October 17, 2013

A Vast Swirling Multi-Light Year Gravity Well Of Cute From Which There Is No Escape

(ignore the oaf to the right, as he is but a prop in the show)



All the Squee. The head ribbon is Just. Not. Fair.

October 17, 2013

Son of Slain Sikh Temple Leader to Challenge Paul Ryan in 2014 (!!!)

Son of Slain Sikh Temple Leader to Challenge Paul Ryan in 2014
By Traci G. Lee
MSNBC.com

Amardeep Kaleka knows he’s the underdog.

A new face hasn’t been elected to represent Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district since Paul Ryan was elected in 1998, and the seat hasn’t been held by a Democrat since the early days of the Clinton administration.

But Kaleka is ready to see that change. The 35-year-old filmmaker filed paperwork Wednesday to form an exploratory congressional committee. He’ll decide over the course of the next 30 days whether he’ll officially declare his candidacy under the Democratic Party.

“It’s David and Goliath,” Kaleka said in an interview with MSNBC.com. “This is the epitome of what the national field should look like.”

The rest: http://www.msnbc.com/martin-bashir/meet-the-man-who-plans-challenge-paul-ryan

SEND THIS MAN MONEY.

If you are within shouting distance, VOLUNTEER.

October 17, 2013

In the grand tradition of "Sharknado," SyFy Channel brings you...

..."Arachnoquake."

No, really.

Tonight.

October 17, 2013

Rust Never Sleeps

Capitol Building. (Photo: via Shutterstock)

Rust Never Sleeps
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Thursday 17 October 2013

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

- Abraham Lincoln

At exactly 10:11 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday night, the 218th vote required to forestall the wrath of stupid people was cast in the US House of Representatives.

Whoop de freakin' do.

I honestly don't know where to begin. The breadth and depth of this land mass of abject Fail is genuinely breathtaking. The right-wing trucker protesters coming to "arrest" Congress who were chased off by a traffic cop. The Confederate flags waved in front of the White House that houses a Black family, folded into a veteran's protest that got co-opted by Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz, who yowled about not using veterans as pawns even as they shoved veterans out of the way in order to get in front of the red lights of the news cameras.

Heritage Action, the activist wing of the Heritage Foundation, has been the hood ornament of the "Defund Obamacare" movement since President Obama won re-election in 2012. The final attempt by House Speaker John Boehner earlier this week to present a legislative alternative to a Senate takeover of the process - thus salvaging a shred of integrity for himself and the chamber he allegedly leads - was dashed to bits by a letter from Heritage Action warning against any concessions. That one letter scattered his caucus like geese. Just after 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, however, Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham presented himself on Fox News, of all places, and said, "Everybody understands that we'll not be able to repeal this law until 2017."

Wait, what?

Yup.

(snip)

And so much for the bullshit.

According to Standard & Poor's, this nest of gibberish cost the country $24 billion. An analysis by the much-respected Macroeconomic Advisers puts the total tab for all the budget/debt limit/shutdown mayhem unleashed by the GOP since 2010 at $700 billion, with an additional cost of 900,000 jobs. Very smart people are making the point that the larger damage has already been done, default or otherwise. On the smaller scale, millions of people - government workers, veterans, the disabled, the poor, children - have already felt the lash, and got a full taste of genuine fear when it looked like they were actually going to put the car into the wall.

Anyone you know who has the gall to call this a "victory" is an idiot. Aside from the actual pain this thing caused is the fact that all the Democrats won in the end is a few months of government, and a few months of not looking economic Armageddon in the teeth. The GOP just got a budget CR that operates at the sequestration level they set the last time we spun this Merry-Go-Round, and a faction of their party will try this hostage-taking thing again after the New Year to get even more. Of course they will.

This was a zero-sum gain, and a lot of people lost, badly. It was a nifty exercise in disaster capitalism, more proof of the power of the shock doctrine, and nothing more. Whoever tries to tell you otherwise is selling something.

Finally, anyone who says this mess spells the end of the Tea Party phenomenon is fooling themselves. If anything, the re-branded right-wing created by the Koch Brothers and pimped by CNN will greet the dawn on Thursday morning re-invested in the idea that Jesus hates the poor, women and all brown people, just goddamn because. They see themselves as victims even when they win. Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and the rest of the sharpies will be there to egg them on and pick their pockets. Mark my words: these people have learned no lessons, ceded no ground, and are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Also, there is there is still the Trans-Pacific Partnership to contend with, plus Chained CPI and Medicare means testing (both of which Mr. Obama floated not long ago, which will make an appearance in the budget debate, count on it), plus the Keystone XL pipeline, plus the ongoing voter restriction efforts, plus the all-important 2014 midterm elections, plus, and plus, and plus, and plus, etc.

Take this to heart, friends and neighbors: rust never sleeps, and there is never, ever any rest for the weary.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19468-rust-never-sleeps

October 17, 2013

218

October 17, 2013

The bill needs 17 GOP votes. It already has 22. If no Dems defect, the deal has already gone down.

October 16, 2013

A few words in praise of the President of the United States

Folks here are well aware by now that I am not one to go ZOMG OBAMA IS SO OSSUM very often. I voted for him twice, but never once fooled myself into thinking the panacea for all that ails us had been elected, and I have considered it my sworn duty as a citizen to kick him in the ass when circumstances warrant it.

That being said, President Obama has taken a hail of shit for his hands-off approach to Congress over the last five years. He needs to glad-hand, he needs to press the flesh, he needs to work the room, lather rinse repeat.

Fuck that. I see the method of the man in this latest eruption more clearly than ever. To say he should be more like Lyndon Johnson, who was famous for his ability to work members of Congress, is to have a catastrophically Derpy understanding of history, in that you dare to compare the Congress members of Johnson's day to the goddam meth-addled barn swallows we endure now. No and no and no.

Mr. Obama's bargaining tactics during this crisis, in short:

Oct. 1: No. Fuck you.

Oct. 3: No. Fuck you.

Oct. 6: No. Fuck you.

Oct. 10: No. Fuck you.

Oct. 12: No. Fuck you.

Oct. 14: No. Fuck you.

Oct. 16: Please proceed.

Never interfere with a perfectly good train wreck.

Kudos, Mr. President. I'll be all over your ass tomorrow, but for tonight, I am glowing with pride over those two votes I gave you. Very well done, sir.

October 16, 2013

Senate Deal Includes Back Pay For Furloughed Workers (!!!)

Senate Deal Includes Back Pay For Furloughed Workers
TPM

The latest Senate deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling includes back pay for furloughed federal workers.

Multiple congressional aides told the Washington Post that back pay would be part of the deal, and a Senate source the report to TPM.

The rest: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/senate-deal-includes-back-pay-for-furloughed-workers

Good shit.

October 16, 2013

Because fiscal conservatives and shit.

"Wonk Wire shows that Congress's budget fights, debt-ceiling stand-offs, and spending cuts have cost the U.S. economy nearly 3% of GDP since 2010 - roughly $700 billion in lost economic activity - and raised the unemployment rate in 2013 by 0.6 percentage points, equivalent to 900,000 lost jobs."

Because fiscal conservatism. And shit.

http://wonkwire.rollcall.com/2013/10/16/chart-day-26/

October 16, 2013

U Mad Bro?