FIRST DRAFT

Weekend Question Thread

Best motivational song for when you don't want to do anything but sit on the couch and watch Russell Crowe movies for like nine hours, which would be me today? 

I've been yelling along with this in the car a lot lately: 

A. 

Children Dying

President Obama today: 

As a country, we have been through this too many times. Whether it's an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.

The children killed ranged in age from 3 weeks old to 17 years.

Aliyah Shell was six.

She wasn't in the school in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday. She was sitting on her porch in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood in March. A pickup truck pulled up, spraying shots.

Heaven Sutton was at her mother's candy stand, on Luna Avenue in North Austin, less than a mile from my house. She died from what police called a "stray bullet" during a drive-by. She was seven years old. 

Roberto Luna was 13, in seventh grade. He died in his brother's arms after a gunshot. 

We are unspeakably violent to our children in this country. The stories above? Those are the children shot to death. They number more than 200 in the last two years, in Chicago. That number does not include those stabbed, beaten, suffocated, strangled. It does not include those run down by cars, poisoned, left out in the cold to die. It does not include those who starved, or died of preventable illnesses, or were simply lost altogether.

We do things to our children that would appall us if we made ourselves look at them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We do things to our children that are savage, and merciless. We do things to our children that we look away from, that we tell ourselves we have to look away from. We tell ourselves that most of these things are not outrages. We tell ourselves this often.

Do the parents of the children killed by slow decay grieve any less, because we can rationalize away their loss by pointing to geography or poverty or purported gang affiliations of the kids or the families or the neighbors or the street? Are those children any less innocent, that we do not need to mourn their deaths as well?

Are those children any less gone?

This is the world we've made for our children. It's a world with guns. It's a world with knives. It's a world with economics. It's a world with paranoia and fear and poisonous apathy, with contempt for the fury of compassion, its backbone the terrified preservation of our right to be indifferent. This is what the world is like under its skin.

Once in a while enough children are killed at once, that we devote our undivided attention. We're always horrified. How do we talk to our children about this, people ask. Could it happen here? Hug your kids, people say. An acquaintance wrote on Facebook, it feels like the whole world is ending.

How dare we?

Every day, the world is ending. And we are all in this together or we are nothing at all. 

A.

Friday Night Music: Book Faded Brown

Another day, another atrocity. These sorts of mass shootings usually take place in the West or South so that makes this one different but equally horrendous. It calls for one of the most mournful tunes I know:

 

Even with his ravaged late-career voice, the late Rick Danko can rip your heart out with his plaintive singing.

One Thought

To anyone who says "if people didn't have access to guns, they'd kill people in other ways," I say if you think that we would have seen a spate of mass murders this year if there were no firearms--if you think that there wouldn't be far, far fewer homicides in this country PERIOD if there were no firearms, then you are a shit-stupid motherfucker who shouldn't be allowed near stairs lest you hurt yourself. And that is absolutely the nicest way I can put that.

Take care of one another.

Dead Children. Again.

A few days ago, a letter came home from The Midget’s school, noting that  we had to fully list all of the people who would be allowed to pick her up from school. In addition, the school was implementing additional security measures in which children had to walk with their classes and teachers had to make contact the adult prior to releasing the kid.

Last night, after the Christmas concert, the choral director announced that the parents had to come up and get the kids and make sure to check out with the teachers.

To me, it all seemed frivolous. Nothing bad ever happened to my kid by running out of the door of the school, barreling toward me while screaming  “DADDY!”

OK, maybe a skinned knee or a bruised shin when the tripped ass over teakettle, but other than that?

I wonder how many parents at Sandy Hook Elementary School thought the same thing before today. The wooded area the police spent the morning searching had that tranquil, peaceful feel to it. The word “hamlet” springs to mind.

A gunman's rage brought to fruition brought this tiny Connecticut town to our attention today.

26 dead. At least.

I wonder how many parents at schools all across the nation are watching the newscasts and asking, “Is my kid safe?”

In less than two hours, I have to go pick up my kid from school. When she is released from her teacher’s watchful gaze and plunges into my arms, I know I’ll hug her tighter than ever.

What should I tell her about what happened out there?

 ---

During the last election, I found myself at more than a few stoplights behind trucks, cars and vans with “I’m the NRA and I VOTE!” bumper stickers. They weren’t the only stickers like that I’ve seen.

The punchy slogans ranged from “Gun control means hitting your target” to “They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!”

Bumper stickers like that serve as a chip on the shoulder of the car’s owner. It says, “Yeah? I said it. What are you going to do about it?” They’re like every other one-way conduit of information: they state a position and invite no dissention.

They do not change.

I wonder how many of those “pro-gun” bumper stickers graced the Hondas and Chevys and Toyotas and Fords and Volvos and BMWs on the cars in that parking lot that WABC keeps showing from its “helicopter cam.”

How many parents who lost children in this senseless act of violent social desecration will go home to a home with a gun?

When they look at their own gun from this moment on, what will they see?

How will they reconcile the two images?

How many of the students who survived will go home and ask a parent about the gun rack, the gun safe, the hunting gear in their own home?

What will they want to know? How will the parents respond?

Children of this age have a simple understanding of the world and yet, they just experienced something even the best minds in the world cannot comprehend.

It is a pretty safe bet that one of the 600 children in this school will ask, “Why did the bad man have a gun?”

What bumper sticker can answer that question?

---

A week or so ago, Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, noted that had Kasandra Perkins owned a gun, she might still be alive.  

I wonder what LaPierre’s answer will be this time. Should we arm the teachers? Should we arm the administrators? Should we arm the kids?

In one way, LaPierre had a point: A gun is an equalizer.

It gives power to the weak.

It gives one man dominion over others.

It empowers people who feel aggrieved, disgruntled, upset, angered or in some other way injured to make tangible the internal hurt, rage, despair, pain and fear they feel.

Shootings like this one are imbrued with a sense of  “that’ll show ‘em.”

Later in his interview with USA Today Sports, LaPierre noted:

"Owning guns is a mainstream part of American culture and it's growing every day. My God, there's nothing more mainstream in this country than 100 million Americans who own firearms.”

With all due respect, Mr. LaPierre, yes there is.

“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

If the framers believed in anything, it wasn’t a gun but the right to live. This is the right that one can’t take from another, lest he forfeit his own cause to claim a right to live, to live free or to live happily.

I do not want to force Wayne LaPierre to explain the actions of this individual, as such a demand would be as disingenuous as, for example, asking one woman to represent all women.

However, I do not think it would be unfair to demand of this one man to explain the thinking of the group he represents.

To understand why guns can’t be better regulated.

To figure out why his group doesn’t want to limit the weapons available or at least keep stronger controls on them.

To ask the question we all want to know the answer to.

How many have to die?

Riced, Diced and Sliced

There's been a lot of teeth gnashing and instant analysis of *why* Susan Rice withdrew from consideration as Secretary of State. I'm going to do something novel and take her at her word. She avoided most of the meaningless cliches in her WaPo op-ed, nothing about wanting to spend more time with her family or any of that rot. Her focus was sparing the administration a fight it did not need at this point and I believe her.

While I don't think Obama should shy away from scrapping with the Republicans, he cannot fight *every* battle and this one just wasn't worth it. I'd rather he stand firm on taxes, medicare, spending, and the fiscal curb/slope/cliff thing. Fighting with Boner and Chinless Mitch is important whereas duking it out with Senator Walnuts and his hobbit-like sidekick Little Lindsey is not. Besides, I've been a Kerry man throughout the process anyway.

The worst thing about this imbroglio is that it's been fought out over the dumbass trivia that the beltway MSM-particularly in what Charlie Pierce calls Tiger Beat On The Potomac-loves: personalities, Sunday shows and fake testosterone. In fact, there was a substantive liberal case *against* choosing Rice, which was made by Chirs McGreal in the Guardian:

But the Libya debacle aside, Rice was under increasing scrutiny over her record of militarism, including her support for the invasion of Iraq, her backing of authoritarian African leaders and her description of her post as ambassador to the UN as being intended to provide "unwavering support for Israel".

<snip>

After Rice was appointed as Obama's ambassador to the UN, she strongly backed military intervention in Libya; she has also pressed for American intervention in Syria. Rice has also said that "there is no daylight" between the US and Israel over Iran's nuclear programme. Her supporters say that merely reflects the White House position.

The irony is that she has a hawkish track record that Walnuts should love but she mocked him during the 2008 campaign for wearing a flak vest whilst touring a "safe" souk in Baghdad. And Walnuts nurses a grudge like a demented mama bear licking her wounded cub. That's what the Benghazi frenzy was really about.

I'm glad Big John will be getting the nod. It's better to have someone of independent stature succeed Hillary than someone who is essentially a gifted staffer. I'm also less worried about his Senate seat being re-taken by Scott Brown than most people. He ran an awful and mean-spirited campaign this year, which accenuated the negative and made him look like a douchebag, tool and malaka. Besides, veteran Democratic Congresman Ed Markey seems poised to run and he's no Martha Coakley.

Friday Guest Catblogging: Dennie the Den of Muses Cat

Yeah, I know, there have been a lot of guest catblogging posts of late. Here's why: Oscat and Della are on strike. They're demanding a right to sleep law, which means we're not getting much sleep but we're mere humans...

The Den of Muses is where Krewe du Vieux stores our floats and other parade shit. Dennie is the KdV mascot and an honorary member of the Krewe of Spank, which is the group I helped to form this year.

Anyhoo, heeeeeer'es Dennie:

Friday Ferretblogging

WE HAZ A SNORGLE. 

A. 

News Flash: Rat-Fuckers Enjoy Fucking Rats

SHOCKER. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Crowder, a look at the video broadcast on the Sean Hannity show appears to show quite clearly that he left out an important section of the footage when he put together his edit. A section of the Fox News broadcast preserved by the Web site Mediaite shows that Mr. Hannity’s producers at Fox News started the clip five seconds earlier than Mr. Crowder did. What the extra footage reveals is the man who punched Mr. Crowder being knocked to the ground seconds before and then getting up and taking a swing at the comedian.

Those rats were totally asking for it. I mean, did you SEE how they were dressed? And who's honestly out looking for cheese at this hour anyway? 

A. 

Pulp Fiction Thursday: Nightmare Alley

Nightmare Alley has an odd pedigree for a film noir classic. Tyrone Power was the prettiest leading man of his day and was best known for lighter fare. But he gave the performance of a lifetime as a sleazy grifter who becomes a sideshow geek by the end of the movie. And Director Edmund Goulding was known as a "woman's director" who worked with such stars as Crawford, Garbo and Davis. Not exactly a gritty resume but Nightmare Alley is noirlicious:

Here's the trailer:

 

Chinless Mitch Wins By A Nose

From Album4

The title of least popular Senator, that is. The self-filibustering Bert-the-Turtle doppelganger is even disliked by his own constituents, though for some reason he gets far better treatment from the Washington press than, say, Tom Daschle.

For the life of me I can't figure out why.

Wednesday Night Music: Strange Magic

I've had this swell ELO tune in my head all day so I decided to share, which is strangely magical:

  

Malaka Of The Week: Cathie Adams

There's a whole lotta malakatude this week but I've decided to pick on a minor offender, former Texas GOP Chair, Cathie Adams. Why? I'm pressed for time and I can whip this one out in a hurry. Also, it's yet another example of the GOP's continuing pursuit of the stupid and crazy even as Politico assures us that Republicans have gotten the message and are becoming instant-moderates, as if it were a powdery drink like Tang. It's more like Kool-Aid, y'all...

Anyway, Ms. Adams seems to have eaten some really strong pot brownies by mistake before making this preposterous claim:

Adams went on to rail against Colorado’s (then-)upcoming vote on legalizing marijuana, which passed in the state on Election Day. “And if we legalize it, will we empty out our jails and will we be safe for ever more?” Adams asked. “No.  I’m telling you, Barack Hussein Obama has got to have a teleprompter because he fried his brain on drugs. It doesn’t work.”

