Clear and warm this way-early Thursday on California’s north coast — the half-moon still hanging brightly in the southern sky.
The weather around these parts the last few days has been wonderful — temperatures up in the middle sixties is near-about a heat wave for us.

Weather is just weather, however, if it’s felt by a Republican. These people in this particular political party have reached the end of some kind of mental tether, but all the rest of us suffer the consequences.

(Illustration found here).

People who are elected to the US Congress nowadays are already near-marginal humans (Elizabeth Warren, the way-rare exception) and are quickly becoming nearly outlandish in just about every aspect of living, well beyond the rest of us. And they love themselves to death, again, despite us.
Via Boing Boing and the recent FAA-sequester dust-up:

At Washington’s Reagan National Airport, they have their own special parking spaces — right up close to the terminal — that they don’t even have to pay for.
As Bloomberg Television’s Hans Nichols reports, this perk costs the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority $738,760 in foregone revenue.
(The best part of this clip, though, is seeing Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky haul ass to get away from Bloomberg’s cameraman.)
Being a member of Congress also means never having to rush to catch a flight.
The airlines allow lawmakers the special privilege of simultaneously booking themselves on multiple flights, so that if they are late or their flight is canceled, they’re guaranteed a spot on the next one.
A few years ago, a prominent senator paused in the middle of a conversation with me to bark at an aide, “Book me on the 6, 7, and 8 p.m. shuttles!”
To members of our fly-in-Tuesday-fly-home-Thursday Congress, these perks are a big deal.
Most fly a lot, and many fly first class.

We poors are Greyhounders, anyhow.

Republicans, though, are beyond the leash. Democrats are spineless and dumb-ass, but GOPers are people without compassion or regard, and push a nasty agenda behind a wall of hypocrisy.
And a for instance, in Iowa the GOP want to punish judges who’ve treated the gays as humans: A handful of House conservatives want to reduce the pay of Iowa Supreme Court justices involved in a 2009 decision striking down a ban on same-sex marriages as part of an effort to maintain the balance of power in state government.
And the motto comes forth: And yes, this is in keeping with the Republican credo that, “if you’re still alive to bitch, you don’t have any real problems: just die already.”

How do these creepy assholes get elected? How do voters in these shit-faced, bat-shit crazy districts sleep at night? A loaded firearm nearby, maybe?

The GOP nowadays is apparently full of nothing but assholes. And self-centered assholes at that. The only real item on their agenda is to fuck President Obama — and not in a nice way.
David Firestone at the NY Times:

Republicans came up with all kinds of convoluted and made-up explanations for voting against gun background checks, and some are starting to do the same for the immigration bill.
A few are even using the Boston bombing as an excuse. But for many lawmakers, the real reason is depressingly familiar.
They don’t want to give President Obama anything he wants.
It doesn’t really matter how many business groups say the immigration system has to change, or how many suburban voters are disgusted by the easy access to guns for criminals.
For these Republicans, the visceral hatred of the president is their only guiding star, and they are absolutely convinced the voters in their districts feel the same way.
…
“In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized,” he said (Sen. Pat Toomey), speaking to editors at The Times-Herald in Norristown, Penn.
“There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it.”
…
Republicans are clearly looking to do more than just deprive Mr. Obama of victories, however.
The ultimate goal is to make him appear powerless and weak, a flailing figure who is unable to affect the midterm elections or give the next Democratic nominee a boost.
Taking heat on a gun vote is worth it if it leads to a reporter asking the president whether he still has any “juice” left with Congress, as one did yesterday.
And it leads to an even bigger payoff if the president stumbles in his response, forced to assert that rumors of his demise are premature.
The president is representing the vast majority of the American people when he advocates for stronger gun laws, or immigration reform, or a budget that includes tax hikes for the rich and greater spending on national priorities.
When Republicans try to make him look bad by resisting all these things, he’s not the only one who’s being insulted.

And Obama is wrong even if he’s right — E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post:

When Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked President Obama at Tuesday’s news conference whether he still had “the juice ” to get his agenda through Congress, I wish Obama had replied, “Lighten up. This is the country where hope lives.”
…
What Obama said is true to every detail.
He really is dealing with a novel situation.
The GOP has moved far to the right.
The Senate no longer operates on the basis of majority rule.
The strong presidents with whom Obama is often compared, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, did not face these obstacles.
In his heyday, LBJ had huge Democratic congressional majorities.
The Gipper could always count on winning votes from conservative Southern Democrats who had joined Republicans regularly for many years before he took office.
Obama has every right to be frustrated: When Republicans obstruct, he takes the blame.

Politics suck, and is way-greatly depressing.
So, to end on a nice, musical note — a great interview with old favorite, Todd Rundgren, at the UK’s Guardian — and he’s the same as ever.
Money quote on artistic fame in the shadow of the John Lennon murder:

I didn’t learn about that stuff till way after the fact.
But put it this way, I’ve had bomb threats, I’ve had assassination threats – it’s part of the business of being in the public eye.
I’ve even got a stalker in Kauai! Someone who moved there just to stalk me. It comes with the territory.
It doesn’t come with the territory if you write songs like Yummy Yummy Yummy I’ve Got Love in My Tummy.
But it does if you write anything that affects people.
If you’re going to get seriously down with the muck of the human experience, you’re going to have to deal with other people and all the weirdness that comes with them.

I had a couple of his early albums, especially my favorite,  Initiation (1975), when he played with Utopia. Of course, I even knew all the lyrics to “Hello, It’s Me.”
One of the way-best set of music/poetry lyrics ever:

You know that I’d be with you if I could
I’ll come around to see you once in a while
Or if I ever need a reason to smile
And spend the night if you think I should.

And from seemingly so faraway, and so, so forgotten.