The Arc Of The Universe

Posted on May 9, 2012 by MagicLoveHose

They passed the amendment because they knew what was coming and it shook them to the bone.

Posted in Kulturkampf, Webcomix | 1 Comment

Marriage Is a Civil Union, Mrs Greenspan

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Emilia1956
I am pretty damned angry that various demographics amongst those who call themselves “Progressives” are allowing themselves to be led down the Primrose Path (that’s red, as in Republican) to divisiveness and unnecessary bickering just at a time when the Democrats need to be showing a united front.

That this entire kerfuffle, around the fact that the President won’t come forward and say, in words of one syllable or less (for the benefit of those stamping their feet) that he is in favour of gay marriage. If people would use that gray matter stagnating inside their heads and think and remember for themselves, this very non-issue was pushed to the forefront back in 2004, by none other than Karl Rove, as a metaphorical stick with which to beat John Kerry. It worked. The whole non-issue deflected attention from an illegal war going badly, and George W Bush got a second term.

Last Sunday, an overtly partisan moderator of a national political commentary show chose, during an interview with a particularly honest and loquacious Vice-President, to interject a question about same-sex marriage. The day after a very successful kick-off to the Presidential campaign, that was not a coincidence. That was very deliberate. David Gregory knew his victim and struck with a purpose. If people would be bothered to remember, this is the same David Gregory who, quite happily, danced with Karl Rove, and probably still is.

And so it begins again. The sniping, the griping, the petulant demands, the posturing – all dividing the Democratic party, all attacking a President from his natural Left, whilst allowing Willard and his corporate friends, the Koch brothers, to attack, unfettered, from the Right. Continue reading →

Posted in Kulturkampf, sexual freedom | Tagged | Leave a comment

Morning Awful: North Carolina

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Matt Osborne

I’m going lose my cool today. It will happen as soon as I see one more dissatisfied “progressive” bemoan the relative slow pace of President Obama’s “evolution” on marriage equality. Like too many states, North Carolina is actually going backwards. We can all slide backwards if we insist; all we have to do is pretend it’s not happening and blame it on Obama when it does.

Posted in Morning Awful, sexual freedom | 3 Comments

(Something Witty About CISPA)

Posted on May 8, 2012 by MagicLoveHose

CISPA is bad for people with normal heads too.

Information on contacting your representatives in the Senate available here. SOPA/PIPA went down; we can win this fight too, but only if we show up.

Posted in Copyright Issues in the Internet Age, Kulturkampf, Webcomix | Leave a comment

Losing to Religion

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Emilia1956

I don’t believe in God, but I don’t condemn anyone else who does. Most of my friends in the US are believers, and a fair few who live there are not. As surprising as it might seem to many, I was educated in a Virginia public high school where quite a few of the teachers who taught me were atheists – one was even a Republican.

I realise that there is a vocal section of the Democratic big tent where the loudest atheists reside, and that most of their noise is directed towards Christians of the evangelical variety who tend to vote “red” with a capital “R” which stands for “Republican.”

T M Luhrmann, a sociologist, writing in today’s New York Times has been studying evangelical Christians extensively and thinks that the Democratic party would do well to approach this demographic a different way – a way, quite honestly, which may garner some positive results. Continue reading →

Posted in Kulturkampf | 1 Comment

Morning Awful: Mitt Romney is Weak

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Matt Osborne

As I keep saying, someone must start asking Republicans “is the president an American?” in exactly those words, without rewording it as a question of belief. It must be a question of fact, and the only acceptable answer is “yes.”

Posted in Mitt Romney, Morning Awful | 1 Comment

#StopRush, ALEC, and the Howard Stern Category

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Matt Osborne

It’s time for Limbaugh’s defenders to stop before they hurt themselves. Actions like #StopRush have been going on for a long time without any help from George Soros or Media Matters. There is nothing new or innovative about advertiser contact and boycotts, and no one’s free speech is getting squelched. As Jim Wallis of Sojourners put it when he called on readers to boycott Glenn Beck:

Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches, so I say Christians should leave Glenn Beck. I don’t know if Beck is just strange, just trying to be controversial, or just trying to make money. But in any case, what he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show. His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern. (Emphasis mine)

And in fact Glenn “white culture” Beck is doing fine today. He speaks freely and insanely on a subscription model similar to SiriusXM. Thanks to a sustained advertiser pressure campaign, he no longer enjoys a cable “news” channel spotlight, however. Beck owns his own spotlight now, as is appropriate, and well may it profit him. Continue reading →

Posted in ALEC, Organizing, rush limbaugh | 1 Comment

Something We Knew All Along

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Emilia1956
Newt Gingrich, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan … oh, and Frank Luntz. Get them all together in a room, and you have a gaggle of trouble.

