Why does the sun go on shining . .

Krugman asks the musical question:

There Will Be Blood

Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be — after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction.

. . .

So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.

. . .

Think of Mr. Simpson’s blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize.

. . .

The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming.

It’s hard to see how this situation is resolved without a major crisis of some kind. Mr. Simpson may or may not get the blood bath he craves this April, but there will be blood sooner or later. And we can only hope that the nation that emerges from that blood bath is still one we recognize.

Swell.

Context, from Mitch McConnell:

In the latest post-victory peroration by Republican honchos, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, outlined on Thursday morning his vision of the way forward for the GOP before a friendly audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation. To save you some time, here's the five-word synopsis: President Obama's agenda must die.

Loyal opposition? Not so much.

As good as it gets

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Shirley Horn:

Only the Lonely

This blog post by Roger Ebert is one of the finest set of words I've ever come across. I can only excerpt a tiny bit, but please read the whole thing because he, (like us;-), includes lots of salient, beautiful music.

All the lonely people

Lonely people have a natural affinity for the internet. It's always there waiting, patient, flexible, suitable for every mood.
[...]
What do lonely people desire? Companionship. Love. Recognition. Entertainment. Camaraderie. Distraction.

Encouragement. Change. Feedback. Someone once said the fundamental reason we get married is because have a universal human need for a witness. All of these are possibilities. But what all lonely people share is a desire not to be -- or at least not to feel -- alone.

Seriously, read the whole thing, it's a short short story in a blog post. It's a beautiful comment on our human condition.

And the music is great too. He just forgot one song.

You Had The World At Your Fingertips, No One Can Make It Better Than You

Hey kids, get off my lawn! You too, you sanctimonious bastards who thought you were teaching Dems a lesson by not voting. Have you seen what you've done? Do you really think putting Rethuglicans in charge will help DADT, DOMA, climate change, single payer, SS, MediCare ... etc, etc, etc.

But why not, you know? After all, what have Obama & DemCo done for you lately, I mean aside from these 244 things.

The main failure for most folks was the dismal record of jobs creation, but did you know we went from LOSING jobs under Bush to (finally) gaining jobs under Obama?


Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day 2 years, but it sure as hell can be destroyed in a day 2 years.

Your poll tax and jim crow and greed have got to go

I've had a little hot-blooded commentary at Facebook lately, with some folks responding to a couple of posts wherein I criticized the right-wing movement in the US and those in the LGBT community who embrace Republicanism, against their own best interests.

It all started here:

LGBT friends: Please don't vote for Republicans. They want to marginalize & discriminate against you. Dem's haven't done enough but Rs? No.

My recently found sister Carolyn took issue as a long time self-identified Republican:

Too bad that is what you think of Republicans. Sounds like you don't allow for independent thinking which even a Republican can do. P.S. This is not a "democracy" but a "republic." Look up the difference.

While she is a lovely & kind person, I suspect her knee-jerk reaction confused the issue. I said "Don't vote for Republicans", which clearly means professional Republican politicians, working in concert with the Republican Party. Clearly there can be "independent thinking" by folks of any political persuasion, but that wasn't my point.

Point was, the R party has done nothing I can think of since Eisenhower left office that would in any way help working people, minorities, the persecuted and downtrodden, or anyone else not in their power elite base.

That's all I meant. Increasing redistribution of wealth upward, decrease of civil rights, increase in national dept, decrease in American manufacturing base, decrease in real wages, massive loss of retirement income for many workers, increase in phony financial instruments designed to move even more money to the upper classes, disregard for safety and priority of active duty military, the list goes on.

That was my point. I stand by it.

Look, I know many on the religious right become seduced by social issues: abortion, gay rights, etc. But folks, wake up, you're being played! While certain right-wing politicians truly are anti-abortion, NO movement will ever be made to overturn Rowe v Wade. If they were serious, they would have done it during the many years Congress was overwhelmingly R. But it's too good a wedge issue to waste by overturning the law, it's better theater to rail against abortion as the great Satan.

So please folks, think about what actually has occurred during Republican administrations and Congresses, and then vote intelligently for what will really help you and America.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

Perfect music, performed perfectly

Rockers today: can you compete with this?

Here's a close approximation of the original version:

You've taken my life, so take my soul, That's what you said and I believed it all

Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

It continues quite convincingly.

