Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
The Comic(s) In Chief
“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met." --Abe Lincoln
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.'" --Teddy Roosevelt
''In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.'' --John Adams
''If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: 'President Can't Swim.''' --Lyndon Johnson
''My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all their fingers.'' --Jimmy Carter
Today's Charlie
Charlie Pierce is frequently amazing:
The rich person speaks and all are silent; they extol to the clouds what he says. The poor person speaks and they say, "Who is this fellow? "And should he stumble, they even push him down. -- Sirach: 13:23
Monday, April 20, 2015
Found My Guy
If Hillary wins the nomination, I'll shove a coupla pounds of Limburger in each nostril and vote for the Queen of Triangulated Favor Trading, but then again, I may hafta write in Martin O'Malley.
Starting at about 4:00, he gets to the heart of the problems with the GOP's "economic policy", and the payoff is right at 4:30.
Starting at about 4:00, he gets to the heart of the problems with the GOP's "economic policy", and the payoff is right at 4:30.
This guy'd best be more careful with that whole truth-telling shit. That's not the kinda thing these Press Poodles are equipped to handle.
 |
| (from the NPR website) |
hat tip = JR
And one last thing, NPR - that headline you guys put up on the piece - O'Malley: America's Economy Needs 'Sensible Rebalancing,' Not 'Pitchforks' - that's a lie, fellas. That's not what he said, and that's not what he meant. And now ya know one more reason so many thousands of us stopped sending in our nickels and dimes.
And one last thing, NPR - that headline you guys put up on the piece - O'Malley: America's Economy Needs 'Sensible Rebalancing,' Not 'Pitchforks' - that's a lie, fellas. That's not what he said, and that's not what he meant. And now ya know one more reason so many thousands of us stopped sending in our nickels and dimes.
Today's Quote
"Make no mistake. This is your father's Republican Party. This is the exact same trans-vaginal ultrasound, all-white-guy committee chair, aspirin-between-your-knees Republican Party we've have fighting for 30 years. Shame on them. They're trying to fool women. And shame on us if we let them get away with it. They don't support women. They don't respect women. So don't tell me that there's no "war on women". And don't bother asking for a truce. We didn't start this fight, but mark my words - we are going to win it. But if we don't show up for this battle in 2016, we will pay the price for a generation to come. Just imagine what a Republican President and a Republican Congress would do."
--Stephanie Schriock, EMILY's List
Today's Tiny Desk
Black Sun
No Room In Frame
Your Heart Is An Empty Room
Passenger Seat
--Death Cab For Cutie
No Room In Frame
Your Heart Is An Empty Room
Passenger Seat
--Death Cab For Cutie
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Weaponized Stoopid
Ain't nobody gonna convince me that guy votes for Democrats, so it's hard for me to imagine how it coulda been any easier for the GOP to put together a platform that keeps that jag-off (and millions just like him) voting the straight Repub ticket.
And yeah, OK, Mr "Conservative" - I understand you're not all like that mush-brain, but y'know what? I'll bet he kinda thinks Obama and Hillary and Nancy Pelosi wanna kill his grandma and take his guns away and send his kids to a FEMA camp where they'll be forced to give George Soros a blowjob every day - and if he thinks that way it's because you've supported the cynical assholes who need him to think that way so he'll keep voting to fuck himself over (or go on shooting himself in the head; whichever helps drum up more support). He gets those talking points from people who're interchangeable parts in a Massive Coin-Operated Political Mechanism; people (and I use that term advisedly here) who leave slime trails as they muck along from DumFux News to K Street and AEI to Capitol Hill. They've been elected as his representatives at every level of government - he believes it all, and he is your fellow traveler; your kindred spirit; he's politically conjoined with you. That guy is you now.
Look - we've got one political party that's pretty crappy, and I'm not asking anybody to fall in love with 'em. But fer cripe sake, that other bunch is just fucking crazy. So you're gonna hafta figure out how to make your break. And I know it's not easy - I started 20+ years ago, and I'm still not free of it.