Now it seems, as the 2012 Presidential campaign gets underway that, from the very first day of this President’s term, a plot was devised to – what? – well, to use Rush’s words, to make him fail. Or, to quote Mitch McConnell, to ensure that this President only gets one term.

And their method?

Just say no. No matter what, no matter how much any policy proposed or endorsed by this President would help this country, even these representatives’ own constituents, just say no. Just oppose it. Smack it down. Flat.

And that’s what they did, as explained below:-

People aren’t stupid. The general public sussed this lot long ago – that’s the same general public who sussed when these assholes told lies about what the President did and didn’t do.

I don’t know what makes me angrier – having this made public now, or spending the last three years seething and arguing and figuratively beating my head against the wall at the plethora of so-called Progressives who jumped on the pejorative bandwagon of petty discontent in bitching, griping and carping about the President not fulfilling their Disneyland agenda and, inadvertantly, aiding and abetting the Republicans in their quest to down the Presidency.

Either way, actions by both sides were damned disgraceful. The Republicans were supposed to be the opposition. I can forgive their conniving ignorance, but people from the Left? Please don’t insult my intelligence – and that also goes for the person presenting this report. Ed Schultz, amongst others, did a helluva lot of harm, including telling people not to vote in the 2010 Midterm elections, in order to teach the President and the Democrats a lesson.

Well, Ed and his ilk learned a lesson from that, themselves, at our expense. And we the people, the real Liberals, won’t forget that easily.

Posted in Obama Derangement Syndrome | Leave a comment

Morning Awful: In One Chart

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Matt Osborne

The blue line shows private sector employment returning back to the level it was at before President Obama took office. The red line shows public sector payroll declining by more than 600,000 jobs over the same period, despite the US Census bump. Republican economic orthodoxy holds that the blue line’s rise is entirely the result of that declining red line — that shoving six hundred thousand families out of the middle class somehow creates private sector job growth. It does not. In fact, those former public employees are contributing less to the economy than they were before, so if anything the decline in public sector jobs has held the private sector back. Via

Posted in Austerity, Morning Awful | 1 Comment

We Hold The Right To Party to be Inalienable

Posted on May 6, 2012 by MagicLoveHose

I know it’s horribly white of me to say that the Beastie Boys were my favorite R&B group, but, well – they were.

And it’s just plain horrible that just last week, that wasn’t a “were,” but an “are.” Rest easy, MCA.

Posted in Kulturkampf, Webcomix, music | Leave a comment

John Brown’s Pikes

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Matt Osborne

“Private Martin.”

“Yes, sir.” He did not swallow or make any other sign of fear. His face was a study in youth exposed to battle. Even delivery of bad news to a flag officer was insufficient to shake the private’s confidence. Colonel Cypherus Wheeler had seen his own expression in the parlor mirror of Cypress Manor earlier, marveling at the way war had aged him. He wouldn’t have liked to face himself like this.

Like Private Martin, Wheeler had the gray look of a man living the hell of war, and angry as hell because he was losing. But a man of honor could not take that out on a soldier. ”Have a seat, son,” Wheeler said.

The soldier obeyed, coming to attention in the seat.

“Your report?”

“Beg to report it was those Alabama boys and their Spencers, sir. We were guarding ninety-nine niggers fixing what they’d done to the bridge when our sentries took fire. There was only two of them, sir, but they killed three of our men before we rallied a squad to get after them. I was there, sir. We were fighting in the brambles.”

“Where is Captain Leehigh?” Colonel Wheeler asked, studying the soldier’s torn and soiled uniform.

“Dead, sir. When the yankees fell back he organized a pursuit. We had a platoon, sir, and he led it into the bush to beat them out. When he did, they hit him and the color-bearer first. We had a dozen killed or died of wounds right then, sir, and they got away on horseback.”

“What happened to Lieutenant Beauregard?” The colonel asked.

“Dead, sir.” Continue reading →

Posted in Authoritarianism, Civil War and Reconstruction, Kulturkampf, Short Fiction | Tagged , | 2 Comments