Barack Obama: stoner burn-out? Who knew? Next someone will claim that Cheech Marin or Tommy Chong is either the Prez's real father or his gay lover. Of course, the former allegation would undermine birtherism but what's wrong with a a little inconsistency? The batshit crazy wing of the GOP thrives on inconsistency, after all.

Ms. Adams also thinks Obama is-surprise, surprise-a Commie:

Who is a Marxist in our White House?  Of course, it’s Barack Hussein Obama.  And I don’t know why we’re not calling him what he is as a Marxist.  It’s as if, when the wall fell that communism died; it didn’t. Today, it is green on the outside and red on the inside. It is as red as ever and Barack Obama is implementing his green agenda,

I guess Ms. Adams is unaware that the most polluted nations on earth were members of the Warsaw Pact, which at least claimed to be Marxist guvmints. I won't even get started about China. Once again, why let the facts get in the way of a loony conspiracy theory? Facts are for Commies. Hey, at least she knows her colors...

I guess it's time to warm up the teleprompter, fire up a joint, and read Das Capital. Wow, man, that sounds hard. I'd rather space out and listen to Dark Side Of The Moon, man:

 

That ends my foray into Tommy T country. I don't know how the man does it but I'm glad he does. He's the anti-malaka and his fellow Texan, Cathie Adams, is malaka of the week.

That Was the Year I Knew the Panic Was Over

I keep reading things like this and thinking well, the problem is offices in another goddamn state making decisions about what the local papers need and should be doing: 

In Cleveland, as elsewhere, there is a movement to replace some of the basic accountability function of the newspaper with a nonprofit investigative venture. But the venture in Cleveland is just getting organized and only a few of its counterparts in other cities have so far showed the ability to scale up to the size necessary to have a real impact. "Obviously we can’t fill the gap of a daily newspaper," said Lori Ashyk, one of the Cleveland organizers. Cleveland also has an alt-weekly, and an outfit called MedCityNews covers the city's burgeoning health sector. But it doesn't yet have the kind of alternative online sources for daily schools or crime coverage that have been springing up in some larger cities, such as Philadelphia and Washington.

As I see it, part of the solution is going to have to come from outside these cities—from the national media capitals. Even as coverage has been withering in the provinces, it's been expanding in the Acela Corridor, where the likes of Bloomberg, Reuters, Politico and the National Journal/Atlantic empire are vying to provide the most granular coverage of the Beltway and Wall Street. This coverage is surely nearing the saturation point, especially given how much of the real business and political action is happening out in Real America. Which means that the big Beltway players may start to realize that their competitive advantage will lie in doing a better job of covering Cleveland and Columbus and Lansing and Austin and Tallahassee and Chicago. Heck, they might even hire some of those laid off local reporters who know the lay of the land, and where the bodies are buried, and whether a governor's claims about anti-union legislation hold up to scrutiny.

What will take its place? What ever has? Why do we think a hundred years is forever? Why do we think that just because for years there was one paper and that one paper shouldered all the responsibility that if that one paper disappears all is lost? I'm not saying what's happening here isn't devastating. It's also not the end, because here's the thing about people: They will get the word out any way they have to, while we sit around debating how they do it and OMG WHAT IT ALL MEANS. 

I personally think the answer is a combination of nonprofit shops, independently owned papers, digital services, and maybe an expansion of TV coverage. But all of those things require investment, and they require investment from the (relatively) wealthy media stars who like to bitch all day long that nobody values the news anymore. I like Connie Schultz's husband a whole lot, and she's written some fine and funny things herself, but this comment from her makes me rage-y: 

...The union kid in me has felt for some time that we had to learn how to become activists for journalism. We were so used to reporting the hell out of a story and then assuming everyone would value our hard work, our judgment, our take on things. Some of that was arrogance born of habit, to be sure, but there was a humility in that, too. Fewer hotshots, more team players, producing the kind of journalism that comes about when you don't spend every day trying to prove that you're the smartest person in every room. But we should have started promoting the brand years ago. Journalists — certainly Guild members at The Plain Dealer — were discouraged from doing so, but, honestly, we too often turned a withering eye to those who got special attention for their talents. Old story, that one. Newsrooms are tough places. 

