Day After the Day After Saturday Links

Oh hey, it's raining again. Here's some links.

This is cheesy as hell, but I love it. All my boyfriends in Grand Rapids, MI respond to Newsweek's allegation that they are a "dying city" by putting together a 5,000 person strong LipDub.

Twitter now allows you to view people's feeds in real time. You could always see who they were following, but it's just more interesting, from a voyeuristic point of view, to look at say, my boyfriend Keith Ellison's Twitter feed.

Via my boyfriend Mark over at Norweiganity, whites apparently think they are the most oppressed people in society these days because of the belief in the zero-sum pie. Which is racist in of itself, if you honestly believe there is a zero-sum goal, and you just deserve more of it because... you're white, well, that makes you kind of a dick, doesn't it? I've seen this argument too many times to count, and it always reminds me of my boyfriend Louis CK's bit:



On his 100th birthday, my boyfriend Rick Perlstein remembers "America's Forgotten Liberal", my deceased boyfriend Hubert Humphrey:

Humphrey could have been excused for quietly backing down. Instead, the man who had earned the nickname the Happy Warrior gave one of the greatest speeches in American political history.

“To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights,” he thundered from the convention podium, “I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

The motion carried. The Southerners walked out and ran Strom Thurmond for president. When Harry S. Truman won nonetheless, Democrats were on their way to becoming the party of civil rights. Hubert Humphrey catalyzed that change.

Some awesome Tumblr blogs put together by my boyfriends that might make you lose a bit of faith in humanity: Facebook reactions of people that take The Onion seriously and unhelpful customer tweets.

This is not a pleasant story to read. But you should read it, because it perfectly illustrates what the anti-choice crusade is leading to. (via)

This is not a pleasant video to watch. But you should watch it, because it perfectly illustrates what the war on (some classes of people that use) drugs is leading to.

In case you did the sensible thing and got the hell out of town for the holiday and didn't obsessively read political blogs like some sort of dorky political misanthrope and therefore don't get the boyfriend joke, here it is. But it should probably be noted that although making fun of the half-assed logic of idiot right-wingers is hilarious, the fact that my failed anger management candidate and raging alcoholic boyfriend Andy Breitbart's minions are yet again harassing some random citizen that just so happens to yet again be a black woman isn't very funny at all.

Oh, and in case you missed it, my girlfriend Michele Bachmann is still very, very stupid. Stupid enough that kids are actually schooling her at this point.

Far below, the city burns...

Ha ha, I get to go see The Twilight Singers tonight and you don't.



This actually causes me quite the dilemma, as I have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed early tomorrow morning to put the finishing touches on the garage sale from hell I'm having this weekend. This will not dovetail well with seeing one of my ultimate favorite musicians the night before, as it is important for me to consume mass quantities of beer while doing so. But it's Greg fucking Dulli, people:



And if the missing-in-action Rick McCollum shows up, past experience leads me to believe I will get a mini Afghan Whigs reunion, and will more then likely get to hear this:



And in that case, I'm totally screwed, because the awesome will kill me.

---

The Twilight Singers
Dynamite Steps

The Twilight Singers
Blackberry Belle

The Afghan Whigs
Black Love

Too nice to be sitting at a computer....

So I'm going to ignore this asshole and this asshole and this asshole and this asshole and these assholes and these assholes for now and let you know that The Twitter is informing me that the Surly Bill has made it's way out of the conference committee.





Peace.

Too little, too late

There's a new trend around the right-wing internets that's kind of amusing me. Via Outside the Beltway:

It’s aggravating that Birtherism managed to get even the amount of traction that it did. But it’s a relief that, once the hard proof was out there, only the truly wacky fringe are holding onto it. As Prof. Jacobson put it, “what is clear is that the evidence mattered, much more so than skin color.” It shouldn’t have ever required this extra level of proof, but once it was available, Birtherism was done for.

So, henceforth, anyone who insists upon holding onto their conviction that opposition to Obama is purely motivated by his race will find themselves joining Birthers as personae non grata. At this point it’s at least as irrational.

Yes, you read that right. Anyone that suggests that racism has anything at all to do with the batshit crazy opposition against Obama is now on par with people that think there was some Islamic/African plot formed almost 50 years ago to forge a birth certificate so that an "outsider" could destroy America from within. Apparently the right now wants a cookie because those amazing numbers from a few weeks ago showing how many of them are birthers dropped once Obama released his birth certificate:

Chart courtesy Washington Post/ABC News

Never mind that he actually did that years ago.

Dodd links to Ben Smith over at Politico, who also pushes the idea yeah, that birther stuff was like, totally crazy yo, but there's crazy to be found everywhere, like in "leftist" 9/11 truther theories, so this whole birther thing had nothing to do with racism.

A couple of thoughts.

