but it isn't raining

DO NOT QUESTION THE RAINMAKER HE IS MAKING RAIN IF YOU DO NOT SEE THE RAIN IT IS THE FAILURE OF YOUR EYES

First message from an exchange in the comments section at the Huffington Post:

JFC, what the hell? I am so angry about this bill and the fact that Obama supports it. We've been bamboozled, haven't we? Let's face it, Obama is protecting people who broke the law. I mean, we know what a creep Lieberman is, but now Obama's playing right along with the Bush admin's warhawk ways.

He escalated the war into Pakistan--I don't recall Congress having a vote on this, right or wrong--it needs to be pursued lawfully and with debate...

Guantamo closing is a bust, the Patriot Act, FISA, DADT and indefinite imprisonment of detainees is still in effect. He's more eloquent than Bush and less bellicose than Cheney, but what real difference is he making? Where's the transparency?

And the first message in response:

I want you to tell me exactly how is Obama protecting anyone except our troops? Come on facts now! Obama has always said the front on this was AFghan he always said that - I guess you were not listening. He truly is far more transparent than ANYONE that has EVER been in his office.

If Barack Obama got caught fucking a puppy on the White House lawn, the commenters at the Huffington Post would be all, like, who paid that dog to attack Great Leader's magnificently unflawed cock?!

starfuckers

The Bury the Evidence of War Crimes Act passed the Senate this week with the strong support of Democrats and only three votes in opposition: the reliable Russ Feingold, the insert adjective here Bernie Sanders, and Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, whose vote probably had to do with objections to the underlying appropriations bill. Progressive websites that led the charge against Bush-era warlordism are leading the charge against the law to ensure that President Obama vetoes it when it reaches his de- Well, okay, so no they aren't. Curiously, they don't seem to be mentioning it at all. Cheneyism minus Cheney, wrapped in a hopey-changey package, turn out to be just fine. The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Eschaton... You can feel the palpable not care wafting through the room.

If I didn't know better, I would almost think that politics is mostly a form of public theater that has to do with personality branding and communities of identity, and has no underlying substance. The national security state governs without regard to the face on the wall.

ADDED LATER:

On the other hand, there's this important report.

"when the king would come to the show"

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please make it stop:

But as the Obamas departed, the respectful diners, who had been screened by Secret Service personnel before they could enter the eatery, erupted into a round of applause.

Then it was up to Broadway, where they had tickets at the Belasco Theatre for "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," a play by August Wilson about a man coming to terms with the history of slavery.

"I'm nervous, excited, honored," said Andre Holland, who plays character Jeremy Furlow, before the show. "It's like in Shakespearean times, when the king would come to the show."

What kind of idiot dimwit do you have to be to burst into applause because you witness a fucking politician eating dinner?

Andre Holland we forgive, because he's an actor and let's go ahead and not expect that much from him.

If the imperial presidency gets any more out of hand, it'll become possible for, I don't know, pick something outrageous -- for officers of the imperial court to shoot people in the face and not have to worry about inquiries from local authorities. We should just stop pretending, and actually fall to our knees in the presence of Great Leader.

By his dining selection, He has sanctified us. Ate He the scallops, and ate I the scallops also! Holy, then, the contents of my bowel! Oh, veritably, and my shit shall be as His! Witness this well, and attend thee to my wiping!

Eleven more apostles at the table, and you've got a painting.

worth a quick look

Thoughts?

oh. my. god.

The Huffington Post does American history.

ADDED LATER:

A shiny notional silver dollar to the reader who spots the sentence that literally, physically made me laugh so hard I fell over into the wall a little bit and hit my head.

when the apocalypse comes, tickets for police department musical theater productions will all be for standing room only, with no free refreshments

California is in CRISIS (whoop! whoop! whoop!) and omfg, we're not gonna have any more government at all, forever, and there won't even be any more fire departmentsssssss!!!!! It's doomsday!!!!!! (I carefully counted the number of exclamation points in those sentences, to ensure that I had used the correct number.)

So let's have a look at Senator Fran Pavley's May newsletter, sent to constituents before the doomsday election that ruined everything. Do click on that link and take a look at the thing yourself, because it's funnier that way. Pavley, who represents Team Cherkis-Bray World Headquarters in the state legislature, starts off with a bunch of amazing true facts about state finances, detailing the government's somber burdens and responsibilities. Money is tight, you see, and it's all spent very carefully and responsibly.

And then comes the rest of the newsletter: Senator Pavley was personally responsible for winning $350,000 in state funding to help restore a beachside "marble-tiled pool where the Hollywood glitterati once frolicked." You can buy special lawn mowers from a government agency "at a deep discount," to save the earth. Caltrans "held an official groundbreaking May 8 for a $1 billion project to add a northbound carpool lane on a 10-mile stretch of 405 between the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) and the Ventura Freeway (U.S. 101)." (Ten miles, one lane: one billion dollars.) And Pavley herself "joined a group of my fellow lawmakers for a helicopter tour of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta." Woo hoo, free helicopter rides!

We're so desperately poor and broke and there won't even be any more firefighters 'cause we have to lay them all off -- wanna ride my helicopter to the marble-tiled pool? If California government gets hit any harder, you'll have to buy your own lawnmower. For full price! At a, like, lawnmower store!

So then tonight I'm looking through the City of West Hollywood's Recreation Services Brochure, twenty-eight pages of government-sponsored recreation events, and I learn that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will be staging a teen production of, I am not making this up, "A Tribute to Grease." Contact Deputy Sean Ruiz at the West Hollywood station for details. ("Watch commander, how may I help you? [short pause] Negative, ma'am, the part of Sally Bowles has already been cast. Would you be interested in our spring production of Equus? We're using all kindergartners for the horse roles.")

Without a permanent sales tax increase, ladies and gentlemen, Deputy Sean Ruiz will be forced to shop the sheriff's script revisions to non-union talent. The major narcotics teams will have to mount Jesus Christ Superstar without glitter and glow sticks. And the K-9 deputies will just totally not even be reimagining Brigadoon, which, okay, they had this whole amazing thing worked out with dry ice and a bunch of mountain goats, your mouth would have just been, like, hanging open, and then bam: first dance number!

We'll survive.

must read

Click through the annoying ads for details on the, quote, "Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009," which has been approved by a unanimous Senate.

If you still wish to argue that the Democratic Party represents anything significantly different from the other party of unrestrained empire and state power, I'd love to hear that argument.

ADDED LATER:

Spot the darkly hilarious part of this story:

Amidst Questions About Detainee Abuse Photos, Gibbs Assails the British Press
June 01, 2009 8:22 AM

Last week, the White House was asked about a report in the British press that Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (Ret.), the lead investigator into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, said he'd seen the detainee abuse photographs that President Obama is fighting to keep from being released. Thursday's Daily Telegraph reported that Taguba said that the "pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."

Taguba told Salon's Mark Benjamin that the newspaper applied his quote to the wrong photographs. The ones he'd seen showing abuse and rape were not the same ones in the ACLU lawsuit that President Obama is fighting to keep from being released. He had been referring to other ones he'd seen.

"The photographs in that lawsuit, I have not seen," Taguba said.

But before Taguba clarified why there was confusion, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs took the opportunity to go after the entire British press.

The story is totally and irresponsibly false, ladies and gentlemen, and the British media -- those fools! -- are beneath contempt. It is not X set of photographs that shows us raping children and torturing detainees -- it's Y set of photographs that show us raping children and otherwise torturing detainees. Much ado about nothing! Anyway, it's all the fault of the British press.

Robert Gibbs makes Scott McClellan look dignified.