I just voted by absentee ballot, I've done it every year when and since I lived in CA.

I like having the time to look at the candidates and propositions, (they don't always mean what they say or say what they mean), do the research, and decide with the facts in front of me rather than trying to remember everything I'd read under the pressure of being in the booth knowing people are waiting in line for me to make up my mind.

But regardless of what your preferred method is, get out and vote!

You Send Me

I'd like to offer a post from my other site because he says it better than I can. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bill Arnett:

WARNING: I will be using racial epithets in writing this post, words that can be hurtful depending on context, but I am doing this to make a point I would find it difficult make otherwise. The reasons for use of these epithets is two-fold: first, to show the cowardice of the two above-mentioned political parties and, second, to show how the demonization of President Obama by any means possible borders on the insane, borrows the epithets of yesteryear, and makes only the most superficial changes in form or application to try to remain free of accusations that they are still naught but bigots, racists, and homophobes who find it easier to slander, insult, brand as evil, and use slightly modified epithets to make the same old Jim Crow thinly veiled threats, denigrate our fellow citizens, make their false projections as to where a candidate stands on issues, and to run yet another "Be afraid, be very afraid…" election, a GOP specialty.

The Con Game: It has been crystal clear that the only way the GOP/Teabaggers can win elections is not based upon legislation they wish to implement to benefit the least of us, restore fiscal sanity, rein in Big Banking, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Corporations, and, in general, do something good for the party.

They are exactly the same scams as the GOP used for self-aggrandizement, the rape and plunder America, conducting illegal wars and bigger and better genocides. They're "clean", WASPs, and they aren't concerned with the fact that the GOP as led by bush/cheney made America the laughingstock of the world, got America rated as the top terrorist threat to the world, bankrupted the country with policies that called for stealing the resources of Iraq when they could have purchased them on the open market, tried to bring back the Nixon axiom that if a president does it, it's not illegal, and they sat and did nothing as our rights were so narrowed as to render many of those rights moot.

The 'code words' regarding racial issues continue to be used in demonizing an opponent that can outthink them any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Lie about any democrats intentions, deny the lie when caught and proven wrong, then go back to telling the same lies to be picked up and magnified by the media until the lie becomes 'common wisdom.'

Think of the things you hear virtually everyday and compare them to the epithets of old which these new code words have replaced.

Image: A dead monkey, shot several times by police, and a comment to the effect that someone else will have to be found to pitch health care because the dead monkey, in every bigot's mind signifies, "The Nigger is dead! The Nigger is dead! Oh, and this is so, so funny because we can display all the naked racial bigotry we want 'cause when them goddamn liberals accuses us of hating niggers we can tell 'em that it's only (snort, snort) a monkey, not our nigger president."

Open calls from GOP and teabaggers to do anything possible to make Obama fail and be a one-term nigger president thrown out onto the trash heap of history, up to and including actually shooting the nigger, and preparing for it by carrying guns to Obama rallies just in case they get a clear shot. Radical churches have openly prayed for Obama to be killed while the GOP and teabaggers openly state they wish to commit treason by assassinating Obama and operating to block every effort he makes to better the country, not because he's wrong necessarily, but because he's not a WASP and is therefore an uppity nigger. (Remember how the MSM went nuts when Obama appeared with the OHIO STATE FLAG behind him, a white flag with an 'O' with a rainbow running through the 'O' and openly breathlessly reported that obviously only a socialist despot would design his very own flag and flout it on national TV. Many faces were awfully red when it was revealed that Obama had nothing to do with the design or display of the Ohio State flag. I believe this marked a turning point for these two pernicious parties as they learned quickly that the nigger and related epithets were not going to be politically palatable with voters.

This is a real dilemma for these two parties. They can only conduct a whisper campaign about how this nigger is 1) not a citizen, 2) a practicing radical Muslim, and 3) a socialist on par with the worst despots in history. These became the new substitutes for 'those in the know' to use instead of the politically incompatible word nigger.

Images: Hitler in white-face or Obama in white face with a Hitler-type mustache. Intent: Tie the nigger to one of the most evil despots of last century and hope the use of the white-face will quell accusations of racism. Wink, wink.