First, like I've said a thousand fucking times, the problem isn't that crazy people exist. The problem is that the Republicans have a pattern of mainstreaming their crazy for political gain to the detriment of the entire country. Not only do I not recall any Democratic candidates over the past ten years expressing doubt over President Bush's complicity in the 9/11 attacks, I don't recall the mainstream media ever asking them about it at all, because it's a fucking fringe conspiracy theory.

Second, I don't know how the question was phrased in the truther poll; the idea that we shot our own missiles at the WTC is pretty much grabbed out of the records of nothing or someone's ass. But as far as the "Bush knew" theory? That actually has a bit more credibility, because do we know that:

1. There was already a conspiracy theory centered around letting an attack on the United States happen in order to justify our involvement in a war that served as a primer for conspiracy theories regarding the former president.


2. The focus of attention after 9/11 turned abnormally quick towards warring with Iraq, a county which had nothing to do with the attacks on the US.


3. We know that 9/11 was indeed used to justify a separate goal of removing Saddam from power.


4. Remember that whole "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" memo? Yeah.

Now let's look at the rational behind the "Obama is not an American citizen" theory.

1. His father was from Kenya


2. Obama grew up in Hawaii.
   


3. Obama is black, Africans are black


4. Obama's middle name is Hussein

And there's that.

Third, that blatant, in-your-face facts have changed minds says nothing about why this became an issue in the first place. Look, it's wonderful that after cowing the president into doing something no other leader of this nation was forced to do, the Republicans are changing their tune. Perhaps now that this is out of the way, we can go back to discussing the real things that are destroying our empire, like women or gay men fucking. But the fact that the Republicans, after being made to look like fools, are now dismissing birtherism (after Donald Trump has pretty much successfully framed his current gifting scheme around it) says little about the origins of the conspiracy theory in the first place, or why it took off like a wildfire when it should of been laughed out of the room a long time ago.

You don't get to say now, after you've been made fools of, that this change of heart somehow proves the Republican party is in a sane place, or that this whole moronic debacle would have totally happened if the elected president was the typical, old southern boy white guy. Clinton always had the conspiracy theorists after him as well, but there's really nothing that compares to this level of stupid. Besides, all that's really happened is the screech box has been cleared for newer, more exciting, "deather" theories, because there's apparently something suspicious about the President of the United States hunting down America's Public Enemy #1.

I realize that this whole birther issue is now a complete embarrassment, and it only reinforces the assumed racism within the Republican party, and that it looks terrible for them. But after all the identity politicking they've pulled, what did they really expect? That the same people that they've been deliberately priming with racist dog whistles would take a rumor that the president isn't "one of us" and magically reject it once it got to the point of the absurd? Of course not. This is the beast they created. Everything since Nixon's Southern Strategy to Reagan's "State's Rights" speech to Jessie Helm's "Hands" ad has been leading up to this spectacular moment in xenophobic stupidity. Republicans wanted the Dixiecrats, they courted the Dixiecrats, and now those Dixiecrats are Dixiecons, through and through. You own them, Republicans. Enjoy.

So sure, I'm glad you finally joined the rest of reality when it comes to Obama's nationality. But it was your framework that allowed this nonsense to flourish in the first place. So sadly, there is no cookie for you today, right-wingers. Just more examples of why you'll be impotent and obsolete in another 10-20 years.

It's shit like this that makes me really wish Karma existed.

Oh fuck you, Texas:

The Supreme Court this week refused to hear the case of a teenage girl who was kicked off her cheerleading team after refusing to cheer for the boy who sexually assaulted her.

As a result, she now owes the school $45,000 in legal fees.

This really only happens if the lawsuit is deemed frivolous. And what possibly could be more frivolous then a lawsuit regarding a cheerleader that foolishly thought she had a right to free speech, who was kicked off her squad for the high crime of refusing to cheer for the man that (admittedly!) attacked her, even though she was willing to cheer for the team as a whole?

But let's not lose sight of what's actually important here. Obviously, her refusing to cheer for the man that raped her might hurt his feelings, be a total downer to sports-lovers everywhere, or possibly bring the morale of the team as a whole down for pointing out the small crime of allowing an admitted(!) sexual offender to keep playing as if nothing ever happened (I mean, it wasn't like he did something serious like smoke a joint or anything that would actually be deserving of suspension from sports). But it's fine, folks, we showed that bitch (and any other potential troublemakers that might find themselves in a similar situation) her place, because we wouldn't want something like youthful indiscretion or his god-given rites of passage to ruin this poor young boy's life, now would we? He's one of our star players!

So now that this silly little case is settled, let's keep rolling our eyes and talking about how feminists are all hysterical and shit when they talk about the rape culture that's completely condoned and embedded in America.

Via

This is why David Weigel is my favorite person on Twitter

Well, one of them, anyway.



Don't worry, folks, even though the White House is taking it's sweet-ass time and driving the anchors on Fox9 insane, there aren't any zombies.

Well, unless it's zombie Osama Bin Laden. Man, that would suck.