Well, if only you had been in a position to do something about it instead of lamenting it now. Maybe you were a little too busy complaining about college graduates with degrees and online comments and how nobody was really really real anymore like in the old days.

A. 

Now, Now to Sit or Never

From OccupyMARINES, the scene outside the Michigan statehouse this morning.

This is why we say never stop.

This is why, when the smart money in Wisconsin said to calm down and back down and sit down, to just concentrate on the next election and whatever, really, people stood up. Because you never know where it stops. 

Let's get one thing straight here. Democrats didn't have the power in Michigan to stop this. The people might, but it's far from a sure thing. But it's not the responsibility of anybody to listen to what you have to say. It's your responsibility to speak. If people listen, if people act, that's a bonus. That's a grace. That's a miracle. If what you say spreads out across the world and turns the tide, that's the prize. But that's not the work. The work is you opening your mouth about what you care about. And the work is never done.

It seems like I ask you this question every year, like it's cold out, and I'm tired, and I just want to get off the damn treadmill and so do you. When does the treadmill stop? When does it get easier? But the secret is that there's no treadmill and no off. Stop thinking that there's gonna come a day when things are easier, Mr. A and I say to each other at least once a week. Stop waiting for that day. It's poisonous and small and it'll kill you every day just a little bit more. This is all there is. It's hard. Stop thinking hard isn't what it's supposed to be. Stop thinking hard isn't what you're here for. 

There's such a gloriousness of purpose in fighting the hardest that you can for what you really want. There's such a strength in it. Half of our frustration and all of our anger comes from asking so little of ourselves every day, from the constant work of convincing ourselves there's nothing we can do. There's always something. Look at that up there. Did they win? No. But you tell me they lost as much as everybody on the couch and I'll call you a liar. 

Watching the Ustream of the protests this morning here, a man with a sign reading "We Fight Until You Take My Union Card from My Cold Dead Hands" looked over the crowd chanting "Kill the bill." He grinned, even in the face of certain defeat. 

"Worth it," he told the camera, a smile in his voice and on his face.

"Worth it." 

A. 

Not A Nellie, Just Nervous

I've always gotten a kick out of the term Nervous Nellies despite its mildly homophobic undertones. Lyndon Johnson was fond of calling peaceniks that, which clearly implied they weren't Texas-style manly men. Actually, it takes a helluva lot more courage to oppose going to war in a culture that *thinks* it loves war until, that is, we enter one and do not win within 44 seconds. Then, the worm turns and hawks develop white plumage and dash into a dovecote or something like that.

You're probably where the post is going and so do I. Oh yeah, the Supremes taking cert on the DOMA and Prop-8 gay marriage cases. My memory kicked in just in time…

I don't know about you, but I'm as nervous as a Baptist in a distillery over this. I would *prefer* that the Supremes had punted on the California case because I'm afraid that they will Californicate it up. While it's true that Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas that overruled anti-sodomy laws, it's equally true that he's steadily drifted to the right since John Roberts became Chief. I'd hate to bet the ranch on his constancy to gay rights. Ranch? Sounds like another LBJ reference to me…

The DOMA case is less nerve wracking but-as one of those wild-eyed liberals who would force everyone to gay marry, smoke pot, and get an abortion whether they have a vagina or not-I don't trust the Roberts Court to get that one right either. I can just imagine Scalia quoting Bill Clinton when he signed DOMA into law. Hopefully, it will be in a dissenting opinion.

There have been times in the last year or two that I've felt the need to pinch myself over the rapid progress of gay rights in the court of public opinion during my lifetime. When George McGovern had the temerity in 1972 to treat same-sexers as human beings, he was pilloried for being soft on sodomites. When Bill Clinton tried in 1992 to allow gays to serve in the military, we ended up with DADT, which made a bad situation even worse.

Do I need to go on? Probably not, you all know about 2004 and 2008. In the last 2 or 3 years, however, there has been a sea change with the repeal of DADT and the President of the United States taking a stand in favor of gay marriage. Sure, his support was belated, but it made a huge impact in the African-American community, which has come to see it as a civil rights issue. Hell, even Tory Prime Minister David Cameron is for gay marriage, can you imagine Mrs. Thatcher taking that stance? Of course, at her peak, she did resemble a drag queen so...

