Jeb! lives

Despite the death knells of recent days, I'll play devil's advocate and say that I still think Jeb! Bush will be the republican nominee in 2016.   While Bush's poll numbers have indeed fallen, he's still in the thick of it and is nowhere near becoming an afterthought like Scott Walker.  He's raised a ton of money and shows no signs of slowing down.  I think his using his brother to raise campaign cash is a purposeful reminder to the powers that be that George W. won two Presidential elections that weren't guarantees and that the Bush family knows how to win (actually governing, though, be damned).  Even when he campaigns, like he did recently in Cedar Falls, IA, he's not feeding the crowd red republican primary meat--he's talking like a Presidential nominee, discussing education and foreign policy.

The only candidate that wouldn't surprise me if he beat Bush would be Marco Rubio--only because the power brokers in the republican party might decide to go with young and new over tried and true.  But they'd be getting essentially the same candidate.

And even though I'm supporting Bernie Sanders, I still think Hillary Clinton is going to trounce Bush come November 2016.

Y'all can thank me in Jamuary of 2017 when the first Democratic Socialist is being sworn in as President of the United States after crushing Donald Trump on the first Tuesday of November 2016...

Peace,
emaycee

With or without you

Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House in waiting, today made official what anyone with a brain (note:  this does not include the republican base) already knows:  the Benghazi hearings were nothing more than a charade to hurt the campaign of the President of the United States in waiting, Hillary Clinton.

It will be interesting to see if a) the traditional media does its job in giving this admission the front and center attention it deserves, and if so, b) do Hillary Clinton's poll numbers improve?

It will also be interesting to see how republicans react to one of the dumbest declarations in recent American political history being made by the man who along with Mitch McConnell will be the face of their party at least through the end of 2016.

One thing is for sure, though--after McCarthy's boner and yesterday's inept Planned Parenthood hearings, the republican House delegation is going to remain just as incompetent with or without John Boehner.

Peace,
emaycee

Not so pretty in pink

Just how incompetent are congressional republicans?   After having months to prepare for today's hearings with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, discussing a cause that is one of their core issues, they were so inept that they were absolutely excoriated by their fellow conservative pro-lifers.   Hell, it never even dawned on them that it might be a good idea to at least have one or two republican women front and center during the hearing.

Apparently it's not enough for republicans to get decimated in the African-American and Latino vote, so now they want to get crushed in the women's vote, too.  I may never see another republican President for the rest of my life....

Thanks, fellas!

Peace,
emaycee

An imperfect storm

Whilst the republican base was cheering wildly when Marco Rubio announced John Boener's impending resignation as the Speaker of the House, I was wondering, will they finally do it?  Will the base finally push one of their true believers into the leadership position and try to shove their radical right wing agenda down American's collective throats and relegate themselves to permanent minority status as a party?

Say what you will about Boehner and Mitch McConnell as both have beliefs not all that different than your average republican, but at least they're both not fucking nuts.  While I'd wager that the powers that be are going to see that Kevin McCarthy (with the help of the only sane political party left in this country, the Democrats) is the next Speaker, you have to wonder how emboldened they will be after Americans did not punish republicans in 2014 despite their attempts to shut down the government for shits and grins.

I'd say it's going to make for great political theater except for the fact that republicans have shown again and again that they don't give a rat's ass about the least among us and their antics could inflict some serious pain on America's poor and working class.

But that's kind of their point, isn't it?

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXIX--Marvin Gaye: Got to Give It Up

Sometimes, it can just be fun.

Marvin Gaye has the political ("What's Going On" or "Mercy, Mercy Me") and the sexual ("Let's Get It On" or "Sexual Healing").  If Sam Cooke invented soul, Marvin Gaye took it to another level.  Sadly, like Cooke, he would die far too early (at age forty-four) from a gunshot after an altercation--in Gaye's case, it was his own father.  But the legacy he left behind...one would be hard pressed to find any best of list over the last fifty years covering best artists or greatest singers or best songs or greatest albums where Gaye wasn't prominently featured.  From his Motown roots to his work with Tammi Terrell, from his groundbreaking seventies albums to his eighties comeback, Gaye set a soul standard that has never been matched.