Today's Podcast
Another good one - with an extra good nugget of nooggitty goodliness starting at about 31:00, where they connect the dots between the fuckwad Pay-To-Play deputy in Tulsa with Privatization - nuthin' but fucking genius is all that is.
 |
| http://professionalleft.blogspot.com |
Send 'em a little love:
The Professional Left Podcast
PO Box 9133
Springfield, IL 62791
Friday, April 17, 2015
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Not A Hillary Fan
...but right now, she beats the fuck outa everybody else for me. So while she's gonna get lotsa push-back from me for things like the Standard 3rd-Way Bullshit she apparently thinks she hasta peddle in Iowa, I'll more than likely be right there working the phones and handing out fliers and standing at my local polling place all day on the 1st Tuesday in November 2016.
Charlie Pierce explains why:
If she is elected, she unequivocally will accept the science of anthropogenic climate change and treat it as a crisis. This cannot be said of any of the Republican candidates, real or potential.
If she is elected, she unequivocally will support marriage equality, and oppose discrimination against our fellow citizens based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This cannot be said of any of the Republican candidates, real or potential.
If she is elected, she will not destroy the Affordable Care Act, an article of faith among all the Republican candidates, real or potential.
If she is elected, and despite her closeness to certain Wall Street interests, she will not destroy the Dodd-Frank reforms, another article of faith among all the Republican candidates, real or potential.
If she is elected, the DREAMers will get to stay in the country.
If she is elected, she will not sign a bill to eliminate the estate tax. (More on this one later)
If she is elected, Janice Rogers Brown will stay right where she is in the judicial food chain.
To get elected, she does not have to wink at state's rights, up to and including incidents of armed resistance.
To get elected, she does not have to equivocate on the science behind the theory of evolution as does any Republican candidate who seeks the votes of Republicans in Iowa.
To get elected, she does not have to peddle the snake oil of supply-side economics, nor does she have to peddle scare stories about the oncoming caliphate, nor does she have to create bogeymen about jackboots coming to steal your guns.
More, I suspect, to follow.
Jesus, this is going to be a long 19 months.Amen to that, Brother Charles.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Today's Rudeness
The Rude Pundit; the whole Rude Pundit; and nuthin' but The Rude Pundit:
4/14/2015
Fuck Your Conscience; Do Your Job
Let us say, and why not, that you are a firefighter, the captain of the department in Sisterfuck, Arkansas, a little bit outside Little Rock, and, in your off-duty life, you're a good, loyal member of the Church of the Bloodiest Christ You've Ever Seen. At your church, Pastor Jamie Lee Closetqueer preaches about how abortion is just President Obama trying to murder Christians to make room for more Muslims. You never saw a Muslim abortion clinic, did you?
Now let us say, and, indeed, why not, that one night the Planned Parenthood in Little Rock goes up in flames and it's all hands on deck, all around the county, the area, even. Your squad is called into action before the whole complex, maybe the block, burns down. But you know that the Planned Parenthood does abortions. You're faced with a choice. Pastor Closetqueer's words echo in your ear: "If you support the sin, you are a sinner yourself." Do you tell your Sisterfuck squad to stand down, let it burn, let other firefighters handle it? Or do you go against your faith and do your goddamn job?
It's not a big leap from pharmacists to firefighters. Down the road a bit from Sisterfuck is Millegdeville, Georgia, where Brittany Cartrett had a miscarriage. She needed assistance passing the miscarried fetus, so her doctor prescribed her Misoprostol, a pill that would help her complete what had started naturally, if sadly. When her doctor called local Walmart to have it filled, the pharmacist on duty refused to do so because, as she later told Cartrett, "I couldn't think of a valid reason why you would need this prescription." Misoprostol can be used to induce abortion, which is why it would be effective after a miscarriage. When Cartrett explained why she needed it, the pharmacist said, "Well, I don't feel like there is a reason why you would need it, so we refused to fill it."
