meanings and merits of Socialism and Capitalism are being flipped and perverted until we have no idea what any of it means at all.

In confusion there is opportunity - somebody benefits while the credit and the culpability are shifted to those who least deserve them.

It all sounds way too conspiracy-theory-ish, but y'know, I may be paranoid but that don't mean nobody's out to get me.