And the man had balls.

"Got to Give It Up," this week's featured tune, is basically Gaye's fuck you to Berry Gordy and Motown.   Gordy wanted Gaye to record disco music when it was at its height, and Gaye disdained disco music.  Gaye actually wrote "Got to Give It Up" as a parody of a disco scene--if disco had actually been as good as "Got to Give It Up" it wouldn't be sitting the in the moldy basement of mediocre music where it resides today.  And this is the measure of his talent--what started as a joke, became a classic.  Gaye sings in a falsetto of a man at a nightclub, a little too shy to dance, but eventually the music overtakes him and he's able to get on the dance floor and shake it until he meets a lady.  Throughout there's talking in the background, a sense that you're actually at a club where the DJ is playing a song with a driving rhythm that everybody is swinging to, and the night is always just beginning.  And if you aren't smiling while you're listening, you're just not trying.

The song is the only non-live song on Gaye's album Live at the London Palladium, and would spend one week at number one (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.

And when the man sings "Keep on dancin'/Got to give it up" you know he knows what he's talking about.

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

Bullshit artistes

For all republicans whining about Pope Francis, the only thing that's different about his papacy over that of his predecessors is that Francis has reminded his flock that fighting for the poor, looking after immigrants, taking care of the earth, and abolishing the death penalty have always been and will continue to be every bit as much a part of the church's mission as abortion, gays, and birth control.

And for Catholic politicians such as Chris Christie and Marco Rubio to claim that they can disagree with the Pope on these issues because they are political issues is the height of hypocrisy.  To suddenly decide that your faith is an a la carte of beliefs when it doesn't suit your wealthy donors or your hateful base is a sure sign that your faith is a fraud.

Which really isn't so surprising when you consider that republicans have never had any problem ignoring Christ's admonition that "You cannot serve both God and money."

They've made a movement out of serving money.

Peace,
emaycee

First they came for the pharmaceuticals

In light of The New York Times story this past weekend on price gouging in the drug industry (who could have ever guessed?), hedge fund manager and drug industry investor Martin Shkreli tried to do damage control on TV for raising the price on a drug his company makes for $1 from $18 a pill to $750 per pill.  The drug, which is used to help pregnant women and HIV patients with parasitic infections, was developed 62 years ago so it was hard for Shkreli to argue they were trying to recoup investment costs, but he nonetheless claimed the pill was still a bargain.

And caviar might be a bargain at $70 an ounce, but you aren't going to see too many everyday Americans spreading it on their Ritz crackers....

After much blowback from ordinary Americans (and Hillary Clinton vowing to take on the drug industry which caused Big Pharma stocks to drop), Shkreli said he would reduce the price, though he didn/t say to what price.  Make no mistake, though, about the bigger picture:  folks like Shkreli will not be happy until they have all of our money.

And don't be surprised when they start fiddling with the price of our food next.

Peace,
emaycee

Scottie, we hardly knew ye

Two down, fourteen to go....

Scott Walker pulled the plug on his comatose Presidential campaign today, calling on his colleagues to do the same and rally around a "true" conservative candidate who could defeat Donald Trump.  Apparently Walker didn't get the memo--over the course of the last twenty years, from Newt Gingrich to Tom DeLay to Dick Cheney to Sarah Palin, Trump is the "true" conservative they've molded for the republican party's base.

As for Walker, who could have ever guessed that hating on working men and women, failing to create jobs, presiding over a declining standard of living, having a scandal plagued governorship, and being an all around lying asshole could doom a campaign?

Doesn't bode well for Chris Christie methinks...

Peace,
emaycee

Profiles in (not so much) courage

After some numbnuts in New Hampshire this week at a Donald Trump rally (a) claimed that we all know President Obama was a Muslim (apparently I didn't get the memo), and (b) asked how we could get rid of all the Muslims in America, not one republican Presidential candidate repudiated the claim of Obama being a Muslim, or noted that it shouldn't matter if he was, or defended the millions of Muslims who are good and decent American citizens.  Many of them begged off when asked about the comments, claiming that either they weren't Donald Trump or that it wasn't their job to correct people's misconceptions.