I posted a few years ago about my acquaintance with Harvey Milk. Harvey firmly believed that coming out of the closet held the key to the future of gay rights in our country. He was absolutely right. It is why we find ourselves a better and more tolerant society a mere 34 years after Harvey was assassinated by a demented former colleague. Since he's my personal Voldemort, I shan't mention his name but his lawyer popularized the so-called Twinkie defense. I expect the CEO who killed off Hostess to use it some time soon...

34 years may sound like a long time but in the context of the struggle for equal rights, it's yesterday. A yesterday, I might add, when I had a full head of hair and more of my senses, but I digress. The progress on this issue has been remarkable, and while more needs to be done, many young people simply do not understand homophobia because-unless they live in East Jesus, Alabama-they know and like members of the LGBT community. Empty closets = open minds. Sounds kinda bumperstickery, doesn't it?

On a personal note, I'll never forget how my parents freaked out when they learned I had a gay man as a roommate in <shudder> San Francisco in 1980. My mom's freak out was fairly mild, she had a positive stereotype of gay men: as a realtor, she loved renting to them because they were "tidy tenants" and, her ultimate compliment, "nice."

My father was concerned that I'd catch teh gay but he never understood what made me tick anyway. Even then I was not a Nellie but merely nervous over the prospect of Reagan winning the White House. Btw, I threatened to emigrate but ended up migrating to the Gret Stet of Louisiana a few years later. So much for consistency.   

Back to Anthony Kennedy and his elderly backup singers, the Supremes. (They look more like the Pips but Kennedy is no Gladys Knight.) I hope they do the right thing but the best we can hope for are *limited* rulings in support of gay marriage. They're not going all the way but here's hoping that Kennedy doesn't go all Nervous Nellie on us and side with the troglodytes on the Court.

Arthur Laffer Must Be Crying

Seems like just last spring faux economist Arthur Laffer was telling Tennessee's House-Senate Fiscal Review Committee that Fred Smith was going to pack up his Memphis-based Federal Express in a gigantic purple and white box and head for someplace without an inheritance tax:

"I spent about two hours with Fred Smith three days ago up in Memphis, and he said he's gettin' out of this state if it doesn't happen. And now we don't want to lose FedEx. Fred Smith's a couple of classes behind me at Yale and he's a good friend."

Ah, the memories. Smith told Laffer to shut his yap, he wasn't leaving Tennessee because of taxes or for any other reason -- indeed, he said he's not going anywhere. Laffer just made it all up.

And I daresay Laffer and Smith are no longer BFF's, Yale ties notwithstanding, after this:

In a CNN interview, Smith described the idea that raising the rates on the top 2 percent of income earners would kill jobs as “mythology.”

Smith goes on to say that the majority of jobs created in the U.S. come from capital investment in equipment and software, not small business.

I had no idea Smith was such a Socialist/Commie/hippie. Smith isn't the only member of the corporate class telling the Tea Party wackos to hit the road: CEOs from AT&T, Northrop Grumman, Goldman Sachs and more have handed the GOP a steaming cup of STFU. As Joe Conason observes:

Remarkably, the Tea Party Republicans have now alienated their party’s most important constituency — the upper echelon of the business community. It is a profound irony that the issue raising friction between these politicians and their erstwhile backers is a fanatical partisan determination to defend the tax benefits enjoyed by those same wealthy executives.

I'm just curious, who's left in the Tea Party besides the local tricorn hat suplier, Victoria Jackson, Ted Nugent and some wackos following Michele Bachmann around?

 

Obama, Michigan and 'Right to Be Shitcanned' Legislation

I suppose better when he doesn't have anything to lose anymore, than never: 

And by the way, what we shouldn’t do -- I just got to say this -- what we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions.  (Applause.)  We shouldn’t be doing that.  (Applause.)  These so-called “right to work” laws, they don't have to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics.  (Applause.) What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.  (Applause.)

I mean that. I do. Should Obama stay in Washington and send out a tweet for this just because that's what he did two years ago? After all, it's not like Michigan's not epically screwed: 

This governor has a checkered record on saying he wants to cooperate with Democrats and moderates and actually doing it.