And it's perfectly fine because Georgia has a law that says if pharmacists think that someone's prescription violates their beliefs, they can refuse to fill it because of a conscience clause, which over 20 states have or are considering. In this case, that meant that, despite a doctor calling in the prescription, the pharmacist thought, "Abortin' babeez" and bugged out.
By the way, Brittany Cartrett is a devout Christian who once worked at the same Walmart. And her response to the ensuing controversy, which became known because of her Facebook post on it, is about as common sense as you can get: "The point is that she refused to fill it based on an assumption and that is not her job. Her job is to fill it. Not to make the decision as to why I needed it. There has to be a line drawn when it comes to stuff like this."
Cartrett also wrote, awesomely, "I don't care about an apology. I care about women going through one of the worst possible things that they could go through and to be judged and refused. And what if I was going to get it for an abortion? I don't personally believe in abortion, but I would never judge or disrespect someone who felt like that was the only choice they had. As a friend, I would try to advise alternative options. As a pharmacist? It's not my place."
When you're right, you're right. Conscience clauses when it comes to things like this are just impositions of one's religion on others. Do your fucking job. If you can't do your fucking job properly, find another fucking job. If your bullshit beliefs are going to prevent you from fulfilling basic duties, then get the fuck out of the public sector. Go work for a church. Just stay away from people who might need you to shut the fuck up and do the job. Conservatives like to talk about "special rights" for different groups. An exclusion from the duties of your profession is pretty much the picture book definition of "special rights."
It ain't just religion. In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a school nurse refused to assist a middle school student and threw the girl out of her office. The girl's crime? She didn't stand during the Pledge of Allegiance, the loyalty oath students around the country are asked to recite every morning at their indoctrination center schools. Except, interestingly enough, the Pledge is voluntary, and the nurse is being investigated for abiding by her patriotic conscience. So there is a line.
When it comes to religion, though, that line is being erased. We are not far from just letting shit burn.
4/14/2015
Fuck Your Conscience; Do Your Job
Let us say, and why not, that you are a firefighter, the captain of the department in Sisterfuck, Arkansas, a little bit outside Little Rock, and, in your off-duty life, you're a good, loyal member of the Church of the Bloodiest Christ You've Ever Seen. At your church, Pastor Jamie Lee Closetqueer preaches about how abortion is just President Obama trying to murder Christians to make room for more Muslims. You never saw a Muslim abortion clinic, did you?
Now let us say, and, indeed, why not, that one night the Planned Parenthood in Little Rock goes up in flames and it's all hands on deck, all around the county, the area, even. Your squad is called into action before the whole complex, maybe the block, burns down. But you know that the Planned Parenthood does abortions. You're faced with a choice. Pastor Closetqueer's words echo in your ear: "If you support the sin, you are a sinner yourself." Do you tell your Sisterfuck squad to stand down, let it burn, let other firefighters handle it? Or do you go against your faith and do your goddamn job?
It's not a big leap from pharmacists to firefighters. Down the road a bit from Sisterfuck is Millegdeville, Georgia, where Brittany Cartrett had a miscarriage. She needed assistance passing the miscarried fetus, so her doctor prescribed her Misoprostol, a pill that would help her complete what had started naturally, if sadly. When her doctor called local Walmart to have it filled, the pharmacist on duty refused to do so because, as she later told Cartrett, "I couldn't think of a valid reason why you would need this prescription." Misoprostol can be used to induce abortion, which is why it would be effective after a miscarriage. When Cartrett explained why she needed it, the pharmacist said, "Well, I don't feel like there is a reason why you would need it, so we refused to fill it."
And it's perfectly fine because Georgia has a law that says if pharmacists think that someone's prescription violates their beliefs, they can refuse to fill it because of a conscience clause, which over 20 states have or are considering. In this case, that meant that, despite a doctor calling in the prescription, the pharmacist thought, "Abortin' babeez" and bugged out.