Declare that Obama is not only not a citizen, but a radical Muslim educated in some of the most vile Muslim schools in existence. Oh, boy! This is almost as good as being able to openly call the president a nigger terrorist wanna-be, as the associations they sought to make were that Obama was not American at all, owed his allegiance to the Muslim world, and that every act of his was to undermine our democracy and take over as dictator.

Image: Lacking any genuine proof of any of the vile accusations they have made the rightwing then chooses to use the "Obama as The Joker" posters at rallies, getting the signs shown on TV as often as possible. It's so fucking ridiculous to people with a modicum of commonsense to portray Obama, again in white face, a la Al Jolson in blackface, as being as evil as an entirely fictional character, but it demonstrates again the desperation of the GOP/teabaggers to imply, "No nigger can run a country founded by white christian men and just to prove it we'll put the nigger in white-face to suffer derision and disgust at the thought of Obama being a cartoon bad guy."

Tactic: Smear Obama's wife and children as much as possible. "Oh, horrors! That bitch Michelle wore a sleeveless dress to a state function! Shows you niggers know nothing of maintaining even false pretensions when it comes to State affairs! Not only that, but they allowed, and Michelle physically helped, the kids plant a garden, a fucking garden, on some of the most hallowed ground in America! Only a nigger would so degrade the Whitehouse, but is it still the 'Whitehouse' when niggers move in?" (Actually asked by GOP/teabagger affiliated groups.)

My hunch, my beliefs, about the results to soon be forthcoming from the elections: Teabaggers have assumed an ever greater load of pure bigotry to do some heavy lifting for the GOP. Now the election time grows near and the teabaggers have, they believe, smeared, slimed, and set the stage for a massive turnover favoring them and the GOP.

I see it differently. Saner heads, and yes, there are some, within the GOP recognizes the threat presented by the teabaggers. The two parties will split the vote as sane conservatives realize that even THEY don't want the teabaggers in charge, as the vicious, insidious policies they would pursue (reversing health care, destroying social security, eliminating Medicare, etc.) would not only be detrimental for America but could be the straw that broke the proverbial camels back insofar as Americans finally and forever abandoning a party too mean, ugly, and self-serving to ever effectively lead a nation.

One, but not all, of the reasons I believe this is a recent poll that showed 11% of respondents to the poll thought the teabaggers could solve America's problems while 77% believe that there is no way teabaggers will ever be able to run and solve the problems of government. This means that over half of the existing teabagger party members themselves believe that their party is not going to help America solve any problems.

How the teabaggers and GOP can believe that, combined, they represent salvation for America in the face of statistics like that simply marks them for the fools and simpletons they are. If the teabaggers win two or three seats, drawing votes away from serious GOP candidates, they will never gain a majority in either house. I actually expect that the more people think about the consequences of returning America to the Dark Ages by electing any combination of GOP/teabaggers the more inclined they will be to vote democratic party candidates.

Serious GOP elders running the party already see the handwriting on the wall and have started backing away from the teabaggers, not appearing with teabaggers, not donating money to teabaggers or providing other support, and, now, recognizing that the split vote between the GOP and the teabaggers could likely result in democrats GAINING seats, not losing them.

Well, we'll find out next week, so if you will excuse me please it's time for me to send in my absentee ballot.

I know Bill made several assertions without links, and if you ask in comments we will provide the references. Try me.

Now You're Trying To Trick Me . . .

If Rand Paul, questionably skilled ophthalmologist & narcissist, kidnapper & pervert, had been campaigning in Japan, he would have committed ritual suicide by now. Sadly, he's running for U.S. Senate, so that option is off the table.

If he had the decency of a rattlesnake, he would have at least suspended his campaign, or even quit in shame after this took place at tonight's Paul/Conway debate:

And to the prick that commented on YouTube that this was likely a MoveOn.org staged event and the woman was likely faking, MoveOn.org doesn't do staged drama, unlike Tea Party darling James O'Keefe. So you're either really stupid, or just cruel. Either way, fuck off and die, please.

Contrary to Dr. Paul's assertion, the Tea Party will make you free. Well, this is real Free:

Where's this place called Lonely Street?

Sorry to readers and co-bloggers for the lack of posts lately. I blame work/ambivalence/'n shit.

Meanwhile, as an antidote to the awfulness that is politics today, here is some perfect music: