;)
Thursday
Apr242014
The Commentariat -- April 25, 2014
Internal links removed.
Ann Marimow & Craig Timberg of the Washington Post: "Judges at the lowest levels of the federal judiciary are balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and other sensitive personal data, declaring the demands overly broad and at odds with basic constitutional rights. This rising assertiveness by magistrate judges -- the worker bees of the federal court system -- has produced rulings that elate civil libertarians and frustrate investigators, forcing them to meet or challenge tighter rules for collecting electronic evidence."
What to Do With Inconvenient Facts:
Ignore Them & Make up Some Shit
It's hard to get accurate numbers on anything. But the numbers we see today is that -- as I understand them -- we believe there are more people uninsured today in Kansas than there were before the president's health-care plan went into effect. And I thought the goal was to bring more people into insurance. -- Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), remarks in Salina, Kan., April 14, 2014
Worse Than Healthcare.gov. Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration is poised to take over Oregon's broken health insurance exchange, according to officials ... who say that it reflects federal officials' conclusion that several state-run marketplaces may be too dysfunctional to fix. In public, the board overseeing Cover Oregon is scheduled to vote Friday whether to join the federal insurance marketplace.... Behind the scenes..., federal and Oregon officials already have agreed that closing down the state marketplace is the best path to rescue what has been the country's only one to fail so spectacularly that no resident has been able to sign up for coverage online since it opened early last fall."
Sabrina Tavernise & Barry Meier of the New York Times: "Nearly five years after Congress passed the Tobacco Control Act, giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate various tobacco products, the F.D.A. is training its sights on e-cigarettes -- a fast-growing industry riven by competing interests, including those of Big Tobacco. Proposed F.D.A. rules, which were announced on Thursday, would give the federal government authority over e-cigarettes, along with cigars, pipe tobacco and other products. But the road map put off until later almost all of the trickiest issues, like whether flavors should be banned or television advertising limited."
Paul Krugman: “'Capital in the Twenty-First Century,' the new book by the French economist Thomas Piketty..., is serious, discourse-changing scholarship in a way most best sellers aren't. And conservatives are terrified.... The really striking thing about the debate so far is that the right seems unable to mount any kind of substantive counterattack to Mr. Piketty's thesis. Instead, the response has been all about name-calling...." ...
... Here's Krugman's review of Piketty's book in the New York Review of Books, which P.D. Pepe linked a couple of days ago. "The big idea of Capital in the Twenty-First Century is that we haven't just gone back to nineteenth-century levels of income inequality, we're also on a path back to 'patrimonial capitalism,' in which the commanding heights of the economy are controlled not by talented individuals but by family dynasties.... In the past -- during Europe's Belle Époque and, to a lesser extent, America's Gilded Age -- unequal ownership of assets, not unequal pay, was the prime driver of income disparities. And he argues that we're on our way back to that kind of society." ...
... MEANWHILE, Krugman's esteemed colleague David Brooks also reviews Piketty's book & finds it wanting. Brooks, describing himself as a "quasi-Marxist," by which I think he means he does see class, implies that Piketty is merely a non-mega-rich elite who envies mega-rich elites. Also, Brooks says, Piketty tries to "predict the future," & he might be wrong, so his proposed solution -- taxing wealth instead of income -- is dumb & punishes innovators. Brooks thinks it "amazing" that Piketty is getting so much attention when what he writes "says more about class rivalry within the educated classes than it does about how to really expand opportunity. "
Tim Egan: The Seattle minimum-wage movement could spell disaster if the "15 Now" activists get their way.
Mark Landler & Jody Rudoren of the New York Times: "President Obama encountered setbacks to two of his most cherished foreign-policy projects on Thursday, as he failed to achieve a trade deal that undergirds his strategic pivot to Asia and the Middle East peace process suffered a potentially irreparable breakdown." ...
... White House: "President Obama and Prime Minister Abe [of Japan] answer questions from the press following a bilateral meeting in Tokyo":
... Justin McCurry & Tania Branigan of the Guardian: "The US is duty-bound to come to Japan's aid in the event of a conflict with China over a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea, Barack Obama declared at the start of a tour of Asia aimed at reassuring Washington's allies in the face of threats to stability from North Korea and an increasingly assertive China."
Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "... there is something about being told that he is blind, clueless, and also silencing that affects [Chief Justice John Roberts'] viscerally. His entire two-page concurrence in Schuette ... is a rebuke to [Justice Sonia] Sotomayor; not on matters of doctrine, but on good taste and decorum in public discourse over race.... Justice Antonin Scalia goes even further in his concurrence, describing Sotomayor's logic in analogizing the Michigan anti-affirmative initiative to Jim Crow as 'shameful.'" See also Paul Waldman's comment on Roberts, linked below.
American Justice, Ctd. Shadee Ashtari of the Huffington Post: "RadiumOne CEO Gurbaksh Chahal, "one of America's 'most eligible bachelors," was caught on tape beating & kicking his girlfriend 117 times over the course of half-an-hour & threatening to kill her. He hired a high-priced lawyer, natch, probably paid off the girlfriend, who quit cooperating with authorities, & got off with no felony conviction, three years' probation & a few hours of community service. The judge suppressed the videotape. ...
... Philip Matier & Andrew Ross of the San Francisco Chronicle: "The deal also means that Chahal - with no felony conviction - will be allowed to stay on the board of his $100 million-a-year social advertising technology company, RadiumOne, which has been preparing to go public." ...
... Jordan Weismann of Slate: "... if you believe Brendan Eich deserved to get the boot from Mozilla because he opposed same-sex marriage, you ought to be appalled by a case like Chahal's. And if you bothered by the Eich case, domestic abuse can at least offer a clear example of what should count as a fireable offense."
Beyond the Beltway
Greg Botelho of CNN: "Cliven Bundy -- the Nevada rancher turned conservative folk hero for bucking the federal government's attempts to stop his cattle from grazing on public land -- admits he doesn't understand the bipartisan uproar over his comments suggesting blacks might have been better off under slavery. But he understands what he meant by those comments, and he's not backing down." ...
... Oliver Willis of Media Matters has video of Cliven Bundy's racist comments about "the Negro," first published by the New York Times. "The Bundy Ranch responded to criticism of the tirade on their Facebook page on April 24, claiming that 'words are taken out of context' and that Cliven Bundy 'is not a racist man.'" CW: Uh-huh. And what exactly was the "context"? I don't think those yahoos have the slightest idea of what "out of context" means. BTW, if you object to my calling the geniuses at the Bundy Ranch "yahoos," well, I was taken out of context. ...
... CW Update: Okay, there is some context. Apparently Bundy got on the subject of "the Negro" because he wondered why people of color weren't supporting him. "Where is our colored brother? Where is our Mexican brother? Where is our Chinese? Where are they? They're just as much American as we are, and they're not with us. If they're not with us, they're going to be against us." ...
... Republican Josh Barro in a New York Times opinion piece: "Mr. Bundy, weirdly, is onto something here. The rush to stand with Mr. Bundy against the Bureau of Land Management is the latest incarnation of conservative antigovernment messaging. And nonwhites are not interested, because a gut-level aversion to the government is almost exclusively a white phenomenon.... Republicans' biggest problem with minorities runs even deeper than economic disparities and racist gaffes.... Economic prosperity alone will not make racial minorities eager for antigovernment language." ...
... Dylan Scott of TPM: "More video has emerged of Cliven Bundy's slavery remarks, and they now include a bit about 'the Spanish people' -- by whom Bundy appears to mean undocumented Hispanic immigrants. But there's a twist: The Nevada rancher actually seems quite fond of them.... 'When you see those Mexican families, they're together. They picnic together. They're spending their time together,' he said. 'I'll tell you, in my way of thinking, they're awful nice people. We need to have those people join us and be with us.'" ...
... CW: What Scott, & of course Bundy, miss is that people are people. "The Negro" and "the Spanish people" don't have peculiar character traits; some are "awful nice people" & some are rats -- just like white people or Asian people or AmerIndian people. Whoevah. It's true that people are conditioned by culture, & that conditions will impact culture, but it is ridiculous to make assumptions about individuals based on real or imagined cultural stereotypes. There are plenty of people who look a lot like Cliven Bundy who are decent, law-abiding citizens. I wouldn't assume a person was a racist, thieving scoff-law loon just because he was a white guy wearing a ten-gallon hat & cowboy boots. ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post has video of Bundy's full remarks about race. ...
... Joe Coscarelli of New York catches Bundy claiming he didn't say anything about "the Negro" "picking cotton." Apparently nobody told Bundy about videotapes. ...
... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg News: "Samuel 'Joe the Plumber' Wurzelbacher. Sarah Palin. George Zimmerman. 'Bette in Spokane.' Cliven Bundy. Every few months or so, conservatives elevate a new Everyman or Everywoman to embody their crusade.... You would think, after worshipping so many false idols, that conservative leaders might temper their enthusiasm for the latest purveyor of right-wing melodrama." ...
... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: Bundy's "only cause was that he shouldn't have to pay fees to graze his cattle on land he doesn't own. To most people he looked like a crazy old man with a sense of entitlement that would put any 'welfare queen' to shame. But to his advocates, he was an avatar of freedom. Why? Well, he does ride a horse and wear a cowboy hat, and he loves guns and hates the government. What else did they need to know?" ...
... Paul Waldman, in the Washington Post: Chief Justice John "Roberts' decisions in recent years have made clear that he thinks discrimination against African-Americans is merely a thing of the past, so the law should no longer seek to address it.... Outbursts such as this one by Bundy remind us that this wrongheaded belief matters. Roberts' beliefs don't come from a place of hate the way Bundy's do; I'm sure he would sincerely like to see a society in which race never matters and discrimination is just a memory. But he thinks we're already there, which makes him just as blind." ...
... Dylan Scott: "Conservative media titan Sean Hannity, formerly one of Nevada rancher Clive Bundy's strongest advocates, expressed his vehement disgust Thursday with the latter's remarks on slavery." ...
... Hunter of Daily Kos: "But the pointing guns at federal agents part Sean was fine with." ...
... AND David Edwards of the Raw Story: Fox "News," which was apparently All Bundy All the Time, shut down the Bundy reel after the Times' reported on his racist remarks. In fact, when Democratic strategist Joe Trippi tried to mention Bundy on air, Fox host Gretchen Carlson cut him off: "Alright, let's not bring that into this discussion,' she said reflexively. 'I don't want to bring that into this discussion!'" With video. ...
... Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Hannity, et al.: "Not every idiot who yells 'freedom' and 'down with tyranny' deserves your support. Unless you're looking for cheap, vicarious thrills, the cause should matter.... And if you are so starved for examples of government repression that you have to rally behind an idiot whose great, principled cause is free cattle fodder, then maybe, just maybe, government repression isn't the huge, massive problem that you like to pretend it is." Thanks to James S. for the link.
Charles Pierce, on the Georgia secret-guns-for-everyone law. CW: Pierce concentrates on the last aspects of the law that most troubled me: "It eliminates even the most rudimentary forms of record keeping.... Gun rights were in no danger in Georgia; nobody's rights are infringed by a dealer's being required to keep a record of his sales. What this is about is simply telling the rest of the country to piss up a rope. It's hippie-punching on a grand scale. It's raising an actual bulwark against the president's imaginary campaign to disarm the populace. It's paranoia with a concealed-carry permit."
Flunked GOP How-to-Talk-to-the-Ladies Class. Joseph Dussault of the Boston Globe: "New Hampshire State Representative Will Infantine incensed fellow lawmakers when he suggested that the wage gap exists because women don't work as hard as men do. The state House of Representatives met Wednesday to vote on the 'Paycheck Equity Act,' which was unanimously passed by the state Senate.... The aim of the bill is to prevent wage discrimination based on gender."
Re: commentary by Akhilleus & James S.:
News Ledes
AFP: "North Korea will gain nothing by making threats, US President Barack Obama said Friday, warning it of sanctions with 'more bite' if it went ahead with a fourth nuclear test. Speaking in South Korea as satellite images revealed the North could be preparing for an underground explosion, Obama stressed that Washington and Seoul stood 'shoulder to shoulder' in their refusal to accept a nuclear North Korea."
AFP: "Latvia on Friday welcomed American troops on its soil, part of a US force of 600 sent to the region to reassure the Baltic states amid concern over Russia's actions in Ukraine."
Washington Post: "Russia on Thursday began military drills on its border with Ukraine as the government there mobilized against pro-Russian militants, killing 'up to five' people, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the Ukrainian actions, and his top deputies said a Ukrainian mobilization in the restive eastern part of the country would elicit a Russian response. The tit-for-tat military movements brought the two sides closer to a direct armed confrontation in a standoff that analysts call one of the most dangerous on European soil since the end of the Cold War."
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Reader Comments (15)
Barbarossa's musings about running Georgia guns down into Mexico reminded me of the hissy fit Brother Issa had over Fast & Furious. Might the entire Georgia legislature soon find themselves comfortably seated at a table with microphones in front of Brother Issa?
Nahhh...
Re: White'm cowboy; You ask where are the Negroes, the Mexicans, the Chinese, Mr. Bundy? Well, most of them are law-abiding working folk and they don't want anything to do with a tax cheating old fool. The rest are on the way over to your place for a big ass BBQ.
Bye the bye, I'm not paying my property tax this year. Can I borrow your hat?
Bye the bye, if John Wayne was marshal out your way, he would have shot your ass by now. In the movies John Wayne was the "good guy".
On last night's show Rachel Maddow had a startling expose of the roots of the political movement of which, clearly, Cliven Bundy is a part. She traced it back to the Civil War, in the aftermath of which southern states fumed at the imposition of effective marshall law and managed to get an act passed in Congress in 1878 that effectively ejected Federal lawmen from their states. From this, various movements were eventually born, including the Posse Comitatas movement itself, Oathkeepers, Sovereign Citizens and others. Some include a strange doctrine that says only the local county sheriff has authority over an individual, not the Federal government. Apparently Cliven Bundy was strongly influenced by this belief (as was pretty obvious from even his first televised interview). Maddow went on to interview the congressmen from Bundy's district, Steven Horsford (who is both Democrat and African-American). Horsford had just held some Town Hall meetings which revealed that Bundy's neighbors are very upset at armed militia routinely patrolling their small town, including schools and churches.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Jay Bookman: Cliven Bundy story is porno for faux patriots.
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2014/apr/24/cliven-bundy-story-porno-faux-patriots/
Karen Finney on "All In with Chris Hayes" pointed out the way the game's played. Only Hannity personally rebuked Bundy, all the others did it through a spokesperson. That way, their video of support is still out there, the spokesperson is in print. The audience they want reach doesn't read much. Talk about having it both ways!
Chicken or egg?
Or which came first? C. Bundy's reluctance/refusal to pay his grazing fees or his determination that the landlord, in this case the federal government, was illegitimate?
Not unrelated perhaps to Rand Paul's recent cozy chats with wealthy libertarians, modern incarnations of the beholden to no one, we did it all on our own mindset. Both instances of which lead me to wonder if there is any set of ideas, any so called philosophy on the Right that is not rooted in simple- and single-minded self interest?
I certainly don't see any evidence of it, which implies the further question: Since government is about people working together, can the Right ever govern at all? Their ideas, not their behavior alone, strongly suggest not.
And Alistair McLeod died. http:/
/www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/books/alistair-macleod-author-of-no-great-mischief-dies-at-77.html?hpw&rref=obituaries
A very fine writer, IMHO.
What Republicans can't admit is that their entire philosophy of governance relies on racism, or at the least, classism. The idea expressed by Ronald Reagan that "government is the problem, not the solution" (paraphrase) assumes that helping poor people is not a legitimate function of government. (Helping rich people, by contrast, is excellent policy.) Of course government helps millions of poor white people, but Republicans don't really recognize that. They equate minorities with poor people.
The poor whites who do receive government aid are able to "justify" it by claiming they are "deserving." I don't think GOP legislators have a high opinion of their poor white constituents, any more than they do of their poor constituents of color, but of course the pols would never point out that what color you are does not affect how "deserving" you are.
Most GOP policies are based on racist or classist assumptions. Until that changes, people with reasonably functional brains will not vote Republican.
Why anyone would be surprised that Cliven Bundy holds racist views is beyond me. Every one of those high-minded pundits & legislators who have "distanced themselves" from Bundy hold more-or-less the same views; they just are sophisticated enough not to clearly express them on the teevee or on the Senate floor.
Marie
@Victoria: Thought Rachel did an excellent job ferreting out the historical facts re: the Posse Comitatas origins. She is truly a teacher in her method of always telling us the genesis of a particular story.
Re: David Brooks: The only good thing about reading his column today was reading some of the many comments, the bulk of them highly critical of Brooks' column. If he does read them and I certainly hope he does, will he come back to us with hat in hand and say we misunderstood what he had to say? This appears to be the playbook of conservatives of late. "We didn't really mean.." or do what Fox does–––pretend shit never happened and go on to something else as evidence of their coverage last night after Hannity did his bit about being outraged at Bundy's racial remarks and then quickly moved on to something other than cows, land, and crazy guys who don't recognize the U.S. but ride high on their horses waving the American flag.
I'm sure we all know people whose sensitivity to race is on a par with the average person's knowledge of quantum mechanics. Certainly, not everyone who votes Republican is a racist. The problem is that they vote for people who either are racist, or who countenance racism on a daily basis, which means that on some level, they're okay with it.
The way Cliven Bundy thinks is the way the vast majority of Republicans in power think. The only difference is his dog whistle isn't up to snuff.
Conservatives routinely try to rip progressives for what they consider a tiresome and unnecessary focus on a problem they believed was solved 40 years ago (lookin' at you John Roberts).
But a quick review of a few examples, none of which are extraordinary or unusual, shows just how wrongheaded that thinking is:
Former GOP speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich refers to Obama as "the food stamp president"
GOP darling and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin attacks the president for "shucking and jiving " on Benghazi. She might as well have called him "boy".
Former GOP presidential candidate Mittens Romney sucks up to another GOP presidential candidate, the king of the Birthers, Donald Trump.
Speaking of the birther movement, the last Republican convention featured a litany of birther bird brains as speakers including Trump, Mike (North Korea is the place for Freedom!) Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Rick Scott, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Think any of them will stand up to question Ted Cruz who, unlike the first black president, wasn't even born in this country?
Heritage Foundation, a wellspring of GOP strategy initiatives publishes a report which states that the non-white immigrant population in the US has a substantially lower IQ than whites. These are the kinds of "research" papers Republicans use to craft their political policies.
Rick Santorum whips up wingnut fury by describing how lazy blacks are stealing their money to live a life of ease.
And Cliven Bundy is not the only asshole who believes that, for blacks, a life in chains, a life of beatings and whippings and brandings and crippling, back-breaking work where your children can be sold off to another slave owner is preferable to life in the current United States. Michele Bachmann once opined that blacks were better off as slaves because they sang more gospel songs and had a better family life. Better family life? Seriously? These fucking people!
John Boehner snubs Obama by denying him the right to speak before a joint session of congress on a date requested by the president. First time it's ever happened. To any president who wasn't white, anyway.
Former presidential candidate Rick Perry pines for the good old days at his family hunting lodge, affectionately named "Niggerhead". Nice.
Another asshole, GOP Rep Don Young, has similar fond memories of the good old days when he and his dad would hire "wetbacks" to pick their tomatoes.
And don't forget the pictures circulated by Republican operatives and politicians depicting Michelle Obama as a gorilla or the White House lawn as a watermelon patch. These aren't slack jawed droolers in some redneck bar with more toes than teeth. These are GOP party leaders, senators, representatives, and candidates for the office of President of the United States.
Teabagging protesters show up in front of the White House to wave Confederate flags. Did they do that when Clinton was president?
The GOP leader of the house in Oklahoma jokes about "jewing down" the price related to some legislation. He thought it was cute.
Rush Limbaugh has made millions selling his racist schtick to other racists. He claimed that Donovan McNabb, working in what may be one of the few true meritocracies, professional sports, only got a starting QB job because he was black. And don't forget him telling a black caller to "take the bone out of your nose". Pig.
And let's not forget the "Southern Strategy". It's still in effect.
We can go on and on like this all day. These examples are not individual, isolated events. They are simply samples of the breadth and depth of racism among right-wingers.
Racism in the Republican Party is endemic. It's almost hard wired. And people who tend to be racists or who are actively racist also tend to be conservative Republicans. Does anyone dispute this? Can they? Do you really think people who trade pictures of Michelle Obama as a gorilla are registered Democrats?
The Republican Party IS the party of racists. And they're not just the voters. Another reason the recent Supreme Court decisions are not just wrong, they're outrageously, stupidly wrong.
Racism has not been solved. It isn't a thing of the past. For proof, turn on Fox "News" and watch for at least 10 minutes. And pretending it doesn't exist, like John Roberts, is not the solution.
Marie,
"Until that changes, people with reasonably functional brains will not vote Republican."
Very true, but the GOP has succeeded in making racism--unbridled, off the chain, antebellum style, public racism--A-OK. Where, for a while at any rate, racists kept their jokes and their opinions to themselves or shared them only with other like minded assholes, GOP royalty and their media arms have largely erased the social stigma attached to being an out and out racist jerk. Moreover, they encourage it. It's not only OK with them, they forward racist views as a respectable template for living your life. And they use Christianity to help support this idea, trotting out the Bible to support their most ignorant and intolerant positions.
In the meantime, they're working to make sure that people who aren't racist, who don't side with them, or who are themselves minorities, have fewer opportunities to exercise their franchise.
So, yeah, people with functional brains won't vote Republican, but we still have the problem of making sure they can vote, and then must contend with the racists encouraged and actively supported by the GOP, who are kept in a constant state of racist fury and vicitmhood and who are highly motivated--and allowed--to vote.
By the way, as well known as all of this is, when was the last time you saw a network news program or major national news outlet tackle these issues in a detailed and coordinated way?
Just yesterday I listened to a national news piece on the trouble NBC is having with Meet the Press. The problem? Both sides are to blame for the political stagnation in Washington and that has trickled down to the Sunday morning shows. Who knows which side you can believe?
Both.Sides.Are.To.Blame.
No wonder a problem like racism is off the table.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp's (R-Kan.) remarks at a town hall in Salina, Kansas on April 14, 2014 and again in Hays, Kansas on April 17, 2014 refer to his beliefs, not facts. In both quotes attributed to him, he uses the qualifier "we believe" to give legitimacy to his statements. He does not claim to have facts or evidence to support his spurious claim that “There are more folks uninsured today in our district...than were uninsured before Obamacare kicked in.”
It’s entirely that he ‘believes’ it, and that apparently is good enough for him. For him and millions of other Tea Party acolytes, suggestion supersedes facts and there is no need for proof because they want to believe that the ACA is failing, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Just as they believed that Romney would win despite numerous conflicting polls.
For them, logic, reason, & truth have taken a back seat to faith, emotion, innuendo, & insinuation. Actually, logic, reason, & truth have been kicked to the curb and it appears that intemperate and uninformed teen-aged hormones are driving the bus.
It is a complete waste of time and energy to attempt to reason with Right Wing World. As my old friend Danny would say, "Never fight with a pig. You'll fall down in the mud and get dirty. And the pig will love it.
Voter turnout is historically low in mid-term elections and historically the party in the White House loses seats in Congress. It will take an unrelenting grass roots effort to turn the tide.
I will focus my time and energy on getting out the vote for Democratic candidates by making sure folks are registered to vote, that they have proper ID if challenged at the polls and most importantly, that they have a way to get to the polls for both the primaries and general elections.
“You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Russ,
Excellent comment.
Your Gandhi quote calls to mind something I tell my people on a regular basis:
If you never ask, the answer will always be no.
And your admonishment regarding association with pigs reminds me of a little Scottish ditty:
'Twas the pig fair last December.
A day ah well remember.
Ah was walkin' doon the street in drunken pride.
When mah legs began to flutter and ah sank doon in the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay doon by mah side.
As ah lay there in the gutter,
Thinkin' thoughts I could not utter,
Ah thought ah heerd a passin' lady say:
Yah can tell the man who boozes
By the coompany that he chooses.
And wi' that, the pig got up and walked away.
Most pigs, these days, would have nothing to do with Republicans or teabaggers.
Much to their credit.
Is this what you mean, Ak?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQgm0Kb2_DQ
It's not a very enlightened rendition--I much prefer the Frank Crumit (1889-1943) version, which includes the verse about the horse's ass, but that seems to have been taken down from YouTube for some reason. Incidentally, there's a Crumit CD available from iTunes (The Gay Caballero) that includes it, and a marvelous song "There's No One with Endourance Like an Insurance Salesman.".
@Akhilleus & James S. See the bottom of today's Commentariat. I aim to oblige.
Marie
Muchas gracias, Marie. I'll add it to my bookmarks.