First he signed a bunch of legislation that labor didn’t much like and there were no Democratic votes. The governor had control of the house and senate and he used it to advance his early agenda.

But when there was the uproar in Wisconsin over anti-labor legislation there, this governor reassured everyone, “Michigan will not be Wisconsin.”

Damn right. It'll be worse. Which is what happens when you delay fights for a better time. When you keep your powder dry. 

Horwitz said he believed the White House would be more aggressive on the labor battle in Michigan than it had been in Wisconsin.

“There’s nothing but upside for him on this one. The landscape has changed,” Horwitz said. “In the terms of the way the fiscal cliff is being pursued, the president is fighting for the middle class and saying, ‘let’s tax the elites.’ … In the middle of that, the Republicans are saying let’s curb union rights.”

THAT'S WHAT THEY'VE BEEN SAYING FOR 20-30-40-100 GODDAMN YEARS JESUS GOD. This isn't a new thing. They've been pounding away here, trying to get to exactly where we are, where unions are so neutered and assailed as such anachronisms by every fuckstick with Sunday paper real estate that it's hard for them to even rate a seat at the table. And all the while Democratic politicians thought that if we just hunkered down and let this one storm pass us by the skies would be clear forevermore. 

This has been building for a while. And I'm glad Obama opened his mouth and said something about it now, because every day you wait, every day you refuse to speak up, every day you hang back is another day they can dig in and poison the ground. Michigan's gonna need all the help it can get in the coming days. Luckily, Wisconsin's sending reinforcements: 

Randy Bryce, an organizer for Ironworkers Local 8, is putting together a group of workers from Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to join the protest against legislation pushed by Gov. Rick Snyder and Republicans in the Legislature to make Michigan a right-to-work state.

Bryce, a Racine County ironworker who was involved in similar protests against anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin, said the issues involved are even greater in Michigan.

"A lot of things are eerily similar to parts of what happened here in Wisconsin," said Bryce, who expects 40 to 50 people from his union to travel to Lansing, Mich., by Tuesday when lawmakers reconvene and Snyder plans to sign the bills into law. "I would say what’s under attack there is even bigger because they decided to go after the public- and private-sector unions."

A. 

NRSC Not Pro-Rape Enough

Republicans. Will they ever support rape enough? 

“The NRSC’s actions reflected its incompetent leadership,” Tyler told TPM Friday. “It’s hard to say if Akin could have won given how poorly the Republicans performed nationally. But there can be no question that their actions and comments kept the campaign from recovering after a misstep.”

Right. It's not that your candidate was a total dog anus. It's that Republicans performed poorly nationally, so how could poor saintly Todd Akin possibly have won? 

Tyler, honey, Republicans could have won every other district and Senate seat ever and you still would have come up short because YOUR CANDIDATE WAS THE RAPE GUY. The first of many rape guys, but still, the RAPE GUY. 

Democrats said the proof of the ad buys shows the NRSC was “underhanded and dishonest” in Missouri. Tyler says it would have been more helpful if GOP leaders hadn’t lined up to publicly dismiss Akin’s chances.

Well, yes. It would have been more helpful to your candidate. Not so much to the NRSC, which was still at that point thinking about winning any elections at all, and thus trying not to be so loudly pro-rape (while still, of course, supporting whatever bag of hammers with an R after its name was on the ballot anyway). 

I actually wish they'd been open about it, too. I would have more respect for them if they'd just flat-out owned it, monetarily and otherwise. Less respect than I have for the fine upstanding Americans who rob liquor stores for a living, but more respect than I have for the NRSC right now. 

A. 

Cheerio, Willard

Thanks to phone cameras and the Tweeter Tube, Willard Mittbot Romney is turning into the Zelig of defeated candidates. This is one of my faves thus far, wherein we learn what he has in common with fictional badass Omar Little, Honey Nut Cheerios.

 

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - "It's TOO quiet" edition

 

Good morning, happy campers!

Freeperville has settled down quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. I guess they're running out of garments to rend.

Well, I can't keep posting immediately-post-election threads forever (although I have an entire outbuilding full of them still unopened)...

Ah - here's something new - Two Girls, One Cupp!

What happened to Ann Coulter? Tea Party Nation. ^ | 12/6/12 | Judson Phillips

Posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:10:05 PM by Thad Lost

Ann Coulter used to be one of the shinning voices of the Conservative movement. She could be counted on to verbally joust and destroy liberal opponents.

Suddenly she isn’t doing this.

Suddenly she is saying we should give in to Obama.

What has happened to Ann Coulter?

1 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:10:09 PM by Thad Lost

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To: Thad Lost

You mean the Ann Coulter who thought Christie Kreme was the conservative man of the year before she thought Mitt was?

I think Ann’s relevance factor has slipped exponentially.

6 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:16:17 PM by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)

I daresay, (as that particular horse gets longer in the tooth), her appeal to the only head Freepers seem capable of thinking with has slipped exponentially.

To: Thad Lost

She reminds me of Dennis Miller, who virulently savaged Reagan years ago, and then found out that there’s money to be made by tweaking the conservative data base. No matter what anyone says, Miller, Coulter, and bozos like O’Reilly have their conservative feedbag on and don’t give a rat’s a$$ about the conservative cause.

For Coulter to have cheerleaded for Gov. Krispy Kreem and Romney into a so-called Conservative base just showed where her allegiance lay. And may she and the rest of her buddies go to hell.

8 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:21:41 PM by laweeks

Of course, some of the Freeperati are still having that tingle running down their legs:

To: Thad Lost

I have nothing against Anne Coulter.....but I wish I did.

12 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:25:56 PM by capt. norm (Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never run out of material. c)

 

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To: Thad Lost

Not just Coulter. Last night O’REILLY and today Cavuto threw in the towel. O’Reilly said he was tired of the issue and Cavuto was like whatever, it will hurt the economy but it won’t be a death blow.

21 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:37:15 PM by Hound of the Baskervilles ("Nonsense in the intellect draws evil after it." C.S. Lewiscrate)

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To: laweeks

All these “conservative” talk show hosts and commentators make lots of money, and that is the name of the game.

Not that I envy their wealth, but let’s not put them on pedestals.

WSHF they will pack their bags and leave the country for a better place to live.
What, me American?

27 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:43:16 PM by 353FMG

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To: Thad Lost

Ironically from today's Guyism. Even they root for the real right chick.

 

S.E.Cupp > Ann Coulter

 

30 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:46:22 PM by mnehring

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To: Thad Lost

Ann is 50, single, dates leftwingers, and loves homosexuals. Something’s not right there.

49 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 6:07:22 PM by CatherineofAragon (Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization)

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To: Thad Lost

I think Bill Maher infected her with his demon seed.

56 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 6:17:09 PM by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)

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And, of course :

To: Thad Lost

RINOpause

13 posted on Thursday, December 06, 2012 5:26:59 PM by Happy Rain ("Obama, like Satan, would rather rule in (fascist) Hell than serve in (constitutional) Heaven.")

 

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More after the seasonal adjustment.

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Good news for satirists

Willard Mittbot Romney's defeat was a blow to satirists everywhere but there's a promsing development in Italy:

Never a man to let defeat – or scandal – keep him down, the disgraced former prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi has announced he will run once again for the country's top job.

With three colourful terms behind him, Berlusconi confirmed he would try for a fourth time to become premier, saying he was doing it out of "a sense of responsibility" days after his party withdrew its support for the technocrat government of the current prime minister, Mario Monti.

The media mogul told reporters he was running to win and that "the campaign is already on".

<snip>

Berlusconi stepped down last year amid a severe debt crisis. Allegations of his involvement with an underage prostitute and reports that he hosted sex-filled "bunga-bunga" parties also clouded his premiership. He has since been convicted of tax fraud and faces low favourability ratings in the polls.

Grazie, Signor Berlusconi. Glad you're back in the arena and I hope you lose after entertaining the hell out of the world...

Sunday Morning Video: Stop Making Sense

It's great that length is no longer an issue at YouTube. That's why today's SMV is one of the best concert films evah; big suit and all: