A grateful nation sends its thanks to whichever one of you is selling the chronic to Gov. Rick “Goodhair” Perry. The Republic is remarkably resilient, but I’m not certain it could survive another Lone Star shit-for-brains who can’t maintain.
Y’all deserve a Presidential Medal of Freedom, or at least a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The gift that is the race for the GOP presidential nomination just keeps on a-giving. SNL, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report might as well just add their writing staffs to the unemployment stats, because the candidates are serving up all the material they’re ever gonna need, and for free, too.
Herman “Just Kidding (Not Really”) Cain wants to electrify the fence between the United States and Mexico; I’m not sure who picks up the tab for that, but I suspect Cain plans to bill grieving Mexicans for the cost of electrocuting their kinfolk. “Careful, señores, hot fence!”
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney says that rather than providing foreclosure relief to struggling homeowners, he would let foreclosures “run their course and hit the bottom,” put all those bums on the street, and then sell the bums’ houses to investors, who could turn around and rent the bums’ houses back to them (assuming the bums could pass the credit check, raise first, last and damage deposit, and get out of the leases on the Dumpsters, refrigerator boxes and pup tents they’re living in).
And he says this in Nevada, where a day without foreclosures is like a day without sunshine. It’s like throwing an anvil to a drowning man — more than 80 percent of homeowners there are underwater on their mortgages, and one in 44 houses has been hit by a foreclosure filing in the third quarter of 2011, nearly double the number in runner-up California and putting the Silver State squarely atop the foreclosure heap.
Remember, this isn’t your crazy Uncle Hermie who talks to the toaster and Thurston Howell III, who was a TV caricature of an obscenely wealthy, amoral fuck, not the real deal. These are the frontrunners for the GOP nomination. One of them could actually become president.
From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Apple Store. I’m not quite certain we’ve achieved the IWW ideal of One Big Union yet. Ooo, look, there’s some bread, and there’s a circus!
After a trying week it’s been pleasant to listen to a little live music from the Newport Folk Festival courtesy of NPR Music.
Yesterday I caught the Decemberists and Gogol Bordello; today it was Amos Lee, Mountain Man, Elvis Costello and Emmylou Harris. Elvis and the Imposters started out a little ragged — I think he used the first couple of tunes for his sound check — but still, it beats the mortal shit out of Prairie Home Companion, lemme tell you, especially when he does “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” with a theramin for backup.
If you missed it, NPR Music is archiving audio and video from all three stages, so you can play catchup in the cube farm — assuming your particular business doesn’t get the business because Congress can’t do business, the miserable fucks. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona is seriously pissed off, and I’m right there with him. Says Grijalva:
The Democratic Party, no less than the Republican Party, is at a very serious crossroads at this moment. For decades Democrats have stood for a capable, meaningful government — a government that works for the people, not just the powerful, and that represents everyone fairly and equally. This deal weakens the Democratic Party as badly as it weakens the country. We have given much and received nothing in return. The lesson today is that Republicans can hold their breath long enough to get what they want. While I believe the country will not reward them for this in the long run, the damage has already been done.
Preach it, brother, preach it. Where’s Steve Earle when we need him?
• Late update: Pete Seeger joined Emmylou and a crowd of other performers onstage for “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” The old commie’s gone a little wobbly, but he kept up the struggle. When will they ever learn, indeed.
Just a rainbow, courtesy of the afternoon monsoons, which have returned for a while. They sure do cool things down at night.
Meanwhile, in DeeCee, Weepy John Boehner is still leading from the rear, frantically trying to figure out which brand of tinfoil his Tea Bagger buddies want for their beanies. The gang at Talking Points Memo is on top of things as they happen, and for high-quality analysis and snark you can check with Steve Benen at Political Animal and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones.
Suffice it to say that the news is all bad. At least Kevin supplies cat-blogging on Fridays to lighten the mood.
Here in Dog Country we’ll engage in a bit of dog-blogging as a counterpoint. We’ve been crate-training Buddy and so far, so good. He’s (mostly) sleeping through the night and has had no more accidents in the crate since we pulled the bedding out of it. He’s getting at least one longish walk daily and plenty of backyard time. And today he even romped a bit with Herself, gamboling about the DogHaus like a happy pup and even barking a couple of times, just for the hell of it.
The Feline Caucus, of course, finds this incomprehensible. But so far they haven’t tried any nihilistic shenanigans, which goes to show you that pretty much any old four-legged furball is smarter than the average House Repuglicant.
Mad Blog Media 