Asylum Street Spankers — If You Want Me To Love You.

H/t wmd1961 for the video

Perhaps one cannot address Modern Conservatism in terms of “ideology” but only in terms of idiot point-scoring, hippie-pissing-upon, clinical diagnoses and the like.

The Secretary of State is the person in California charged with protecting the integrity of the voting system, reporting results of elections and monitoring campaign integrity. So it is fitting that the GOP, in defeating Birther Queen Orly Taitz, instead nominated Damon Dunn, who describes himself as a “recovering non-voter” who never voted until 2009. He joins ticket-toppers Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, notorious non-voters both, on the GOP ticket.

Defense Secretary Gates wants to extricate himself and the president from the impending P.R. disaster shaping up around the flailing Kandahar operation set for this Fall. Also, ISAF and the Pentagon are now comically denying that they ever planned an “offensive” in Kandahar.

Obama’s White House has chosen not only to ignore virtually every Democratic voter group but to taunt them, to insult any Democrats who dare to demand better choices than the corporate shills that now control much of the Party and the White House.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, running for Senate as an independent, holds a narrow lead in a three-way race. How he’ll fare depends partly on which Democrat will be his opponent. An Aug, 24 primary will decide that.

Some things never change, like Republicans calling Democratic Presidents traitors.

Courtesy of intrepid diver Al Walker, we have a real, fish-eye view of the catastrophe in the Gulf.

Check out this segment from AP, in which Walker remarks, “It’s just globs of death out there.”

The months and months of effort put into a bill that won’t create hardly anything in the way of jobs – more of a bill to stave off more disaster than anything – is a perfect model for a dysfunctional legislative system. To recap, the Senate passed a $154 billion package back in December that included a lot of the elements in this current jobs bill. The House broke it apart, passed a small piece of it (which did become law) and then passed another piece in March. The informal conference committee produced another bill which ballooned back up as high as $200 billion. Then Blue Dogs decided to strip out provisions that would maintain health care for the poor and the jobless and deliver aid to the states. Now, the Senate is putting them back in. And we’re nearly six months from that original vote, and the two chambers seem diametrically opposed on their priorities, with no end in sight.

The Democrats have failed to learn the lesson from the Anti-Saloon League about empowering your allies and changing the rules to enfranchise your likely voters.