October 30, 2013

Sanders for President? Anyone else here besides me work for McGovern?

George McGovern was a war hero, articulate, brilliant, and a successful senator and spokesman for the increasingly unpopular anti-Vietnam War movement. He was a liberal and lost in a goddamned landslide of horrific proportions.

Add to the above list the facts that he is a Jew from New York and a Socialist. Forget States, I would be interested in an over/under for the number of counties he'd win in the US. How does fifteen sound?

You would wind up with a fascist Rethug as President, and me moving out of the country, not necessarily in that order.

October 28, 2013

World Series is impossible to watch on FOX

Extreme close ups of the players make it impossible to see defensive shifts or base runners prepare for the pitch. Multiple shots of players on deck or in the dugout during a single at-bat are distracting. Players who spit or scratch a lot are given special attention.

But all of this pales to the constant jabbering of Buck (a member of the lucky-sperm club) and McCarver has evolved into a petty mess. Clearly there are pet themes and words for each game which need to be delivered X many times per fifteen minutes. And the intonation: a player hits a double with one out and you'd think he was Bobby Thomson. And more which doesn't merit repeating.

Yuck-and-a-half.

October 26, 2013

Staying in the Hyatt on Capitol Hill tonight...

Any suggestions for dinner and/or bar in the area (with Mrs. Intern so don't get funny!)...

...and if I run into a Teabagger Rep or Senator, suggestion for an opening line...? (Besides the F-word!)

October 26, 2013

Staying in the Hyatt on Capitol Hill tonight...

Any suggestions for dinner and/or bar in the area (with Mrs. Intern so don't get funny!)...

...and if I run into a Teabagger Rep or Senator, suggestion for an opening line...? (Besides the F-word!)

October 20, 2013

I lay the blame for the influence of the so-called Tea Party on the MSM including

but not limited to assholes like Tweety, all the Network Anchors and Congressional Correspondents, all the local reporters who tacitly accepted the mantras of the Tea-Party-John-Bircher-KKK as somehow inclusive and part of the so-called (again) Democratic Process. When these racist, misogynist creeps re-raised their ugly heads, those of us who lived through the Fifties and Sixties immediately recognized their policies as those of what used to be described as the Radical Right. We in the Progressive Movement, the REAL Progressive movement, fought against these people on a daily basis through the Post McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Era, and the Vietnam War Era.

"Better Dead Than Red" was the LEAST of what was on their car bumpers. DU rules and good taste prevent me from posting some of the other sayings which adorned their vehicles. They were the most hateful group you could imagine but then, for the most part, they held their tongues in public, although you could read in their eyes and faces exactly what they thought.

But now, they just come out and say whatever they please, and for YEARS, the MSM just blandly reported it in that Chuck Todd-like manner of "this is what was said - I'm not commenting upon its validity or sanity, that is for you to decide." Well it only sabotaged the entire country and if the Democrats had not grown up and learned Solidarity at the last moment, we would be in REALLY HORRIFYING trouble, not just the major-league trouble that we are in now.

All along so many of us were screaming that they were the rebranded Birchers, the Klansmen without the hoods, the willing executioners. And so few listened. And you know what? It will happen again in another Cycle.

October 19, 2013

If you have a weird Dad, you have an Erie, PA

As long as we are talking about what to call a state or a city...

We had a mayor of Philadelphia call it "Fluffia" for two whole terms...as in "I dropped a bomb on a neighborhood in Fluffia and was re-elected anyway."

October 19, 2013

A thought: the actor Ed Lauter's passing is metaphor for America...

If you peruse the IMDb of Mr. Lauter you can see that he was virtually omnipresent in American film and television for decades. Anyone who was an aficionado of series TeeVee or films whose protagonists were law enforcement, military, or sports figures knew his face, although few knew his name. In retrospect, he was truly a great actor, for he filled his roles convincingly and there was no doubt that his characters were instantly believed as such by the audience.

He essentially plied his craft in the background and was a stalwart and reliable individual for the viewer and the producers and directors. His work made the whole product successful.

So it is with Government: it operates more or less in a predictable fashion at the bureaucratic level, gives the people what they expect reasonably on time and reasonably prudently when called upon in emergencies (presuming its leader is not celebrating birthdays and playing the guitar when, for example, a Category 5 hurricane sweeps in), and, most importantly, is sorely missed when it is non-functioning.

This is once again what Americans discovered during the past few weeks. And this is once again what the Republicans forgot.

October 14, 2013

When I was a kid in the Fifties and Sixties,

Network news would often, not just occasionally, report what Pravda, the Soviet's news source, had reported for an incident and of course, it in no way resembled that which the American Network(s) had stated to be the 'facts'. This little maneuver let us 'know' that we were hearing the 'truth' rather than the fictionalized accounting being force-fed the Russians and the other Eastern Bloc populations.

But clearly, the entire time that this was going on, the US Media was taking notes on how this was done. True to form, the populus here, by and large, is complacent and the media, by and large is 'disingenuous' or, to be more blunt and direct, lying scoundrel creepazoid motherfuckers who make the writers and editors at Pravda look like amateurs.

How else could you have the articles about the rapes in Marysville which referred to the "bedding" of one of the girls, yes...not ladies...young girls, and describing the actions as "sexual encounters". If you add this to all the other horrors of our so-called free press which have involved the coverups of assassinations of enemies and friends, foreign and domestic, of wars ill-conceived and carried out, of just about everything deplorable you can conceive of and some things which you can't, you had best better realize that you are living in The Matrix.

I was attempting today to explain to a young person that there were such things which at one time were considered as Higher-order Truths and such, and received an earful of scorn and derision. What was this old guy saying? The truth it seems, is what he believes it to be after giving it careful consideration...say five to ten seconds at the most. Why dwell, right?

The toilet has been flushed, the water and the "log" and the paper are going around and around and around...I now understand why my father and mother gave up this battle in their later years, despite their earlier vociferous political arguments FOR Progressivism, FOR Civil Rights, FOR Justice for ALL. You just get tired of fighting sometimes.

That being said, I am still game for a Battle Royal with the Bad Guys. Bring it on, Rethugs. Bring it on.

October 13, 2013

Anyone read Bonerzs Wiki entry lately?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner

Must have been written by his Chief of Staff...

For example:
Fiscal cliff and Hurricane Sandy relief bill
On January 1, 2013, after passing the fiscal cliff deal, Boehner adjourned the house without passing the $60 million Hurricane Sandy relief bill. Some Representatives, especially from the Northeast and including Republicans as well as Democrats, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie harshly criticized Boehner.[42] Boehner later promised to pass the bill.[43] However, some commentators praised Boehner for not passing a bill they saw as full of pork barrel.[44]

Here are two points I would make:

a. it says he grew up in a bar. That explains a lot: probably an alky by the time he was 13
2. it says that as a night janitor he met the young lady who was to become his wife. Anyone else's eyebrows go up? That really requires an explanation if for nothing else than clarity.

October 12, 2013

Watching "Game Change" again...

Wow...this was the Vanguard mission of the Lunatic Fringe. Now we are chained in bed with these people.

Haven't seen Steve Schmidt lately either.

We are at a crossroad. Palin was the emissary to break the ice and start the journey to the far-right extreme. Now we have Cruz and it can actually, believe it or not, get worse. Don't believe that at your and our peril.