So for all their talk about moral authority, or religious liberty, or leadership, or political correctness, in reality republicans have absolutely no courage when it comes to doing the right thing.

Wimps, the entire lot of them.

Peace,
emaycee

Two Americas

Good America:

After fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for um, building a clock, there was an outpouring of support for the young man, including President Obama who invited him to the White House, Hillary Clinton who sent a supportive tweet, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who asked to meet him.  At one point, tweets for #IStandWithMohamed reached two thousand per minute.  Those who understand that Mohamed is symbolic of the best of what America is rightfully called into question the actions of his school and police in Irving, Texas.

Seriously Fucked Up America:

And then there were those for whom the thought that someone with brown skin and a religion not toeing the Christianity line couldn't possibly be up to any good.  An American kid amazingly turning a pencil box into a clock becomes a Muslim terrorist making a bomb.  And they actually defended the absolutely ludicrous actions of both the school and local police.  A perfect example of this is this nonsensical piece written by--who else?--Sarah Palin in which she manages zero coherent sentences and about as much inventiveness and logic as could be created by your average earthworm.  And, as Digby notes in the above link, there were plenty of comments in support of her blaming everything that's wrong in America on Muslims and President Obama, instead of on the backs of folks like her whose hatefulness and ignorance are truly to blame.

There's a meme going around that the support for candidates such as Donald Trump and Ben Carson is merely a reflection of the fringe right and not indicative of the republican party as a whole.  Nothing could be more decidedly wrong--the Tea Party is the republican party in its entirety.

They're just more honest about their beliefs and aims than establishment republicans.

Peace,
emaycee

Clocking out

Why am I not surprised that police in Irving, Texas this week arrested fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for making a clock that some seriously misguided teacher thought was a bomb?

Because mixing police officers with the state of Texas is a recipe for stupid.

And the folks in Irving absolutely nailed the recipe.

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXVIII--Lou Reed: Street Hassle

Sha-la-la, man, sha-la-la....

So...Lou Reed.  Yeah.  Trying to write a paragraph synopsis of his career is like trying to write a paragraph about the life of St. John the Baptist:  he may not have been the leading man, but he sure played an important role in the movie, and more than likely, you aren't going to do justice to that role.  His seminal work with the the Velvet Underground would have been enough to insure his place in rock and roll history, and his solo work only cemented his reputation.  He has often been called the inspiration for punk rock (a notion he adamantly eschewed) and its hard to imagine bands such as R.E.M., Nirvana, and Pearl Jam without his pioneering works.  The Velvet Underground was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996; oddly (at least to me), Reed wasn't inducted into the Hall as solo performer until this year, two years after his death in 2013.  Reed enjoyed very little commercial success--only a handful of the band and his solo albums made the Billboard Hot 100, and the only top 40 hit single he enjoyed was "Walk on the Wild Side" (but what a one hit hit to have).

"Street Hassle," from the aptly titled LP, Street Hassle, is an eleven minute ode to love and death in (presumably) New York City.  The song is divided into three parts:  "Waltzing Mathilda" which is the tale of a woman securing the services of a male prostitute (and how many songs have used that story line?); "Street Hassle" which involves the drug overdose of an unfortunate young woman; and "Slipaway" which is a paean to both love lost and love sought.  Reed infuses all three sections with strings--leading off with violins and cellos, mixing in acoustic and electric guitars, and throwing in the odd bass here and there.  Vocally, it's Reed's usual deadpan delivery, though parts one and three are sung, and part two is a monologue.  Lyrically, there are few artists who can literally paint a picture with their words, but Reed is one of them.  Reed is a master at keeping the words simple and using just the right touch of subtlety.  I've always been a bit partial to section two, and his protagonist's detached take on the girl's overdose is both frightening in its heartlessness, and mesmerizing in its authenticity.

And if all of that isn't enough, Bruce Springsteen does an uncredited intro to section three, replete with a play on his famed lyrics, "tramps like us, we were born to run."  Reed then closes the song with a masterful and heartfelt back and forth on love and loss.

Sheer brilliance from beginning to end.

These week's lyric link is apropos of nothing more than a nod to being the most cold-hearted lyric ever written:  "But when someone turns that blue/Well, it's just a universal truth/And you just know that bitch will never fuck again."

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

The fat lady is singing

With his support in Iowa plummeting to 3%, Scott Walker announced on Monday in Las Vegas his plans to completely decimate Labor Unions in America, presumably so our national economy could tank as bad as Wisconsin's did under his "leadership."

Because sooooo many Americans these days are worried about workers having too much power.

Digby notes that more likely this was a sop to Sheldon Alderson, noted Israel lover and Union hater, and that his (much needed) check to Walker is probably already in the mail.

As I mentioned concerning Jeb!'s tax cuts, this is another attempt by republicans to announce campaigns that are being run not for the Presidency of the United States, but for the United States of the Wealthy.

And this may also explain why Donald Trump is currently cleaning their top candidates clocks in the republican primary--he may be a moron, but even he understands that Americans, both right and left, aren't all that fond of America's rich elite these days.

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXVII--Sam Cooke: You Send Me

The Beautiful Girl and I will celebrate 13 years together tomorrow, and while I'm not sure if she's familiar with Sam Cooke or "You Send Me," I'm going to presume it's the thought behind the song that counts....

I was introduced to the music of Sam Cooke by my father (and I would later introduce my daughter to the joy of listening to him) when I was still a young man, and now that I'm a not so young man I can honestly say that even the worst of days can be made a little bit better by listening to the man many consider the King of Soul.  Cooke started out as a gospel singer, but by the late fifties he would branch out into R & B and Pop.  Between 1957 and 1965, Cooke had 33 Top 40 hits (most of which he wrote himself) and still found time to found his own record label, publishing company, and  be active in the Civil Rights Movement.  He would later become a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and be ranked 16th on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Sadly, Cooke was shot to death in late 1964 after a dispute at a hotel in Los Angeles (many have questioned the circumstances of his death) at the all too young age of 33.

As for "You Send Me," it is considered Cooke's signature song.  Released in 1957, it would appear the next year on his Songs by Sam Cooke LP.  The song spent three weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100, and eventually was named one of the 500 most important recording of all time by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as ranking #115 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500  Greatest Songs of All Time.

I could tell you about Cooke's silky smooth vocal delivery, or the pure unadulterated joy that infuses the song, or its timeless brilliance, or that absolutely no one on the planet before or since can sing "Whoa" like Cooke did, but all you need to know is this:  if there is a heaven, I can guarantee you that Jesus Christ himself has covered "You Send Me," and that all twelve of his Apostles and Mary Magdalene begged to be on backing vocals.

As for you, Beautiful Girl, know that after thirteen years you still "...send me, honest you do, honest you do, honest you do, whoa...."

Enjoy:

Peace,

emaycee

Republican leadershit

Sarah Palin this week announced that she wants to be Donald Trump's Secretary of Energy, apparently believing she's qualified because she's pumped gas into her car a time or two.  Of course, Palin--sort of like her stint as the "Governor" of Alaska--only wants to be Secretary long enough to disband the department so she can get back to making tons of money being the tea party's moronic mouthpiece.

And that my friends, for all their talk about leadership, is the republican party's "leadership" in a nutshell.  Frankly, they couldn't lead a pack of Cub Scouts in the singing of "God Bless America" unless there was some money to further line their pockets with.

And in the end, they'd still fail.

Peace,
emaycee

Same old, same old

Ol' Jeb! really went out on a limb this week with his proposal to cut taxes to three rates (10%, 20%, and 28%) and to cut the corporate tax rate to 20%.

Can you say "idiot" boys and girls?

Cutting taxes in this way won't do a shit's worth of good for America's poor or her middle class (didn't work under Reagan or Bush the Lesser), but it sure will help Corporate America and the wealthy.  If that's what Jeb! truly believes--that putting more money in the hands of America's rich elite at the expense of the rest of us is sound economic policy--then he's even dumber than his moronic brother.

Somebody might want to inform Jeb! that he's running to be the President of the United States of America, not the President of the United States of Koch Brothers or the President of the United States of Corporate America.

Though a nagging intuition tells me that his rich ass would prefer the latter.

Peace,
emaycee

I'm sticking to the union, too

Not only do we get great job benefits from the work of Labor Unions, but we also get some pretty catchy songs.  Here's union icon Pete Seeger singing union icon Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid" (and note all the folks singing along):

Happy Labor Day!
emaycee

Who has done more?

Thirty-six ways Labor Unions have helped all American workers:

Weekends
All Breaks at Work, including your Lunch Breaks
Paid Vacation
FMLA
Sick Leave
Social Security
Minimum Wage
Civil Rights Act/Title VII (Prohibits Employer Discrimination)
8-Hour Work Day
Overtime Pay
Child Labor Laws
Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA)
40 Hour Work Week
Worker's Compensation (Worker's Comp)
Unemployment Insurance
Pensions
Workplace Safety Standards and Regulations
Employer Health Care Insurance
Collective Bargaining Rights for Employees
Wrongful Termination Laws
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Whistleblower Protection Laws
Employee Polygraph Protect Act (Prohibits Employer from using a lie detector test on an employee)
Veteran's Employment and Training Services (VETS)
Compensation increases and Evaluations (Raises)
Sexual Harassment Laws
Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
Holiday Pay
Employer Dental, Life, and Vision Insurance
Privacy Rights
Pregnancy and Parental Leave
Military Leave
The Right to Strike
Public Education for Children
Equal Pay Acts of 1963 & 2011 (Requires employers pay men and women equally for the same amount of work)
Laws Ending Sweatshops in the United States

And yet Labor Unions are still under siege--I guess the working man getting just a little piece of the pie is just a bit too much for some pretty pathetic folks.

Happy Labor Day!
emaycee

On Kim Davis

Despite the pleas of religious liberty with regard to Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis' refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, in the end freedom of religion means that you're an American first and servant of God second.  She can no more deny licenses based on God's authority than she can (from a biblical standpoint) reject the Ten Commandments based on America's authority.

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXVI--Traditional: Amazing Grace

An amazing woman died this week.

She never held an elected office.  She never made a movie, starred in a TV show, or wrote a book.  She wasn't a cultural or political icon and she'll never appear in a Who's Who of any sort.  She would have been mortified if anyone tried making her day to day life into a reality show.  And she never won any awards--though her kids would have voted her Mom of the Year on numerous occasions if such an award existed.   But she survived a horrendous auto accident that shattered her leg and wrist, alcoholism (almost thirty years sober at her death), tobacco, and breast cancer--and she would have told you that quitting smoking was the hardest of the four.  She watched her husband lose two jobs to mills closing in a slowly dying steel industry, and uprooted her life twice to move across country and state to state to keep the life they knew together going.  She later watched him die far too young from lung cancer, and witnessed a daughter losing a son to another horrendous auto accident.  Along the way she raised three pretty decent kids, helped nurture eleven incredible grandchildren, and enjoyed four great-grandchildren of whom even bigger things are hoped.  Somewhere along the way she found time to make sandwiches weekly for bag lunches for the homeless, baby-sat kids for people looking for work during the Great Recession, lead rosary prayer groups, and kept the cleanest house in recorded human history.

She lived to be eighty-years-old, and most importantly, she was my Mom.

She told me once that "Amazing Grace" was her and my father's favorite hymn to sing when they were at mass, and that's why it's this week's featured tune on Jukebox.  After I failed miserably at writing the Great American Novel, I ended up in dire financial straits, and I lived with my Mom for a year while I tried to get back on my feet monetarily.  One night while my Mom was cooking dinner I was practicing my guitar, and I picked out "Amazing Grace."  She came from the kitchen to watch me play in her family room momentarily, then went back to making dinner, all the while humming along as I continued to play "Amazing Grace."  That's the type of thing you recall when someone you've  loved since the moment you were born passes away.

The lyrics to "Amazing Grace" were written by John Newton, and the melody, near as I can tell, is from some ancient piece of some sort that I didn't really much care enough about to learn of.  I chose the song because my Mom liked it.  I chose the version by Rod Stewart  from Every Picture Tells a Story because I love the instrumental guitar intro and very few people on this planet sing as beautifully as Rod Stewart did back in the day.

"How sweet the sound," very much indeed.

Thanks for everything, Mom.

Enjoy:

Peace,,
emaycee