By the way, Brittany Cartrett is a devout Christian who once worked at the same Walmart. And her response to the ensuing controversy, which became known because of her Facebook post on it, is about as common sense as you can get: "The point is that she refused to fill it based on an assumption and that is not her job. Her job is to fill it. Not to make the decision as to why I needed it. There has to be a line drawn when it comes to stuff like this."
Cartrett also wrote, awesomely, "I don't care about an apology. I care about women going through one of the worst possible things that they could go through and to be judged and refused. And what if I was going to get it for an abortion? I don't personally believe in abortion, but I would never judge or disrespect someone who felt like that was the only choice they had. As a friend, I would try to advise alternative options. As a pharmacist? It's not my place."
When you're right, you're right. Conscience clauses when it comes to things like this are just impositions of one's religion on others. Do your fucking job. If you can't do your fucking job properly, find another fucking job. If your bullshit beliefs are going to prevent you from fulfilling basic duties, then get the fuck out of the public sector. Go work for a church. Just stay away from people who might need you to shut the fuck up and do the job. Conservatives like to talk about "special rights" for different groups. An exclusion from the duties of your profession is pretty much the picture book definition of "special rights."
It ain't just religion. In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a school nurse refused to assist a middle school student and threw the girl out of her office. The girl's crime? She didn't stand during the Pledge of Allegiance, the loyalty oath students around the country are asked to recite every morning at their indoctrination center schools. Except, interestingly enough, the Pledge is voluntary, and the nurse is being investigated for abiding by her patriotic conscience. So there is a line.
When it comes to religion, though, that line is being erased. We are not far from just letting shit burn.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Today's Charlie Pierce
I hope this one's been on everybody's radar the last coupla days:
A rich donor to Tulsa police mistakenly pulled out his gun instead of his Taser and blasted a fleeing suspect.
The volunteer cop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who killed an unarmed black man was forking over thousands in donations and equipment after becoming an unpaid sheriff’s deputy.
Robert Bates, a 73-year-old insurance executive-turned-deputy, accidentally fired his gun instead of a Taser—costing Eric Harris, 44, his life and adding to the tally of deadly police shootings against minorities nationwide.Recent update via Daily Beast:
The Tulsa deputy charged with manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed black man was the sheriff’s sugar daddy—treating him to exotic cruises and fishing trips—former officers with the sheriff’s department told The Daily Beast.--and--
“Bob Bates came on board because he had all this money,” one former reserve deputy said, adding that the sheriff and other higher-ups would “go on these cruises in the Bahamas and in Mexico all the time.”
"[Bates] foots the bill,” the deputy added. “The sheriff just gave him free rein because he was treating him right. He bought his way into this position.”
Another former full-time deputy said Bates was “getting glad-handed” around the office because of his wealth.
“This is your typical Southern good ol’ boys system,” he said, adding that before the shooting Bates planned to take Glanz on a fishing trip to Florida.In case anybody may still harbor the soul-crushingly stoopid notion that "Pay-To-Play-Citizen-Goon" is a good idea, here's Charlie Pierce:
Something has gone permanently squirrelly with law-enforcement in this country. There is the change in attitude by which police increasingly feel and behave like an occupying army in American cities. There is the preposterous increase in available armament. On a wider scale, there is the triumph at all levels of government of an attitude that we will not tax ourselves, ever, for anything, even our own safety. So we wind up with traffic cops who look on, ahem, certain citizens as resources to be pillaged, or we wind up with septuagenarian insurance salesmen empowered to shoot people in the street under color of law, because they were willing to buy guns and ammo privately for a public purpose. This is Kafka rewritten by Grover Norquist and Bozo The Clown. You get what you pay for, and we're not willing to pay for anything any more.
Molly Today
“I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.” --Molly Ivins
Monday, April 13, 2015
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.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Tunes For Friday
The Walk --Mayer Hawthorne
Harvest Moon --Bedlam
Same Ol' Me --Amazing Rhythm Aces
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".
As per Alexa:
Phrasing update: "Opinions are like blogs - every asshole's got one".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)